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The waking market, pulling stats like a boss, & the year in review

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The market went to sleep for the holidays and it’s just starting to wake up. Let’s talk about that along with pulling stats like a boss. Then I have a huge market update and review for those interested. 

No sales to support higher values: In a normal January the market is in a weird spot. It’s coming out of hibernation from the holidays, and even though buyers eventually start offering higher prices, the most recent sales might not support higher contracts. In other words, sales from November and December might actually be much lower than what buyers are willing to pay in later January and February because the market has begun to awaken out of a lull. The reality is we might not see any upward value movement in sales stats until March, but the upward trend will begin to happen in January and February before we see it in the stats. Data lags the trend. I remind myself of this every year.

Getting practical: In coming time as the market presumably heats up I recommend looking for a pattern of pending sales (probably higher), watching for properties spending less time on the market, and study what prices normally do this time of year in your area. In many locations prices tend to pick up where they left off in the late summer before they faded during the fall.

Game-changing stats: Paying attention to numbers has literally changed my career, so I wanted to give some tips for how to begin pulling stats for a city, county, neighborhood… Here’s a chart you can use to track price changes and a few other key elements (DOWNLOAD here). I highly recommend carving out a few minutes each month to track some of these basics. Then of course find relevant ways to share the numbers with your clients and contacts.

Here’s a video where I talk through how to use the chart as well as mistakes to avoid. It’s about 10 minutes. Click below (or here) and watch in FULL screen:

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

Prices have been softening in Sacramento, but it hasn’t been painfully dull like some fall seasons. Overall prices in the region sloughed last month (not a surprise), it took six days longer to sell, and the year closed out with price metrics being about 8-10% higher than December 2016. The number of listings really took a nosedive last month, but that’s what happens since people don’t list in November and December unless they really have to sell. Listings should increase over the next couple months as the market heats up for the spring. I know hungry buyers feel like inventory won’t be coming, but it’ll happen.

Quick insight: Housing inventory is sparse, but one good thing is inventory seems like it went a little more sideways last year instead of declining sharply. On a positive note, the market ended with the lowest number of foreclosures and short sales in the past decade. This isn’t a shocker, but it’s still a sign of healing after the “bubble” burst more than ten years ago. Prices in 2017 increased about the same as they did the past couple years. Lastly, sales volume has been steady for a few years, and that shows the market has found a rhythm.

Recap of 2017 in Sacramento:

I could write more, but let’s get visual instead.

DOWNLOAD 75 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 $350,000. It’s about the same as last month & down 0.5% from summer.
  2. The median price is 11.1% higher than the same time last year.
  3. Sales volume in December was 5.6% lower this year than 2016. There were 1392 single family detached sales last month.
  4. It took an average of 36 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 21 days.
  6. It took 3 more days to sell in Dec. compared to November (median days).
  7. FHA sales were 20.5% of all sales last month in the county.
  8. Only 0.7% of sales last month were bank-owned & 0.2% were short sales.
  9. The avg price per sq ft was about $221, which declined last month (9.6% higher than last year).
  10. The avg sales price softened about 1.5% last month and is $379,962. This is 10.5% higher than last year.
  11. Cash sales were 13% of all sales last month.

SACRAMENTO REGION (more graphs & stats here):

Sacramento Region Stats:

  1. The median price is $385,000. It softened nearly 1% last month.  
  2. The median price is 10% higher than the same time last year.
  3. Sales volume in December was down 4.7% this year. There were 2202 single family detached sales last month.
  4. It took an average of 42 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 24 days, which means properties are selling really quickly.
  6. The median days on market increased by 5 days last month, which shows a slowing in the market.  
  7. FHA sales were 17.5% of all sales last month.
  8. Only 1.6% of sales last month were bank-owned & 0.9% were short sales.
  9. The avg price per sq ft was about $225, which decreased 2% last month (8.4% higher than last year).
  10. The avg sales price decreased 2.5% last month and is 9.1% 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 $450,000 and decreased slightly last month.
  2. The median price is 6.1% higher than the same time last year.
  3. Sales volume in December was 3.6% lower than 2016. There were 450 single family detached sales.
  4. It took an average of 48 days to sell a home last month (one year ago it was taking 1 less day to sell).
  5. The median days on market last month was 28 days, which means properties are selling really quickly.
  6. The median days on market increased 9 days last month (don’t read too much into that). 
  7. FHA sales were 12.6% of all sales.
  8. There were only 4 bank-owned sales last month and only 7 short sales.
  9. The avg price per sq ft was $228, which softened about 3% last month (5.7% higher than last year).
  10. The avg sales price is currently $510,174. This is 8% higher than last year.
  11. Cash sales were 14.9% of all sales last month.

