A private island listed for sale last week in the local market, and it’s getting viral attention, so let’s talk about it. Also, price metrics are now HIGHER than one year ago. What does that mean? Has the housing market started to rebound? Are we so back? Let’s get into it.
UPCOMING SPEAKING GIGS:
6/24/26 Windermere Sierra Oaks Q&A
7/1/26 Wisdom Wednesday in Elk Grove
7/13/26 LPT Realty Zoom
7/14/26 Elk Grove Presentation TBD
7/15/26 Stockton Presentation TBD
8/6/26 PCAR Auburn
9/1/26 ROG Talks
10/2/26 PCAR Rocklin
10/21/26 Coldwell Banker Sierra Oaks / EDH
TOP 10 REASONS TO BUY AN ISLAND
- Bragging rights. “Bro, I own an island.”
- Throw a big party (Sacramento Fyre Festival).
- Finally, you have privacy.
- Become an Instagram island influencer.
- Open a drive-through coffee shop for boats.
- Move far away from any HOA.
- Use the parcel to film season nine of Love Island.
- Helicopter landing pad.
- Create a vacation destination with Airbnb potential.
- Buy and rename the island after your business.
MY ANKLE INJURY
By the way, I injured my ankle last week. I don’t think it’s broken, but if you see me hobbling, it’s from a skateboarding mishap. Here’s a video in case you want to see the moment it happened. Haha.
HERE’S WHAT THE ISLAND LOOKS LIKE
This 5.6-acre island is listed for sale at $39,000, and it is located along the California Delta at 13301 W Eight Mile Rd (Stockton, CA). Do you see any potential here? What would you want to do with it?
Q&A WITH THE LISTING AGENT
I asked Monte Morris a few questions via text message about his island listing, and here’s what he had to say:
Ryan: This property has gone viral over the past week. What’s it been like to manage that?
Monte: I called news outlets, and asked them to write articles. Those conversations were with SacBee, SF Gate, and the New York Post’s California arm. As soon as those were published, my phone just started blowing up. This is the third island that I’ve listed, and other news outlets have jumped on board and written their own articles. It’s almost been too much! My phone has been ringing so much that while I’m talking with someone and answering questions, I miss five or six other calls so I can’t keep up with all of it.
Ryan: What advice would you give to anyone wanting to buy an island?
Monte: I would say act fast and do your due diligence. The local authorities are the ones to ask for your specific intended use. This part can be a little frustrating because these agencies don’t move very fast.
Ryan: What type of interest has there been in this one? Who has been interested?
YEAR-OVER-YEAR RECAP IMAGES:
Enjoy recap stats for twelve counties. Please take smaller counties with a grain of salt. Stats can bounce around all over the place, so don’t be rigid about the change from month to month. In fact, I think I’m going to switch some of the smaller areas to quarterly by next month because they’re too chaotic (Nevada, Yuba, Sutter, etc…).
RECAP DESCRIPTION:
In most areas, we’re starting to see price metrics are slightly higher than one year ago, and the housing market has been a little more competitive too. Closed sales volume is pretty flat compared to last year, and most areas showed more homes selling above the original list price. In coming months, I expect the stats today will be more competitive as the market got pretty dull last summer. So, be ready for those comparisons. The number of active listings has shrunk a bit in most counties lately, and that’s due to slightly stronger pending volume and sellers starting to back off the market too. Anyway, I’ll keep talking about the market on my socials every day, so let’s keep the conversation going.
Anyway, I hope that was helpful. Thanks for being here.
Question: Would you ever buy a private island? What do you think of the island above? And anything else to add about price stats right now?
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Sorry to hear about the accident. You might want to get an x-ray. Last time I rolled my ankle, I found out I’d broken it the time before.
My scoutmaster when I was a kid owned Red Rock Island in the San Francisco Bay. He won it in a poker game. His kids, friends of mine, have been trying to sell it for 15 years. Crazy property located in 3 counties.
Looks like average home size has bumped up, probably explaining the slight year over year increase. I’m mostly stable or stable to declining for my work but I did make positive time adjustments on a report last week.
Thanks. You know, I’m leaning toward just going in today to get an X-ray. I think that would make my wife happy also. I didn’t want to go spend money only to be told to rest, ice, compress, and elevate. But, this is still pretty swollen still… I was supposed to go on a backpacking trip with my boys next week, but that seems pretty iffy at the moment. 🙁
That is wild, Joe. I’ll have to read up on that. Crazy that it’s in a spot that could even be in three counties also.
Interesting to hear. In many of my reports, I’ve been recognizing some flattening lately. We are not in a hardcore declining market. That’s for sure. Things have tightened. That’s what the stats show. In months ahead, we could get some more monthly readings that are up too. Although, the comparison to one year ago is going to be a big factor in that too since we were so dull last year. So, is it the comparison making today’s stats look better? Or is it the market? Or both? Viable questions. And yes, we need to watch size also.
Here’s a good description from a couple of years ago. https://www.sfgate.com/local/article/history-and-future-of-red-rock-island-in-sf-bay-17797305.php
Looks like it might be in contract.
https://sfist.com/2024/08/18/sfs-sole-private-island-has-gone-quietly-off-the-market/
Fascinating stuff. I’ll keep my ears open on what it sells for. What is something like this worth that has very little use presumably? I guess we’ll find out.
Collector value, bragging rights, liberating people with too much money and not enough common sense? There’s a ton of money in the Bay so you’d expect it would have sold before now. But it’s very very challenging to develop because it lies in 3 counties and is a bird habitat. Not to mention there’s an old mine on the island so unknown potential environmental issues. Still blows me away that kids I grew up with own it.
Wild to own something like this. And agreed. I wonder if someone with big money would want to try to take a stab at development. What a logistical nightmare though…
As I was scrolling, one of your old articles popped up, and it was the last island I sold!
https://sacramentoappraisalblog.com/2020/03/17/buying-an-island-uncertainty-pendings/
I’m here to talk about islands. Thanks, Monte. And I saw that one too. It’s wild because it was written on March 17, 2020, and the conversation was about the island, but it was also about uncertainty. I mentioned we hadn’t see any change in the number of pending contracts yet, but the number of withdrawn listings was really ticking up, so we needed to stay on our toes. This was the beginning of change in the market before we saw it in the stats.
Years ago, I worked with another appraiser on an appraisal of a home on an island in a river. It had a private bridge to access it and that was key to it’s utility that matched homes on mainland. I got asked to appraise another home on an island a few years ago and my bid was too high. That one is only accessible by boat, but is a well known vacation property in Oregon with power. Both properties have some unique appeal that helps to balance the negative aspects and comps could come from very far away.
This is so cool, Gary. Thanks for sharing. And that’s nice to be able to balance appeal with other locations. Wait, you didn’t use three model-match sales within a one-mile radius? 🙂
Your pictures always make me laugh, Ryan!
Thanks, Trudy. Right on. That’s the goal. 🙂