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

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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