Do you know someone looking for a job or maybe a person who has had a huge change in income over the past few years? Chances are you do, especially if you live in the Sacramento Region. The economy has been limping along in Sacramento and this graph (resembling a wave) gives some insight into part of the struggle – unemployment. It’s incredible to see the exponential increase in unemployment rates over the past five years.

How does the graph below strike you?

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.

Imagine you were hired to investigate a community and report on what the community is like based on information you can find online. Put your Magnum P.I. thinking cap on. What websites would you bookmark for research? What resources are available to give insight into the DNA of a neighborhood?

Maybe you’d interrogate the usual suspects like Megan’s Law, City-Data, Great Schools or Zillow among others I mentioned in a previous post. But what about the following ones? Would these be helpful to understand a community?

1) Unemployment Rates: EDD posts current and historical unemployment rates for cities and census designated places in California.

2) FBI Uniform Crime Report: This website lists all offenses reported to law enforcement (categorized by state and cities with 100,000 or more in population).

3) Nuclear Power Plants in United States: In case you wondered if there was a nuclear power plant near your house, check out the “Nukes Near Me” website.

4) Superfund Directory: Find out which sites near you are categorized as “Superfund” sites by the EPA. Search by state, congressional district or site name.

5) DEA National ”Drug Lab” Register: This website by the U.S. Department of Justice contains addresses of some locations where law enforcement agencies reported they found chemicals or other items that indicated the presence of either clandestine drug laboratories or dumpsites (verbatim from website).

I definitely don’t have a P.I. designation, thick 80s mustache or red Ferrari, but my job as a real estate appraiser in Sacramento does have striking similarity with Tom Selleck. Okay, maybe that’s wishful thinking. I suppose it’s hardly similar, but the nature of real estate research does involve investigation and require information from some of the sources above, interviews with local agents and expertise to sift through and interpret often conflicting market data. There is so much that goes into really knowing the local real estate market.

What websites would you add to the list?

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 or subscribe to posts by email.

How is unemployment doing in the Greater Sacramento Region? Have a look below at Sacramento County and ten surrounding counties. Data from EDD - December 2010.

What stands out to you about these rates? 

12.7%    El Dorado County
20.1%    Merced County
11.2%    Nevada County
11.2%    Placer County
12.6%    Sacramento County
18.0%    San Joaquin County
12.1%    Solano County
17.6%    Stanislaus County
21.5%    Sutter County
14.3%    Yolo County
19.4%    Yuba County

If you have any real estate appraisal, valuation consulting, or property tax appeal needs, contact me at 916.595.3735, www.LundquistCompany.com or via Facebook.

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.

EDD finally posted January 2010 unemployment rates. They typically get new data on their website about 20 days into the next month (for the previous month), but this time around they took quite a bit longer. Maybe they didn’t want to release discouraging numbers (just kidding). Actually, they have a new schedule posted HERE in case you’re interested.

The graph to the right was taken from the EDD website. It looks like California is not doing too well compared with the rest of the United States. When looking at the graph or the data below, what stands out to you? Does anything surprise you? In Sacramento County, Gold River has the lowest unemployment rate at 2.6% and Walnut Grove takes home the top rate at 30.5%. These two have actually been bookends on the unemployment rate spectrum for quite some time. Overall Sacramento County has an unemployment rate of 13.10% as of January 2010.

What strikes you about the information above? How do you think unemployment influences the real estate market?

What are the latest unemployment figures for San Joaquin County and El Dorado County? Below you will find the latest rates for all cities and CDPs from October 2009 based on information provided by EDD. Unemployment rates for Sacramento County & Placer County, and Yolo County, Solano County & Merced County are also available. These are all areas I appraise in, so I keep a close eye on unemployment each month.

It’s interesting to hear so much on the news about how the economy is improving, yet one glance at unemployment seems to indicate that things are not so hot. Or is that just me?

www.SacramentoAppraisalBlog.com Unemployment Rates in El Dorado County & San Joaquin County

What are the latest unemployment figures for Yolo County, Solano County and Merced County? Below you will find the latest rates for all cities and CDPs from October 2009 based on information provided by EDD. Unemployment rates for Sacramento County & Placer County, and San Joaquin & El Dorado County are also available. These are all areas I appraise in, so I keep a close eye on unemployment each month.

What do you see? Does anything stand out to you or surprise you? There are some fairly high levels of unemployment in each county, aren’t there, particularly Merced County?

www.SacramentoAppraisalBlog.com Unemployment Rates in Yolo County, Solano County & Merced County: October 2009

Quick data. Here are unemployment rates for all cities and CDPs in Sacramento County and Placer County for October 2009. This data is based upon information provided by EDD. Unemployment rates for Yolo County, Merced County & Solano County and San Joaquin & El Dorado County are also available. These are all areas I appraise in, so I keep a close eye on unemployment each month.

What do you see? Does anything stand out to you or surprise you?  

www.SacramentoAppraisalBlog.com October 2009 Unemployment Rates in Sacramento & Placer County

Here are the most recent figures for unemployment in Sacramento County as of July 2009 per the Employment Development Department. The figures below consider both cities and Census Designated Places (CDP) for July 2009 (also compared with May and June 2009). Data for August 2009 has not yet been released (wait about one month for that). 

As of July 2009, Sacramento County as a whole has an unemployment rate of 12.0% ( June was 11.6% and May 2009 was 11.1%). The State of California has an 11.9% unemployment rate (up from 11.6% in May & June 2009). I also posted data for Placer County HERE in case that is of interest to you.

What do you notice about the data below? Does anything stand out to you or surprise you?

