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Not everything is getting multiple offers

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Everything is getting multiple offers, right? Many sellers feel that way, but it’s just not true. Today let’s dive deeply into what is actually happening with multiple offers. I’m excited about this and I hope you like it too.

Non-locals: If you’re not local, would understanding more about multiple offers help you? Could you ask your MLS about including a “multiple offers” field? This is how I’ve been able to extract data like this for my market.

FIVE THINGS ABOUT MULTIPLE OFFERS

1) A rhythm of multiple offers: There is a rhythm to seeing multiple offers in the Sacramento region. There are more multiple offers in the spring and less as summer and fall unfold. This isn’t a huge surprise, but it’s cool to see on paper. If you wanted to know, 42% of sales last month had more than one offer (which is what I mean by “multiple offers”).

2) The market isn’t always hot: It’s tempting to talk about real estate like it’s always “hot”, but it’s not. Every year the market heats up and cools as you can see in the images below. But on top of a normal seasonal up and down dynamic we’re seeing price growth slow too. In other words, prices just haven’t been rising as fast as they used to. When it comes to multiple offers, we’re seeing fewer these days compared to the past couple years. This is such a good point for sellers to understand. The market isn’t what it used to be. It’s still very competitive if you’re priced right, but it’s not like it was in the heyday of 2013.

3) Sellers, you might just get one offer: It’s easy to think everything is getting multiple offers, but it’s not true. When looking at thousands of current pendings, 59% of homes have only one offer while 20% have two offers. Thus 79% of properties in contract right now have two offers or fewer. My advice? Price realistically for today and you might get a couple offers. But you might only get one. Oh, and if you overprice you likely won’t get any offers at all.

4) It’s more aggressive at lower prices: This won’t come as a shock, but we’re seeing more multiple offers at lower price points. Here’s a look at multiple offers among current pendings as well as recent sales. Keep in mind there aren’t many sales and pendings above $700,000, so I wouldn’t put too much weight on these categories showing a higher percentage.

5) Many layers to the onion: Looking at multiple offers is just one way to see what the market is doing. The truth is there are many layers of the onion when it comes to real estate data, which is why I advise looking to many different metrics to understand the market. In other words, it’s not just about multiple offers to me (but this is cool to see).

QUESTIONS:

How did I get this data? A few years ago our MLS started including fields for “multiple offers” and “number of offers”. I’ve been watching these metrics and reporting on them for the past year or so, but today I’ve taken it to the next level. 

Is this data reliable? I’ve had a few people question whether this data is reliable. Of course data is only good as the input by real estate agents and hopefully the truth is being told. Do some people fudge the numbers? Probably. But keep in mind we’re looking at thousands of sales and pendings, so a few outliers won’t sway the trend. Moreover, the bulk of pendings actually show just one offer, which helps support the notion of agent honesty. 

I hope this was interesting or helpful.

RECESSION PRESENTATION: I keep getting asked about home prices and a looming recession, so I put together a quick presentation to download.

BEER & HOUSING CONVERSATION: Do you want to hang out at Yolo Brewing? On Saturday October 5th from 2-5pm I’m co-hosting a get-together. Hope to see you there. Details here.

Questions: What stands out to you most about the images above? What are you seeing with multiple offers these days? I’d love to hear your take.

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My blog is 10 years old today

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It’s been ten years. I started this blog on February 20, 2009. I can’t believe it. The real estate market was way different then and so was my life. I have two things on my mind today.

1) THANK YOU

I’m so grateful for this past decade. I’ve had a blast and I’ve learned so much from our conversations through the years. I know it sounds dramatic, but my business and life have changed. My kids are now teenagers, my beard has way too much gray for my age, and I feel like I’m now surrounded with a tribe of such supportive people. Our conversations have led to many opportunities, weekly presentations in real estate offices, and doing the type of work I want to be doing. Thank you for adding joy to my life (that sounded way too Marie Kondo).

