Mark your calendars for December 12 from 10 am to 4 pm. It’s the Decoration Guild’s greens sale combined with Pixie Park’s bake sale. Located at the Marin Art and Garden Center on Sir Francis Drake in Ross, it’s a wonderful event for children, with gingerbread houses, a concert and sing-a-long…capped by a visit from Santa. Mom and Dad can purchase beautifully ‘gift-wrapped’ homemade cookies, cakes, pies and other baked items….perfect for hostess gifts and entertaining. The greens sale has gorgeous wreaths, garlands, etc. It’s instant-X-mas-spirit!
More Marin Home Sales in October than Any Other Month — Also More Distressed Properties
We thought September and October seemed awfully busy! The number of sales in all Marin towns are picking up. Comparing average price per square foot to the same time last year, though, isn’t pretty.
Kentfield is a town that fared better than most. In the $1 million to $2 million range, the average price per square foot is down around 10% from the same time last year. Remember last year at this time? Things had come to a halt so there weren’t many properties selling at that time. The real story in exclusive communities like Kentfield, though, is in the number of homes that simply haven’t sold or which have been taken off the market.
There are around seven potential distressed Kentfield properties in varous stages of pre-foreclosure, foreclosure, bank owned, short sale and auction. Not a lot….but these homes, if they sell for a lot less than market price, could bring other prices down a bit more next year.
So what’s a seller to do? Take the holiday season to get your home in tip-top shape, then get it on the market (or back on the market) before what will surely be a glut of properties in March and April. Price it based on what has sold recently, not what you would have liked to have brought in if you had sold at the very top of the market.
Compare Mill Valley price per square foot to a year ago
MARKET SNAPSHOT — MILL VALLEY
How do the last four weeks compare to the same four weeks of 2008? As you’ll see by the numbers below, the average price per square foot for under $1 million sales is down by around 17%. The average price per square for for homes between $1 million and $2 million is down even more…closer to 21%. If you would like to see how Marin prices per square foot have changed over the last year in another town, e-mail me at JLeitzell@pacunion.com. Here are the numbers for the weeks of 10/19 to 11/9:
Statistics -Mill Valley – SFR 10/19/09 10/26/09 11/2/09 11/9/09
$0 – $999K
Sold Price per Sq. Ft. (THIS year) $494 $495 $497 $498
Sold Price per Sq. Ft. (LAST year) $605 $602 $602 $602
% of Change (Sq. Ft.) -18.35% -17.77% -17.44% -17.28%
$1M – $2M
Sold Price per Sq. Ft. (THIS year) $561 $561 $556 $555
Sold Price per Sq. Ft. (LAST year) $720 $717 $711 $708
% of Change (Sq. Ft.) -22.08% -21.76% -21.80% -21.61%