I was eating a nice Japanese meal today when I spotted a free-for-the-reading Sacramento Bee, and noticed an article about Sacramento’s declining real estate sales. As much as I hate linking to premium content where you have to sign in to get the goods, here’s the almost free for the reading online version. You do have to register but other than that you can still enjoy it gratis along with your tempura, if you happen to be eating tempura.

If not, maybe you can imagine yourself doing so, at least tempurarily.

I do agree with some of the article’s conclusions — that buyers today have much more power in the transaction than a year ago, for example — but I question some of their use of the data. For example, they’re relying pretty heavily on drops in the median sale price, whereas to my mind what’s most important to look at are changes in average sale price — or better yet — average sale price per square foot. The reason is simple. Let’s say that in November the average home size for sold homes in a given area is 1800 square feet, then in December the average home size for sold homes is 1600 square feet. It’s quite possible that December’s average sold price could be lower even though prices are going up, simply based on a change in what happened to be on the market that month. Of course, square footage isn’t the whole story, we could also get into actual and effective age, lot size, etc., etc.

One of the conclusions I agree with is that the Sacramento market has declined more than other California markets.

“The number of regional homes resold in November dropped 21 percent from a year ago, ranking among the sharpest declines statewide. In the Bay Area, for instance, November resales fell 12 percent from a year ago, while they dipped just 3 percent in Southern California, DataQuick Information Systems reported.”

For more details on how the Sacramento market compares to the bay area, compare my market reports here with any of the reports on my Oakland Blog. Some areas there are actually doing better this year than last in many respects, a fact that I have been quick to blame on the vegetarians..

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