2) THINGS I’VE LEARNED ABOUT BLOGGING (AND LIFE)

1) Progress is impossible without effort: It’s impossible to make progress if you don’t put yourself out there. In other words, I wouldn’t be at ten years today without my first lame post.

2) You can’t please everyone: It’s impossible.

3) It’s not easy to be brief: Yep. Sorry. Nothing more to say about that.

4) Consistency: One of the most important things is being consistent. This is true for blogging and it’s true for anyone trying to reach others with a message. People say to me all the time, “I could never do what you do because I’m too busy.” I get it. But here’s the thing. We’ll never get results unless we commit to being consistent – no matter how busy we get.

5) Relationships: Ten years ago I started this blog as a way to earn business, and that definitely happened. But most of all I earned friendships.

Thank you for hanging with me for these years.

BLOG BASH: Just a reminder my wife and I are hosting a party at Yolo Brewing on Saturday March 2nd. It’s an excuse to get together and you’re invited. It’s okay if we’ve never met too. I’ll be buying the first 100 beers. Details here.

Question: What is one thing that is different about your life since 2009?

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A recap of the Sacramento real estate market in 2016

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High demand. Modest value increases. Price sensitive. Those are ways to describe the real estate market in 2016. Today let’s take a deep look into where the market went last year. This post is long on purpose. You can scan it quickly or pour a cup of coffee and spend some time here. If you aren’t in Sacramento, I hope you can still find some value. Do you see any parallels to your market? Any thoughts? 

P.S. I have some really cool year-in-review images. Please share.

13516718 - white wood texture with natural patterns

DOWNLOAD 76 graphs HERE: Please download all graphs in this post (and more) here as a zip file (including a one-page quick stat sheet). See my sharing policy for 5 ways to share (please don’t copy verbatim). Thanks.

A Market Rush: Overall prices saw a dip these past few months as the regional median price declined 4-5% from summer. This isn’t anything unexpected because it happens virtually every year. Just as there is a season for fishing, fashion, or television, there is also a season for real estate values. Granted, 2016 did have a more aggressive feel in that multiple offers were commonplace, it took an average of 7 less days to sell a home compared to last year, and inventory was sparse at best. In fact, the year closed with the strongest months of sales volume in the past 5 years for November / December. It’s as if there was a rush on the market from September through November that ended up beefing up these year-end stats. Why did sales volume increase? Some say it’s the power of Trump or the anticipation of a new political era. Or it could be buyers were expecting an increase in interest rates and wanted to get in before a rate hike. Or maybe it’s the byproduct of a fall that wasn’t all that dull and a market with strong demand. Or maybe it’s a combination of all or none of the above.  🙂

When looking at the entire year, most price metrics increased 7-9% and sales volume was up a modest 2% overall for the year. Remember, just because price metrics increased by 7-9% does not mean actual values increased by that much (we can talk about that more below if you wish). My sense is prices at lower levels saw larger increases than the middle and upper end of the market, which means a more aggressive bottom tends to create larger increases on paper. I say this because it’s easy to see the median price at 10.5% higher and say, “Values went up by 10.5% last year,” but that just isn’t true for the bulk of the market. On a related note, last week I mentioned trends to watch in 2017, and if I had to add one more thing I would say there could easily be a problem this year with overpricing homes because of so much focus on the market being “hot” without looking at actual data.

A few year-in-review images:

sacramento-county-year-in-review-blog-size

sacramento-region-year-in-review-blog-size

placer-county-year-in-review-blog-size

Sacramento County:

  1. The median price was $315,000 in December (6.5% above last December).
  2. Housing inventory is about 10% lower than it was last December.
  3. Sales volume was 7% lower this December compared to last December, but this year and last were higher than 2012, 2013, and 2014.
  4. It took 3 days longer to sell a house last month compared to November. 
  5. One year ago in December it was taking 4 days longer to sell.
  6. FHA sales volume is down 6% this year compared to 2015 (but 25% of all sales this year were FHA).
  7. Cash sales are down 11% this year (they were 13% of all sales last month).
  8. The average price per sq ft was $202 last month (about the same as November, but 7.5% higher than last year).
  9. The average sales price at $343,670 is down about 4% from the height of summer (but is 6% higher than last year).
  10. When looking at the entire year in Sacramento County it took 33 days on average to sell a home this year.

