Home Buyers like Condos: Market Update May

As opposed to last month, the median price of a condo in Sacramento county jumped 12.6% to reach $153,000 in May.

114 condos sold, an improvement over last month's 100 and 150 condos went into escrow in May - better sales all around and better prices to go with them!

136 new condo listings came on the market, lower than last month's 154.

Want more good news? Okay. There are 622 condos for sale in Sacramento county, which brings inventory down further than last month, to sit at 5.45 months.

Bargain Crosswoods Condos

For the first time in a long time, condos in and around the community of Crosswoods in Citrus Heights have fallen under $200,000. If you are considering buying a condo and like Crosswoods (I had a client who would buy nowhere else but there!) search these listings. There are at least a dozen right around $200,000.

Sacramento County Condo Update

Sacramento condos for now anyway seem to be stabilizing in terms of price. For the last update, we had settled at a median selling price of $138,500. In April, the median price fell another 2.5% to reach $135,000.

100 condos sold in the month of April, an improvement over the 90 that sold in March. Pending sales are at 121 for the month of April.

There are a total of 640 condos for sale in Sacramento county, including 151 new listings which came on the market in April. This brings Sacramento county's condo inventory to 6.4 months.

Sacramento Condos for March: the Numbers

Condos seem to be getting a bad rap lately. I don't know if it's just me, but I see investors - who were very interested in condos for a while - seem to back away from them. I guess given the choice between having a backyard you can call your very own and paying condo fees, people choose the former.

Anyway, let's get right to the numbers. The median price for condos didn't fare as well as the median price for single family residences. It dropped 24.6% from February to stop at $138,500.

Sales were up however. Sacramento county saw 90 condos sell in March, an increase of 52.5% over February. Pending sales were higher as well - 130 over last month's 116.

202 condos came on the market as new listings in March, bringing inventory down to 7.8 months, an improvement over last month's 11.9

Also read: February's numbers; January's numbers.

Sacramento Condos for February: the Numbers

Median price actually rose for Sacramento condos in February 2008. Yes, that's right - it rose. And even though this might be seasonal, I'll take my good news wherever I get it. So there.

Median price for condos in Sacramento was up 18.9% from January to hit $170,000.

Pending sales were higher as well at 116 over January's 93. Solds were at 59.

There are two things that stick out at me as I look at these numbers: For one, the number of pending sales do not equal the number of solds the following month. With the huge gap between the two, it makes me wonder if it is just the short sales that aren't going through that show up pending every month and cause problems with the stats, or if it really is people changing their minds. Too much choice can be pretty disconcerting for a lot of otherwise happy home buyers.

The second thing that I notice that is actually good news is the number of houses entering the market every month has dropped. If you looked at the numbers for single family residences in Sacramento posted Friday, it told the same story. For condos, new active inventory has dropped by 16.1% to 163 units in February.

That brings the Sacramento condos inventory to 11.9 months of inventory, lower than last month's 18.7 months'.

Can't get enough of the numbers? Read January's numbers; December's condo numbers, November's condo numbers.

Is there a condo you need to get sold? Click here to contact me or get a free market analysis.