Sacramento Appraisal Blog

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Sacramento Real Estate Appraisal

Vacant Construction Sites: A Sign of the Times in the Sacramento Region

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I snapped the following photos in Los Banos, CA last week while on an inspection. Vacant construction sites are quite common in today’s market throughout the Sacramento Region. The view is fairly typical – a paved street, curbs and driveway entrances prepped, wiring ready…. but no houses being built. It’s like a ghost town in a sense. I see this situation everywhere from Rancho Cordova to West Sacramento to Atwater to Yuba City. 

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There are many streets throughout counties surrounding the Sacramento Region which face a similar phenomenon. This is a sign of the times and a lesson in supply and demand too.

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The Art of Hospitality: Having Neighbors Over for Dinner???

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052108ins-182aI spend quite a bit of time each week thinking about houses and neighborhoods because of my chosen career as a real estate appraiser. But more than my job, I find myself often imagining how neighborhoods can improve and become more connected like they used to be. 

Below is an article I wrote in a series entitled “Community Building 101” (pdf file). “The Art of Hospitality” is the last article in this mini-essay series and I wanted to share it here on my real estate appraisal blog because life is not just about the value of our houses, but the quality and value of the relationships we have, even in our neighborhoods. Eating with neighbors is one of the the most profound but simple ways we can build a better community.

The Art of Hospitality by Ryan Lundquist

What is the best dining experience you’ve ever had? A few years ago I ate at a joint in San Francisco called Asia De Cuba. This fusion restaurant had spectacular ambiance and the feel of a hip club with its dim lights, pulsating beats, trendy décor, and exotic menu. Our group enjoyed four hours of eating and sitting together and we were never rushed to leave. The bill was substantial, but the unique experience was worth the high cost.

When guests leave my house after dinner, I want them to feel something similar. It would be great if they complimented the lavish food, stylish decorating, and festive atmosphere. That would be nice. I have a feeling though they’d more realistically say they’d eaten good non-gourmet food and felt mostly comfortable even though there were energized toddlers running around. Dining at the Lundquist home is not anything like an upscale restaurant, but that’s a good thing because practicing hospitality does not necessitate a gourmet experience.

There is something significant about welcoming others into our homes. When we ask people over we are giving them much more than a meal – we are inviting them into our lives. In an age of birthday card emails, drive-thru dinners, and brief cell phone interactions, it’s refreshing to sit down together for an unrushed hour or two and really get to know others. Sometimes though we think that being hospitable means we have to prepare the most scintillating dishes and spend all day cleaning the house. But it’s okay if the walls are not acid-washed, if toys are visible, and if there’s a stack of bills on the countertop. True hospitality is not about offering our guests perfection, but relationship. Sure, it’s nice to clean the house and spice up dinner a bit, but let’s remember that our guests are not customers to please but rather participants in a family meal. One of the most respectful things we can do is invite people into the life we really live. Besides, if we put so much effort into a meal we might exhaust ourselves and also cause our guests to feel intimidated about inviting us to their house.

Life is busy, so where do you find the time to eat a meal with others? Thankfully dinner is something that most of us do every night, so it’s just a matter of coordinating our schedules. If my household is eating dinner anyway and yours is too, it doesn’t seem all that overwhelming to combine efforts to dine together – especially on a weekend night. It always helps too to ask guests to bring a side dish or assist with preparation somehow.

The practice of hospitality is about sharing meals, but is more broadly about sharing our lives with people. This might seem like an odd topic to end a community building series, but by taking the initiative to invite other residents into our daily routines we can profoundly impact our neighborhoods. When we get intentional about helping our tracts become more connected like they used to be, we will begin to taste something wonderful – a sense of community.

New Foreclosures Coming in Sacramento Region: Comparing Data in RealQuest & Realist

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072308ins006aOne of the key factors for our market to improve and get back to “normal” is for the oversupply of foreclosure properties to be absorbed. Basically, it’s a messy real estate market out there in the Sacramento Region, and the mess has to be dealt with to move on.

Sacramento MLS allows us to analyze past sales as well as current listings to see how many properties sold as bank-owned or short sales and so on. What about future listings though? How many foreclosures will be coming to the market? Two interesting data sources for this type of information are Realquest and Realist.

