Category — Market Trends

Almost five months ago I wrote about Dorothea Puente’s duplex coming on the market. If you don’t know Puente’s history, she ran a “boarding house” in the 1980s out of her Sacramento Victorian duplex at 1426 F Street. She drugged and murdered  tenants to cash their social security checks. Eventually seven bodies were found buried in her backyard.

In case you were wondering, I wanted to give an update on MLS stats for this duplex that has been on the market for 148 days as of today. 

Date             Price
02/26/10   $309,800
03/23/10   $301,800
04/15/10   $292,800
05/10/10   $274,800
06/01/10   $263,800
06/23/10   $252,800
07/15/10   $237,800

It’ll be interesting to see what this property sells for in comparison to other duplex units nearby. Regardless of price, would you have any issue buying a property like this? How might a murder or other heinous circumstance impact real estate value?

Do you watch Foreclosure Radar’s videos? I like to check them out because it’s interesting to see some of their points in action in the local market trenches I work in each day. Based on the data, it seems like bad news on some levels for California in that Notice of Defaults increased and there were more pre-foreclosures last month too. But at the same time the number of properties that actually went back to the bank during June 2010 went down.

Are we out of the foreclosure woods? What do you think? What are you seeing in the market in the course of business or even in your own neighborhood?

Foreclosure Radar gives the following points (from YouTube): “Foreclosure filings were up in June after two months of decline. Foreclosure cancellations reached a record high of 21,962 in June, up 27.09% from May. The number of properties purchased by 3rd parties dropped by 23.73% since last month, but those properties bought were at the best margins in months. Fewer properties went back to the bank, down 23.73% from the prior month. Time-to-Foreclosure was flat month over month, but up 34.93% from June 2009. Time-to-Resell continued it’s slow ascent, up 5.95% for the banks and up 4.29% for 3rd parties.”

What’s going on in the Sacramento real estate market in the South Oak Park area? I plotted some sales in the 95820 zip code and wanted to share the following. The trend graphs below are based on recorded single family residential sales in MLS for the following boundaries: 12th Avenue to the north, Highway 99 to the west, MLK Jr Blvd to the east, and Fruitridge Road to the south.

Do you see in the graph how a few horizontal lines help us see a clearer picture? It looks like the top has decreased, the bottom has increased, and the middle has become more tightly-packed together.

The second trend graph takes a closer look at the past year of sales from above. I like this one because it really shows a clear separation between the bulk of the resale market and the rest of sales in the neighborhood. Properties that were purchased previously as bank-owned fixers are now being rehabbed and they look to be selling between $100,000 to $125,000 for the most part.

How would you describe this market? What is influencing change? What has driven the upper end down and the bottom level up? Do you think government financing and tax credits are playing a role in some of the changes above?

Please share your insight. Questions? Contact me at 916.595.3735, “like” my Facebook Page, comment below or email ryan@LundquistCompany.com.

I’m doing some research for a duplex in South Sacramento. I thought readers would be interested to see a trend graph of all sales over the past twelve months for 2-4 unit properties (duplex, triplex, fourplex) within the South Sacramento & Fruitridge market area. It’s amazing to see how low prices have come down. In 2005, for example, something would have been sincerely wrong to see a residential-income property selling anywhere near $100,000 (or below). For reference, 67% of the sales below were REO and 19% were Short Sales.

What do you see? Also, how have you seen the decline in property value impact rents in the Sacramento area? 

If you woke up this morning itching to see a macro glance at the real estate market in Roseville, you’re in luck. I’m doing some research in the city of Roseville and I wanted to give a glimpse into sales over the past 18 months as well as current listings.

What do you see? Does anything stand out to you? What does it look like the market has done at the high and low end?

My Realtor friend Jenifer Miller invited me yesterday to give a 90-minute talk to a group of new real estate agents at Lyon Real Estate in Elk Grove. It was fun and I hope overall helpful too as we discussed how to more effectively communicate with appraisers in an HVCC world as well as a few tidbits on FHA minimum requirements.

Anyway, one of the members of the class brought up a great question. He asked how properties could not be worth at least their replacement cost. The truth is that we see so many properties in the Sacramento area selling far below what they would actually cost to build from scratch (cost of land + all improvements). 

