Dublin’s Condos and Townhouses Continue to Exceed Expectations.

With winter drawing closer, experts continue to predict a slowdown of the Bay Area housing market. This is nothing new, of course: Historically, the winter season has served as the low-point of annual real estate sales due to a combination of bad weather and holiday distractions. But as demand — one of the key factors that has been driving sales sky-high — “cools” off, there’s a reasonable expectation that the housing market will stabilize.

According to Freddie Mac’s Multi-Indicator Market Index (or “MiMi” for short), which examines factors like employment rates and payment-to-income ratios in its measurements, that’s exactly what appears to be happening. The San Francisco metropolitan area, which has been steadily improving over the past four years, is on the cusp of being categorized as “stable” by the mortgage giant. Predictably, home prices in various parts of the Bay Area have already begun to plateau, relieving pressure on what has been a consistently low inventory.

In the city of Dublin, the market for detached single-family residences (these are what the typical person would simply call a “house”, as opposed to a townhouse, condo, duplex, or apartment) has followed a similar flattening trajectory. Between August and September the median closing price dropped a slight 6%, but still continues to hover around the year-to-date average of $810,000. Additionally, at 27 days, Dublin’s “days on market” figure (the average amount of time a home needs to spend on the market in order to sell) remains close to the Bay Area average and well within the timeframe that constitutes a “hot seller’s market”.

The thing is, it doesn’t look like Dublin’s condos and townhouses (often shortened to “CoTH”) got the message from Freddie Mac. In September, the city’s CoTH market hit its highest median sale price in years: $530,000, which is up 4.6% from August. Last month also marked yet another period where the average condo/townhouse closed for higher than asking price ($31,000 in the favor of sellers, to be exact). And eight of the past twelve months have seen similar gains. In a region where prices are beginning to level off, this is something that is seen less and less.

That last aspect is particularly compelling because it could indicate that prices for condos and townhouses haven’t yet reached their peaks. After all, if the average property is selling for something greater than its asking price, it generally means that there’s room for prices to keep rising.

But if winter traditionally puts the “freeze” on real estate, isn’t it a little late to be expecting a price climb? Well…not necessarily. If we look back to the winter of 2013, we can see that price trends on condos and townhouses maintained a modest climb in November and December—well into the season where real estate is traditionally seen as sluggish.

While only time will tell how Dublin’s condos and townhouses fare this winter, we know that the market continues to produce solid numbers and promising trends that should inspire confidence in homeowners who have recently considered putting their property up for sale. Still, even with the possibility of price climbs, it remains important to choose a company like Lifestyle Real Estate Services that pays attention to the market and can help you maximize returns on your hard-earned equity. It’s the perfect time to sell, so what are you waiting for? Contact us today!

Reports on the Dublin Ranch real estate market for condos and townhouses are freely available here.