Sacramento Condo Market

105 condos sold in the month of June in Sacramento county, down from May; prices fell from May's high of $153,000 to $135,000 in June.

Active inventory was down slightly to 565 from last month's 622. 130 condos went pending, again not as good as June.

I guess May was the month for condos and June was the month for single family residences!

Have a good weekend!

Sacramento Market Update for June: Single Family Residences

I guess I stand corrected: it isn't exciting out there this month in real estate. Which makes it perfect for all you home buyers out there, but this market update doesn't promise to change anything. :(

Median price fell to $220,000 from May's $230,000. Days on market stayed pretty much the same at 50. 1866 single family residences sold in the month of June and 2074 homes went pending.

1241 more homes came on the market in the month of June. We have a total of 8157 homes for sale. Inventory is lower than May at 4.6 months.

The silver lining you've come to expect? Sales were up 17% month to month over May!

Saturday: condo market.

Sacramento Area Real Estate Market Updates Coming!

Watch for them beginning tomorrow. I have a feeling they should be exciting. Usually by the time everyone is bored with real estate is the time they get pretty interesting - not scared, just bored, which seems to be the mood of Sacramento real estate.

So come back tomorrow. We have single family residences, condos and maybe even some other area-specific updates!

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.

Sacramento Market Update: Single Family Homes in May

Days on market fell for the first time in months! We are down to 54 days on market for the average house sold in Sacramento county. Median price has remained fairly stable - down slightly from last month's $235,000. April was at $230,000.

1594 homes sold in the month of May and 1995 new listings came on the market. The real surprise? 3621 homes went pending sale in the month of May - that is almost twice the amount of homes than went pending in April!

There are currently 8135 houses on the active market, inventory sits at 5.1 months.

Tomorrow: condo market.

Sacramento Real Estate Market Update Coming Tomorrow!

Yes, it's finally the fifth of the month! So watch tomorrow for an exciting update on the Sacramento county market. From what I've been hearing and seeing, sales are up and the Sacramento real estate market as a whole seems to be recovering.

Check back tomorrow!

Sacramento Property Taxes Fall Again!

Some homeowners are seeing their property taxes falling again. This time, they are told, the reduction is temporary and the result of market value being lower than assessed value, especially if they have bought the home around 2004 - 05.

The real estate taxes will not be refunded. However, the homeowners will receive a lower tax bill for the 2008-2009 ta year.

Check your mail for the latest details. Many Sacramento homeowners have already received this letter from the assessor.

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.

Market Statistics for Single Family Residences - April

Wow... time really got away from me, didn't it? I completely forgot about the beginning of the month statistics for April. Well, better late than never. Here they are!

Median price has fallen again over last month to $235,000 from $254,000 - a drop of 7.48% However, sales increased by 42.64% over last month. 1429 homes closed sales in April as compared to 1006 in March of this year.

That brings inventory down even further to 5.8 months from March's 8.5 months.

1882 homes went into escrow in April.

Follow the market: March's numbers; February's numbers; January's numbers.

Investors are here!

Something happened to the Sacramento real estate market over the last few days and I'm wondering if anyone has noticed. I've been working pretty closely with one real estate investor lately and he was interested in making a bunch of offers on properties that haven't moved for longer than 60 - 90 days. So off I went on to the MLS... only to notice that many of those properties were in escrow!

Now, you have to ask - after 60, 90, even 100+ days on market, why the sudden activity, almost overnight?

I personally believe if you haven't bought a house yet, you've missed the bottom of the market. But we're still pretty close to the bottom, so don't be disheartened.

Just know that the real real estate investors are here.

About time!

Market Statistics for Single Family Residences for March

Good news, everyone.

We have bounced off the bottom, even if it be ever so slightly. Here are the details on Sacramento county's real estate market recovery in March, 2008.

Median price remains steady (or almost steady) at $254,000. It has hovered around $255,000 since January.

2332 new listings were added to the market and 1006 sold. Existing inventory now stands at 8632, smaller again than January or February's. We now have 8.5 months of inventory on the market, a change of 15.84% over February and of 28.6% over January!

More good news - 2021 homes went in escrow in the month of March, a whopping 37% higher than pending sales in February, which were already higher than January, which were higher than... well, you get the idea.

So... median prices have steadied, inventory is down and sales are up! The Sacramento real estate market recovery has begun.

Also read: January's numbers; February's numbers and come back tomorrow for updates on the Sacramento condo market.

Should Banks Just Foreclose?

I've been speaking with a great many frustrated real estate buyers in the greater Sacramento area lately and the one thing I hear repeated over and over is that they have been looking for houses for a while and not been able to buy any.

But it's a buyer's market, you say.

And I agree. However, there are certain areas where short sales are the majority of homes for sale. Which home buyers hate. Picture this: drive down a street and see every other house for sale. Asking price is about half of what the sellers paid for it about three years ago as a new construction. The homes look great, and there hasn't been much time for even normal wear and tear. The home buyers are thrilled. They call the number on the real estate sign.

