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The myth of the collapsing market (and a big Sacramento market update)

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Positive real estate news is sexy. It gets clicks. It makes us feel good. And we love sharing it. But what happens when the market cools? Well, it’s not always easy to digest. In fact, lots of people freak out and think the market is starting to tank when it’s actually just doing its normal thing of slowing. Today let’s talk about the danger of embracing the collapsing market myth, and then take a deep look at the slowing Sacramento market. Any thoughts?

The myth of the collapsing market: The market tends to slow down around this time of year. Just as the weather changes, so does the real estate market. The kids go back to school, sales volume usually starts to slide, inventory goes up, and prices soften. Yet despite this happening nearly every single year, we hear things like, “The market is beginning to take a big turn” or “The ‘bubble’ has finally popped.” Case-in-point, I watched a video a few weeks back from a national show that said new construction home prices in Texas were beginning to take a turn, and that the Texas market was six months ahead of everyone else. Maybe this show is correct, but my problem is the host made a huge sweeping market statement based on a VERY minor dip in prices from June to July. I suppose I could do the same in Sacramento since the median price dipped 1% last month. The truth is we’ll see many more articles like this in coming months because we tend to confuse a seasonal softening with a big market turn. It’s like we forget the market is cyclical at this time of year.

My advice? Cut through the hype and know the seasonal market wherever you are located in the United States. What does the market normally do at this time of year? What normally happens to prices, sales volume, and inventory? Understanding what a slowing season tends to look like can help us give advice to friends and clients, and we can avoid saying the market is tanking just because prices dipped last month. Of course at some point the market really could collapse, but unless we are seeing symptoms beyond a normal seasonal slowing, it’s probably okay to be cautious of a doom & gloom housing message.

I hope that was helpful or interesting. Any thoughts?

–——-——- Big monthly market update (it’s long on purpose) ———–——-

The stats have been glowing for months in Sacramento County, but last month we finally saw a dip in prices. In short, the glowing stats are now showing a slowing. But that’s not really a surprise because we all felt this slowing in the market for the past 30-60 days. It’s just we didn’t see it show up in the sales stats until now. After all, it takes a month or two to see slower pendings close escrow. Anyway, the median price dipped by about 1%, inventory increased, and most importantly it took 3 days longer to sell last month than the previous month. I know, there are still multiple offers and there is still upward pressure in some areas and price ranges. I get that. Remember, the market is slowing, but that does not mean it is dull or slow. Ultimately when looking at price metrics, the market is up anywhere from 7-9% from last year, and sales volume is about the same as last year too, which shows the market is trying to normalize. Housing inventory in the region is about 10% lower than it was last year at the same time, which reminds us that the market is still more aggressive compared to last year. Lastly, if the market was collapsing, I’d suspect we would be seeing a big change in the psyche of buyers, a big change in inventory, and a big change in sales volume. Not that the market has to tank the same way all the time, but if values were turning we’d likely expect to see something much more out-of-the-ordinary beyond all the normal seasonal stuff we’re seeing right now.

DOWNLOAD 66 graphs HERE: Please download all graphs in this post and more here as a zip file (includes a stat sheet too). See my sharing policy for 5 ways to share (please don’t copy verbatim).

SACRAMENTO COUNTY (more graphs & stats here):

SACRAMENTO COUNTY STATS:

  1. The median price is currently $348,000 and dipped 1% last month.
  2. The median price is 7.6% higher than the same time last year.
  3. Sales volume in August was 4.7% lower this year than 2016. There were 1668 single family detached sales last month.
  4. It took an average of 24 days to sell a home last month (one year ago it was taking 2 days longer).
  5. The median days on market last month was 12 days, which means properties are selling quickly.
  6. It took 3 more days to sell in August compared to July (median days).
  7. FHA sales were 22.6% of all sales last month in the county.
  8. Only 0.8% of sales last month were bank-owned & 1.5% were short sales.
  9. The avg price per sq ft was about $223, which is slightly higher than last month (8.7% higher than last year).
  10. The avg sales price decreased about 1.5% last month and is currently $378,885. This is 6.8% higher than last year.
  11. Cash sales were 12.5% of all sales last month.

