Bonjour a tous:
Summer is behind us, and as we head into the final quarter of the year, the Napa housing market is sending a clear message: buyers are still buying, but they are being selective.
That lines up with what I’m seeing on the ground. Buyers often tell me they can’t find the right home, while sellers are watching some listings sit longer than expected. Both can be true at the same time.
Compared with last summer, Napa had 40% more closed sales and nearly 46% more pending sales from June through August. At the same time, the number of homes for sale at the end of August was down almost 13%. Demand has not disappeared. The issue is where that demand is concentrated.
Nearly 62% of summer sales were homes listed under $1 million, yet only about 41% of today’s active inventory is in that price range. That helps explain why well-priced homes under $1 million are still seeing strong activity. Among 3-bedroom single-family homes under $1 million, the median time to sell was just 34 days, and 38% sold above the final asking price.
The picture changes as prices rise. Homes from $1.5M-$2M took about 60 days to sell, while $2M+ homes had a median of 87 days. No $2M+ summer sale in this dataset closed above the final asking price, and that segment currently has roughly 10 months of supply based on the summer sales pace.
This is where leverage becomes property-specific. Sellers with a well-presented, correctly priced home in a high-demand segment can still create competition. Buyers, especially at the upper end or on homes that have been sitting, have more room to negotiate on price, credits, repairs and terms. Nearly 28% of summer transactions included a seller concession.
As we move toward the holidays, inventory typically contracts. Last year, the number of homes for sale in Napa fell 35% from October to December, but buyers kept closing homes. The market did not shut down; there was simply less competition among sellers.
My takeaway for fall is simple: this is not a market where every home sells the same way. The opportunity is in understanding exactly where a property sits within the market, pricing it correctly from day one, and positioning it to stand out to the buyers who are actively looking.
I put together a deeper breakdown of what is selling, which price ranges are moving fastest, where multiple-offer behavior is showing up, and where buyers and sellers have the most leverage. Click on the button below to download the full report.
A bientot!
Florence