Archive for the ‘Condos’ Category

Three and Four Bedroom Condos In Sacramento

I found a great buy on a four bedroom condo in Sacramento for a client recently.  Unfortunately, like many great buys, this one already had an all-cash, over-full price offer.  Probably a good future article would be one about what you should do if you’re looking for a bargain (and who isn’t?).

Here in the meantime are the condo I sent my buyer and two others for your consideration.  As always, please give us a call if you have questions at (877) 735-5657.

Four Bedroom Near Sac State

This is the unit that had the over full priced offer, a four-bedroom, 1518 square foot condo listed for $129,000, which works out to be only about $85 per square foot.  This is on La Riviera Drive near Sac State — putting it just a few doors down from another condo the same client bought a couple of years ago.

A lot of the units in this area are rentals to Sac State students.  Indeed, this is what first got my client interested in the area, because she had a daughter attending Sac State and was looking for a unit where her daughter and her roommates could stay.

In addition to the low price, this unit also has fairly reasonable HOA dues at $165 per month.

 2008_08_13_80079778
Three Bedroom in Natomas

This condo is one of the few I was able to find currently active that’s bank owned in Natomas, at a very popular condo Bella Rose subdivision on East Commerce Way.  Built in 2004, this condo is listed at $129,900 and features granite counters, 3 bedrooms and 2 baths, with two parking spaces (one covered, one not).  The subdivision features a pool, spa, media room, and a gym.

The HOA dues on this unit are $204 per month.

 2008_08_13_80067163
Three Bedroom in Gold River

Another good buy is this three bedroom unit in Rancho Cordova / Gold River, listing for only $106,500, or only $76.84 per square foot.  This is another good area where I’ve had investors buy in the past, and the prices have come down nicely in recent months, making it a better investment than ever.  HOA dues on this unit are $194 per month.

 2008_08_13_80077634

Condos – First to Fall and Last To Rise?

Traditional real estate wisdom (or possibly, “myth”)  has it that condos are the first properties to fall when the market turns down, and the last to rise when the market turns up.  I’m not sure about that, but I thought it would be interesting to take a brief look at how condos are doing compared to single family homes in the recent unit volume recovery we’ve been seeing. 

In case you came in late and haven’t had a chance to yell at me for saying this yet, for the last five months in a row, unit sales have been higher in Sacramento County than the month before and higher than the previous year.  In June, for example, 2022 homes sold county wide, up 86.2% from last year.

Of all the “property subtypes” (as they’re called), single family homes is the one that has experienced the most growth, with unit sales increasing 92.4% in that category from June to June.  By comparison, Year on Year increase for sales of condos has been sluggish, at only 28.91%.  This June 107 condos sold, versus 83 last June.

Another way to say this is that as prices fall, sales of all categories of homes have increased to some extent, except those categories that are so small that it’s impossible to get statistically significant results.  But the big winner in the unit sales recovery of 2007-2008 has been single family homes.

Sacramento County Condo Market Update

The market for condos in Sacramento County in April was different from the overall residential market.  Though prices dropped faster than the overall market, unit volume rose less, rising only 11.6% over last year compared to 46% for the market overall.   The average condo sold in Sacramento County in April for $139,758, down 39.9% from last year’s average of $232,540.  Price per square foot fell 37.8% during this time, while the median price dropped 38.1% — from $218,000 in April of 2007 to $135,000 in April of 2008.

59.4% of the condos that sold in April were bank foreclosures (versus 11.6% in April of 2007).  If the rise in sales of REOs was dramatic, however, the rise in the sale of short sales was flat.  Short sales accounted for 4.7% of all sales in 2007, and 5.2% of all sales in 2008.

With the number of listings expiring dropping, and the number of listings selling on the rise, the expired to sold ratio for Sacramento County Condos has dropped over the last year, from 95.3% in April of 2007 to 65.6% in April of 2008.  Currently there are 9.77 months of unsold inventory overall.  Of that number, some 25.7% are bank foreclosures, and 23.9% are short sales.

Sacramento Area Foreclosures, Short Sales, Condos, etc. etc.

We’ve updated our listings database.  It was getting pretty long in the tooth there.

