Marin home prices and sales remain robust

The Marin County real estate market continues to hold its own through cold weather and contagion, with detached home prices and sales posting double-digit increases.

The median price of a detached home in the county was $1.45 million in November, according to new data from the assessor’s office. The figure marked a 16% increase over November 2019.

The county logged 258 detached home sales last month, up more than 34% over the prior November.

In the condo and townhome market, the median price was $694,500 last month, nearly even with the previous year. The county recorded 78 condo or townhome sales in November, about 42% more than the year before.

The median price is the point at which half the homes are more expensive and half less. The figures do not include sales of vacant land.

Nadia Ferrua, a Coldwell Banker agent based in Novato, said the market is “extremely hot” at the $800,000 to $900,000 price point. She recently listed what she described as an “average” three-bedroom home on Olive Avenue, a busy street in Novato, for $799,000.

Ferrua said interest was so high she had prospective buyers visiting at 30-minute intervals all day on a Friday, a Saturday and a Sunday. She said the home sold quickly at “way over” the list price. She declined to disclose the amount because the deal is still in the contingency stage.

“That example is kind of a common example,” she said. “It looks like people are trying to grab something before the prices go up, with the interest rates. If they get the loan, it’s like free money to get even more wealthy.”

At the high end of the Marin County market, three homes in Belvedere sold last month for a median price of $5.76 million, according to the county data. Six homes in Ross sold for a median price of $4.3 million.

Even the median price for condos and townhomes exceeded $1 million last month in Corte Madera, Sausalito and Tiburon.

At the low end of the Marin market, 22 condos or townhomes in San Rafael sold for a median price of $500,000. In Novato, 26 attached homes sold for a median price of nearly $543,000.

Statewide, 508,820 detached homes sold last month, the first time the market broke the 500,000-sale threshold since January 2009, according to the California Association of Realtors. The sales figure was a 26.3% increase over November 2019.

The statewide median price for detached homes was $699,000 last month, up 18.5% over the prior year, the association reported.

In the Bay Area, the median home price was $1.1 million in November, up 19% year-over-year. Sales in the region rose 34.4% over the period.

“California’s housing market continues to be the bright spot in the economy, but the direction and pace of the recovery will hinge on the coronavirus pandemic and the distribution of the vaccine in the coming months,” said Leslie Appleton-Young, the association’s chief economist.