SACRAMENTO REGION (more graphs & stats here):

SACRAMENTO REGION STATS:

  1. The median price is $389,900 and declined slightly last month.
  2. The median price is 9% higher than the same time last year.
  3. Sales volume in August was 0.2% higher this year than 2016. There were 2771 single family detached sales last month.
  4. It took an average of 28 days to sell a home last month (one year ago it was taking 3 days longer).
  5. The median days on market last month was 13 days, which means properties are selling really quickly.
  6. The median days on market increased by 2 days last month, which helps shows a slowing in the market.  
  7. FHA sales were 18.1% of all sales last month.
  8. Only 0.8% of sales last month were bank-owned & 1.48% were short sales.
  9. The avg price per sq ft was about $227, which is the same as last month (7.9% higher than last year).
  10. The avg sales price declined slightly last month and is currently $430,101. This is 8.6% higher than last year.
  11. Cash sales were 14% of all sales last month.

PLACER COUNTY (more graphs & stats here):

 

PLACER COUNTY STATS:

  1. The median price is currently $462,000 and increased about 2% last month (but still down from a couple months ago).
  2. The median price is 7.4% higher than the same time last year.
  3. Sales volume in August was 14% higher this year than 2016. There were 637 single family detached sales.
  4. It took an average of 30 days to sell a home last month (one year ago it was taking 10 days longer).
  5. The median days on market last month was 15 days, which means properties are selling really quickly.
  6. The median days on market increased by 3 days last month, which helps shows a slowing in the market. 
  7. FHA sales were 12.5% of all sales.
  8. There were only 2 bank-owned sales last month and only 9 short sales.
  9. The avg price per sq ft was $229, which is slightly higher than last month (7.4% higher than last year).
  10. The avg sales price increased about 0.5% last month and is currently $508.686. This is 7.7% higher than last year.
  11. Cash sales were 14.4% of all sales last month.

DOWNLOAD 66 graphs HERE: Please download all graphs in this post and more here as a zip file (includes a stat sheet too). See my sharing policy for 5 ways to share (please don’t copy verbatim).

Questions: What are you seeing out there? What signs of slowing have you noticed? Did I miss anything? I’d love to hear your take.

If you liked this post, subscribe by email (or RSS). Thanks for being here.

A recap of the Sacramento real estate market in 2016

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High demand. Modest value increases. Price sensitive. Those are ways to describe the real estate market in 2016. Today let’s take a deep look into where the market went last year. This post is long on purpose. You can scan it quickly or pour a cup of coffee and spend some time here. If you aren’t in Sacramento, I hope you can still find some value. Do you see any parallels to your market? Any thoughts? 

P.S. I have some really cool year-in-review images. Please share.

13516718 - white wood texture with natural patterns

DOWNLOAD 76 graphs HERE: Please download all graphs in this post (and more) here as a zip file (including a one-page quick stat sheet). See my sharing policy for 5 ways to share (please don’t copy verbatim). Thanks.

A Market Rush: Overall prices saw a dip these past few months as the regional median price declined 4-5% from summer. This isn’t anything unexpected because it happens virtually every year. Just as there is a season for fishing, fashion, or television, there is also a season for real estate values. Granted, 2016 did have a more aggressive feel in that multiple offers were commonplace, it took an average of 7 less days to sell a home compared to last year, and inventory was sparse at best. In fact, the year closed with the strongest months of sales volume in the past 5 years for November / December. It’s as if there was a rush on the market from September through November that ended up beefing up these year-end stats. Why did sales volume increase? Some say it’s the power of Trump or the anticipation of a new political era. Or it could be buyers were expecting an increase in interest rates and wanted to get in before a rate hike. Or maybe it’s the byproduct of a fall that wasn’t all that dull and a market with strong demand. Or maybe it’s a combination of all or none of the above.  🙂

When looking at the entire year, most price metrics increased 7-9% and sales volume was up a modest 2% overall for the year. Remember, just because price metrics increased by 7-9% does not mean actual values increased by that much (we can talk about that more below if you wish). My sense is prices at lower levels saw larger increases than the middle and upper end of the market, which means a more aggressive bottom tends to create larger increases on paper. I say this because it’s easy to see the median price at 10.5% higher and say, “Values went up by 10.5% last year,” but that just isn’t true for the bulk of the market. On a related note, last week I mentioned trends to watch in 2017, and if I had to add one more thing I would say there could easily be a problem this year with overpricing homes because of so much focus on the market being “hot” without looking at actual data.