DOWNLOAD 75 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 in the market? Anything I missed? I’d love to hear your take.

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

My last blog post in 2017, Bitcoin, & a big market update

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I started this blog almost nine years ago, and this is my last post for the year. After next week I’ll be lying low, enjoying family, doing some woodworking, staying on my diet (I’m down 30 pounds), and taking some time to get recharged. But first I have two things on my mind. 

Thank you: Thank you so much for hanging with me for another year. I cannot tell you how much I appreciate your support, friendship, comments, emails, insight, and the business you send my way. It might sound cheesy, but I get so much joy out of writing once a week and I’m grateful for you. It’s been a dynamic year for business too, and I honestly could not be doing this without your support. Here’s to continuing to grow together. Please don’t stop asking questions, pitching in thoughts, and challenging my thinking.

Big market stats: Secondly, if you’re looking for the latest market trends for Sacramento, you’ve come to the right place. Check it out below. 

From my family to yours, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.

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

The market is often dull during the fall, but that’s not the case this year. I mean, we’re definitely seeing slightly lower prices, it’s taking longer to sell, and sales volume is sloughing, so clearly the signs of a slower market are here. Yet this fall season isn’t really incredibly slow or painfully dull either.  

Sideways: Price metrics were more or less sideways last month, though some metrics either showed a slight uptick or a slight decline. Overall there wasn’t much change from the month before in terms of price, but it took an average of three days longer to sell. This November saw almost the same amount of sales as last November for the region. Housing inventory is slightly higher than the same time last year, but it’s still hovering at 1.60 months for the region – which is still low. In other words, the housing shortage didn’t go anywhere.

Bitcoin & Modest Appreciation: The rapid increase of Bitcoin has been the talk of town lately, and it’s also seemed to fuel some conversations about quickly rising values in real estate. I get the comparison, but we’re really not seeing Bitcoin type huge increases in real estate. In fact, this year in Sacramento values have seemed more modest in many price ranges, which means somewhere around 5-7% upticks. I realize “modest” in California would be huge in other areas of the country, but that’s not really the case on the west coast. Yet the bottom of the price market easily saw 10-15% increases in many areas of Sacramento. That’s not so modest.

Our “Bitcoin” real estate market in 2012 & 2013: The closest to rapid appreciation we’ve seen in Sacramento in recent years took place between 2012 and 2013 in which we saw price metrics change by 35-40% over the course of one year. During that time both real estate agents and appraisers said it wasn’t easy to keep up with how quickly prices were changing.

$7M Sale: Did you see the sale in Granite Bay that closed two days ago at $6.95M? What the? This is one of the highest residential sales ever in the Sacramento area. You can watch a video tour of it here. Also, that $4.1M condo listing Downtown has been pending since November. I don’t know what it’s in contract for yet, but let’s talk about it when it closes.

Rents: Sacramento made a list again on the fastest growing rents. Yardi Matrix reports a 9.1% uptick in rent year over year in November. Now if we can only get wages to grow by 9.1% too.

Price Sensitive: Lastly, the market may not be incredibly dull like it is during some fall seasons, but it’s still price sensitive. This means buyers are tending to be logical, well-informed, and often not so desperate as to offer any amount. My advice? Don’t just look to the high sales from the spring and summer. What is getting into contract right now? That will give you a good picture of the current market and a hint for how to price too (possibly lower than the height of spring / summer).

I could go on, but let’s get visual.

DOWNLOAD 69 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:

  1. The median price is currently $349,450. It’s the same as last month but down 1% from summer.
  2. The median price is 7.5% higher than the same time last year.
  3. Sales volume in November was 4.5% lower this year than 2016. There were 1354 single family detached sales last month.
  4. It took an average of 32 days to sell a home last month (one year ago it was taking 4 days longer).
  5. The median days on market last month was 18 days.
  6. It took 3 more days to sell in Nov. compared to October (median days).
  7. FHA sales were 20% of all sales last month in the county.
  8. Only 1.4% of sales last month were bank-owned & 0.9% were short sales.
  9. The avg price per sq ft was about $224, which increased last month (11% higher than last year).
  10. The avg sales price softened slightly last month and is currently $385,778. This is 10% higher than last year.
  11. Cash sales were 13% of all sales last month.

