North Bay Real Estate Market Update – Nov 2024

Here is your North Bay real estate market update for November 2024. The green graph shows Sold Listings vs New Listings for combined Sonoma County, Napa County, and Marin County. The blue graphs show median price trends separated out by county.

While the North Bay real estate market never truly goes to sleep, we see seasonal and predictable trends. Each spring and summer there is an increase in market activity, while the available inventory gets bought up throughout the fall and early winter. Things definitely cool off between Thanksgiving and the start of the new year. Once buyers come out of the holiday slumber in January, the market will gradually start to show strength again.

Prices are generally down over this same time last year, though Marin County saw some high priced sales in October that boosted the median price for the month. The availability of new listings has been impacted by the election and some sellers waiting to make the big decision of listing their homes until after the election was decided. We should see a slight bump in new listing inventory over the next couple weeks, leading up to Thanksgiving.

There was a lot of confusion surrounding The Fed’s interest rate cuts in September, as all the headlines simply said “Fed Cuts Interest Rates” without explaining what really happened. The Fed cut their key rate by 1/2 point, which primarily affects short term borrowing like credit card rates and auto loans. Mortgage rates were coming down throughout late spring and summer in anticipation of The Fed’s rate cut in September, and many buyers were disappointed to not see mortgage rates drop significantly when the rate cut happened. Rates have actually risen about 3/4 of a point since The Fed’s rate cut in September and right now sit at about 6.8%, depending on a buyer’s credit score and down payment.

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