Santa Cruz Real Estate Market Update: March 2021
The Santa Cruz real estate market is booming!! I’ve been selling real estate right here in Santa Cruz for over 16 years, and this is the hottest Santa Cruz sellers market that I have ever experienced. There hasn’t been a better time in the history of real estate to sell your Santa Cruz home. Right now, we are experiencing extremely limited inventory; there just aren’t enough homes on the market to support the Santa Cruz home buyers demands.
The absorption rate right now is one and a half months of inventory in Santa Cruz County. That’s an absorption rate of 80%, and anything higher than 20% is considered a seller-favored market. What that means for Santa Cruz home sellers, is that sellers can be selective when choosing which offer to accept. We are experiencing multiple offers with aggressive prices and terms.
If you are a Santa Cruz home buyer in this real estate market, consider writing your very best offer, first and foremost, make it count because you may only get one chance to make an impression.
Here are a few things Santa Cruz home sellers should consider when reviewing offers and submitting counters. Timeframes. Choose the best timeframe for close of escrow that works for you. Also, shorten up contingency dates for inspections, loans, disclosures, and appraisal, or even better, take an offer that has no contingencies at all. You could sell the home as is, which means that if the buyer asked for any repairs or found something wrong with the home, you wouldn’t be obligated to fix it.
So while this sellers market keeps on pumping, here are a few things that could impact this hot sellers market. Inventory. As we get more inventory and buyers have more to choose from, this could impact the robust sellers market. There is thought that once COVID-19 Tenant Relief Act expires, which is set to expire June 30th, 2021, we may see more inventory. Another thing that could affect the strength of the sellers market is the mortgage interest rates. In the past few weeks, the markets have steadily driven mortgage rates up. Last week, we saw interest rates rise more than they have in the last year to 3.23%. Now they are still historically low, but the higher the rates, the less a buyer who is getting a loan will be able to afford.
Check out the Santa Cruz home sales data. In Santa Cruz County, the median single family home costs $1,058,000 and sold in 15 days for 102% of the list price based on 114 sales in February 2021. Inventory was up 12% from January and down 13% from February 2020 with 250 homes available compared to 289 last year. The average days on market increased from five days from 40 to 45 or 13%. The number of new listings for the month of February increased 17% over January, but it’s still down 11% from February of last year. Closed sales decreased 10% from January from 126 to 114 homes sold. This is up 30% from February 2020.
So if you are thinking of selling your Santa Cruz County home and taking advantage of this incredibly strong Santa Cruz sellers market, give me a call today. We are available for a complimentary confidential consultation, and we specialize in preparing your Santa Cruz home, marketing your Santa Cruz home, and negotiating for a Santa Cruz home seller, so let our team of experts do the work for you.
I’m Shemeika Fox, your Santa Cruz real estate expert, and as always, I’m here to help.
