What are home prices doing? It depends.

What are home prices doing? Are they up, down, or sideways? Well, it can be tricky to tell sometimes, especially when there aren’t that many sales. Today, I want to share some of the ways I’m looking at prices to try to make sense of things, and I hope this will be helpful, whether you’re local or not. Skim by topic or digest slowly. 

UPCOMING SPEAKING GIGS:

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
4/22/26 EDCAR
4/28/26 PCAR Rocklin
5/7/26 Empire State of Mind
5/15/26 Nevada County TBA
6/3/26 Wisdom Wednesday in Elk Grove
8/6/26 PCAR Auburn
10/2/26 PCAR Rocklin

TRADITIONAL METRICS MIGHT NOT BE ENOUGH TODAY

We’re missing about 30% of the normal number of sales today, which is true locally and nationally. As a result, traditional price stats like the median and average can bounce around even more than usual. This is why I’ve been talking more about various price indexes such as the ones below. A price index tries to control for differences in quality or size, so sometimes an index might give us a better reading of price movement (not always). The hard part is there are only so many publicly available price indexes for a given metro area. I’m not interested in a national index. What do various sources show for just Sacramento? That’s the key.

Locally, there are a number of indexes below that are actually pretty similar to the median and average right now, but that’s not true for individual counties (see below). In general, if someone said prices were down 2.0% to 2.5% this year in the region, that’s backed up by quite a few metrics. 

PEOPLE HAVE THEIR PET METRICS

As a guy who has talked about housing online for about two decades, I can say that people like what they like. So, some folks are cool with the median, others say it’s all about Case-Shiller, or they prefer something else. People sometimes say it must be a repeat sales index (Freddie Mac is one). I find when I share Zillow’s price index though, I get some pushback because many people simply hate Zillow (I get it). Lastly, some real estate professionals are median sales price haters for one reason or another. In short, it’s a mixed bag, and it seems people gravitate toward what they think works or maybe what they were taught.

THERE IS NO PERFECT METRIC

Most of the metrics above are pretty close to each other right now, but I don’t look at any as being the perfect end-all stat since no metric will perfectly represent what is happening in every single price range and location within a local market. So, a metric might suggest prices are down 2%, but when pulling comps, we might not see that in all price ranges and locations at the same time. There could be a real difference between entry-level homes and the high-end, right? 

WEIGH THE METRICS OVER TIME

When looking at different metrics, my advice is to weigh them for credibility, and keep doing that over time. Which ones seem like they are getting it right? Are some of them more conservative than others? Is there any metric that just seems wrong? Keep in mind, some price indexes might do a good job in certain areas while blowing it in others. The same is true with the median sales price as it might do a great job reflecting some price ranges, but then not be so good in others.

BRO, PRICES ARE NOT UP BY 20% (A REAL EXAMPLE)

Here’s a real-life example of the problem with price stats in a smaller local county. The last thing we should do is walk away saying that prices are up 20% this year in El Dorado. My advice? Be careful of the median price (or any price metric) in a small county. Being up 20% all of the sudden sounds super aggressive, but this is about a small sample size. Not the market.

TRY COMPARING SMALLER & LARGER AREAS

If you’re in a smaller area, maybe pair it with a nearby larger area to see if the month-to-month trend can be seen a bit better. Locally, I find the trend in El Dorado to be very similar to our largest local county in Sacramento. This isn’t a perfect way to see the market, but I’d say looking to Sacramento helps us interpret the trend a bit better since El Dorado can be manic from month to month (small county vibes). This also reinforces the idea that all ships rise and fall with the tide. 

DON’T GET STUCK ON JUST ONE MONTH OF DATA

Smaller counties can be more erratic, so back up and ask yourself what the trend looks like over a longer period of time. When we do that, we can see how absurd it would be to say that El Dorado is 20% higher than last year. 

AN EXAMPLE OF ZILLOW’S PRICE INDEX BY COUNTY

Zillow’s index for the Sacramento metro area is down 2.2% right now, but each county is a bit different, right? Here are some map visuals from my ResiClub Pro membership. Ironically, someone might hate Zillow, but I bet they would probably be okay with El Dorado being down only 1.3% from last year based on Zillow’s index. 

LOOKS TO THE COMPS MOST OF ALL

Ultimately, we have to look to the comps to understand the trend. It’s cool to see what all of the price metrics above show, but what do the comps indicate? Do we see a difference in what buyers are willing to pay when we look at sales in the past compared to current listings and pendings? When we compare neighborhood sales this year to last year, what sort of change do we see? What we don’t want to do is rigidly impose any price metric on the comps. Just be real with what you see. Are prices flat? Down? Up? Do the comps suggest a higher or lower amount of change than price metrics for the region? Let the comps speak to you, and give the comps more weight than price metrics. 

MY BLOG TURNED 17 LAST WEEK

Anyway, I hope that was helpful. Thanks for being here. 

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Questions: What stands out to you above? Anything to add? I’d love to hear your take.

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