SACRAMENTO REGION (more graphs & stats here):

SACRAMENTO REGION:

  1. The median price is $389,000. It softened nearly 1% last month.  
  2. The median price is 9.5% higher than the same time last year.
  3. Sales volume in November was nearly the same as Nov 2016. There were 2220 single family detached sales last month.
  4. It took an average of 36 days to sell a home last month (one year ago it was taking 5 days longer).
  5. The median days on market last month was 19 days, which means properties are selling really quickly.
  6. The median days on market increased by 1 day last month, which shows a slowing in the market.  
  7. FHA sales were 17.2% of all sales last month.
  8. Only 1.5% of sales last month were bank-owned & 0.8% were short sales.
  9. The avg price per sq ft was about $230, which increased last month (10% higher than last year).
  10. The avg sales price increased less than 1% last month and is up 10% higher than last year.
  11. Cash sales were 14% of all sales last month.

PLACER COUNTY (more graphs & stats here):

PLACER COUNTY:

  1. The median price is currently $451,000 and decreased about 1% last month.
  2. The median price is 5.6% higher than the same time last year.
  3. Sales volume in November was 3.6% lower than 2016. There were 473 single family detached sales.
  4. It took an average of 40 days to sell a home last month (one year ago it was taking 9 days longer).
  5. The median days on market last month was 19 days, which means properties are selling really quickly.
  6. The median days on market deceased by 3 days last month (don’t read too much into that). 
  7. FHA sales were 12.6% of all sales.
  8. There were only 9 bank-owned sales last month and only 2 short sales.
  9. The avg price per sq ft was $236, which is slightly higher than last month (9% higher than last year).
  10. The avg sales price is currently $513,280. This is 6.8% higher than last year.
  11. Cash sales were 17% of all sales last month.

DOWNLOAD 69 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 in the market? Anything I missed? I’d love to hear your take.

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

Fanny packs, pendings, and a slower market

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I guess I never thought I’d talk about fanny packs on my blog, but here goes. This is either a new high or low depending on your perspective, but I want to share an important concept to consider – especially during a slower market. Then for anyone interested I have a big market update for Sacramento. Any thoughts?

Fanny pack analogy: Imagine spotting a guy wearing a fanny pack. You might think, “Sweet, I haven’t seen one since the early 90s.” The truth is if we only saw one dude sporting a pouch, we’d probably just think this person is trapped in the 80s and 90s (like Uncle Rico back in ’82). After all, one guy’s fashion statement doesn’t mean it’s a trend for everyone. But if we started seeing more and more people wearing fanny packs everywhere we went, then it’s probably a fashion trend. The same thing happens with pendings. If we only have one pending at a much higher level than anything else in the market area, it’s probably an outlier more than anything. It might be an isolated incident that’s totally disconnected from the market (like one guy wearing a fanny pack) rather than a real indicator of value (a trend). But if we saw a group of pendings shifting higher or lower, then that’s probably a trend.

The big point: Sometimes we get so distracted by the bling of one high listing or pending that we fail to see the bigger picture of value in a neighborhood. It’s like we develop tunnel vision and get locked into one outlier rather than looking at everything else that is similar AND trending lower. Sellers in particular struggle with this during the fall because they sometimes only see the highest prices from the spring rather than current listings and pendings that might be generating slightly lower prices because the market has softened. Or it’s easy to see that one overpriced listing down the street and expect to fetch a similar lofty price rather than recognizing that zero properties are getting into contract that high. Thus let’s be cautious not to stake all the weight of value on one “lone ranger” pending or listing while ignoring all other data. Otherwise it’s sort of like seeing one guy wearing a fanny pack and calling it a trend…

Disclaimer: This post was in no way meant to offend anyone who used to wear, currently wears, or will wear a fanny pack.  🙂

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

The market has continued to soften, though it’s not really all that soft. Inventory is up, price reductions have increased, sales volume has been dropping, it took three days longer to sell last month in the region, and price metrics are down about 1% from the height of summer. Overall the market is clearly slowing down for the season, though it’s not painfully dull like it was in 2013 or 2014 during the fall. This is a key to understand because when saying values are “softening” some interpret that to mean the market is really slow or crashing. But that’s not what I’m saying.

