How has the pandemic affected buyers? Today I want to share a few fascinating shifts concerning home size, pools, and migration. If you’re local, have you been seeing this? If you’re not local, what’s happening in your area?

1) BUYERS WANT LARGER HOMES

If you’ve been cooped up for months it makes sense that you’re going to want a larger home, and that’s exactly what the stats show in the Sacramento region. Do you see that spike in home size on the right side of the graph over the past three months? For the first time ever the average monthly home size was over 2,000 square feet in the Sacramento region too (two months in a row).

The Takeaway: Be in tune with shifting buyer expectations so you price it right since larger homes may be more marketable right now.

2) POOLS ARE MORE POPULAR

Lots of buyers want a home with a pool. After all, if you’re going to quarantine somewhere you might as well have the ultimate backyard. Home sales with built-in pools are up 4.2% this year in the Sacramento region so far. This is something we could have guessed, but it’s good to see what the stats actually say rather than going with what we feel might be true.

The Takeaway: Homes with pools are in high demand. They are more marketable and they may be more valuable too.

3) FLOCKING TO PLACER & EL DORADO COUNTY

This is where it gets interesting, so bear with me. Noticeably larger homes have shown up in sales stats from June to August this year, but a big part of that comes down to buyers focusing more heavily on Placer County & El Dorado County. In fact, over the past three months compared to last year Placer County sales volume is up 16.8% and El Dorado County volume is up 31.5%. Why does this matter? If you didn’t know, monthly sales in these two counties are routinely 400+ square feet larger in size than Sacramento County (mostly due to having newer homes through the years that were built larger). This data does NOT include brand new homes currently being sold from builders – only MLS sales. Anyway, when we consider why the home size in the region has jumped so much lately, a huge reason looks to be buyers flocking to these two counties in search of more space.

The Takeaway: When we consider large price gains lately it’s important to recognize some of the hefty gains are because larger homes have been sold.

I put some of this post in a video in case that’s easier to digest. Enjoy.

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I hope that was interesting or helpful. Thanks for being here.

Questions: In what ways have you seen buyers and sellers change because of the pandemic? I’d love to hear your take.

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