A few images to show the bottom and top of the market:

all-residential-sales-in-sacramento-county-by-sacramento-appraisal-blog

all-residential-sales-under-100k-in-sacramento-county-by-sacramento-appraisal-blog

all-residential-sales-under-100k-in-2016-in-sacramento-county-by-sacramento-appraisal-blog

million-dollar-market-in-sacramento-county-by-sacramento-appraisal-blog

Some of my favorite images this month:

cdom-in-sacramento-county-by-sacramento-regional-appraisal-blog interest-rates-since-2008 inventory-december-2016-by-home-appraiser-blog median-price-context-in-sacramento-county price-metrics-since-2015-in-sacramento-county-look-at-all

SACRAMENTO REGIONAL MARKET:

  1. The median price was $350,000 in December (7% above last December).
  2. It took 3 days longer to sell compared to the previous month (but 4 less days compared to December 2015).
  3. Sales volume was about 1% lower this December compared to last year.
  4. FHA sales volume is down 6% this year compared to last year. 
  5. Cash sales are down 8% this year compared to last year.
  6. Cash sales were 14.4% of all sales last month.
  7. The average price per sq ft was $208 last month. That’s down about 1% from the height of summer and 8% higher than last year.
  8. FHA sales were 22% of all sales in the region last month.
  9. The average sales price was $387,915 in December. It’s down about 5% from the height of summer but 8% higher than last year.
  10. When looking at the entire year in the region it took 37 days on average to sell a home this year.

Some of my favorite images this month:

median-price-sacramento-placer-yolo-el-dorado-county

regional-inventory-by-sacramento-regional-appraisal-blog

sacramento-region-volume-fha-and-conventional-by-appraiser-blog

inventory-in-sacramento-regional-market

days-on-market-in-placer-sac-el-dorado-yolo-county-by-sacramento-appraisal-blog

PLACER COUNTY:

  1. The median price was $423,925 in December (7% above last December).
  2. It took 2 less days to sell compared to the previous month (but 9 less days compared to December 2015).
  3. Sales volume was about 1% lower this December compared to last year.
  4. FHA sales volume is down 11% this year compared to last year (FHA sales were 18% of all sales in Placer County last month).
  5. Cash sales are down a mere 1% this year compared to last year.
  6. Cash sales were 16% of all sales last month.
  7. The average price per sq ft was $216 last month, which is about as high as it’s been all year (about 8% higher than last year).
  8. REOs were 1.5% and short sales were 1.8% of all sales in Placer County.
  9. The average sales price was $472,130 in December. It’s down about 2% from the height of summer but about 9.5% higher than last year.
  10. When looking at the entire year in Placer County it took 42 days on average to sell a home this year.

Some of my favorite images this month:

regional-market-median-price-by-home-appraiser-blog

months-of-housing-inventory-in-placer-county-by-sacramento-appraisal-blog

placer-county-price-and-inventory-by-sacramento-appraisal-blog

placer-county-sales-volume-by-sacramento-appraisal-blog

days-on-market-in-placer-county-by-sacramento-appraisal-blog

DOWNLOAD 76 graphs HERE: Please download all graphs in this post (and more) here as a zip file (including a one-page quick stat sheet). See my sharing policy for 5 ways to share (please don’t copy verbatim). Thanks.

Questions: Did I miss anything? What are you seeing out there? How would you describe the market? I’d love to hear your take.