Big Point: We have a housing shortage, but that’s not a trump card to stop a slower seasonal trend.

Let’s get technical. Many price stats last month actually showed an increase in value by about 1%. What the? Does this mean the market increased? I thought you just told me the market is slowing? Let’s remember that sales from October really tell us more about properties that got into contract in August and September before they actually closed escrow in October. Thus that 1% uptick really happened in the market a couple of months ago rather than in October. In other words we’ll see the real trend of the market for October when the pendings from October close in November and December. This is so important because let’s not make a big deal about the market technically showing an increase because the uptick didn’t technically happen last month. Know what I’m saying? If we want to see the current market we have to look at the sales, but we cannot forget to give strong weight to the listings and pendings. Are properties taking longer to sell? Are there more listings hitting the market? Are properties starting to generate less offers or offers at lower prices? What are buyers, sellers, and the real estate community saying about the market?

A huge soft stat: Every year the median price and average sales price in Sacramento County tend to soften by about 5%. This doesn’t necessarily mean values decline by 5% in every neighborhood or price range, but it does mean we can expect price softening in most areas during the fall season.

By the way, here’s an article I wrote for Comstock’s magazine this month about some of the different layers of the Sacramento market right now.

I could go on, but let’s get visual.

DOWNLOAD 62 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 $349,450. It’s up slightly from last month but down 1% from summer.
  2. The median price is 9.2% higher than the same time last year.
  3. Sales volume in October was 5.4% lower this year than 2016. There were 1456 single family detached sales last month.
  4. It took an average of 29 days to sell a home last month (one year ago it was taking 4 days longer).
  5. The median days on market last month was 15 days.
  6. It took 1 more day to sell in October compared to September (median days).
  7. FHA sales were 19.9% of all sales last month in the county.
  8. Only 0.7% of sales last month were bank-owned & 0.7% were short sales.
  9. The avg price per sq ft was about $221, which is about 1% lower than last month (9% higher than last year).
  10. The avg sales price increased about 1% last month and is currently $386,000. This is 9.4% higher than last year.
  11. Cash sales were 12.2% of all sales last month.

SACRAMENTO REGION (more graphs & stats here):

SACRAMENTO REGION STATS:

  1. The median price is $392,000. It increased about 2% last month, but it’s down 1% from summer.  
  2. The median price is 9.8% higher than the same time last year.
  3. Sales volume in October was nearly the same as October 2016. There were 2380 single family detached sales last month.
  4. It took an average of 34 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 18 days, which means properties are selling really quickly.
  6. The median days on market increased by 3 days last month, which shows a slowing in the market.  
  7. FHA sales were 16.5% of all sales last month.
  8. Only 0.8% of sales last month were bank-owned & 0.8% were short sales.
  9. The avg price per sq ft was about $227, which is down slightly from last month (9% higher than last year).
  10. The avg sales price increased about 1% last month and down about 1.5% from summer (but up 9.4% higher than last year.
  11. Cash sales were 15% of all sales last month.

PLACER COUNTY (more graphs & stats here):

PLACER COUNTY STATS:

  1. The median price is currently $455,000 and increased about 1% last month.
  2. The median price is 3.8% higher than the same time last year.
  3. Sales volume in October was 10% higher than 2016. There were 533 single family detached sales.
  4. It took an average of 37 days to sell a home last month (one year ago it was taking 4 days longer).
  5. The median days on market last month was 22 days, which means properties are selling really quickly.
  6. The median days on market increased by 4 days last month, which shows a slowing in the market. 
  7. FHA sales were 9.5% of all sales.
  8. There were only 4 bank-owned sales last month and only 4 short sales.
  9. The avg price per sq ft was $232, which is slightly higher than last month (9.2% higher than last year).
  10. The avg sales price is currently $511,121. This is 6.4% higher than last year.
  11. Cash sales were 18% of all sales last month.

DOWNLOAD 62 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: On a serious note, did you wear a fanny pack back in the day? Anything else you’re seeing in the market? I’d love to hear your take.