Most people who are users of our web site(s) probably don’t know it, but many of our web sites including this one, our Roseville real estate site and our Elite Properties company site actually rely on two different databases of listings.  When you use our search page, for example, you’re using a listings database that’s our IDX company gets from our Metrolist database.  These listings are updated daily, so when you do a search, you’re looking at listings that are within twenty-four hours of being as current as the ones that we as Realtors® can look at..

In addition to the search tools that our IDX company provides, however, we also wanted to allow you to browse for certain types of listings.  One thing our IDX system doesn’t do, for example, is show you short sales and foreclosures.  Because we don’t have direct access to the database our IDX company uses, we’ve created a second database that we can use in various ways.

For example, our foreclosure search page lets you search for foreclosures and short sales, or browse them by county.  Similarly our new homes section let’s you see homes that have just been built that are listed in the MLS, and our condo pages contain links to condos grouped by price and county.

As we mentioned above, we’ve also used this database on some of our other sites.  Many clients find us through our the maps of listings by zip code that we maintain on our company site.  These maps include zip codes in El Dorado County, Placer County, and Sacramento County.  Within each zip code you can find active listings and get recent market data.  We publish similar data for Placer County only on our Roseville site.

Unlike our IDX system, which is updated automatically on a daily basis, these other resources are updated manually as time permits.

We realize that from a software perspective, that’s not the brightest way to do it.  But if you’ve ever tried to get someone from Metrolist to call you back about a data feed, you probably have a good idea that it’s not half-dumb from an organizational perspective.

The good news is, it’s up to date now.  So as my wife is fond of saying, “Get your red hot houses here!”

Enjoy.

Sacramento County Condos – Market Update

The average condo in Sacramento County sold for $248,895 in November, a .2% increase (huh?  See the statistical notes below) from last November’s average of $248,451.  The median price, however, fell 9.5%, from $245,830 last November to $222,500 this November.  The average sold price per square foot fell 8.3% during this time, from $209.84 last November to $192.35 this November.

Some 22.8% of the condos that sold in November were bank foreclosures, much lower than the overall sold foreclosure numbers of 39.9% for Sacramento County.  Similarly, just over 41% of active inventory is either a short sale or foreclosure, significantly less than the approximately 50% number we reported earlier for the Sacramento County residential inventory as a whole.

Possible Problems with the Sample Size

One of the problems you have to be aware of when dealing with statistical data is sample size.  In general, the bigger your sample, the better you can make sense of numbers like averages, median, etc.  Thus, when you talk about the average life span of an American, you want as big a sample as you can find.  If you Google “Sample size and confidence” you’ll start to get a feel for the problem.

However, in dealing with monthly real estate data, the sample size is often smaller than we’d like, but in order to say anything meaningful, we have to deal with what data we have.

The Condo Market in Sacramento County

Like the general residential market that is a part of, the market for Sacramento County Condos fell off sharply in September. The median price for a condo sold in September was $195,00, down 18.6% from last year’s median price of $239,595. The average sold price per square foot showed a similar drop of 18.3%, from $220.46 per square foot last year to $180.15 per square foot this year. The actual average was down somewhat less, since this year’s average condo was slightly larger than last. As a result, this year’s average price of $219,964 was a drop of “only” 14.9% from last September’s average of $258,597.

While the actual number of expired listings only rose 5.3%, a sharp drop in the number of sold units pushed the expired to sold ratio up dramatically. As we saw earlier, the number of overall residential sold dropped 41.3% from September to September. Condo sales lost somewhat less ground, but still dropped a sizeable 34.9%, from 86 units last September to 56 units this September. The expired to sold ratio for both months was 110.5% last September versus 178.6% this September.

Bank owned condos are selling slightly less well than their single family counterparts. Typically for single family homes, we see bank owned properties outselling other properties by about 2 to 1 (based on the percentage of bank owned properties in sales versus actives). In condos, the numbers are about dead even. In September, 17.9% of the sales (ten out of fifty-six) were condos. In active inventory, 17.4% of condos are bank owned.

Even with that in mind, however, September’s average condo buyer negotiated a fairly sizeable 7.6% discount from list price. For homes that sold, the average list price was $238,130, while the average sale price of a Sacramento County Condos as we mention above was $219,964.