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Predictions, Trump’s impact on real estate, and a Sacramento market update

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I reached the point of political exhaustion last week in a big way. This doesn’t mean I’m tuned out, but right now I find myself glossing over Facebook rants or skimming certain conversations because they’re only going lead to arguments. Yet still I hoped we could chat briefly about politics and real estate – without unfriending each other. Then let’s take a deep look at the Sacramento market. Any thoughts?

18345737 - the white house, view from the south, home of the president of the united states of america in washington dc usa

Huge Data Fail & Predicting Real Estate: The media laid an egg when it came to predicting the presidency. In fact, it seemed like many political pundits were shell-shocked when election results were coming in contrary to their predictions that Hillary would win. I don’t mention this so we can argue, but only to remind us of the danger of predicting, being wrong, and then having pie on your face (losing credibility). If some of the best political minds in America couldn’t predict the outcome of the presidential race, can we really predict the future of the real estate market with certainty?

Trump Presidency and Newlyweds: I’ve been asked a couple of times this week how a Trump presidency has impacted real estate so far. My answer is simple. Imagine asking a newlywed couple after one week of marriage to tell us how their marriage is going. It’s only been a week though. We probably need more time to really know how married life is going to unfold. The same holds true with Trump’s impact on real estate. We haven’t had enough time to see waves in the market yet, and nobody really knows how his policies will affect housing. There are many predictions right now, especially about repealing Dodd-Frank, but those are only guesses (see paragraph above).

Any thoughts?

—-—–—– And here’s my big monthly market update  ———–—–

big-monthly-market-update-post-sacramento-appraisal-blog-image-purchased-from-123rfTwo ways to read the BIG POST:

  1. Scan the talking points and graphs quickly.
  2. Grab a cup of coffee and spend time digesting what is here.

DOWNLOAD 71 graphs HERE: Please download all graphs in this post (and more) here as a zip file. Use them for study, for your newsletter, or some on your blog. See my sharing policy for 5 ways to share (please don’t copy verbatim). Thanks.

NEW: I created a one-page market sheet to print and keep handy when talking about real estate. I figured it might be helpful to use while talking on the phone. I’m not sold on the look, but is this a step in the right direction? Download here.

Quick Market Summary: A brutal election season has ended (thank God), and many Americans feel worn out, but the market doesn’t feel that tired. The truth is when we look at the stats we are seeing about what we’d expect at this time of year. Ultimately prices are down 1-3% from the height of summer, it took two days longer to sell a house last month, and inventory is down 14% in the region from last year. It’s easy to see softer stats and assume the market is beginning to crash, but the market softens like this almost every single year (besides 2012 when Blackstone and friends gutted the market and we didn’t have a normal fall season). I’m not saying values are not inflated, affordability isn’t becoming more of a factor, or even the market won’t turn at some point, but only that things feel fairly normal right now for the season. Sales volume has been strong this year in Sacramento and is up slightly from last year despite cash and FHA volume both dropping by 7-8%. Inventory is anemic and there really isn’t a quick solution to deal with that problem, but buyers are still finicky about price despite very few homes being listed on the market. Sellers don’t get this, so they try to command whatever price they want, but that rarely works in this market. Keep in mind buyers are scouring Zillow and Redfin every single day, they are visiting properties with their agent, they are getting beat out on other homes, and they are often looking for MANY months before getting a contract accepted. Sellers frankly are not doing anywhere near this level of research, which is one reason sellers are less in tune with proper pricing. Check out specific stats and graphs below for Sacramento County, the Sacramento Region, & Placer County.

Sacramento County:

  1. The median price is $320,000 and is down a few percent from the height of summer, but it’s 10% higher than last year.
  2. The average price per sq ft was $202 last month (down 1% from a few months ago, but 8.5% higher than last year).
  3. There were only 38 short sales and 31 REOs in the county last month.
  4. Sales volume was 5% higher this October compared to October 2015.
  5. It took 3 days longer to sell a house last month compared to the previous month (one year ago it was taking 5 days longer to sell).
  6. Sales volume is up slightly this year compared to last year (1% or so).
  7. FHA sales volume is down 7% this year compared to 2015 (25% of all sales were FHA last month).
  8. Cash sales are down 8.5% this year (they were 12% of all sales last month).
  9. Housing inventory is 12% lower than the same time last year.
  10. The average sales price at $353,000 is down about 1% from the height of summer (but is 9% higher than last year).