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

Price ceilings & literal ceilings that are too low

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I have two types of ceilings on my mind. How do you know when a market begins to reach its price ceiling for the season? And how low can a ceiling be in a home and still be considered legitimate square footage by an appraiser?

I recently inspected a house where the ceiling was 6 feet 8 inches high. Is that tall enough to count? Is there such a thing as too low? Let’s talk about it. 

How low can a ceiling be? Lots of people think 8 feet is the minimum ceiling height because that’s a common height in most homes, but it’s actually 7 feet according to the American National Standards Institute (ANSI Z765). Technically ANSI says it’s okay to have a ceiling height at 6’4″ under beams though. Keep in mind sometimes a ceiling might have a downward slope like we see with a Tudor or the photo above. When ceilings slope really low, there is something called the “5 foot rule” where the appraiser can count any space above 5 feet as living area as long as over 50% of the ceiling area is at least 7 feet.

When appraisers observe houses with ceilings below 7 feet, they’ll typically email the lender and say, “Hey there, this property has a ceiling less than 7 feet, and that doesn’t cut it according to ANSI standards. How do you want me to proceed?” After hearing that there’s a good chance the lender might not want to do the loan. Of course a property with low ceilings can still have value and even be appraised, but it may need to be marketed to an investor paying cash instead of a buyer using conventional or FHA financing.

Market price ceilings: Switching ceiling gears, how would you know if the market was beginning to reach its price ceiling for the season? That’s a great question to ask since many markets in the United States are going to be doing just that over the next couple of months. As I said in June, the Sacramento market is beginning to slow down even though we don’t see it in the sales stats yet. This doesn’t mean the market is cold or values are declining. It only means we are seeing subtle clues to a slowing market as high altitude values from the spring are at the beginning of a downward seasonal descent.

Umm, please don’t say the market is slowing!!!

At times it’s not very popular in the real estate community to publicly talk about the market slowing, but it’s something that happens nearly every single year. I realize we have big headlines about the market being “hot”, and it really is in many way, but catching the symptoms of a slowing market is key for valuing properties (and it’s good for clients). I suggest starting to watch price reductions more closely because they’ve been increasing lately in Sacramento and this is one of the first signs of a slowing market. Also pay attention to days on market increasing in coming time along with some of the other factors above (including the sales to list price ratio). I highly recommend asking other real estate professionals the question, “What are you seeing out there?” It’s amazing the type of insight you can glean from title reps, loan officers, appraisers, agents, escrow officers, etc…

I hope that was helpful or interesting. Any thoughts?

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

Values showed an increase again last month and sales volume was very steady compared to the past few Junes. Overall most price metrics were up 1-2% from last month, though the month prior they increased 2-4%. Inventory is still down about 20% from last year, and properties have been selling like hotcakes in only 9 days (that’s the median). In case you wanted to know, most price metrics are up about 7% from last year. One interesting thing to watch is FHA sales are starting to sag more noticeably as they ticked down a few percentage points to 21% of the market in Sacramento County. Granted, 1 in 5 sales is still quite a bit of FHA volume, but last year we were seeing 1 in 4 sales go FHA. It’s easy to think this means first-time buyers are getting squeezed out by Bay Area buyers, but that’s not really the case. My sense is the downtrend is due to more would-be FHA buyers using competitive conventional products instead of FHA. Lastly, it’s worth noting Curbed has a glowing article about Sacramento (cool that they quoted me too). This article is starting to go viral and it’s bound to get many locals pumped on how “hot” the Sacramento market is. Yet despite being “hot” in many ways, let’s remember to look for the signs of a slowing market because we have to realize the market usually hits its seasonal price ceiling right about now (but we won’t see it in the sales stats for a while). I could go on and on with words, but let me share some graphs to show the market visually.

DOWNLOAD 74 graphs (and a stat sheet) 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 graphs this month (more graphs & stats here):

Sacramento Regional graphs this month (more graphs & stats here):

Placer County graphs this month (more graphs & stats here):

DOWNLOAD 74 graphs (and a stat sheet) HERE: Please download all graphs in this post (and more) here as a zip file. See my sharing policy for 5 ways to share (please don’t copy verbatim).

Questions: Any low ceiling stories to share? Is the price ceiling for the season just about here? 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.