After completing a vacant land appraisal in Carmichael recently, I wanted to share a graph of land sales over the past 14 years. Below you’ll find all residential lot sales between January 1998 to March 2012 (acreage and smaller lots – anything listed as “residential” in MLS). These are only sales through MLS and not private sales that may have occurred.
The decline has been hefty, hasn’t it? Yet lots are still moving (just at very low levels). What do you see? Does anything surprise you?
While we’re on the subject of land, let’s take a look at nearby Fair Oaks too. It’s a bit of a similar trend to the graph above, isn’t it?
By the way, for anyone who purchased to speculate during the peak years of the market (or even build, but you got caught in the market at the wrong time and could not build out your land), I would suggest checking your property tax bill to ensure you’re paying at levels consistent with today’s market instead of 2005. I helped a client recently lower his assessed land value in Sacramento from over $1,804,000 to $340,000.
If you have any questions or Sacramento area real estate appraisal or property tax appeal needs, contact me by phone 916-595-3735, email, Facebook, Twitter or subscribe to posts by email.
I was thinking about this because there is a complex right now in the Sacramento area (Fair Oaks) that is facing this very situation and it’s been more difficult for sellers because lenders have seemed hesitant on making loans on properties in the complex right now. The litigation in this case involves construction defects in the common areas and actually has nothing to do with the actual units (built in 2007 – very nice).
