Quick Take
Santa Cruz County's housing market saw plenty of homes listed for sale in October, a trend that has continued for the better part of the year. While buyers are still snapping up properties, houses are taking longer to sell than they did that the same time last year, likely due to all the inventory.
The Santa Cruz County housing market remained busy in October, with similar inventory levels and home sales as in the previous months. Real estate agents say senior clients are largely downsizing, while single-story homes are a popular item across all types of buyers.
The number of available homes fell to 455 from 479 in September, according to the latest data from the Santa Cruz County Association of Realtors. That’s only the second month that the local housing inventory has dipped below 500 since April. If agents see inventory at or near 500, that’s considered high. And even though inventory dipped for the second month in a row, it was still more than 21% higher than the number of homes on the market in October 2024.
There were still plenty of home sales, with 123 sales closing in October — about 9% lower than in October 2024, when there were 135 sales. Prices haven’t changed much across the board; the median county sale price fell about 6%, to $1,194,000 from $1,274,000 in September.
Properties in the county sold at about the same speed as they did in September, averaging 54 days on the market in October compared to 51 in September. The fairly high number of properties on the market means that homes aren’t selling as fast as they did in the past, particularly in the post-pandemic era of lower mortgage rates, when some homes wouldn’t last even 20 days on the market.
Sereno Group real estate agent Jennifer Watson said the generally high inventory level means buyers have more options to choose from. Sometimes they don’t close on a sale immediately upon finding a property they like, and as people take their time, more properties hit the market. Over time, those homes begin to accumulate and result in a steady, higher inventory level, she said.
Watson said downsizing has been a common thread among her clients, particularly for older adults who might have a difficult time managing larger, multistory houses.
“They reach all of the markets,” she said, explaining that single-story homes are also more likely to be smaller, and therefore attainable for first-time buyers, which has made them a hot commodity right now. “Seniors can take them if they can still live on their own, and if they have a second unit, maybe a younger family member can live there too to keep an eye on them.”
The higher inventory means that the market has remained more balanced than in previous years, said Monterey Bay Mortgage advisor Scott Goodrich, a trend that began in the summer and has mostly held steady ever since. Still, it hasn’t strongly shifted toward buyers yet.
“The realtors I work with still say if it’s a hot property and hot neighborhood there are still multiple offers,” he said. “You just don’t see that same activity you did a year ago.”
More buyers could be entering the Santa Cruz market, too. Watson said she held an open house in Monterey County recently where the other five homes in the cul-de-sac were all occupied by former Santa Cruz residents. The homes were built less than 10 years ago, so she thinks the neighbors moved there because they couldn’t find a fitting property in Santa Cruz. And at a recent open house in Santa Cruz County, she met buyers who said they were planning to move back.
“It’ll be interesting to see how it goes this time of year,” she said about an upcoming listing in Aptos. “At this time of year we ask, ‘Is it going to take longer or is it going to take the same amount of time?’ If it’s about the same, that means more people are looking.”
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