It’s not 2008 in the housing market. It’s so easy to flippantly compare today with the Great Financial Crisis, but let’s look at actual stats. How much do these years actually compare? I’m not sugarcoating the problem of affordability either. Let’s just be realistic about the numbers.
UPCOMING SPEAKING GIGS:
4/28/26 PCAR Rocklin
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5/13/26 Investor Webinar TBA
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5/15/26 Nevada County TBA
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5/27/26 Solano County TBA
6/3/26 Wisdom Wednesday in Elk Grove
8/6/26 PCAR Auburn
10/2/26 PCAR Rocklin
10/21/26 Coldwell Banker Sierra Oaks / EDH
WHAT WAS THE 2008 HOUSING MARKET LIKE?
I recently wrote about why home prices haven’t crashed, and I wanted to follow up with one simple visual. Check out days on market, the number of listings, and price change. The only thing that was better back then was sales volume (see below).
NOTE: There were about 10,000 more active listings in the entire region in early 2008 (but about 7,000 more in just Sac County).
STOP THE CASUAL 2008 COMPARISONS
I’m guessing the vast bulk of people who constantly juxtapose today’s market with 2008 aren’t sharing actual stats to substantiate their claim. So, the whole thing just feels like selling fear to get clicks for ad revenue. I think part of the problem is most stat sources don’t seem to go back beyond ten years, so there isn’t fodder for conversation. All I’m saying is let’s be realistic about the market that exists and concede it’s extremely unlikely to get 2008 results with 2026 stats. Having subdued supply in recent years has kept prices higher (only a little bit of price relief so far).
ARE SALES REALLY LOWER TODAY?
The one thing that’s lower today is the number of closed sales, and that’s especially bad since we’ve had population growth since then. However, volume was already recovering in 2008, so it makes sense to see more sales that year. What I mean is 2007 was our worst year of volume, and there were about 10,000 extra sales in 2008 compared to 2007.
NOT A HUGE FLEX, BUT WE’LL TAKE IT
I anticipate we’ll beat 2007 volume again in 2026 (just like we did last year), but beating 2008 levels won’t happen without a sharper change to affordability. And beating 2007 isn’t a huge flex either, but we’ll take it.
DON’T SUGARCOAT AFFORDABILITY PROBLEMS
When I share stats like this, I sometimes get pushback because people think I’m trying to say everything is fine and prices only go up. That’s not what I’m saying though, and I can’t emphasize enough that we have a glaring affordability problem. Let’s just have honest conversation about why the housing market has continued to feel stuck without much price relief. Let’s also be realistic about any red flags.
IT’S NOT ALL ABOUT SELLERS
Lastly, let’s not forget to have empathy for many people who are currently locked out of buying a home in today’s market. I think sometimes affordability conversations have such a strong bias toward sellers and keeping prices high that we forget to think about buyers. Housing isn’t just about sellers though.
Anyway, I hope that was helpful. Thanks for being here.
Questions: Are you having many conversations about 2008 vs today? What did I miss? Anything to add?
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2008 hasn’t come up at all in conversations. Affordability certainly has and is a huge issue here. Did we have sale conditions in 2008 for tracking distress? If so, that would be a good addition to the conversation.
And as you may remember, I discuss our incredibly poor sales volume on a regular basis. (I did apologize to everyone at the next meeting for my poor framing)
Thanks Joe. The distressed fields in MLS didn’t really get credible until 2009. In Q1 2009, 84% of sales in Sacramento County were listed as either bank-owned or short sales. I wish we had this for 2008. Part of me wonders about the credibility of the field in today’s market since we are so far removed from a distressed market. It’s basically not even 1% of the market as a whole. I’m not saying it’s more, but part of me is a little hesitant as I wonder if there is some education needed about this field since many people have never seen a short sale before. This is one reason why I took the field off my monthly visuals recently (and it’s boring to report on so little movement (I’ll talk about this more when we see more distressed activity)).
I have lots of conversations about the GFC to today, but so much of that is on social media with many flippant comparisons to back then (without any stats). The only thing similar right now is the number of sales. Yet, there is the viral Redfin narrative about there being the “largest gap between sellers and buyers on record.” Their stats only begin in 2013, but so many people take this to mean the market today is worse than the GFC.
I couldn’t remember when the sale conditions field was added to Metrolist, thanks. I’m starting to see distressed sales pop up but as you say, it’s still a small number. When you’re scrounging for comps, you find all sorts of weird data.
I avoid social media for the most part so I’m not hearing these conversations. That said, none of the agents I know are making that comparison.
I expect we’ll see more distressed sales this year. And yeah, I’m not hearing this from the real estate community. It seems like conversation happening in other settings.