A few year-in-review images:

sacramento-county-year-in-review-blog-size

sacramento-region-year-in-review-blog-size

placer-county-year-in-review-blog-size

Sacramento County:

  1. The median price was $315,000 in December (6.5% above last December).
  2. Housing inventory is about 10% lower than it was last December.
  3. Sales volume was 7% lower this December compared to last December, but this year and last were higher than 2012, 2013, and 2014.
  4. It took 3 days longer to sell a house last month compared to November. 
  5. One year ago in December it was taking 4 days longer to sell.
  6. FHA sales volume is down 6% this year compared to 2015 (but 25% of all sales this year were FHA).
  7. Cash sales are down 11% this year (they were 13% of all sales last month).
  8. The average price per sq ft was $202 last month (about the same as November, but 7.5% higher than last year).
  9. The average sales price at $343,670 is down about 4% from the height of summer (but is 6% higher than last year).
  10. When looking at the entire year in Sacramento County it took 33 days on average to sell a home this year.

A few images to show the bottom and top of the market:

all-residential-sales-in-sacramento-county-by-sacramento-appraisal-blog

all-residential-sales-under-100k-in-sacramento-county-by-sacramento-appraisal-blog

all-residential-sales-under-100k-in-2016-in-sacramento-county-by-sacramento-appraisal-blog

million-dollar-market-in-sacramento-county-by-sacramento-appraisal-blog

Some of my favorite images this month:

cdom-in-sacramento-county-by-sacramento-regional-appraisal-blog interest-rates-since-2008 inventory-december-2016-by-home-appraiser-blog median-price-context-in-sacramento-county price-metrics-since-2015-in-sacramento-county-look-at-all

SACRAMENTO REGIONAL MARKET:

  1. The median price was $350,000 in December (7% above last December).
  2. It took 3 days longer to sell compared to the previous month (but 4 less days compared to December 2015).
  3. Sales volume was about 1% lower this December compared to last year.
  4. FHA sales volume is down 6% this year compared to last year. 
  5. Cash sales are down 8% this year compared to last year.
  6. Cash sales were 14.4% of all sales last month.
  7. The average price per sq ft was $208 last month. That’s down about 1% from the height of summer and 8% higher than last year.
  8. FHA sales were 22% of all sales in the region last month.
  9. The average sales price was $387,915 in December. It’s down about 5% from the height of summer but 8% higher than last year.
  10. When looking at the entire year in the region it took 37 days on average to sell a home this year.

Some of my favorite images this month:

median-price-sacramento-placer-yolo-el-dorado-county

regional-inventory-by-sacramento-regional-appraisal-blog

sacramento-region-volume-fha-and-conventional-by-appraiser-blog

inventory-in-sacramento-regional-market

days-on-market-in-placer-sac-el-dorado-yolo-county-by-sacramento-appraisal-blog

PLACER COUNTY:

  1. The median price was $423,925 in December (7% above last December).
  2. It took 2 less days to sell compared to the previous month (but 9 less days compared to December 2015).
  3. Sales volume was about 1% lower this December compared to last year.
  4. FHA sales volume is down 11% this year compared to last year (FHA sales were 18% of all sales in Placer County last month).
  5. Cash sales are down a mere 1% this year compared to last year.
  6. Cash sales were 16% of all sales last month.
  7. The average price per sq ft was $216 last month, which is about as high as it’s been all year (about 8% higher than last year).
  8. REOs were 1.5% and short sales were 1.8% of all sales in Placer County.
  9. The average sales price was $472,130 in December. It’s down about 2% from the height of summer but about 9.5% higher than last year.
  10. When looking at the entire year in Placer County it took 42 days on average to sell a home this year.

Some of my favorite images this month:

regional-market-median-price-by-home-appraiser-blog

months-of-housing-inventory-in-placer-county-by-sacramento-appraisal-blog

placer-county-price-and-inventory-by-sacramento-appraisal-blog

placer-county-sales-volume-by-sacramento-appraisal-blog

days-on-market-in-placer-county-by-sacramento-appraisal-blog

DOWNLOAD 76 graphs HERE: Please download all graphs in this post (and more) here as a zip file (including a one-page quick stat sheet). See my sharing policy for 5 ways to share (please don’t copy verbatim). Thanks.

Questions: Did I miss anything? What are you seeing out there? How would you describe the market? I’d love to hear your take.

