Market Watch Q1 2025
Welcome to the first quarter recap edition of the market watch. We typically see higher sale prices in Q1 and Q2 each year. Q1 includes some of the most active months for real estate. Sellers usually wait until after the holidays to begin prepping their homes for market. And many buyers take the holidays off of home hunting to be with family and friends. So when the new year hits there is a big uptick in available homes, and there are buyers from last year, and new buyers from the current year to swoop them up. In a healthy market, we expect days on market to go down, there to be more sales, and for prices to go up.
So how did we do in the East Bay?
When we look at the year over year numbers there has been little change in price and days on market. Notably we are up 25% in new listings compared to a year ago. This, we believe, is due to the very pleasant January and February we had this year. In 2023 and 2024 we had 2 very wet months in succession to start the year. Which kept many home sellers on the sidelines until later in the year. On the county level, we have only seen a single digit increase in new contracts. Which means inventory is outpacing demand!
Quarter over Quarter is showing our active inventory problem in real time. You can see in Q4 that the majority of the areas sampled had similar numbers for listings and new contracts, that is to say we had a balance of supply and demand. Q1 we have a big imbalance, more than 2x as many listings as contracts. So far prices have remained stable and days on market remain flat. We will closely watch this as the year unfolds.
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Quarter over quarter housing statistics for Alameda County, Contra Costa County, Oakland, Berkeley, Martinez, and Pleasant Hill