What can we do about affordability as an agent selling real estate. Do you want to have a frank conversation about general affordability? It goes far beyond one transaction (selling a home). Inflation (arguably stagflation) is very elevated, labor is high, consumables are high, fuel is high. That contributes to affordability more then the house payment. The house payment is 25% of the picture, the rational man. From these, I would like to see demographic stats if possible. Showing; Age especially, education, marital status, work status, of closed sales in 2026. THAT will give you an idea of who is powering this market. And, unfortunately it’s not the next generation. That’s the problem. The wave is coming – that is, the implosion of buyer demand. Why? because the boomers are dying off and there’s not enough economic activity there to sustain the asset prices the boomers created. It’s called ‘late stage capitalism’. Your kids will inherit your wealth, it will be the greatest wealth transfer in history, but that cannot replace true economic growth.
Always appreciate your take. It’s tough out there for so many reasons. Buyer demand has remained very low for the past four years, and it would help if prices were able to continue to soften to get a little bit more volume. It’s hard to see any major change though without an unexpectedly higher change to affordability. I’m hopeful that 2026 will be able to outpace 2025. So far that’s been the case, but only time will tell what other unexpected things we see happen this year.
I feel for the next generation, and there isn’t an easy solution. I still don’t buy into a world that only sees negative and preys on fear and frustration for clicks though. Many people get trapped in negative echo chambers while not figuring out a way to make progress forward, and I think that’s a legit concern for society. I feel like the constant message of, “you will own nothing” and “there is no hope for you” can be powerful… I talk to my Gen Z kids about this as much as they’ll let me. Two things are true. It is brutal out there for affordability, and we can’t sugarcoat that. And there are social media influencers trying to trap young people into feeling utterly hopeless about everything. So, how do we do life in the midst of this? I think that’s what everyone has to figure out.
I wish I had readily available stats for generations as it relates to real estate. I don’t really put any stock into NAR’s generational survey as I mentioned last week, and I’m not aware of anything locally that would help unpack buyer and seller ages and such other than some minor factoids here and there. I will say that Gen Z is entering the market, but at a slower pace (not a shocker). Per RentCafe, Gen Z ownership rates have definitely increased in Sacramento (not sure where they get their stats though). Apartment List has some national data to show the same thing too. I think one of the ways we see Gen Z enter more too is for older generations to help out. I don’t view downpayment assistance as the ultimate solution to housing affordability though.
It could help the housing market in coming decades as Boomers pass on. I don’t think I would say Boomers created the asset class or system. They sure are enjoying it though. And yes, we can’t rely on inheritance for wealth building. We are at a tough spot, and one of my critiques of the White House right now is there is too much focus on the stock market (for onlookers, this is not a partisan critique, so please argue about politics on Facebook). The stock market is not the economy, and people are feeling the pain of inflation. We really need our leaders to help bring inflation down, create jobs, and boost consumer confidence.
I’m an optimist in life, but I’m not so confident in both red and blue leaders right now. And this moment is so important in light of so much AI coming to the scene. It feels like legislators are asleep and not proactive.
And I don’t think agents can do anything about affordability because agents cannot change the market. That’s not the role of the agent anyway to create affordability. If agents could change the trend, we wouldn’t be where we are now. There are much bigger forces at play. The bottom line is we need more supply to create more affordability. If legislators really want housing affordability, they should stop putting their sole focus on private equity funds and pretending like they are doing something noble. They need to start talking about how to introduce supply while being cautious about juicing demand.
I agree. Our hands are tied, and also big money, their hands are tied too. You can say ‘oh, we should just build more’ but building more has to be profitable – it’s not profitable when goods and services cost too much. Or – we see build to rent developments – also, late stage capitalism.
how do we do life in the midst of this?
We live the life we want for our children, in spite of glaring inconsistencies abound today. The silent generation was very successful in one area of life – which was humility for each other and awareness of the greatness of life and living life. They lived through a devastating war and saw truly bad times. history repeats itself, and we should take the lessons in front of us and learn from them.
I don’t want to sound overly negative because I am not meaning to.
You aren’t sounding overly negative. I think we have to be realistic about things AND find meaning today like other generations did. Optimism and hope about the future is something that has to be cultivated. It probably won’t happen by accident. We talk so much about mental health, and we have to exercise our mindset to get stronger rather than just sit around expecting for something good to happen without effort. I find this to be especially true in a digital age with negativity everywhere. Of course, on paper, the answers are easy, but in real life, this is a struggle.
Great analysis as usual, but one thing puzzled me. Months supply -291.1%?
Well, that’s the percentage. I debated on using just a number or percentage and went with that. Am I wrong in the percentage? I think the math is right, though my tea might not be fully working.