North Bay Real Estate Market Update – December 2024

The Big Story

In 2024, the housing market had looked progressively healthier with each passing month. Then November happened, and inventory dropped by over 50%, more than erasing the large gains from the first half of the year. Even though sales volume this year was similar to last, far more new listings came to the market, which allowed inventory to grow significantly. Typically, inventory begins to increase in January or February, peaking in July or August before declining once again from the summer months to the winter. The precipitous fall in November was unexpected and unusual. For now, it’s possible that sellers simply took their homes off the market after seeing that interest rates would stay elevated for longer, or it’s possibly a database error from our data provider. We will dive more into this next month as more data comes out.

In terms of sales and new listings in November 2024, the number of homes for sale was slightly higher than last year, and new listings did fall — but not at the level it would take to account for the massive drop in inventory. The North Bay housing market is notably responsive to mortgage rates, and as rates increased in November, it likely gave buyers and sellers pause.

Months of Supply Inventory in November 2024 indicates a sellers' market in Marin, Solano, and Sonoma and a buyers's market in Napa

Months of Supply Inventory (MSI) quantifies the supply/demand relationship by measuring how many months it would take for all current homes listed on the market to sell at the current rate of sales. The long-term average MSI is around three months in California, which indicates a balanced market. An MSI lower than three indicates that there are more buyers than sellers on the market (meaning it’s a sellers’ market), while a higher MSI indicates there are more sellers than buyers (meaning it’s a buyers’ market). MSI in the North Bay markets trended higher throughout most of 2024. However, in October and November, MSI fell across markets, implying the market shifted more favorably toward sellers. Currently, single-family home MSI indicates a sellers’ market in Marin, Solano, and Sonoma and a buyers’ market in Napa.