If you liked this post, subscribe by email (or RSS). Thanks for being here.

Selfies, market hotness, & waiting to sell (and a Sacramento update)

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Have you ever taken a selfie from a particular angle to make sure you look as good as possible? Be honest. Of course you have, and so have I. Well, housing stats can be just like selfies. It’s easy to pick the best angles (stats) to share while missing the real picture. Let’s keep this in mind as it’s tempting in real estate to gravitate toward “hot” headlines while missing the full story. Let’s kick around some ideas below and then take a deep look at the Sacramento market. Any thoughts?

56299814 - young pretty woman taking selfie outdoors - female winter fashion portrait - teenager student holding mobile phone for selfi photo next to brick wall background - soft and hazy vintage filtered look

1) Market hotness: It’s been blasted all over the news that Sacramento is going to be one of the hottest markets in the nation next year. The SacBee wrote about this a couple of weeks ago and I was actually quoted in the piece. In short, Realtor.com predicts we will see a 7% increase in value. The irony is price stats showed a 7% increase in 2015 and we’re on track to see something similar for 2016 in Sacramento. Thus I suppose Realtor.com could have just said “Sacramento will do what it’s done for two years in a row.” Zing. Remember, just because the median price went up 7% doesn’t mean actual values increased by that much. This is a huge point and we can talk about it in the comments if you wish.

2) Deciding to wait to sell: When sellers hear the market is “hot” or sense values are increasing, they sometimes wait to list their homes. Last week an agent told me an owner who was ready to get her property on the market called and said, “We’re going to wait because we just saw a story on TV that said the market is going to be the hottest in the nation next year.” On a related note I spoke with a client who is now concerned about his home increasing in value too much since he is going through a divorce. This reminds me of a video John Wake shared on Twitter. He was talking about San Francisco values and how sellers tend to wait to list their homes when values are increasing. The thought is, why list now when values are going to be higher next year? But then when values do eventually turn there can be a flood of houses hit the market as a “race to the exit”. Really good stuff from John.

3) VA appraisal fees just increased: If you haven’t heard, VA increased their appraisal fees from $450 to $600 in the Sacramento area. Unlike other loan programs, VA pays a standard fee for every appraisal. Just a heads-up.

4) Fannie Mae waiving appraisals: A few days ago Fannie Mae officially began a program to waive appraisals for certain refinances. In the background Fannie has been mining data from appraisal reports for the past two years for their Collateral Underwriter program, and with a database of millions of appraisals they can now eliminate the use of appraisals in some transactions. It’s like Fannie Mae in a small way is helping appraisers dig their own grave. I understand efficiency and how this makes reasonable sense for some transactions, but let’s not forget the very important role appraisers are supposed to play in a transaction.

Any thoughts?

skateboard-from-ryan-lundquist-sacramento-appraisal-blogSKATEBOARD GIVEAWAY: If you didn’t know, I love woodworking. Anyway, I made a skateboard and I’m giving it away in two days to someone local (or not local if you know we’re going to see each other soon). Keep it or re-gift it for Christmas. Leave a comment on Facebook if you want to enter the contest and I’ll pick a random name in two days (we don’t have to know each other).

—-—–—– And here’s my big monthly market update  ———–—–

big-monthly-market-update-post-sacramento-appraisal-blog-image-purchased-from-123rfTwo ways to read the BIG POST:

  1. Scan the talking points and graphs quickly.
  2. Grab a cup of coffee and spend time digesting what is here.

DOWNLOAD 71 graphs HERE: Please download all graphs in this post (and more) here as a zip file. Use them for study, for your newsletter, or some on your blog. See my sharing policy for 5 ways to share (please don’t copy verbatim). Thanks.

NEW: I created a one-page market sheet to print and keep handy when talking about real estate. I’ll keep it around if it seems relevant (not sure yet). Is this a step in the right direction? Download here.

Quick Market Summary:

The market normally softens each year in the fall and we are definitely seeing that right now, but this fall isn’t as dull as some of the seasons we’ve seen in the past. Yes, it took 4 days longer to sell a home compared to the previous month and prices are down from the summer, but sales volume was up a whopping 18% in the region last month. If you didn’t know, sales volume has actually been higher for four months in a row in the Sacramento region. On the other hand, one of the big issues that just won’t go away is housing inventory is anemic as it’s about 20% lower than it was the same time last year. Of equal importance is interest rates have been ticking up, so buyers are anxious to get their rates locked and their appraisals in on time. As rates presumably rise more next year it will naturally soften values because higher rates take away purchasing power from buyers. Yet the big question is whether lenders will get more creative with financing to help buyers artificially afford higher prices. This reminds us how much power lenders have right now to direct the market.