RealQuest provides a free service online for anyone to view properties which are in “Pre-foreclosure” (coming soon to the market unless something happens to stop them – loan modification, catch up on payments, legislation, act of God, etc…), “Auction” (you’ve seen the commercials for the auction properties where “there are 2000 properties to sell off and they MUST sell this weekend”), and “Bank-Owned” (yes, the bank has title already).

This is what RealQuest looks like when doing a property search:

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Realist is also a service of First American Core Logic and is commonly known as “Tax Records” for Sacramento Metrolist Subscribers (a paid service). Realist has a new “foreclosure activity” search feature that covers the same categories that RealQuest does. But when looking up data in both RealQuest and Realist, there is definitely a difference. Sometimes the data is very similar, but other times the figures are way off. This may be due to the way RealQuest and Realist categorize their information as well as the difference between a free service (RealQuest) and a paid service (Realist). Ultimately there could be a number of factors why the data is so different, but it’s not the purpose of this post to go into depth about that. The real thrust here is to show that there is a new wave of foreclosure properties coming and we ought to be prepared for that. Let’s continue to be full of hope as well as avoid a lifestyle of worrying, but let’s keep an eye on what is going on.

Market Data from RealQuest & Realist:

City of Folsom in Sacramento County

  • Preforeclosure Properties: 296 (RealQuest) 186 (Realist)
  • Auction Properties: 46 (RealQuest) 79 (Realist)
  • Bank-Owned Properties: 158 (RealQuest) 262 (Realist)

City of Citrus Heights in Sacramento County

  • Preforeclosure Properties: 309 (RealQuest) 435 (Realist)
  • Auction Properties: 57 (RealQuest) 161 (Realist)
  • Bank-Owned Properties: 134 (RealQuest) 330 (Realist)

City of Orangevale in Sacramento County

  • Preforeclosure Properties: 136 (RealQuest) 145 (Realist)
  • Auction Properties: 26 (RealQuest) 45 (Realist)
  • Bank-Owned Properties: 126 (RealQuest) 128 (Realist)

City of Rancho Cordova in Sacramento County

  • Preforeclosure Properties: 245 (RealQuest) 256 (Realist)
  • Auction Properties: 32 (RealQuest) 107 (Realist)
  • Bank-Owned Properties: 223 (RealQuest) 298 (Realist)

City of Fairfield in Solano County

  • Preforeclosure Properties: 309 (RealQuest) 710 (Realist)
  • Auction Properties: 51 (RealQuest) 283 (Realist)
  • Bank-Owned Properties: 140 (RealQuest) 745 (Realist)

City of West Sacramento in Yolo County

  • Preforeclosure Properties: 232 (RealQuest) 225 (Realist)
  • Auction Properties: 109 (RealQuest) 114 (Realist)
  • Bank-Owned Properties: 159 (RealQuest) 207 (Realist)

NOTE: The discrepancy in the data above would be very important to research and explain if the data was actually used in an appraisal report or to support value conclusions in any way. It is very important to use the best available data in an appraisal report because solid value must be based upon reliable information.

The data above was really provided as an FYI for those who may be interested. Since RealQuest provides a free service too, go spend a few minutes on their website, see what you can find, and draw your own conclusions about reliability.

If you have any questions or potential appraisal needs, please contact me at 916-595-3735 and www.lundquistcompany.com

The Lowest Priced House on MLS (Sacramento)

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What is the lowest-priced single family residential property on Sacramento’s MLS right now? 

And the winner is…. $15,500

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41 La Fresa Ct # 3 has been listed on the market for seven days at $15,500 and is a McKeon-style condominium in South Sacramento off of Shining Star Blvd (formerly G-Parkway). This 2 bedroom / 1 bathroom unit is 2-stories and has a tandem garage. McKeon-style properties have four attached units. The number 1 unit is located in the front, numbers 2 & 3 are located on the sides (the subject is a # 3), and the number 4 unit is located in the rear above the garage. MLS states that the monthly HOA fee is $180.00

Former “Lowest Price on MLS” winners: $12,500 (1 unit), $35,900 (4 units)

No, I am not affiliated within this property in any way, nor do I know the Agent. If you happen to be interested in the property, I can always connect you to the Agent.

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