Looking back on the 2006 Sacramento Real Estate market, the first thing I was curious about this year was whether my intuitive sense that the last part of the year was better than the first was correct or if this was just how my own business went. It turns out that I’m completely all wet on this one — the year pretty much followed the same seasonal pattern you would expect for any year, with the second quarter of the year being the busy season (the spring rush).

Here is how the unit volume breaks down by quarter, 2005-2006. (As always, our source is Metrolist MLS data, and all information is believed accurate but has not been verified).

Sacramento County Residential Unit Volume
Period	2005 Units Sold	2006 Units Sold	Change
Q1	5,196	3,616	-30.4%
Q2	6,983	4,344	-37.8%
Q3	6,659	3,794	-43.0%
Q4	4,725	3,115	-34.1%
TOTAL	23,563	14,869	-36.9%

So this chart does put the lie to one intuition of mine, that the second half of 2006 saw an upturn compared to the first half. At the same time, however, the numbers don’t seem to refute something else that I’ve been saying all along, that the turnaround point of the Sacramento residential real estate market occured sometime around August of 2005 (To be sure, this chart doesn’t prove it — but it doesn’t shed doubt on it, either, unless I’m missing something).

Let’s check out our average prices next, and see if that has anything to tell us.

Sacramento County Average Residential Prices
Period	2005 Average Sold Price	2006 Average Sold Price	Change
Q1	$356,195	$396,739	11.4%
Q2	$392,591	$402,006	2.4%
Q3	$407,104	$396,108	-2.7%
Q4	$399,634	$384,860	-3.7%
Overall	$390,079	$395,628	1.4%

Well, there you go, and as always, if you’re not careful, what it tells you is what you bring into it. Two sayings about statistical data are appropriate at this point:

• “There are lies, damned lies, and statistics.”
• “Figures don’t lie, but liars figure.”

An optimist with an overactive imagination could look at this and report, “Hey look, average home prices are rising, they went up 1.4% from 2005 to 2006!” I don’t think so, though it’s correct to say it. What I think the numbers show is that prices began falling in 2005 (duh), but that there continues to be significant seasonal variation in this buyers’ market, just as there was in the sellers’ market of two years ago.

Finally, without further ado, the median sale price numbers for the same period:

Sacramento County Median Residential Prices
Period	2005 Median Sold Price	2006 Median Sold Price	Change
Q1	$335,000	$360,000	7.5%
Q2	$365,000	$365,250	0.1%
Q3	$378,000	$358,000	-5.3%
Q4	$367,500	$348,500	-5.2%
Overall	$362,500	$359,000	-1.0%

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