Within the past year, which local real estate company was involved in the vast majority of residential real estate sales in south Santa Clara County that sold for over $1,300,000? Intero Real Estate Services sold most of the high-end homes in the towns of Morgan Hill, Gilroy and San Martin.  In the past year, there have been 15 residences that sold for over $1,300,000.  Of those 15, Intero Real Estate Services represented either the buyer, the seller or both in 13 of the transactions.  Thirteen out of fifteen.  Intero dominates in the luxury real estate market in South Santa Clara County.

15175 Sycamore Dr., Morgan Hill, CA

Other real estate companies like to profess that they are more qualified to sell luxury real estate, but actions speak louder than words.



Diane Kawell, an award-winning Realtor in the Tacoma/Seattle area of Washington, mentioned in a comment on my previous post that 44% of all residential real estate sales in her area were distressed sales, i.e. sold listings that are short sales or bank-owned REOs.  This made me curious about what the numbers are in our south Santa Clara County area.

I looked at each community of Morgan Hill, Gilroy and San Martin separately for single family home and condo/townhouse listings sold on the MLS within the past 365 days.  Here is what I found:

Morgan Hill:  total sales = 444,  distressed sales = 231,  percentage distressed = 52%

Gilroy:  total sales =  659,  distressed sales = 491,  percentage distressed = 75%

San Martin:  total sales = 36,  distressed sales = 23,  percentage distressed = 64%

I was somewhat surprised at the large percentage numbers.  Buyers are buying “the deals” and the price discounts on distressed properties are very attractive.  I suppose that I should have been expecting these large percentages.  When I look back at the real estate properties that I sold within the past 365 days, 55% of those properties were either short sales or REOs.



In between rainstorms, you may want to do a little house shopping today.  How is the current residential real estate market doing in the towns of Morgan Hill, San Martin and Gilroy?  Let’s look at single family residence listings and condo/townhouse listings as of today and compare it to one year ago.

Morgan Hill:  January 2010:  Active listings - 128, Pending listings - 118, versus January 2009:  Active listings - 275, Pending listings - 68

Gilroy:  January 2010:  Active listings - 113, Pending listings - 196, versus January 2009:  Active listings - 385, Pending listings - 152

San Martin:  January 2010:  Active listings - 23, Pending listings - 18, versus January 2009:  Active listings - 44, Pending listings - 11

In the cases of Morgan Hill and Gilroy, inventory is far below half the amount of what it was one year ago.  San Martin is right about at half.

An overall graph showing the current inventory of all of the three south county communities over a two-year time frame is shown below.  The listing numbers include both single family residences and condominium/townhouses.  South Santa Clara County inventory peaked during May of 2008 at 901 total active listings as compared to today with a total of 264 active listings.  Wow.

Also in the graph below you can also see the nose-dive of the median price of listings.  The graph only depicts single family residence median prices which were $702,450 in January of 2009 and currently are $445,000.  Days on Market has remained steady ranging between 98 to 150 days during this two-year period.

As I have mentioned in many of my previous blog posts, the high Pending listings number is indicative of the large number of pending short sale listings in our area.  These listings remain at pending status for many months while the short sale lenders determine whether they’ll give short sale approval.

South Santa Clara County Real Estate Inventory