The Facebook IPO is expected to mint about 1,000 new millionaires, most of whom live in apartments or small houses in Silicon Valley.

Shares are expected to start trading sometime this spring. SEC rules prohibit employees to sell shares until six months after the shares start trading.

So, expect home buying to pick up in the fall.

If you are a seller, you may want to wait until then.

If you are a buyer, you may want to buy before then.

ABC News spoke of rumors that speculators were buying property near Facebook’s headquarters, hoping to flip it later.

While Facebook is the elephant in the room, LinkedIn went public last May and vested employees were able to sell their stock at the end of November.

Zynga is another local company that went public last year, December. Their employees can start selling stock the end of May.

MARKET STATISTICS

Sales of single-family, re-sale homes fell 5.6% year-over-year in January.

After six months of year-over-year gains, condo sales dropped 3.7% year-over-year.

The median price for homes was off 1.8% year-over-year.

The median price for condos was down 14.6% year-over-year. That’s twenty-one months in a row the median price has been lower than the year before.

Inventory of both homes and condos continues to decline, which is good. Home inventory was down 30.6% compared to last January. Please note, only active listings are included in this figure. Numbers from the local associations include properties that are also in a pending status, meaning they have an accepted offer, but haven’t been taken off the market.

Condo inventory was down 45.4% year-over-year.

Pending sales for homes increased 11% year-over-year. Pending sales for condos was up 10.7%.

Please remember, while statistics are nice, they will not determine the price you pay or get for a property. That will come down to you and the buyer or seller.