Check out specific stats and graphs below for Sacramento County, the Sacramento Region, & Placer County.

Sacramento County:

  1. The median price is the same as it was in August 2007.
  2. Housing inventory is 22% lower than the same time last year (there is only a 1.36 month housing supply).
  3. Sales volume was 17% higher this November compared to November 2015 (up 2.5% for the year).
  4. There were only 36 short sales and 34 REOs in the county last month.
  5. It took 3 days longer to sell a house last month compared to the previous month (one year ago it was taking 3 days longer to sell).
  6. FHA sales volume is down 6% this year compared to 2015 (24.4% of all sales were FHA last month).
  7. Cash sales are down 11% this year (they were 11% of all sales last month).
  8. The median price is $325,000 and is down 2% from the height of summer, up 1.5% from last month, and 12% higher than last year.
  9. The average price per sq ft was $202 last month (down 1% from a few months ago, but 7% higher than last year).
  10. The average sales price at $349,659 is down about 2% from the height of summer (but is 8% higher than last year).

Some of my Favorite Graphs this Month:

median-price-since-2013-in-sacramento-county

sales-volume-in-sacramento-county-since-2012 inventory-in-sacramento-county-since-2013-part-2-by-sacramento-appraisal-blog

inventory-november-2016-by-home-appraiser-blog cdom-in-sacramento-county-by-sacramento-regional-appraisal-blog

price-metrics-since-2015-in-sacramento-county-look-at-all

layers-of-the-market-in-sacramento-county-2-by-sacramento-appraisal-blog

median-price-and-inventory-since-2001-by-sacramento-appraisal-blog

SACRAMENTO REGIONAL MARKET:

  1. Housing inventory is 26% lower than the same time last year.
  2. It took 4 days longer to sell compared to the previous month (but 4 less days compared to November 2015).
  3. Sales volume was 18% higher this November compared to November 2015.
  4. FHA sales volume is down 6% this year compared to last year.
  5. Cash sales are down 8% this year compared to last year.
  6. REOs were 2% and short sales were 2.1% of all sales last month.
  7. The median price was $355,000 in November. It went down slightly from October but is down 3.5% from the height of summer (up 8% from last year).
  8. The average price per sq ft was $208.6 last month. That’s down about 1% from the height of summer and 8% higher than last year.
  9. Cash sales were 13.3% of all sales last month (FHA sales were 22%).
  10. The average sales price was $392,500 in November. It’s down about 3.5% from the height of summer but 8% higher than last year.

Some of my Favorite Regional Graphs:

median-price-sacramento-placer-yolo-el-dorado-county

regional-inventory-by-sacramento-regional-appraisal-blog

sacramento-region-volume-fha-and-conventional-by-appraiser-blog

inventory-in-sacramento-regional-market

days-on-market-in-placer-sac-el-dorado-yolo-county-by-sacramento-appraisal-blog

regional-market-median-price-by-home-appraiser-blog

interest-rates-inventory-median-price-in-sacramento-regional-market-by-sacramento-appraisal-blog-market

PLACER COUNTY:

  1. The median price was $438,000 last month (highest point of year, but take that with a grain of salt).
  2. The average price per sq ft was $213 last month (down very slightly from the height of summer and up 6% higher than last year).
  3. It took 41 days to sell last month (same as previous month but 6 days less than one year ago).
  4. Sales volume was about 3% lower this October compared to October 2015.
  5. FHA sales volume is down 16% this year compared to last year.
  6. Cash sales were 17% of all sales last month (FHA sales were 13%).
  7. Cash sales are down 3.6% this year compared to last year.
  8. Housing inventory is 13% lower than the same time last year.
  9. Both REOs and short sales were each 1% of sales last month.
  10. The average sales price was $481,000 and is 8.5% higher than last year.