Sacramento Real Estate Listings Updated

I’ve updated our site home lists, including the sections for:

Most of these sections are pretty much “browse only” as of now, but I plan to have a search tool in place for the foreclosures soon — probably some time this week.

A client once told me that it’d be nice to have such a thing for the new homes section as well, so I may tackle that this week as well.

Enjoy.

Listing Pages Improvements

Those of you who do real estate searches from the either our main search page or many of our other search pages have access to listings that are updated six times per week.

I’m not sure why it’s six and not seven.  Presumably it’s to give FTP a Sabbath.  The point is, it’s practically daily, so it’s about as up to date as you can get without calling a Realtor up and asking him.

In addition to the search pages, there are also a lot of pages where you can browse listings, such as our foreclosure pages, the condos pages, and the new homes pages.  These pages are driven by a separate database that we maintain, that we update once per week or so.  We’ve recently improved the import mechanism on these pages to fix a few issues, so we expect these pages to more closely match our MLS (Metrolist) as time goes along.

We just did an import as well, so we’re pretty current as of now.  Enjoy!

Market Update – Focus on Davis

The city of Davis (zip code 95616) seems to be holding up well in this turbulent market. When contrasted with a few other cities, the number of active listings in Davis have fallen along with the number of solds which keeps prices fairly stable.

In 2006, 406 single family residences sold for a median price of $587,500. This year so far 189 homes have sold and 8 more are pending sale for a median price of $560,000. A drop in prices of less than 5% – not bad. But here’s what’s interesting. There are only 67 more houses for sale and their median price is at $630,000.

We see the same result with condos in Davis. In fact, the median value of condos is up since last year, when 57 condos sold for a median price of $329,900. This year, fewer condos sold – 21 to be exact – but the median price was $336,000. 4 more condos are pending sale. There are currently only 16 condos for sale between $259,500 and $577,900.

The Sacramento Bee today reported that Davis is the 56th most expensive place to live in a survey of 317 American housing markets. Sacramento ranks as the 197th most expensive.

Sacramento Condo Market

This August, eight-six condos sold in Sacramento County, down 4.4% from last year’s volume of 90 units. The average price of condos sold in August was $227,889, down 5.5% from last year’s average of $241,267. On a sold price per square foot basis, however, the drop was a much more bubbler-friendly 16.2%. Last August’s average condo was 1098 square feet in size and sold for $219.73. This year, on average the size was 1238 square feet and the sold price average was 189.36 per square foot. The median price is down 8.8% from August to August, from $225,000 last August to $206,000 this August.

Interestingly enough, however, some of the changes in the condo market are in a positive direction. The expired to sold ratio is down, albeit slightly and still well within the “buyers’ market” range, from 102.2% last year to 94.2% this year. Average days on market however have dropped 16.7%, form 90 days last year to 75 days this year.

Anecdotally, we’ve noticed some really dramatic discounts in condos we’ve been showing recently, especially among short sales and foreclosures.

Twenty-four of the eighty-one units that sold (27.9%) in August were bank owned. There are 11.4 months of unsold inventory, with 902 units active and 79 units per month selling, on average, over the past year.

Focus on La Riviera Condos

In response to a floor call inquiry, I pulled up information on condos located around La Riviera and Salmon Falls and came away pleasantly surprised. Yes, I know I’m going to get blamed again for being an optimist in this market but this time it seems like I might have the numbers to support my theory that real estate in the right location does well for its buyers in any market. And homes around the American River seem to agree.

Even condos, which historically fall in value faster than single family houses.

Consider this: in the overall Sacramento condo market, in which there are or have been 1478 condos for sale in the last six months, only 39% have sold or are pending sale. Contrast this with the La Riviera neighborhood, where there have been only 31 condos for sale. And 51.6% of those are pending sale or have already been sold.

Difference in median price? Not astoundingly different. Overall Sacramento market condos – the median sits at $215,000. For La Riviera, it sits at $210,000.

Am I Still Bullish On the Sacramento Real Estate Market, and Was I Ever?

Back in the early stages of the nationwide and Sacramento real estate market correction (or, depending on your point of view:  “downturn”, “collapse”, or “debacle”), a few of the folks who read the bubble blogs chided me for being too bullish on the market.  At the time I argued with some success that I wasn’t being bullish, I just wasn’t joining them in the bubble-bear’s picnic (much as I enjoyed the song of a similar name).

