Marin real estate: Median price dips to $1.525M

The figure marked a 10.3% drop from February 2022 and a 28% decline from a peak of $2.12 million last April.

The median price of a detached home in Marin fell to $1.525 million last month as the Bay Area led the state in declining values.

The median figure marked a 10.3% drop from February 2022 and a 28% decline from a peak of $2.12 million last April. It was also a slight decline from the $1.6 million median price in January.

The price data for February were released this week by the county assessor’s office. The median price is the point at which half the homes sold for more money and half for less.

Throughout the Bay Area, the median price for a detached home last month was $1.05 million, a year-over-year decline of 19.2%, according to the California Association of Realtors. By comparison, the statewide year-over-year price decline was 4.8%.

The association said the Bay Area’s price decline in February was the largest since June 2009.

“The uncertainty in the tech sector was partially responsible for the home price declines, but the sharp price drop also could be attributed to the price surge a year ago, when four of the six counties with double-digit price declines also registered price increases of more than 10 percent last February,” the association said.

Eighty-seven detached homes sold in Marin last month compared to 143 in February 2022, the county assessor’s office reported.

Selling right at the median price last month was a two-bedroom home on Sir Francis Drake Boulevard in Ross. The buyers, a couple expecting their first child, grew up in Marin and wanted access to Ross Valley schools, according to their agent, Lynnette Kling of Coldwell Banker Realty.

“They would’ve sent their kids to private schools had it not been in Ross,” she said.

Kling, who has been an agent since 2001, said the state of the market is unclear. While she said buyers are out there and she has been busy with listings, inventory remains tight and the upheaval in the banking sector has many people nervous.

“Everyone’s a little skittish, even some of my buyers who are in the tech business,” she said. “And they switched banks, lenders. I thought it was a good idea they have more than one option.”

“We got really spoiled with the unhealthy, low, low interest rates we had before,” she said. “I don’t think that’s good for our economy.”

Kathleen Hallinan, a home stager in Novato, said she feels the “Marin bubble” has been insulating the local market from the broader conditions. She said she is booked two months out and that her clients, many of them older residents sitting on a lot of equity, are investing in higher levels of service such as flooring, kitchen updates and landscaping.

“They’re letting me start out on the curb so that their house does not appear to be a fixer upper,” said Hallinan, a stager since 2008 and an interior designer before that. “Younger folks don’t own toolboxes. They’ve never painted, and they want move-in-condition homes.”

The county’s median price data for detached homes last month included $4.79 million on four sales in Belvedere, $3.06 million on two sales in Tiburon and $3.02 million on three sales in Larkspur. The Sausalito median was $3.7 million, but on just one sale.

Other median prices included $1.73 million on 28 sales in unincorporated areas of Marin; $1.61 million on four sales in Corte Madera; $1.53 million on five sales in Mill Valley; $1.52 million on two sales in Fairfax; $1.31 million on three sales in San Anselmo; $1.25 million on 10 sales in San Rafael; and $1.1 million on 24 sales in Novato. The $1.525 million sale in Ross was the only home purchase in the town last month.

In the Marin condominium and townhome market, the median price last month was $790,000 on 37 sales, according to the county. By comparison, the median in February 2022 was $732,000 on 64 sales.

Throughout the Bay Area, sales volume last month was 32% lower than February 2022, the California Association of Realtors reported. Statewide, the sales decline was about 33%.

“The recent failure of a handful of tech-focused banks caused an unexpected drop in interest rates, which could offer an opportunity in the near term for homebuyers who have been waiting on the sidelines to lock in a lower rate,” Jordan Levine, the association’s chief economist. “However, any decline in rates is not likely to be sustainable since inflation remains high, and the Federal Reserve is willing to take some calculated risks in order to keep inflation under control.”

The U.S. weekly average for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage was 6.6% as of Thursday, down from 6.73% the prior week, according to Freddie Mac, the federally chartered mortgage company. A year ago, the average was 4.16%.