Saratoga Villa sold in 11 days (photo fromwww.reil.com) 

 Often times someone will ask me: “Should I sell, don’t sell, purchase, don’t purchase?” “When is the best time for our Real Estate Market?”  Let us look at the real estate stat from the www.reil.com                 

The 2007 1^st Q  inventory: 3368; Closed sales: 2244; average days: 48 days; sold price $1 million. The 2008 1^st Q inventory:5522; Closed sales:1386; average days: 57days; sold price $988,720.It shows that the current inventory has a 70% dramatically increase from 1^st quarter 2007 to 1^st quarter 2008. The closed sales trend has a 20% dropped which has a steady drop and the average days on the market increased 20% and the average sold price has dropped 1.23%. If we use rate of selling it will takes 4 quarters to sell all.       The medium priced homes of Cupertino, Mountain View, Palo Alto, West San Jose, Sunnyvale and parts of Santa Clara, are still actively selling and often with multiple offers.  Properties with good schools are selling quickly with equity! The higher end homes like that 4 million dollars over 5000 square footage Saratoga villa in listed on Feb 27 2007 sold in 11 days for 3.75 millions with all cash. On the other hand, there is home at Cashdan Ct in Santa Clara.   It was sold July 2006 for $725K and January 2008 was on the market for $690K and now it is asked for $559K.  I think it is absolutely the best time to buy some of foreclosure homes which was much lower then one or two years. The current buyers have much better position to pick and choose. At the same time the sellers need to be more patient.