Some of my Favorite Placer County Graphs:

placer-county-housing-inventory-by-home-appraiser-blog

days-on-market-in-placer-county-by-sacramento-appraisal-blog

months-of-housing-inventory-in-placer-county-by-sacramento-appraisal-blog

placer-county-sales-volume-by-sacramento-appraisal-blog

number-of-listings-in-placer-county-2016

interest-rates-inventory-median-price-in-placer-county-by-sacramento-appraisal-blog

DOWNLOAD 71 graphs HERE: Please download all graphs in this post (and more) here as a zip file. Use them for study, for your newsletter, or some on your blog. See my sharing policy for 5 ways to share (please don’t copy verbatim). Thanks.

Questions: Did I miss anything? What are you seeing out there? How would you describe the market? I’d love to hear your take.

If you liked this post, subscribe by email (or RSS). Thanks for being here.

Predictions, Trump’s impact on real estate, and a Sacramento market update

By 13 Comments

I reached the point of political exhaustion last week in a big way. This doesn’t mean I’m tuned out, but right now I find myself glossing over Facebook rants or skimming certain conversations because they’re only going lead to arguments. Yet still I hoped we could chat briefly about politics and real estate – without unfriending each other. Then let’s take a deep look at the Sacramento market. Any thoughts?

18345737 - the white house, view from the south, home of the president of the united states of america in washington dc usa

Huge Data Fail & Predicting Real Estate: The media laid an egg when it came to predicting the presidency. In fact, it seemed like many political pundits were shell-shocked when election results were coming in contrary to their predictions that Hillary would win. I don’t mention this so we can argue, but only to remind us of the danger of predicting, being wrong, and then having pie on your face (losing credibility). If some of the best political minds in America couldn’t predict the outcome of the presidential race, can we really predict the future of the real estate market with certainty?

Trump Presidency and Newlyweds: I’ve been asked a couple of times this week how a Trump presidency has impacted real estate so far. My answer is simple. Imagine asking a newlywed couple after one week of marriage to tell us how their marriage is going. It’s only been a week though. We probably need more time to really know how married life is going to unfold. The same holds true with Trump’s impact on real estate. We haven’t had enough time to see waves in the market yet, and nobody really knows how his policies will affect housing. There are many predictions right now, especially about repealing Dodd-Frank, but those are only guesses (see paragraph above).

Any thoughts?

—-—–—– And here’s my big monthly market update  ———–—–

big-monthly-market-update-post-sacramento-appraisal-blog-image-purchased-from-123rfTwo ways to read the BIG POST:

  1. Scan the talking points and graphs quickly.
  2. Grab a cup of coffee and spend time digesting what is here.

DOWNLOAD 71 graphs HERE: Please download all graphs in this post (and more) here as a zip file. Use them for study, for your newsletter, or some on your blog. See my sharing policy for 5 ways to share (please don’t copy verbatim). Thanks.

NEW: I created a one-page market sheet to print and keep handy when talking about real estate. I figured it might be helpful to use while talking on the phone. I’m not sold on the look, but is this a step in the right direction? Download here.

Quick Market Summary: A brutal election season has ended (thank God), and many Americans feel worn out, but the market doesn’t feel that tired. The truth is when we look at the stats we are seeing about what we’d expect at this time of year. Ultimately prices are down 1-3% from the height of summer, it took two days longer to sell a house last month, and inventory is down 14% in the region from last year. It’s easy to see softer stats and assume the market is beginning to crash, but the market softens like this almost every single year (besides 2012 when Blackstone and friends gutted the market and we didn’t have a normal fall season). I’m not saying values are not inflated, affordability isn’t becoming more of a factor, or even the market won’t turn at some point, but only that things feel fairly normal right now for the season. Sales volume has been strong this year in Sacramento and is up slightly from last year despite cash and FHA volume both dropping by 7-8%. Inventory is anemic and there really isn’t a quick solution to deal with that problem, but buyers are still finicky about price despite very few homes being listed on the market. Sellers don’t get this, so they try to command whatever price they want, but that rarely works in this market. Keep in mind buyers are scouring Zillow and Redfin every single day, they are visiting properties with their agent, they are getting beat out on other homes, and they are often looking for MANY months before getting a contract accepted. Sellers frankly are not doing anywhere near this level of research, which is one reason sellers are less in tune with proper pricing. Check out specific stats and graphs below for Sacramento County, the Sacramento Region, & Placer County.

