The area of La Honda is a rather large area, if you take the hamlet of La Honda and use that as the center, the area is approximately 4 miles in a radius circle as the crow flies.  The homes here consist of small cabins to some larger ranches. 

The La Honda market this year seemed to reach a point of stabilization, and the median price actually grew 17% from last year to $460,000.  This is still a 30% decline from the high in 2007 of $656,000, but much better than last year.  The good thing is that the price is rising and that the list vs sales price is very close.  This says to me that the market has settled down a bit.  

There were only 10 transactions this year, and five of those were Bank Owned.  The good news is that there are currently 4 homes that are pending, so hopefully in 2011 we will see an increase in volume. 

 There were 23 homes that were put on the market and didn't sell.   This is not a great sign, we would like to see those numbers closer together.  

As you can see from the chart above, this market has had some challenges since 2006 and hopefully the sales vs expired/withdrawn numbers will close in on each other this year.  

Days on market has decreased this year, down to 32 from 48.  The 10 year average is 48 days on market.  I believe this is due, in part, to the bank owned properties.  Bank owned properties are typically put on the market at a very low price since the banks want to unload them quickly.  When this happens they typically don't stay on the market very long.  They can also rapidly decrease the home values in an area if there are enough of them.  I believe these have taken a toll on values in La Honda.  

So what does all this mean?

The price point rising is a good thing, hopefully this will continue.  I only know of 3 more bank owned properties that will be coming on the market in the next year, so hopefully the values will continue to rise and the bank owned homes will not have a huge effect on the market this year.  It would appear this market has taken its beating and has stabilized.  It is hard to tell with only 10 transactions but it is much more positive than it was last year.