It’s too early in 2011 to see what this year will hold for new construction, but I’ll admit I feel cautiously optimistic to at least begin to witness some sparks of home building in the Sacramento area. Whether a few new houses in Anatolia, Empire Ranch, Ironworks, The Islands at Riverlake (Pocket Area) or Serenity Cove in West Sacramento, it’s been nice to personally spot new houses being built or planned. After construction nearly dropped off the face of the earth in the Sacramento area over the past few years, it would be warmly welcome to see that trend turn around. 

The graph is based on data from the United States Census Bureau for the number of permits pulled for new construction of single family residential properties.

Unpacking the Comparison of Building Permits:

• It’s easy to see the very significant decline in building permits for both Sacramento County and Placer County over the past several years.
• The history of permits in both counties seems to follow the same pattern in terms of an increase from 2000-2005 and then a major decrease from 2005 onward.
• Sacramento County did have a much larger spike in production during the peak years. This makes sense when considering how many new subdivisions were built in Elk Grove, Rancho Cordova and pockets throughout the county.
• While Sacramento County had more building permits pulled than Placer County from 1994-2008, Placer County narrowly surpassed Sacramento County in both 2009 and 2010 in total number of permits. 

Where have you seen new construction lately in the Sacramento area? Where would you like to see it? What stands out to you about the graph? Will we see more permits pulled in 2011 than 2010?

If you have any real estate appraisal, consulting, or property tax appeal needs in the Greater Sacramento Region, contact me at 916.595.3735, by email, on our appraiser website or via Facebook.

I hit the jackpot yesterday when talking with a local realtor, and it ended up being a “two birds with one stone” situation. Here’s what happened.

Earlier in the day I emailed a Facebook Realtor friend and asked her if she ever sold a condo in a particular subdivision in the city of Folsom. There are ZERO recent condo sales in this subdivision in Empire Ranch, so I want to get as much firsthand information as possible. Well, my friend gave me a chunk of insight, but it turned out that she needed some help because she was having financing issues with one of her deals in the “Rivage” condo subdivision in Folsom.

Anyway, through the course of contacting listing agents for research for my appraisal, I talked with Realtor Ann Boswell of Insight Real Estate. I had never spoken with Ann before, but she ended up being a wealth of information for not only the subject subdivision, but for “Rivage” up the street. Ann spent a good 10-15 minutes on the phone with me (I love when Realtors take time like that. It’s good on so many levels). 

It turns out that since Rivage has not yet completed construction, some of the buildings are FHA approved and others are not. That could be an issue, don’t you think? It’s funny to think that despite these buildings being next door to each other in the same new development, some of them don’t make the cut (yet) to be guaranteed by HUD. More specifically, per HUD’s website, only buildings 1 and 13-26 are currently approved by HUD/FHA.

Two birds with one stone? One, I got insight into the subject subdivision. And Two, thanks to Ann Boswell I was able to resource my Facebook friend with information on Rivage and why her deal was maybe having some issues. But most of all, I was able to give my Facebook friend the name of someone at Wells Fargo who could help her get her condo on the HUD approved list.

You can search HERE to see the HUD/FHA approved condominium list.