Sacramento County:

  1. The median price is $320,000 and is down a few percent from the height of summer, but it’s 10% higher than last year.
  2. The average price per sq ft was $202 last month (down 1% from a few months ago, but 8.5% higher than last year).
  3. There were only 38 short sales and 31 REOs in the county last month.
  4. Sales volume was 5% higher this October compared to October 2015.
  5. It took 3 days longer to sell a house last month compared to the previous month (one year ago it was taking 5 days longer to sell).
  6. Sales volume is up slightly this year compared to last year (1% or so).
  7. FHA sales volume is down 7% this year compared to 2015 (25% of all sales were FHA last month).
  8. Cash sales are down 8.5% this year (they were 12% of all sales last month).
  9. Housing inventory is 12% lower than the same time last year.
  10. The average sales price at $353,000 is down about 1% from the height of summer (but is 9% higher than last year).

Some of my Favorite Graphs this Month:

median-price-since-2013-in-sacramento-county

inventory-in-sacramento-county-since-2013-part-2-by-sacramento-appraisal-blog

inventory-september-2016-by-home-appraiser-blog

cdom-in-sacramento-county-by-sacramento-regional-appraisal-blog

price-metrics-since-2015-in-sacramento-county-look-at-all

sales-volume-in-sacramento-county-since-2012

seasonal-market-in-sacramento-county-sales-volume-6

seasonal-market-in-sacramento-county-inventory-4

seasonal-market-in-sacramento-county-4

SACRAMENTO REGIONAL MARKET:

  1. The median price was $357,000 in October. It went up slightly from September but is down 3% from the height of summer (up 9% from last year).
  2. The average price per sq ft was $208 last month. That’s down about 1% from the height of summer and 7% higher than last year.
  3. It took 2 days longer to sell compared to the previous month (but 5 less days compared to October 2015).
  4. Sales volume was 4% higher this October compared to October 2015.
  5. FHA sales volume is down 8% this year compared to last year.
  6. Cash sales were 13.5% of all sales last month (FHA sales were 21%).
  7. Cash sales are down 7% this year compared to last year.
  8. Housing inventory is 14% lower than the same time last year.
  9. REOs were 1.8% and short sales were 2% of all sales last month.
  10. The average sales price was $393,000 in October. It’s down about 3% from the height of summer but 8% higher than last year.

Some of my Favorite Regional Graphs:

median-price-sacramento-placer-yolo-el-dorado-county

sacramento-region-volume-fha-and-conventional-by-appraiser-blog

inventory-in-sacramento-regional-market

regional-inventory-by-sacramento-regional-appraisal-blog

days-on-market-in-placer-sac-el-dorado-yolo-county-by-sacramento-appraisal-blog

regional-market-median-price-by-home-appraiser-blog

PLACER COUNTY:

  1. The median price was $438,000 last month (highest point of year, but take that with a grain of salt).
  2. The average price per sq ft was $213 last month (down very slightly from the height of summer and up 6% higher than last year).
  3. It took 41 days to sell last month (same as previous month but 6 days less than one year ago).
  4. Sales volume was about 3% lower this October compared to October 2015.
  5. FHA sales volume is down 16% this year compared to last year.
  6. Cash sales were 17% of all sales last month (FHA sales were 13%).
  7. Cash sales are down 3.6% this year compared to last year.
  8. Housing inventory is 13% lower than the same time last year.
  9. Both REOs and short sales were each 1% of sales last month.
  10. The average sales price was $481,000 and is 8.5% higher than last year.

Some of my Favorite Placer County Graphs:

placer-county-sales-volume-by-sacramento-appraisal-blog

inventory-in-sacramento-regional-market

days-on-market-in-placer-county-by-sacramento-appraisal-blog

months-of-housing-inventory-in-placer-county-by-sacramento-appraisal-blog

number-of-listings-in-placer-county-2016

interest-rates-inventory-median-price-in-placer-county-by-sacramento-appraisal-blog

placer-county-price-and-inventory-by-sacramento-appraisal-blog

DOWNLOAD 71 graphs HERE: Please download all graphs in this post (and more) here as a zip file. Use them for study, for your newsletter, or some on your blog. See my sharing policy for 5 ways to share (please don’t copy verbatim). Thanks.

Questions: Did I miss anything? What impact do you think Trump will have for the real estate market (if any)? What are you seeing out there? I’d love to hear your take.

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