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Sacramento Real Estate

Seven things to watch in real estate during a pandemic

April 14, 2020 By Ryan Lundquist 25 Comments

What’s the market doing? What can we watch right now to get a better sense of housing trends during the pandemic? Here are seven things I’m keeping my eyeballs on these days. Anything to add?

SEVEN THINGS I’M WATCHING DURING THE PANDEMIC

1) Listings: We often think about listings increasing as a way to see the market changing, but right now many markets across the country are seeing fewer new listings. So at times change is best seen with less of something rather than more. It’s not a surprise to see fewer new properties during a pandemic, right?

2) Pendings: When the number of pending contracts declines it’s likely a sign that buyers have begun to back off the market. Like many areas across the country, pendings are down 40% right now in the Sacramento region. There are simply fewer buyers willing to engage with the current market. Also, one of the things we want to watch is the gap between all listings and current pendings. If this gap widens it will soften prices and give buyers more power.

3) Sales volume: When fewer sales start to happen, it’s a sign the market has changed for some reason. This image below shows we are at the beginning stages of seeing sales volume dip due to the pandemic. In other words, the second week of April clearly saw FAR fewer sales compared to last year at the same time. From here on out it’s likely we’re going to see bigger changes in sales volume since many homes beginning to close got into contract over the past month during the pandemic.

4) Canceled / Hold: A market isn’t just about what is listed, but what used to be listed. There have been over 1,000 listings taken off the market in the Sacramento region over the past four weeks. The removal of these listings has helped the market feel much more balanced than had these listings still been active. Key questions: How many of these listings will come back? When will they hit the market? Will there be enough pent-up demand to meet the supply?

5) Word on the street: What are buyers, sellers, and real estate professionals saying? The stories of today become the stats of tomorrow, so paying attention to what people are saying is huge.

6) Other metrics: There isn’t one end-all metric to tell us everything we need to know about the market, so it’s important to pay attention to lots of little things such as days on market, changes in financing, the average list price, the sales to original list price ratio, price reductions, the number of multiple offers, changes in various price ranges, concessions offered by sellers, etc… Let’s remember the market isn’t going to be the same for every property type or in every price range or neighborhood.

7) Prices: In real estate we are so obsessed with prices, but that’s really the last place to look to see the market. What I mean is change happens first in the areas above before showing up in sales stats a couple months down the road. In short, for now the slower pandemic trend hasn’t infiltrated sales price figures as of yet in Sacramento. This doesn’t mean the market is stable in every price range and location. All I’m saying is regional and county stats don’t show price declines right now. Normally I pull monthly price data, but I’ve switched to weekly in order to see the trend sooner rather than later.

I hope that was helpful. And yeah, that was long. But hopefully it was worth digesting whether you’re local or not.

Okay, moving on.
 

A FEW RESOURCES:

New market video: Here is a fresh market update video. This is 30 minutes and perfect for the background while quarantining. Check it out below or here.

Q&A video: Here is a video I did recently with Doug Reynolds to talk about the market and appraisal stuff. I have many of these lined up and I’m glad to share them in the future. As a side note, I’m not an advocate for any brokerage and I’ll never take sides. I’ll do interviews with just about anyone as long as there is mutual respect and I have time to do so. I’ll share videos here only if the end-product is worth sharing.

Zoom with Grounded: I mentioned a Zoom meeting last week hosted by Grounded and some of you were able to join live (thank you). I have about four to five Zoom sessions per week these days, though most aren’t public. I look forward to doing these with many brokerages. Watch below or here.

BIG MARKET UPDATE (ON HOLD): I normally write a huge market update around this time of the month, but my entire life and social media feed has been one big market update lately. So I’m putting my typical format on pause so I can spend time on more pressing visuals.

I hope this was interesting or helpful. Thanks for being here.

Questions: What are you watching in today’s market? Did I miss anything?

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Filed Under: Market Trends Tagged With: coronavirus and real estate, COVID-19, Doug Reynolds, Grounded, listings, pandemic real estate market, prices, real estate metrics, Ryan Lundquist, Sacramento Appraisal Blog, Sacramento Real Estate, sales volume, what to watch during a pandemic

Not everything is getting multiple offers

October 2, 2019 By Ryan Lundquist 14 Comments

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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Filed Under: Market Trends Tagged With: Appraisal, appraisals, Appraiser, cooling housing market, current market, Home Appraiser, Market Trends, multiple offers, pendings, sacramento housing market, Sacramento Real Estate, softening market, stats

My blog is 10 years old today

February 20, 2019 By Ryan Lundquist 31 Comments

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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Filed Under: Random Stuff Tagged With: blogiversary, gratefulness, progress, Sacramento Appraisal Blog, Sacramento Real Estate, sacramento regional appraisal blog, ten years of blogging, thankful, things I've leaned about blogging

A recap of the Sacramento real estate market in 2016

January 11, 2017 By Ryan Lundquist 14 Comments

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.

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

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Filed Under: Market Trends Tagged With: Greater Sacramento Region, home appraisals, house appraisals, housing market in Sacramento, Placer County, real estate graphs, real estate market in 2016, recap of 2016, Sacramento County, Sacramento Real Estate, sactown, values in sacramento

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First off, thank you for being here. Now let's get into the fine print. The material and information contained on this website is the copyrighted property of Ryan Lundquist and Lundquist Appraisal Company. Content on this website may not be reproduced or republished without prior written permission from Ryan Lundquist.

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