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My last blog post in 2017, Bitcoin, & a big market update

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I started this blog almost nine years ago, and this is my last post for the year. After next week I’ll be lying low, enjoying family, doing some woodworking, staying on my diet (I’m down 30 pounds), and taking some time to get recharged. But first I have two things on my mind. 

Thank you: Thank you so much for hanging with me for another year. I cannot tell you how much I appreciate your support, friendship, comments, emails, insight, and the business you send my way. It might sound cheesy, but I get so much joy out of writing once a week and I’m grateful for you. It’s been a dynamic year for business too, and I honestly could not be doing this without your support. Here’s to continuing to grow together. Please don’t stop asking questions, pitching in thoughts, and challenging my thinking.

Big market stats: Secondly, if you’re looking for the latest market trends for Sacramento, you’ve come to the right place. Check it out below. 

From my family to yours, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.

–——-——- Big monthly market update (it’s long on purpose) ———–——-

The market is often dull during the fall, but that’s not the case this year. I mean, we’re definitely seeing slightly lower prices, it’s taking longer to sell, and sales volume is sloughing, so clearly the signs of a slower market are here. Yet this fall season isn’t really incredibly slow or painfully dull either.  

Sideways: Price metrics were more or less sideways last month, though some metrics either showed a slight uptick or a slight decline. Overall there wasn’t much change from the month before in terms of price, but it took an average of three days longer to sell. This November saw almost the same amount of sales as last November for the region. Housing inventory is slightly higher than the same time last year, but it’s still hovering at 1.60 months for the region – which is still low. In other words, the housing shortage didn’t go anywhere.

Bitcoin & Modest Appreciation: The rapid increase of Bitcoin has been the talk of town lately, and it’s also seemed to fuel some conversations about quickly rising values in real estate. I get the comparison, but we’re really not seeing Bitcoin type huge increases in real estate. In fact, this year in Sacramento values have seemed more modest in many price ranges, which means somewhere around 5-7% upticks. I realize “modest” in California would be huge in other areas of the country, but that’s not really the case on the west coast. Yet the bottom of the price market easily saw 10-15% increases in many areas of Sacramento. That’s not so modest.

Our “Bitcoin” real estate market in 2012 & 2013: The closest to rapid appreciation we’ve seen in Sacramento in recent years took place between 2012 and 2013 in which we saw price metrics change by 35-40% over the course of one year. During that time both real estate agents and appraisers said it wasn’t easy to keep up with how quickly prices were changing.

$7M Sale: Did you see the sale in Granite Bay that closed two days ago at $6.95M? What the? This is one of the highest residential sales ever in the Sacramento area. You can watch a video tour of it here. Also, that $4.1M condo listing Downtown has been pending since November. I don’t know what it’s in contract for yet, but let’s talk about it when it closes.

Rents: Sacramento made a list again on the fastest growing rents. Yardi Matrix reports a 9.1% uptick in rent year over year in November. Now if we can only get wages to grow by 9.1% too.

Price Sensitive: Lastly, the market may not be incredibly dull like it is during some fall seasons, but it’s still price sensitive. This means buyers are tending to be logical, well-informed, and often not so desperate as to offer any amount. My advice? Don’t just look to the high sales from the spring and summer. What is getting into contract right now? That will give you a good picture of the current market and a hint for how to price too (possibly lower than the height of spring / summer).

I could go on, but let’s get visual.

DOWNLOAD 69 graphs HERE: Please download all graphs in this post and more here as a zip file (includes a stat sheet too). See my sharing policy for 5 ways to share (please don’t copy verbatim).

SACRAMENTO COUNTY (more graphs & stats here):

SACRAMENTO COUNTY:

  1. The median price is currently $349,450. It’s the same as last month but down 1% from summer.
  2. The median price is 7.5% higher than the same time last year.
  3. Sales volume in November was 4.5% lower this year than 2016. There were 1354 single family detached sales last month.
  4. It took an average of 32 days to sell a home last month (one year ago it was taking 4 days longer).
  5. The median days on market last month was 18 days.
  6. It took 3 more days to sell in Nov. compared to October (median days).
  7. FHA sales were 20% of all sales last month in the county.
  8. Only 1.4% of sales last month were bank-owned & 0.9% were short sales.
  9. The avg price per sq ft was about $224, which increased last month (11% higher than last year).
  10. The avg sales price softened slightly last month and is currently $385,778. This is 10% higher than last year.
  11. Cash sales were 13% of all sales last month.

SACRAMENTO REGION (more graphs & stats here):

SACRAMENTO REGION:

  1. The median price is $389,000. It softened nearly 1% last month.  
  2. The median price is 9.5% higher than the same time last year.
  3. Sales volume in November was nearly the same as Nov 2016. There were 2220 single family detached sales last month.
  4. It took an average of 36 days to sell a home last month (one year ago it was taking 5 days longer).
  5. The median days on market last month was 19 days, which means properties are selling really quickly.
  6. The median days on market increased by 1 day last month, which shows a slowing in the market.  
  7. FHA sales were 17.2% of all sales last month.
  8. Only 1.5% of sales last month were bank-owned & 0.8% were short sales.
  9. The avg price per sq ft was about $230, which increased last month (10% higher than last year).
  10. The avg sales price increased less than 1% last month and is up 10% higher than last year.
  11. Cash sales were 14% of all sales last month.

