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.
a
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.
If you liked this post, subscribe by email (or RSS). Thanks for being here.
The honeymoon is over. That’s right. The real estate market in 2013 felt like a honeymoon because it was full of glittery optimism, sensational news headlines and the sweet aroma of a quick recovery. Just as a honeymoon in real life comes to an end, we all knew such rapid appreciation was not sustainable, inventory could not be that low forever and interest rates wouldn’t endlessly hover at historically low levels either. Of course this doesn’t mean the market is not still ripe for positive growth, but only that this year probably won’t feel as good as last year.
Housing inventory decreased last month below 2 months of supply, which is understandable in light of the holidays and colder weather. Otherwise inventory has been flirting with 2.5 months. I said above that the real estate “honeymoon” is over, but keep in mind inventory is still very low, which means there is still room for some growth ahead (though I do not believe we will see the same rapid appreciation like we did last year since the market is different this time around in terms of inventory, interest rates and cash investors). The median price in December saw a slight uptick from November, but overall is still hovering around the $250,000 range as it has been for about six months. Can you see why people are saying the market is flat?
Here is a broader picture of median price and inventory. Current values are tending to resemble values in both 2003 and 2007/2008.
Sales were sparse for the 
The jobless rate is thankfully going down in Sacramento County, but 8.1% is still not a pretty statistic. Can I be a resounding gong by saying we need more JOBS, JOBS & JOBS?
