The housing market starts to heat up more after the Super Bowl. It’s just that time of year where we start to feel the spring real estate season emerge a little more. Let me show you what I mean. I also have some new recap visuals, and I really want your feedback.
UPCOMING SPEAKING GIGS:
2/12/26 Answer Home Loans Event at PCAR (register)
2/20/26 PCAR
2/26/26 NAPRM Luncheon
3/4/26 Nick Sadek Sotheby’s International Realty (private)
3/12/26 Made 4 More
3/19/26 Yolo YPN event
3/25/26 Coldwell Banker EDH
4/9/26 Realtist Association of Sacramento
4/14/26 Culbertson & Gray
6/3/26 Wisdom Wednesday in Elk Grove
10/2/26 PCAR
HIGHEST DAY OF PENDINGS AFTER THE SUPER BOWL
Here’s a look at the number of daily pending contracts in the Sacramento region so far in 2026, and check out the progression of growing demand from January. We had the highest Monday of pending contracts the day after the Super Bowl too.
25% MORE PENDINGS BETWEEN FEBRUARY AND MARCH
It’s really March where we notice a bigger change with the spring season really waking up, but we do get a little more demand in February. We historically see 25% more pending contracts in the Sacramento region between February and March.
HIGHEST WEDNESDAY OF NEW LISTINGS AFTER THE SUPER BOWL
The number of new listings is starting to pick up. Things will really pick up in March, but we are seeing expected movement in February so far. Check out how the highest Tuesday and Wednesday of new listings took place just after the Super Bowl. The hope this month is to see sellers continue to come back to the market after so many backed off last year.
This is pretty much what it feels like to work in real estate right now. The market is still waking up, but real estate pros are ready to go.
A BIG INCREASE IS COMING IN MARCH
The housing market will hit more of its stride in March, but we are seeing signs of waking up already (as expected). Between February and March, we typically see a 31% increase in the number of new listings in the Sacramento region. This makes sense, right? The weather improves, summer is getting closer, and plans start to unfold more for the year.
And here’s an image to share on social media if you want. This one went viral for me on my socials this week. I think many real estate pros want to share stuff like this to get their clients ready for the game.
MY SPREADSHEET UPDATE (PRETTY MUCH READY)
A few months back, I talked about doing some training on a new spreadsheet, and I’m ready to do that. I thought I might be launching this by Thanksgiving, but life has been too full. Anyway, I’ll share more details soon about what the spreadsheet does and what it looks like. I’m actually training someone tomorrow. The goal is to put stats in people’s hands and empower people to learn how to export data from MLS to make instant charts. This is something I will charge for, and we can spend a couple of hours together to help you advance as a stats Jedi.
Now, for anyone interested, let’s look at the latest stats.
IT WAS A PRETTY TAME JANUARY
There is so much excitement about housing right now, but January was pretty tame with the number of sales being down nine percent in the region. Keep in mind, closed sales in January tell us about what got into contract in December, so we’re not looking at January stats to say much about the spring. We’ll start to see 2026 spring vibes much more in March numbers. Still though, the housing narrative has felt a little hotter than the market so far in 2026, whether we’re looking at closed sales in January or the number of pendings so far this year. I do think the market has gotten tighter though as I wrote about last week. It just hasn’t been an explosive liftoff.
NOTE: This is a brand-new format. What works? What doesn’t? Is there anything else you’d like to see? Get your red pen out and please critique anything to help these images improve.
CRAZY STATS (PLEASE READ): Smaller counties have wonky stats. I don’t normally share year-over-year stats for some of these areas, and I might change that ahead. Remember, the numbers can be all over the place if there aren’t that many sales. AND sometimes a big change has to do with the size of properties selling (Stanislaus County is a perfect example).
El Dorado is truly wonky this month. The wrong narrative is to say, “The market is up by 20%.” This is the problem with having about one hundred sales that can vary from acreage to super high end.
Check out the 10% size difference this year in Stanislaus. Can that make a difference in the price stats when larger and more expensive homes sell? Yes, it can. This is why I include square footage on my visuals.
Nevada County is another example of not enough sales. I usually compare this county in sixty-day chunks, and I’ll likely go back to that. Month to month is just too wonky. The wrong narrative is that prices are up 9%. 
Anyway, I have so much stuff to share in coming weeks. Let’s stay in touch, and please keep me posted with what you’re seeing out there.
Thanks for being here.
Questions: What stands out to you above? What are you seeing out there in the trenches right now? I’d love to hear your take.
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Hey Ryan,
I ran into the same issue with compositional effects (changes in the homes sold over time) in Dixon and will break it down in the next couple of days on my blog. One thing to consider for the smaller counties is publishing scatter graphs showing all sales and trendlines. This type of approach helps me to understand things better when the homes sold are more variable than in the larger counties.
Thanks as always for your hard work putting this together. Your monthly stats are a benchmark for the region.
Thanks, Joe. Yeah, I’ve been focused on 60 or even 90-day market chunks for some of the smaller areas. I actually like to show both in presentations to show the problem with data. Yet, I also like sharing some of the other monthly data beyond what’s happening with prices, so I’m always torn with what to share. I think you’re right about scatter graphs too. For some of these smaller counties, I may go back to bigger chunks. But even then, sometimes the stats can be way off, so there is no way around it. This is where one visual isn’t going to tell us everything we need to know. For instance, El Dorado is up by 20% this month, which is ridiculous, but it’s been incredibly erratic over the past six months where it will be up one month and then down the next.
I appreciate the kind words. The more I’ve delving into price trends in a low-volume market, I find myself supplementing with various price indexes too. The median and average aren’t enough today (but sometimes they are spot on also).
You’re lucky to be in markets with lots of sales instead of dealing with places like Yolo County where it’s challenging to figure out what’s going on at times. Colusa County is even worse.
Yeah, I can only imagine. Even in the ‘burbs, there isn’t as much data as usual. I find to see the trend I’m having to get pretty creative and dig into adjacent areas and even the ZIP code to try to better visualize the market. These are interesting times. It won’t always be a low-volume market but it’s going to be that way for a while ahead for sure.
On a related note, I think one of the questions I’m getting the most right now is about comp selection. How far back do you go? Can you use comps that are a year old? Heck yes. Granted, FHA wants comps within twelve months, but in today’s market, we might have to use a combination of some newer stuff and some older stuff. I realize lenders might freak if there are too many older sales, but sometimes there just isn’t much better. I’m finding sometimes a sale will be a couple years old and the market is exactly the same value too (could be a little lower or a little higher too).
I get the comps question all the time. I start with 12 months back which surprises most real estate agents. For Yolo County acreage properties, I’m going back two years on a consistent basis now-there’s so little data to work with. And it’s true in the subdivisions too. Every appraisal is harder than three or four years ago because of the lack of sales.
I find the same thing. People are like, “wait, I can start with 12 months?” I think the expectation at times is that comps need to be within 90 days or 180 days at most. Part of this has been bred from lenders, but it doesn’t work today.
Thank you for the update as usual. I’m excited for spring in more ways than one.
Thanks, Gary. Man, I’m so glad we have more daylight. I’m optimistic about some things in the housing market, but I’m just glad we are getting more light. 🙂 (and sorry if that’s not the vibe in Portland).