First Republic Bank - Prestige Index - latest update

The latest figures for the SF Bay Area have come out.  Look here for the details:
http://www.firstrepublic.com/lend/residential/prestigeindex/index.html

The average luxury home value for Q3 was $2,521,840, down 3.8% from Q2.  In the article a Coldwell Banker manager states that buyers in the $4M+ range are waiting for the market to stabilize.

For Los Altos, this means that the high-end within our area is having and will continue to have problems.  However, there are very few homes in Los Altos priced over $4M.  As of today, there are 46 active listings for single-family homes.  Of those, only 3 are listed for more than $4M and one is very close ($3.988M).  the majority of homes are listed for $1.5-3.0M.

In Los Altos Hills, there are 42 active listings available.  Of those, 17 are priced at $4M or more and two of those homes are exceptionally expensive; the ones on Natoma and Stonebrook priced at $22M and $28M respectively.

I think the Prestige Index is a nice indicator of how well the market is doing.  However, most listings that get sold in Los Altos and Los Altos Hills are priced below the threshold of that index.  With the turnaround in the economy, I expect we'll see continued strength in sales in Q4 2009 but with the average selling price dropping.  That will probably change in Q1 2010 as high priced listings come back on the market and start to close in late Q1.