Where would you say the real estate market is “doing pretty good” in the Sacramento area? What does that even mean in a post-bubble-bursting context? Take a look at the image below to get a hint of what the real estate market has been like in places like Elk Grove, Rancho Cordova, Davis, Fair Oaks, Carmichael, Citrus Heights, Folsom and El Dorado Hills among others.

Citywide stats are only so useful because sub-markets within a particular city might have drastically different figures. For example, Land Park and Pocket / Greenhaven will not show the same trends as the entire City of Sacramento mentioned above. Without making this post exhaustive though, let’s take this one indicator for what it’s worth. Overall any neighborhood under 30% in REOs and Short Sales would really be classified as “doing pretty good” for the current market. Despite 30% still representing 1 in 3 sales being distressed, it’s a fairly low percentage for a city or neighborhood. Even 50% seems to be a fairly common stat for areas that locals often think of as more “move up” kind of places. Many cities and neighborhoods have a foreclosure/short sale rate between 60-70%. It’s amazing to think that is normative, but it is definitely the case – particularly in cities where there was ample new construction during the boom years.

What do you think the information says about the health of the market? How does it impact real estate to have such a high percentage of distressed sales? What opportunities and threats exist in the current real estate market?

If you have any questions, or real estate appraisal or property tax appeal needs in the Greater Sacramento Region, contact Lundquist Appraisal by phone 916-595-3735, email, Facebook, Twitter or subscribe to posts by email.

I put together a series of city-wide graphs to show the past three years of home sales within Folsom, El Dorado Hills, Rancho Cordova & Citrus Heights. It’s always interesting to me to take a look at a market-wide graphs to try and make sense of what property values have done over a specified time period. When looking at data like this, I ask questions like: What is the lower end of the market doing? Have there been any changes in the upper end? What does the overall trend look like? Declining? Stabilizing after a decline? Increasing? What types of circumstances may have triggered a change in the overall price levels during various times over the past three years? New laws or regulations? Unemployment? Loan rates adjusting? Economic factors? Zoning?

All graphs below are based on information from Sacramento Metrolist between 08/28/2006 to 08/27/2009. The points on the graphs represent single family residential detached units.

Number of Sales in the Past 3 Years:

• Folsom:  2,183
• El Dorado Hills:  1,665
• Rancho Cordova:  1,732
• Citrus Heights:  2,374

What do you see? What does it look like the market has done in the areas below? Does anything stand out to you or surprise you? What do you notice about the higher end of the market on all of the graphs?

Folsom Real  Estate Market Trends: 

 El Dorado Hills Real Estate Market Trends

Rancho Cordova Real Estate Market Trends:

Citrus Heights Real Estate Market Trends:

City-wide data is important to look at because what is happening in the overall city can sometimes have an impact on smaller niches and portions of housing within the same city. This is not always true, but it’s relevant to at least be aware of what is happening in the overall market so that we can more readily decipher a city’s sub-markets.

On the other hand, one of the glaring downfalls of city-wide data is that information is too general to really draw neighborhood-specific conclusions from. As we all know, each city or area typically has a host of different types of neighborhoods, and these pockets of real estate can vary drastically from each other in terms of buyer perception, price range, and many other factors. For example, Rancho Cordova has two main zip codes and the 95742 zip code (Anatolia) is far different from most of the 95670 zip code (everything else). Or properties near Old Town Folsom may have weathered the market differently than those in Empire Ranch. Or Governor’s Village and Serrano in El Dorado Hills may show differing market trends because of location, square footage, year built, or some other factor.

With all that being said, I am very curious to hear your observations and insight about the city-wide trend graphs above. Feel free to comment above (just below the post title)  or email info@lundquistcompany.com. If you are in need of additional and more specific research or an appraisal, let’s talk soon (916-595-3735).

www.SacramentoAppraisalBlog.com Real Estate Market Trends: Past 36 Months of Sales in Folsom, El Dorado Hills, Rancho Cordova & Citrus Heights (August 2006 – August 2009)

One of the key factors for our market to improve and get back to “normal” is for the oversupply of foreclosure properties to be absorbed. Basically, it’s a messy real estate market out there in the Sacramento Region, and the mess has to be dealt with to move on.

Sacramento MLS allows us to analyze past sales as well as current listings to see how many properties sold as bank-owned or short sales and so on. What about future listings though? How many foreclosures will be coming to the market? Two interesting data sources for this type of information are Realquest and Realist.

RealQuest provides a free service online for anyone to view properties which are in “Pre-foreclosure” (coming soon to the market unless something happens to stop them – loan modification, catch up on payments, legislation, act of God, etc…), “Auction” (you’ve seen the commercials for the auction properties where “there are 2000 properties to sell off and they MUST sell this weekend”), and “Bank-Owned” (yes, the bank has title already).

This is what RealQuest looks like when doing a property search:

Realist is also a service of First American Core Logic and is commonly known as “Tax Records” for Sacramento Metrolist Subscribers (a paid service). Realist has a new “foreclosure activity” search feature that covers the same categories that RealQuest does. But when looking up data in both RealQuest and Realist, there is definitely a difference. Sometimes the data is very similar, but other times the figures are way off. This may be due to the way RealQuest and Realist categorize their information as well as the difference between a free service (RealQuest) and a paid service (Realist). Ultimately there could be a number of factors why the data is so different, but it’s not the purpose of this post to go into depth about that. The real thrust here is to show that there is a new wave of foreclosure properties coming and we ought to be prepared for that. Let’s continue to be full of hope as well as avoid a lifestyle of worrying, but let’s keep an eye on what is going on.

Market Data from RealQuest & Realist:

City of Folsom in Sacramento County

• Preforeclosure Properties: 296 (RealQuest) 186 (Realist)
• Auction Properties: 46 (RealQuest) 79 (Realist)
• Bank-Owned Properties: 158 (RealQuest) 262 (Realist)

City of Citrus Heights in Sacramento County

• Preforeclosure Properties: 309 (RealQuest) 435 (Realist)
• Auction Properties: 57 (RealQuest) 161 (Realist)
• Bank-Owned Properties: 134 (RealQuest) 330 (Realist)

City of Orangevale in Sacramento County

• Preforeclosure Properties: 136 (RealQuest) 145 (Realist)
• Auction Properties: 26 (RealQuest) 45 (Realist)
• Bank-Owned Properties: 126 (RealQuest) 128 (Realist)

City of Rancho Cordova in Sacramento County

• Preforeclosure Properties: 245 (RealQuest) 256 (Realist)
• Auction Properties: 32 (RealQuest) 107 (Realist)
• Bank-Owned Properties: 223 (RealQuest) 298 (Realist)

City of Fairfield in Solano County

• Preforeclosure Properties: 309 (RealQuest) 710 (Realist)
• Auction Properties: 51 (RealQuest) 283 (Realist)
• Bank-Owned Properties: 140 (RealQuest) 745 (Realist)

City of West Sacramento in Yolo County

• Preforeclosure Properties: 232 (RealQuest) 225 (Realist)
• Auction Properties: 109 (RealQuest) 114 (Realist)
• Bank-Owned Properties: 159 (RealQuest) 207 (Realist)

NOTE: The discrepancy in the data above would be very important to research and explain if the data was actually used in an appraisal report or to support value conclusions in any way. It is very important to use the best available data in an appraisal report because solid value must be based upon reliable information.

The data above was really provided as an FYI for those who may be interested. Since RealQuest provides a free service too, go spend a few minutes on their website, see what you can find, and draw your own conclusions about reliability.

If you have any questions or potential appraisal needs, please contact me at 916-595-3735 and www.lundquistcompany.com