Two areas in Sacramento County hold some special fascination for me — Elk Grove and Antelope.  In both areas, a large number of foreclosures have fueled steep drops in prices, and the fall in prices has created hot markets for bank foreclosures. 

Antelope is on the verge of transitioning from a buyer’s market into a seller’s market.  To be sure, the “sellers” are banks, and there are still a lot of foreclosures to get through.  Fully 84.1% of all homes in Antelope that are currently for sale in the MLS are either in foreclosure (22.1%) or being sold short (62%).

In spite of the number of foreclosures — which would lead one to suspect that further price cuts are in the cards — all indicators in Antelope are showing that the price decreases have already hit a sweet spot where demand is turning up sharply:

• At 72 units sold last month, unit volume is up 71.4% over last year (compared to 46% overall for Sacramento County).
• The expired to sold ratio has fallen to only 18.1% in April, compared to 73.8% last year.
• Days on market are down 25%, from an average of 60 in April of 2007 to an average of 45 in 2008.
• The ratio of the sold price to the list price has risen from 98.5% last year to 99.3% this year. 
• Current inventory is down to 6.79 months.  Anything under six months is traditionally considered a seller’s market.

No doubt many of the 199 short sales that are currently available will go to foreclosure soon, and as they do, they’ll be purchased by eager buyers.  In April, 9.7% of the homes that sold were short sales, even though they make up 62% of inventory.  In contrast, 76.4% of the homes that sold in Antelope were bank foreclosures, though only foreclosures make up only 22.1% of inventory.

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