Arden Arcade CDP  11.7%  (June 2009 11.4%)  (May 2009 was 10.8%)

Carmichael CDP  8.9%  (June 2009 8.7%)  ( May 2009 was 8.2%)

Citrus Heights city  8.5%  (June 2009 8.3%)  ( May 2009 was 7.8%)

Elk Grove CDP  9.8%  (June 2009 9.6%)  (May 2009 was 9.0%)

Fair Oaks CDP  6.7%  (June 2009 6.6%)  (May 2009 was 6.2%)

Florin CDP  17.9  (June 2009 17.6%)  (May 2009 was 16.7%)

Folsom city  5.5%  (June 2009 5.4%)  (May 2009 was 5.1%)

Foothill Farms CDP  15.3%  (June 2009 15.0%)  (May 2009 was 14.2%)

Galt city  18.1%  (June 2009 17.8%)  (May 2009 was 16.9%)

Gold River CDP  2.0%  (June 2009 2.0%)  (May 2009 was 1.9%)

Isleton city  12.9%  (June 2009 12.5%)  (May 2009 was 11.8%)

La Riviera CDP  6.6%  (June 2009 6.5%)  (May 2009 was 6.1%)

Laguna CDP  6.2%  (June 2009 6.1%)  (May 2009 was 5.8%)

Laguna West Lakeside CDP  8.1%  (June 2009 8.0%)  (May 2009 was 7.5%)

North Highlands CDP  17.6%  (June 2009 17.3%)  (May 2009 was 16.4%)

Orangevale CDP  8.6%  (June 2009 8.5%)  (May 2009 was 8.0%)

Parkway South Sacramento CDP  20.0%  (June 2009 19.7%)  (May 2009 was 18.7%)

Rancho Cordova City  13.8%  (June 2009 13.5%)  (May 2009 was 12.8%)

Rancho Murieta CDP  3.7%  (June 2009 3.7%)  (May 2009 was 3.5%)

Rio Linda CDP  17.5%  (June 2009 17.2%)  (May 2009 was 16.3%)

Rosemont CDP  9.5%  (June 2009 9.3%)  (May 2009 was 8.8%)

Sacramento city  14.1%  (June 2009 13.8%)  (May 2009 was 13.1%)

Vineyard CDP  5.6%  (June 2009 5.5%)  (May 2009 was 5.2%)

Walnut Grove CDP  26.2%  (June 2009 25.6%)  (May 2009 was 24.5%)

Wilton CDP  7.4%  (June 2009 7.2%)  (May 2009 was 6.8%)

As you can see, the only city or CDP (Census Designated Place) above that was without an increase in overall unemployment numbers from June to July 2009 was Gold River. If there was a prize for lowest unemployment rate in Sacramento County, Gold River would be the winner at 2.0%. On the other end of the spectrum, Walnut Grove has the highest unemployment rate in Sacramento County at 26.2%.

Let me know if you have any questions about the latest figures and how unemployment impacts the local real estate market. You are welcome to call 916-595-3735 or visit our company website at www.lundquistcompany.com

www.SacramentoAppraisalBlog.com Unemployment Rates in Sacramento County Over the Past Three Months: May, June & July 2009

Here are the most recent figures for unemployment in Placer County as of July 2009 per the Employment Development Department. The figures below consider both cities and Census Designated Places (CDP). Placer County as a whole has an unemployment rate of 11.4% (11.4% in June 2009 and 10.9% in May 2009). For reference, Sacramento County’s July unemployment rate is 12.0% (11.6% in June 2009 and 11.1% in May 2009).

It’s interesting to note that while the unemployment rate in Placer County went up in every city and CDP from May to June 2009, we see that 10 of 14 cities/places below had no change at all from June 2009 to July 2009. I also posted some data for Sacramento County HERE. 

Auburn city  9.5%  (June 2009 9.4%)  (9.0% in May 2009)

Colfax city  15.2%  (June 2009 15.2%)  (14.5% in May 2009)

Dollar Point CDP  13.5%  (June 2009 13.5%)  (12.9% in May 2009)

Foresthill CDP  17.4%  (June 2009 17.3%)  (16.7% in May 2009)

Granite Bay CDP  7.7%  (June 2009 7.7%)  (7.3% in May 2009)

Kings Beach CDP  11.2%  (June 2009 11.1%)  (10.6% in May 2009)

Lincoln city  20.1%  (June 2009 20.0%)  (19.3% in May 2009)

Loomis town  7.2%  (June 2009 7.2%)  (6.9% in May 2009)

Meadow Vista CDP  11.0%  (June 2009 11.0%)  (10.5% in May 2009)

North Auburn CDP  14.6%  (June 2009 14.6%)  (14.0% in May 2009)

Rocklin city  7.9%  (June 2009 7.9%)  (7.5% in May 2009)

Roseville city  11.4%  (June 2009 11.4%)  (10.9% in May 2009)

Sunnyside Tahoe City CDP  11.5%  (June 2009 11.5%)  (11.0% in May 2009)

Tahoe Vista CDP  17.8%  (June 2009 17.8%)  (17.1% in May 2009)

Feel free to give me a call at 916-595-3735 or shoot me an email at info@lundquistcompany.com if you have any questions about the figures above, the impact of unemployment on the real estate market or any potential real estate appraisal needs. Figures for August 2009 have not yet been released by EDD, but I’ll put up another post very soon when the data becomes available.

www.SacramentoAppraisalBlog.com Unemployment Rates in Placer County Over the Past Three Months: May 2009, June 2009 & July 2009