What I did at the time, and what I still do, is publish the numbers.  When the numbers drop, I said they dropped (whereas a real dedicated bull would say they “adjusted”).

Nevertheless, I suppose in some sense I always tried to overcome my innate pessimism by retaining a certain optimism about the state of the industry that does, after all, feed me.

I must admit however that in the last couple of days I was pretty shaken by two things, one in the press and the other in my practice, with the one in the press shaking me a bit more.

The article in the press was the Sacramento Bee’s article reporting on Countrywide was tapping a relatively high-interest credit line for cash.  The article also reported that the Moody’s credit rating agency has downgraded Countrywide to their lowest investment grade, one step above their highest rated junk bonds.  Although on the plus side a Moody’s analyst was quoted as saying that Countrywide was probably liquid throughout 2008, the very possibility of a major player like Countrywide being in trouble was enough to shake my confidence in the wider economic outlook, and certainly give me concerns over the money supply and the outlook for rising interest rates.

The second thing that shook my confidence somewhat and made me question “how low is down” were what seemed to me to be some fairly rapid increases in the decline in prices on condos.  One offer I’ll be working on today for an investor is for a condo in a subdivision and size that a month or two ago I was showing to another investor for 18% more!  Of course, that’s a single data point, so by itself it’s not a cause to go jump off a bridge if you own a condo in Sacramento, but it was nevertheless surprising.  At the same time I found some other condos that were selling around the peak for $180,000, now being offered in a couple of instances (as is, distressed sales) for about $120,000 to $125,000.  Granted, we’re comparing “best of breed” to “distressed sales”, so to some extent this comparison is unfair, but you might say the drop is on the order of $165,000 to $120,000, which is still about a 37.5% drop over two years. 

As is conventional wisdom, condos are “the last to rise, and the first to fall.”

Until now, when publishing the real estate numbers, I’ve always maintained that we’ve been dropping, but falling at a rate that’s been mild compared to the rate of increase.  Though this is pretty anecdotal evidence, it seems clear to me from the last couple of days of showing that the rate is accelerating, at least for condos.

My recommendations based on the above?

  • If you’ve despaired in the past of getting positive cash flow in Sacramento with a reasonable down payment, we’re at the point where that may well be turning around for many properties.
  • If you believe Countrywide is on the verge of collapse, don’t buy unless you plan to hold for ten years or more.
  • If you don’t believe Countrywide is on the verge of collapse, don’t buy unless you plan to hold for five years or more.
  • Try to time the bottom if you have cash.
  • If you’re in a position like my investor where the exchange rate makes now a favorable time, or if you’re depending on financing, buy now, especially if you’re in the market for a condo.

The first item is probably most important, because it’s a lot easier to hang in there waiting for the upturn when you’re creating cash every month than when you’re investing it.

Of course, these are (in the language of stock market disclaimers) forward looking statements.  You should base your buying decisions on your own research and considerations of the economy, cash flow, and other factors.

Sacramento Condos Market Update

Taking a look at sales of condos in Sacramento County in July, we find (as expected) a market that is somewhat softer than for single family homes.  At 11.56 months, inventory is a bit higher than the 10.7 months we reported for the residential market as a whole (which includes condos and other residential units – we will factor out single family homes separately in a future article).

This year’s average sold condo in Sacramento County listed for $262,355 and sold for 98% of list at $257,284.  This average sale price was down 2.3% from last year’s average of $263,257.  The median sale price was $227,000, down 5% from last year’s median sale price of $238,950.  Average sold price per square foot was down 6.5%, from $222.35 last year to $207.99 this year.

Seventy-five units sold in July, down 8.5% from last July’s unit sales of eighty-two units. 

Looking at what’s in inventory gives us an idea of which condos are moving and which portions of the condo market are not selling well.  Though the average condo that sold in July was 1237 square feet at $212.09 per square foot, the average condo on the market currently is 1180 square feet at $202.07.  Assuming no problems in the data (which may well be a brain dead assumption), it appears that what’s selling best is not “cheapest and smallest” but “largest and most luxurious”.

