2025 is here! Let’s go! We enjoyed a great holiday with family and friends, although Mom and Dad would be lying if we weren’t thankful the kids are back in school 🙏. We did enjoy trips to the park, the bowling alley and riding our three-wheeler through obstacle courses in the backyard! I don’t know how their teachers do it on a daily basis. Shoutout to all the educators and childcare pros!
Jenna and I escaped to Kansas City two nights to celebrate a college teammate’s wedding over New Years. It was our first trip sans kids since our second was born. The Kansas City BBQ is for real. Already working on a shipment of some KC BBQ sauce off Amazon. 🤤 We enjoyed getting to explore the city and seeing our friends Dave and Mark tie the knot, which included a surprise visit from Kansas City Chiefs mascot KC Wolf.
We are still feeling the effects of high mortgage rates and the “Great (Mortgage) Rate Lock In”. The trade-up (where a family sells their smaller home to buy a bigger home in the same area) and trade-down buyers are simply missing. This accounts for a lot of inventory!
The numbers are staggering. I’ll use Lamorinda as a case study. In 2024, home sales were down 22% from 2019. I like to use 2019 as the last “normal” market prior to the COVID craziness. To realize just how crazy 2021 was, the number of homes transacted in 2024 is 48% less than in 2021!! Of course, 2021 benefited from historically low mortgage rates. We’ve now seen low transactional numbers for the past two years (2023/2024)
Prices continued to generally hold firm in 2024. Prices in Lafayette (+5%) and Orinda (+.6%) have seen small bumps while Moraga (-3.5%) indicated a small dip. I believe some of Moraga’s minor pull back can be attributed to proximity to commute as more companies have begun mandating more employees back into the office 4-5 days a week in San Francisco. I find that buyers with more flexibility in their work schedule have a bigger appetite for Moraga. The neighborhoods that are farther from the freeway such as Camino Pablo & Larch have been more impacted.
As always, I’m here to answer your questions and help any way I can!
📱925-330-9474
DRE: 01995244
