August, 2005 El Dorado Hills home sales were somewhat unusual compared to other local markets. For one thing, those homes that did sell sold more quickly this year, spending 36 days on the market on average as compared to last year’s average of 41 days.

Secondly, the average square footage for sold homes was lower this year than last, which is unique in all the markets we’ve been studying. In all other cases we’ve examined, this year’s sold homes were bigger.

In August, the average home sold for $684,108, or 98.8% of the average listed price of $692,283. The sale price this August is 7.8% higher than last August’s $634,330, but adjusted for the lower square footage, sale prices increased 12.8% from the average a year ago.

There are approximately four and one half months worth of residential inventory in El Dorado Hills at present (September 25th, 205). This isn’t the highest we’ve seen, but it’s still high. The reason for this buildup is not hard to find. First of all, the average unsold house is almost 14% larger than the average sold house, and larger homes typically take somewhat longer to sell. Even more importantly, the many homes that are lingering on the market do so for the same reason all homes linger on the market — they’re priced too high. Comparing the average list price-per-square-foot (256.21) of homes that sold with the average list price per square foot of homes on the market ($293.64), we note that the difference is that homes on the market are listed 15% higher than homes that sold. Remember, we’re not even talking about sale price here — just comparing the list price to list price in both cases.

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