PLACER COUNTY (more graphs & stats here):

PLACER COUNTY:

  1. The median price is currently $451,000 and decreased about 1% last month.
  2. The median price is 5.6% higher than the same time last year.
  3. Sales volume in November was 3.6% lower than 2016. There were 473 single family detached sales.
  4. It took an average of 40 days to sell a home last month (one year ago it was taking 9 days longer).
  5. The median days on market last month was 19 days, which means properties are selling really quickly.
  6. The median days on market deceased by 3 days last month (don’t read too much into that). 
  7. FHA sales were 12.6% of all sales.
  8. There were only 9 bank-owned sales last month and only 2 short sales.
  9. The avg price per sq ft was $236, which is slightly higher than last month (9% higher than last year).
  10. The avg sales price is currently $513,280. This is 6.8% higher than last year.
  11. Cash sales were 17% of all sales last month.

DOWNLOAD 69 graphs HERE: Please download all graphs in this post and more here as a zip file (includes a stat sheet too). See my sharing policy for 5 ways to share (please don’t copy verbatim).

Questions: What are you seeing out there in the market? Anything I missed? I’d love to hear your take.

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Six temptations to avoid when the market slows down

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At this time of year the weather begins to change, the kids are finally back in school, AND pumpkin spice lattes come back on the menu at Starbucks. Oh, and it’s normal for the real estate market to slow down.

sacramento real estate market- image purchased from 123rf and used with permission by sacramento appraisal blog

The Truth: Real estate is usually very seasonal, meaning the market heats up in the spring and begins to slow down later in the year. This is normal, and we know this intellectually, yet it’s still easy to freak out when properties start taking longer to sell or demand changes. This is why I hope this post will be relevant.

NOTE: There is a difference between a market being slow and showing signs of a seasonal slowing. 

Six temptations to avoid when the market slows down

  1. Freaking out: Just as we expect the weather to change during the fall, let’s expect real estate to change too. The public likes hearing positive news (“values are increasing”), so reporting a market slowing seems negative or anti-climatic, but it’s actually normal almost every single year (see this post and look at the fall graphs compared to the spring). On the positive side, a slower seasonal market might provide space for a vacation, relaxation, and most significantly an opportunity for the real estate community to communicate seasonal dynamics to clients. Of course when a market slows it’s not always easy to be self-employed since paychecks also slow. Yet when we start realizing the market slows during the end of the year, it helps us adjust our expectations and make plans for life and business. There has to be more to the last quarter of the year than being stressed until the market picks up again in the spring.  🙂
  2. Projecting the aggressive spring on summer: It’s easy to look back in time to a more aggressive market and want to price according to sales from the hot spring. But when the market has changed, be careful to look at values for what they are right now instead of projecting hotter seasonal trends of the recent past onto a fading summer or cool fall. This is just the same as not dressing for summer if it is winter (I do wear flip flops year round though). We have to do what makes sense for the current time.
  3. Putting too much weight on sales: Sales tell us what the market used to be like when the sales went into contract several months ago, but listings and pendings tell us what the current market is like right now. When values begin to soften during the fall, this makes it all the more important to look at listings / pendings instead of only sales. If the listings are priced at a similar level to recent sales, but not selling, this tells us the market has changed, and we might need to adjust our expectations (and prices). The same is true with the stock market. We wouldn’t use stock prices from three months ago as our gauge for today’s prices, but instead look at what stocks are actually selling for right now.
  4. Targeting that one magical buyer: We all want to attract the highest price ever, so it’s easy to hold out for that one cash buyer from outside the market who is going to pay more than anyone has ever paid. Yet we have to consider what the rest of the local market is willing to pay (this is what the appraiser is going to be considering too). If you lined up 100 buyers who are interested in the neighborhood, what is the most probable price most buyers would be willing to pay? That’s a good picture of what market value looks like.
  5. Refusing to reduce the list price: It can sting to reduce the list price, but if the price isn’t right, it’s time to change that, right? If you had something for sale on Craigslist and it wasn’t selling, would you keep the price the same? No, you’d change it if you really wanted to sell. How do you know if the price is wrong? If there aren’t any offers, you’re not “in the market”, but only “on the market” (Jay Papasan). An honest question: If the market is telling you to reduce the price, but you aren’t willing to do so, do you really want to sell?
  6. Not listening to your real estate agent: If you are an owner and your real estate agent keeps encouraging you to do something to the property or change the list price, but you’re not listening, ask yourself why you are not listening.

I hope this was helpful.

Social Media Podcast: By the way, a few weeks back I did a podcast with The Appraiser Coach on using social media. Here it is in case you want to give it a listen in the background. It’s geared toward appraisers, but there are probably relevant nuggets in there for anyone in the real estate community. Listen here or below.

Questions: What’s temptation #7? Did I miss anything? I’d love to hear your take.

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