Featured Listing – Beautiful 3 Bedroom Townhome in Citrus Heights

A listing that we just entered into VFlyer / Craigslist, etc. is Vicki Agregado’s beautiful townhome listing in Citrus Heights. I visited this listing with Vicki awhile ago and I was especially struck by what a nice setting it, on a shady cul de sac in front and with a large greenbelt in the back.  Check this one out.

Gorgeous 3 Bedroom Condo
Main Photo

Location: Crosswoods

This lovely townhome has great curb appeal with many oak trees and a feeling of privacy. This unit has 3 large bedrooms, newly tiled kitchen floors, inside laundry room, large living / dining combo, and a large deck for entertaining. Close to bike & walking trails.
Information
Contact Information
John Lockwood
(530) 672-9160
Pricing
Asking Price: $359,000
Homeowner Dues: 270
Property Location
7060 San Jacinto Court
Citrus Heights, CA 95621
View Map
Features
Bedrooms: 3
Bathrooms: 2
Parking: 2 car attached garage
Year Built: 1980
Subdivision: Crosswoods 08
Located on Floor #: 1
Floors in Bldg: 2
School District: San Juan Unified
Square Footage: 1868
Agent Name: Vicki Babcock
Broker: Elite Properties
MLS #: 70015963
Attributes
Appliances
Range/Oven
Dishwasher
Sink Disposal
Microwave
Interior Amenities
Fireplace
Building Amenities
Deck
Photo Gallery

Sacramento Real Estate Market – Focus on Condos

In June, Condos in Sacramento County fared about the same as Sacramento County real estate in general.  The eighty-two condos that sold in Sacramento County in June fetched an average price of $243,786 in June, down 6.6% from last year’s $261,129.  The median price dropped 2.6%, from $228,500 to $221,500.  With this year’s average footprint being somewhat larger than last year’s, the average sold price per square foot dropped a more dramatic 9.9% from June to June, being $223.95 last year and $205.26 this year.

The drop in unit volume from June to June was less dramatic for condos at 14.6% than it was for single family homes (31.9%).  If you think about it, that means that condos made up a bigger percentage of the total sales this year than last year.  Sure enough, last June condos accounted for 6.5% of total sales, versus 8.1% this year.

Inventory numbers are slightly higher for condos (11.2 months) than for single family homes (10.1 months). The expired to sold ratio is slightly higher for condos than for single family homes, but in this case the difference really appears to be marginal.

Pavilions Condos and What I Learned There

Last night I went to meet one of my company’s agents, Jamie, to help her with an offer she was working on for a buyer at a new home subdivision, Pavilions Condos.

It was an unusual Friday evening of work.  I happened to be in Sacramento enjoying a few hours off, so it was easy to go meet Jamie at this subdivision, which is in one of the most desirable parts of Sacramento’s beautiful Arden / Arcade district (95825).

I got to try out the new Tomtom One to get there.  The Tomtom (in case your TV is off and you’ve missed their commercials), is a GPS navigation system.  I’ll be reviewing it on the Sacramento Map Project blog in a few days.  So I punched in the address to where I was going, without recourse to a map, or for that matter, really knowing where I was starting out.

Nice.

So there we were, Jamie and me, and Jamie’s very congenial and likable new clients, along with the also congenial Luke Greene, the broker representing the builder.  I was going to look at the comparable sales for our clients, and wasn’t really finding any good ones (as suspected), since this was a new home subdivision and many of the homes were being sold outside the MLS.  Luke suggested that Kristin would be the one who really knew more about the comps, and went to get Kristin. 

Enter Kristin, a comely brunette, if she’ll pardon the expression (which I hope she will, since she’s an attorney and if she doesn’t pardon it I’m in a heap of litigation).  So Kristin and I talk about what comps she has and when we can get more information about them from the title company and so forth, which of course isn’t going to be last night because title companies keep bankers’ hours.

So I end up giving Kristin my business card so she’ll have my email to send me more information, so I can pass it on to our clients and so on, and imagine my surprise when Kristin says:

“John Lockwood — do you write a real estate blog?  I read that all the time and it’s in my favorites.”

WHAT?

Someone reads this thing?

I’m told by Luke and Jamie, who had a better view of my face, that at this point my expression got kind of bug-eyed, and my face turned red.

