It’s the fourth of the month, and that means that all good real estate brokers who don’t want to get fined $100 by the MLS have entered their sales data for the month of March into Metrolist.  This means we can start digging into the data for the first quarter in earnest now.

In the first quarter of 2008, 3,011 homes sold through the MLS in Sacramento County, a 4.6% increase in unit volume from the first quarter of 2007′s 2,879 units.  No doubt this reflects buyers taking advantage of the bargains that have happened as more and more foreclosed homes come on the market. 

Prices have fallen substantially over the last year.  Here’s a table that breaks the numbers down:

Indicator	Q1 2007	Q1 2008	Decline
Average Sale Price	$381,143	$268,867	29.5%
Median Sale Price	$345,000	$250,000	27.5%
Average Sold Price Per Square Foot	$224.86	$159.47	29.1%

What’s Selling, And What’s Available

I’ll be publishing an article shortly where we analyze the data from one community, Elk Grove, in terms of how many non-distressed homes are selling versus short sales and foreclosures.  If you want to see that when it comes out, please subscribe now.

We’ll probably do a similar analysis for all of Sacramento County, but to whet your appetite and show the numbers a slightly different way, let’s show how many months of inventory there are for short sales, foreclosures, and non-distressed sales, based on the absorption rate for the last three months.

Sacramento County Real Estate Inventory By Type

Here’s a table that breaks it down, but you can read the text below to see how we got the numbers:

Type of Home	Unsold Inventory
Bank Foreclosures	4.4 months
Overall Inventory	9.6 months
Non-distressed (Neither short sale nor foreclosures)	10.5 months
Short Sales	52.8 months

There are 9,661 homes in inventory (for sale) right now, and 1,004 homes sold per month for the last three months.  Overall, then, there are 9.6 months worth of inventory (i.e., 9,661 divided by 1,004).

Of course, how much inventory there is varies widely by type of sale.

3,494 non-distressed homes are currently available in Sacramento County.  (I use “non-distressed” to mean sales that are neither short sales nor bank owned foreclosures).  333 non-distressed homes per month sold in Sacramento County over the last three months.  Inventory for non-distressed sales, then, is 3,494 / 333, or 10.5 months. 

For foreclosures, which are selling like foreclosed hot cakes, the inventory numbers are much lower.  Some 605 foreclosures sold each month during the last quarter, so the 2,633 foreclosures currently available represents 4.4 months of inventory.

Short sales are just the opposite of foreclosures, because they sell like crusty old hot cakes that nobody wants to eat, because the bank may or may not approve your syrup.  Currently there are 3,535 short sales in inventory, and a whopping sixty-seven of such homes sell each month in Sacramento County.  Dividing again, we get 52.8 months of inventory.  Yes, short sale fans, that’s about 4.4 years.

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