The real estate market in San Ramon, CA is suffering from a lack of buyers. Sales of homes in San Ramon are flat while inventory remains high. Two factors are negatively impacting home sales activity in San Ramon: Affordability & Financing. 

First-Time buyers are being shut out of the home market in San Ramon due to the affordability crisis. Help from the state government is not on the way – hear what the Commissioner of Real Estate has to say. Last I heard, the affordability index in the area was at an all time low. Couple that with the changes in the mortgage industry and you have pretty much turned off the spigot of first-time home buyers entering the San Ramon housing market.

The best housing market San Ramon has seen in 2007 was in March and early April this year when February's pending sales closed. From February 23rd on, we have seen an ever increasing number of homes on the market and fewer pending sales. The gap has continued to widen and has now reached the point where it is pretty much uncontested that San Ramon is now a buyer's market. 

As you can see in the graph above, a year ago there was more inventory on the market, but pending sales were pretty much equal to today's level. The big difference is last year there were 28 closed sales while this year that dropped to 15. This is where you see the impact of tighter lending standards and housing affordability. 

In the last week, we have seen some improvement and movement in the Jumbo loan market (loans over $416K) and witnessed the first GSE trades in the last 36 days . While these improvements will help the overall housing market, they impact move-up buyers more than first-time buyers.

What does this mean to the average home seller in San Ramon? = If you want to sell your home in a timely fashion, you need to be in the lower half of pricing for comparable homes on the market and in the top third of improvements and features. This is what buyers are demanding. All the marketing and advertising in the world can't sell your house when the one down the street with better improvements and features is priced well below yours. 

For buyers this means = you have more power at the negotiating table. First-time buyers need to know that there are programs still available for them (darn good ones). If you can't find one, call us. Move-up buyers = don't get hung up on the selling price of your existing home. If you move that house, you can leverage the buy side to make a sweet deal that you may not see in San Ramon for some time to come.

For those still wondering when the San Ramon housing market changed = August 15, 2005. Active Listings climbed above Pending Sales.

Weekly MLS Tends for San Ramon can be found here.