Imagine my surprise:  I have a fan.

So for the rest of the night there I was kind of on cloud nine, in my I-didn’t-know-I-was-meeting-clients khaki shorts, because not only do I get to help Jamie write an offer for some delightful clients, which would have been wonderful enough all by itself, and not only did I find the place pretty automatically with the help of satellites in outer space, but now, lo and behold, I have a fan.

Heck:  how well could the rest of the evening go?  Well, we got through the offer process quite well, making sure we put in a contingency period for the comps and the rest of the buyers’ inspections, and while Luke went to copy the paperwork, we all got to meet Brian and Diana Moore, who assist the new owners at the Pavilions.  Brian’s the customer service manager, and Diana is marketing director and runs the Design Center, which is where you go to pick out your add-ons and accessories for your great new condo.  It turns out we got there on party-for-the-residents night (thank you, Diana), so there was cheese and bread and shrimp-on-a-stick, and everyone couldn’t have been nicer and more congenial if you’d picked them out of a book full of nice and congenial people.

Eventually Luke came back with the paperwork, so we bade the clients good-bye so they could get on their way back to the bay area, and eventually Jamie left to pick up poor Bridget, who’s outside a gym in Rancho Cordova freezing (this is a bit of a long story, isn’t it?), so there I am eating cheese and bread and shrimp-on-a-stick with Brian and Diana and Kristin and Luke, and eventually it dawns on me that if I don’t leave, these congenial people, including Kristin (who I’ve now been calling “my fan” for the last hour or so) are going to have to be there all night.

I figured it out, though.

So I guess what I learned in addition to the fact that I have a fan is that if you want a gorgeous luxury condo in a beautiful part of Arden Arcade where you can walk to Borders and a host of upscale stores, and you want to make sure the agent you’re working with and the folks who’ll take care of you when you spend your builder incentives (oh yes, we love builder incentives) are all nice and congenial:  I know where to recommend.  I hope you’ll let me take you, but either way, I hope you go.

Sacramento Area New Homes, Condos, and Duplexes

We’ve updated our lists that we refresh periodically for the following popular property categories:

Enjoy!

Condos Near Sac State

I’ve been working with several parents of Sac State students in recent months who have decided that rather than spending their money on a dormitory for their college age son or daughter, they can enjoy the short term tax benefits and long term appreciation and value of purchasing a condo near campus instead.

Woodside Condos Sacramento near Sac StateFortunately there are a lot of great condo communities near Sacramento State (or CSU Sacramento, if you prefer). One group of parents came to search in December and were able to take advantage of the slow market to purchase a three bedroom condo for $195,000 which appraised at $210,000, scoring a nice little chunk of built in equity by buying smart. (That was a nice win all around, since the similar unit they originally contacted me about was listed much higher, at $219,000). Another parent is currently looking for units between $175,000 and $250,000, and I was able to send him some thirty-plus available condo units in that price range within a short two miles of Sac State.

One of the largest and closest condo communities near the Sac State campus is Woodside, (on Woodside Lane) pictured here being enjoyed by some of the local waterfowl. Woodside’s condos and Woodside East were built out during the period of 1968-1970. Near Woodside “proper” is the somewhat newer Woodside Sierra, with condos that were built in 1976.

Overall, condos sold in Woodside recently (late 2006 / early 2007) ranged in price from $165,000 for a one bedroom / one bath unit at 764 square feet, to $243,560 for a large (for a condo — 1228 square feet) unit with two bedrooms and two baths. HOA dues run about $250 to $300 per month.

The condos on Oak Terrace Court were also built in the 1970s. These are somewhat less numerous, with only one unit being sold in the last few months. That one fetched a relatively low price of $208,000 for a 3 bedroom 2 bath unit at 1066 square feet.

In the same neighborhood as Woodside Sierra and Woodside Lane are many 1980s vintage condo developments, such as Dornajo Way’s Amherst Place Condos, and the Timberlake Condos around Larkspur Lane. Amherst Place condos have Homeowner Association Dues in the low 200s per month, while Timberlake’s run almost 300 per month.