Some of my Favorite Graphs this Month:

median-price-since-2013-in-sacramento-county

inventory-in-sacramento-county-since-2013-part-2-by-sacramento-appraisal-blog

inventory-september-2016-by-home-appraiser-blog

cdom-in-sacramento-county-by-sacramento-regional-appraisal-blog

price-metrics-since-2015-in-sacramento-county-look-at-all

sales-volume-in-sacramento-county-since-2012

seasonal-market-in-sacramento-county-sales-volume-6

seasonal-market-in-sacramento-county-inventory-4

seasonal-market-in-sacramento-county-4

SACRAMENTO REGIONAL MARKET:

  1. The median price was $357,000 in October. It went up slightly from September but is down 3% from the height of summer (up 9% from last year).
  2. The average price per sq ft was $208 last month. That’s down about 1% from the height of summer and 7% higher than last year.
  3. It took 2 days longer to sell compared to the previous month (but 5 less days compared to October 2015).
  4. Sales volume was 4% higher this October compared to October 2015.
  5. FHA sales volume is down 8% this year compared to last year.
  6. Cash sales were 13.5% of all sales last month (FHA sales were 21%).
  7. Cash sales are down 7% this year compared to last year.
  8. Housing inventory is 14% lower than the same time last year.
  9. REOs were 1.8% and short sales were 2% of all sales last month.
  10. The average sales price was $393,000 in October. It’s down about 3% from the height of summer but 8% higher than last year.

Some of my Favorite Regional Graphs:

median-price-sacramento-placer-yolo-el-dorado-county

sacramento-region-volume-fha-and-conventional-by-appraiser-blog

inventory-in-sacramento-regional-market

regional-inventory-by-sacramento-regional-appraisal-blog

days-on-market-in-placer-sac-el-dorado-yolo-county-by-sacramento-appraisal-blog

regional-market-median-price-by-home-appraiser-blog

PLACER COUNTY:

  1. The median price was $438,000 last month (highest point of year, but take that with a grain of salt).
  2. The average price per sq ft was $213 last month (down very slightly from the height of summer and up 6% higher than last year).
  3. It took 41 days to sell last month (same as previous month but 6 days less than one year ago).
  4. Sales volume was about 3% lower this October compared to October 2015.
  5. FHA sales volume is down 16% this year compared to last year.
  6. Cash sales were 17% of all sales last month (FHA sales were 13%).
  7. Cash sales are down 3.6% this year compared to last year.
  8. Housing inventory is 13% lower than the same time last year.
  9. Both REOs and short sales were each 1% of sales last month.
  10. The average sales price was $481,000 and is 8.5% higher than last year.

Some of my Favorite Placer County Graphs:

placer-county-sales-volume-by-sacramento-appraisal-blog

inventory-in-sacramento-regional-market

days-on-market-in-placer-county-by-sacramento-appraisal-blog

months-of-housing-inventory-in-placer-county-by-sacramento-appraisal-blog

number-of-listings-in-placer-county-2016

interest-rates-inventory-median-price-in-placer-county-by-sacramento-appraisal-blog

placer-county-price-and-inventory-by-sacramento-appraisal-blog

DOWNLOAD 71 graphs HERE: Please download all graphs in this post (and more) here as a zip file. Use them for study, for your newsletter, or some on your blog. See my sharing policy for 5 ways to share (please don’t copy verbatim). Thanks.

Questions: Did I miss anything? What impact do you think Trump will have for the real estate market (if any)? What are you seeing out there? I’d love to hear your take.

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