Q3 2022 Market Report | Santa Cruz County

Capitola

Santa Cruz

Scotts Valley Soquel

drop in sale prices for the quarter is exaggerated by last quarters jump to $2 million and $1.7 million for average and median sale prices, respectively. When compared year over year, Aptos is still up nearly 17% from Q3 2021. The real story of the market “normalization” is told through the number of sales and days on market. Number of sales is down 19% from Q2 to just 66, while days on market have almost doubled over Q2 to 30 days. Months of inventory has continued to increase to 2.2 months at the end of the quarter but is still within the range of a sellers’ market.

Average sale price has remained consistent in the $1.8 million range throughout the year and is flat from Q2 while only rising 3.9% year over year. The number of sales has also remained consistently low throughout 2022 and finished with 11 for Q3. This puts the Capitola market on track for its lowest number of sales since 2011. Days on market have been quite volatile quarter to quarter during 2022, this time dropping from 39 in Q2 to 23 in Q3. In contrast to the reduction in days on market, Capitola finished Q3 with 4 months of inventory. This is the first market in Santa Cruz County to reach the “balanced” market threshold of 4 months.

Average selling price has continued its slide from the peak in Q1 to $1.678 million in Q3. This is down another 5.5% from Q2, though still shows a 4.6% appreciation year over year. At 118, units sold has dropped 16% from Q2 and 28% from Q3 2021. Days on market sits at 23 for the quarter, up 77% from Q2 and 44% from Q3 2021, but remains relatively short when compared to a normal market. Santa Cruz is one of the few markets to show reduced inventory at the end of the quarter, moving from 2.2 months at the end of Q2 to 1.8 months for Q3.

Scotts

Valley is another market where sale prices peaked in Q1 and are now down another 12.7% from Q2 to $1.437 million in Q3. Despite this retraction for two consecutive quarters, it is still an 8.5% improvement year over year from Q3 2021. There were 27 units sold for the quarter, down 36% from Q2 and 40% from Q3 2021, and are unusually low for a normally busy quarter in this market. Days on market now sit at 40 days, a 186% increase from 14 in Q2, and the first time this number has even been above 30 in the last 2 years. As expected in relation to some of these other numbers, months of inventory continued its rise to hit 2.8 months at the end of Q3.

Average sale price in Soquel has seen a slight increase of 2.7% from Q2 to $1.635 million after experiencing some drastic shifts in both directions the last few quarters. While the number of sales for the quarter is up to 17 from 11 in Q2, this is still low and sets Soquel up for its slowest year since number have been tracked back to 2010. Days on market have jumped from 9 in Q2 to 33 in Q3, and despite the volatile nature of this statistic in the market, is unusual for a normally strong quarter. In contrast to the other stats in this market, months of inventory has decreased at the end of Q3 back to 2 months from 3 months the previous quarter.