Most units in the area feature car ports and/or spaces to park, but the condos on Hood Road and North Park Drive come with garages. Hood Road’s HOA dues are currently the lower of the two, at about $260 versus $301 per month. (Note: HOA dues often vary from unit to unit, and you should check specifically on the unit you’re interested in). We can also find condo inventory on Bell Street (with rather steep HOA dues of $337 or so), and further out. Many of the buyers I’ve worked with like the area closer to the highway along La Riviera and Salmon Falls Drive. Though these are somewhat further out, they’re still within about a three mile radius. Some of these units have much lower HOA dues than the units closer in, but the prices are about the same, making the total cost of ownership much less.

Rents for a typical 2 bedroom unit run about $850-$975 at present. On a per room basis, I’m told by one of my buyers that they can rent the largest room for about $450-$500 depending on whether they include utilities, while their smallest fetches about $325 to $375.

As with most forms of home ownership, owning costs more than renting, especially in the short term, but the combination of resale value at the end plus being able to rent the extra units to offset the mortgage makes a condo near Sac State an attractive option for many Sac State parents.

New Listings

We have newly updated listings for condos in Sacramento County and Sacramento County duplexes. We’ve also updated our lists of new homes in El Dorado County, Placer County, and, last but not least, Sacramento County.

Site Updates – Duplexes, Condos, New Homes

I’ve updated the listings for Sacramento County condos, and duplexes, as well as our list of new homes in El Dorado County, Placer County, and, last but not least, Sacramento County.

Also, if you’ve seen those pages lately, I have to apologize for the bug that crept in to the new home and duplex pages, in which the link to the listing details wasn’t working. That’s been fixed now, so please check it out and let me know if you run into any problems.

Enjoy!

Rivage in Folsom – John Laing Homes

I’ve been working with a client who’s been touring some of the Rivage condos in Folsom with me. These are beautiful brand new condos built by John Laing, just across the street (East Natoma) from their earlier, similar development, Esplanade. They’re running about $331,990 to $370,990 for the units we saw, and feature the Esplanade’s three most popular floor plans, from approximately 1313 square feet to 1747 square feet.

I’m working on some “comps” for her today to see what prices we might negotiate, but I just thought I’d dwell for a minute on my experience as a Realtor® in working with the in-house staff of agents there. At the risk of going all gushy on someone else’s business, I’ve really been impressed by the excellent level of professionalism I encountered there, especially from Patrick Saumure, the Senior Community Manager. Patrick’s been a pleasure to work with. I’ve sometimes seen new home sales people be a little more on the “car dealer” side of the sales spectrum than I would like, but Patrick was the exact opposite of that, I thought. He treated me as an agent right, and I really thought he did an oustanding job of presenting the advantages of his product to me and my client with lots of good information and no pressure. His follow-up with me and my client has been low key and friendly throughout.

I always like it when I can meet a colleague who teaches me something about the business, and leads by example. Patrick is an example to me of how my customer service can be improved constantly, and I hope we have an opportunity to work together in the future with more buyers who’ll get to experience his friendliness and outstanding service.

Condo Near Sac State, Congratulations, Gene and Carol!

Congratulations to my clients, Gene and Carol, on their exciting purchase of a three bedroom condo near Sac State that closed today. They had wanted a condo for their daughter who’s still going to school there and her friends to rent, and we finished this escrow with lots of good war stories that I won’t go into — let’s just say we enjoyed ourselves thoroughly and didn’t get too wet moving in!

Normally I’m not one for helping clients physically move in, but in this case it needed to get done, and it was raining, after all.

What makes this transaction especially worthwhile for me is how much equity my clients had built in when they closed (about $35,000, or 18%, according to one appraisal). Also gratifying was the fact that I located it for them even though the one they called in on had a much better commission in it for me.

Does your Realtor® take her fiduciary duty seriously? If she doesn’t, I can fix that. And I don’t mind. Really. :)

All in all, not a bad month’s work on behalf of this client, if I do say so myself. And trust me, I just did.

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Sacramento Condo Market Update, November, 2006

November’s numbers for condo sales in Sacramento County were not much different from residential sales in Sacramento overall, with modest drops in prices from last year. The average price of a condo in Sacamento County dropped 5.3% from last November’s $262,774, with the average this year coming in at $248,330. Since this year’s “average sized condo” was slightly larger than last year, the sold price per square foot ratio dropped more substantially at 6.2%. The median price, meantime, changed only 3.6%, dropping from $256,500 last November to $248,330 this November.