Three months later, they're still driving by the house they've made a full price offer on, wondering what in the world happened.

What's happened is that the lender who needed to approve the short sale has not responded. At all. Not even to say that they have received the offer and are considering it.

Meanwhile, the asking price on every other house on that block has fallen even further, as frustrated Realtors try and generate some interest in the inventory.

Would this problem just be resolved if the banks decided to foreclose on these properties? Yes. Why aren't they doing it? Beats me. Maybe they are waiting to unload some of their existing REO inventory before taking on more. Maybe they're waiting to see what happens with the market like the rest of Sacramento.

Unfortunately, by waiting for the statistics, they're creating statistics. They're creating lower list prices, which is making other homes, including REOs harder to move. Now that's irony for you. Or karma. Depending on how you choose to see it.

Sacramento Market Heating Up!

I know, I've been going on about this lately, but I just want everyone to know. I've been manning the calls at Elite Properties lately and we're getting a lot of them. These are - by the way - interested real estate buyers, first-timers, investors, you name it - and not the tire-kickers we've been used to seeing in the last few months. (With apologies to all the serious buyers, I don't mean you. Obviously.)

Anecdotally, I went out to write an offer for a client I've been working with forever now. She's been looking in the Anatolia area of Rancho Cordova and was stuck on the waiting side of a short sale for a while now. Well, when that period finally ended, she decided to go after REOs and new homes. This is what has happened so far:
REOs: multiple offers
New Homes: multiple offers

So anyway, to get back to the story, I went out to Anatolia to write an offer. Since it's a new builder, I had to do it at the sales office. Can you believe the house had three offers and it sold (with a counteroffer) twenty minutes before I got there?

Now this is the kind of the market I remember!

Take my word for it, buyers - you wait too long, you're going to miss the deals. The asking price on short sales means nothing if you don't ever hear back from the banks.

REOs, Real Estate Statistics and the Pricing Paradox

The investors are finally jumping in. They are actively searching properties and buying up Sacramento's real estate. February pending sales are up.

And whether while this activity signals the very beginning of the end of the bad market is debatable, there is a bigger paradox that buyers should watch for and it is this - some REOs are still pretty hot properties which get picked up immediately for far higher than the asking price. Thus even though the listing price seems like a steal, the selling price shows prices stabilizing, even amongst certain low-priced homes.

Where are these properties? Really, they are all over Sacramento county - Natomas, El Dorado Hills, even Foothill Farms and Fair Oaks. I have seen some REOs disappear in a matter of a week or two, even two to three days. These REOs have some features in common: they are usually newer, priced toward the lower end of the range in a mile radius, and don't require much work to be considered livable. Mainly, they look like such a "deal" to buyers that some are paying a premium to buy them - offering many thousands over asking price and putting down hefty deposits.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out over the next few months in terms of statistics for Sacramento county. But one thing is for sure: there is still pent up demand for homes which is not showing up in pendings or sales. Every day, of the 40 - 50 unique visitors this blog sees, about 20% are searching for some form of these terms: "Sacramento real estate market statistics;" "Sacramento time to buy a home?" "Market update Sacramento real estate;" and so on.

Maybe it's time to quit waiting and start looking. The good ones really do go fast.

How in the World did I Miss This?

I've said it before. And now the Sacramento Bee says it too.

Maybe the next time you'll listen. :)

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.

Sacramento Real Estate Statistics for February: Single Family Market

Yesterday I wrote about how pending sales are higher all over the country and the National Association of Realtors expects a housing recovery beginning in sometime late 2008. Nice to know some of the statistics from Sacramento county tell the same story.

The latest numbers from the Metrolist MLS for the month of February:

The median price has steadied, it seems, at least for this month - $255,000 it remains, the same as January's median price.

2155 new listings were added to the market and 864 sold, pushing existing inventory to 8749, a smaller number than January's 9042 actives. This brings existing home inventory to about 10.1 months, down from last month's 11.9.

Here's another caveat, however. Pending sales were higher again - a total of 1474 houses went into contract in February - 21% more than January's pending sales, which were already higher than December's. I hear rumbling underneath the surface! If all these pending sales go through inventory numbers could look very different next month!

Also read: January's numbers; December's numbers, and November's numbers for Sacramento real estate.

Foreclosure Article

I've been telling you for a while that fear in the real estate market is driving a lot of people to run to the safety of their (rented) homes. Instead, read this article and decide for yourself if the foreclosure crisis is overblown.

If your home rose in value 53% in the last five years, really, do you have to worry quite so much?

New FHA Loan Limits for Sacramento Released

Just in:

New (increased) FHA loan limits for Sacramento

One-Family $580,000

Two-family $742,500

Three-family $897,500

Four-family $1,115,400

Check your area here.

Good News for Sacramento Real Estate?

Pending sales are up, which means more buyers are out looking at homes.

Could this be good news on the horizon for Sacramento?