That’s the nature of the market these days. But why is that? There are many factors to consider. Do you remember the real estate bubble? It couldn’t have lasted forever. Property values really climbed too quickly to enormously high levels, didn’t they? When the bubble burst, it changed the real estate market. There ended up being a huge oversupply of distressed properties listed on the open market, and these REOs set the pace for the rest of the market. Keep in mind too everything that was going on in Wall Street, the bailouts, and the economy beginning to sincerely struggle. All of these factors (and more) influenced property values.

Moreover, check out unemployment figures to the right for both Sacramento County & Placer County. These April 2010 stats from the Employment Development Department show an unemployment rate of 12.5% in Sacramento County and 11.5% in Placer County. Let’s contrast this with data from April 2006 that shows the unemployment rate was 4.8% in Sacramento County and 4.3% in Placer County. Things changed, didn’t they? In light of unemployment rates being significantly higher nowadays, do you think buyers could really afford to purchase houses right now at 2006 levels?  

What do you think? I’d love to hear your insight.

How is the Sacramento real estate market doing? Is it getting better or worse? Are there more bank-owned sales right now than in recent years? There are so many indicators for the health of a real estate market, but let’s take a look at the percentage of bank-owned foreclosure sales (REO) vs. short sales. What do you see? What stands out to you? Any good news here? 

* Data is based on Sacramento MLS for all single family detached properties in Sacramento.

You probably didn’t wake up this morning wondering about fourplex sales in the city of Modesto. But if you did, you’re in luck. Even if you didn’t though, have a look at the trend graph below because it’s shocking to see the huge difference in property values from three years ago to now. What do you see? What stands out to you?

If you are a home owner or work in the real estate field, I’d be curious to hear your take not only on the data above, but on property assessments too. Unfortunately I’m finding it especially true that multi-unit 2-4 income-producing properties are often not assessed accurately (even worse than single family homes). Are you seeing a similar trend? Why do you think duplexes and fourplexes often seem to escape the realm of lowered values by the assessor?

If you are a property owner or investor and feel the Assessor has not kept in tune with the reality of the downward trend in property values, let’s talk. Call me at 916.595.3735 or see my property tax appeal website at www.SacramentoTaxAppeals.com.

Here are a couple of trend graphs below for the 95742 zip code of Rancho Cordova. This area is comprised mostly of “Anatolia“, but also consists of a development called “Sunridge”, which is not part of the Anatolia HOA. 

You be the appraiser here. What do you see in the trend graphs below when looking at the past years of sales? Is there anything you notice to be different or similar when comparing the two graphs? 

Past three years of sales:

Past one year of sales: 

The question “How is the real estate market doing?” usually deserves more time than just 30 seconds. There’s definitely background research, information, and experience needed to answer this question properly. 

I wanted to take you through (in part) how I get this answer as a Certified Real Estate Appraiser in the Sacramento area. In the video below (or HERE) I analyze a portion of the Lincoln Crossing community in Lincoln, CA, and I’ll show you what goes on in my mind as I crunch numbers and explore the local market. I hope this video is helpful.

What is the lowest-priced sale in MLS over the past 90 days? Can I get a drum roll please? The winner is $5,000. No, that’s not a typo.

1628 8th Street in Livingston is a 2-bedroom 1-bath single family detached property and it sold for $5,000 on 2/05/2010 as a bank-owned fixer. The Listing Agent stated that this ”property is unfinished”, which probably means it is completely gutted or has some very serious damage. The photo certainly shows that the shell of the house has some major work needed. Sometimes properties near this price level have “unknown blackish substances” in them too, though not always.

Just in case you are wondering, this price level is not typical for the Sacramento Region or Central Valley. This is indeed the bottom of the market. Over the past 90 days there were only a total of 10 single family detached properties that sold under $20,000. For reference, here is a graph of all sales under $20,000 over the past year based on information in Sacramento MLS (this covers many counties surrounding Sacramento).

I thought this might interest anyone living or considering purchasing in the 95828 zip code of Sacramento. What do you see? What stands out to you about this trend graph? All sales are based on information provided in Sacramento MLS (single family detached sales only).