While the local housing market may be mellowing in time for the
holidays, local experts are hesitant to declare it officially
”
cooled,
”
pointing instead to the city’s building moratorium which
practically guarantees that demand for homes will outpace supply
for the next few years.
Hollister – While the local housing market may be mellowing in time for the holidays, local experts are hesitant to declare it officially “cooled,” pointing instead to the city’s building moratorium which practically guarantees that demand for homes will outpace supply for the next few years.
“The market has definitely changed,” said Roy Navarro, president-elect of the San Benito County Association of Realtors (SBCAOR). “But change isn’t necessarily bad. Buyers are going to find more options and be able to take their time in choosing a house.”
While prospective buyers may be able to shop for houses at a more leisurely pace, they shouldn’t expect any breaks to their pocket books. According to regional Multiple Listing Service figures from RE Infolink, the median price for a Hollister single-family home in October was $607,450. In September, the same house would have been valued at $585,000. Last October the price was $485,000.
Thanks to the acreage that usually comes with it, the median price for a home in unincorporated parts of San Benito County, as of October 2005, was a cool $1.25 million.
“People have been trying to burst the housing bubble for so long that I don’t even pay attention to them any more,” said Ray Pierce of Coldwell Banker Real Estate. “But we have that moratorium to deal with, and that’s created a false market here, regardless of what happens in other regions of the state.”
Those just putting their homes on the market, however, may have to learn to be a little more patient. While the official numbers say Hollister homes stayed on the market for an average of 32 days in October, both Pierce and Marilynn Ferreira, who sits on the Board of Directors for SBCAOR, have seen houses on the market as long as 60 days. While Pierce admits a few houses have been sold for a couple thousand dollars less than asking price, it is still rare enough that he hesitates to call it a trend.
“Marketing is becoming a real issue, you have to make sure the house gets the right exposure,” said Navarro. “Up until very recently, the houses were selling so fast, they were gone by the time you could put an ad in the paper.”
Buyers are still finding Hollister a good deal in comparison to other California regions. In Santa Clara County a single family home boasted a median price of $733,000 in September, while the median price for a Santa Cruz home reached $750,000, according to figures released November 10th by the California Association of Realtors. The median price for a California home was $543,980 – a price only 15 percent of all Californians can afford.
Pierce thinks buyers are looking at more than numbers when they consider moving to Hollister from elsewhere in the state.
“I think it’s really mostly a quality of life issue,” he said. “Young families are moving here who want a safe place to raise their kids, and they want their kids to take part in Little League and Girl Scouts and that sort of thing. Coming from the Silicon Valley, your reality is going to be a little different.”
While the shape of San Benito County’s housing market is changing, little by little, Realtors remain confident in the value of local homes.
“People who are waiting for prices to fall will miss it, and interest rates are just going to go up,” said Ferreira. “But putting a roof over your family’s head is always the best investment you can possibly make.”