Already last year at this time, condo sales were showing signs of slowing down, with the expired to sold ratio up to 60.3%. This year the number stands at 113.2%, with more listings expiring (86) than selling (76) in November.

Sacramento Condo Listings Update

Wow, it’s been awhile. Fortunately you always have access to the latest listings on our search page, because our condo listings were looking a bit long in the tooth there. But no matter, they’re updated now, so you can get the latest condo listings here.

Well, that’s what I get for being out selling instead of hanging around the office typing. That works for me.

Now just one more appointment this morning, and let’s see when I can get those new homes and duplex listings updated…

Good Condo Price — FSBO Done Right

I got a call from Chris the other day, the seller of a lovely condo I’d shown on Bremen. (See Listing Details or More Photos). It turns out this condo probably wasn’t a fit for the buyer I showed it to, but Chris followed up and asked me to point out some of it’s nice features, such as a very nice neighborhood (I’ve worked in Greenback Estates before so I knew he was right about that), extremely low Home Owner Association fees even compared to other parts of Greenback Estates (always important when you’re buying a condo), and inside laundry, which is not commonplace and is important to many buyers. Chris also has more info you can check out here

Equally as interesting to me as the condo was Chris’s unique approach to selling. Being an appraiser, he’s familiar with the business, so he’s selling it sort of “by owner”, but worked with a company to list it for him in the MLS. Not only did he price the unit well, he also followed up with agents, and offered an extremely competitive commission to the buyer’s agent. So many sellers ignore the simple fact that in today’s market, you’re competing for attention from the buyers, and you’re competing for attention from agents as well. Time and again, I’ve seen buyers and sellers and their agents succeed or fail based solely on what one might call “emotional intelligence” — their ability to co-operate with another human being. It’s a lesson I have to learn over and over again myself.

As always (I should really get this in a footer), information in this web site and links from it is based on multiple sources and has not been verified.

Sacramento Condo Market Relatively Strong

I just took a minute to look at the condo numbers for October in Sacramento County, and I found that the numbers did not vary very much from Sacramento’s residential market overall. Actually the numbers were slightly more favorable.

Traditionally, people say that the condo market is the first to turn down when the market stalls, and the first to recover when it recovers. Either that generalization is too broad to be worthwhile, or we may be seeing signs of a stabilizing market.

This year’s average sale price for a condo is down 3.7% from last year, slightly less than the drop for single family homes. The average condo sold in October for $250,375, as compared to $260,049. Sold price per square foot dropped more dramatically (8.7%), while the median sale price split dropped 5.1% during this time.

With 781 units in inventory and 76 selling in October, inventory stands at 10.3 months. As one would expect with so many units for sale, the ratio of expireds to solds is up over 100% (127.6% in October, as compared to 55.4% last October). Unit volume is down 24.8%.

New Condo Listings, Etc.

I’ve updated the listings in the Sacramento Condo area of the site.

In addition, we have a new batch of new home listings for El Dorado County, Sacramento County, and Placer County.

Finally, I’ve updated the Sacramento County Duplex Listings.

As always, you can get the most up to date listings via the search pages, or by calling / contacting us to let us know your specific requirements. Enjoy!

Sacramento Condo Market – June 2006

I was just looking at some (MLS) numbers for condos in Sacramento County for June, and two things stand out (at least to me). The first is that they’re not as bad as I had expected they would be based on some earlier number crunching I’ve done. That’s not to say they’re great, mind you, just that they don’t quite disappoint as badly as expected. The second point is that on the appreciatoin side, the numbers are a mixed bag at best.

Bears will be happy to see a 3.4% decline in the median sale price, of course. The median this June was $231,000, down from last June’s $239,250. But at the same time, the average sold price was up 6.1%, to $263,185 this June. And my favorite number (for statistical purposes, anyway) — list price per square foot — was up 6.8%.

OK, now — ready for the bad news? Days on market up 154%, from 22 last year to 56 this. Unit volume down almost 50%, from 184 last June to 94 this June, coupled with a large increase in expireds, leave us with an expired to sold ratio of 63.8% (60 expireds over 94 solds). Inventory is at 9.1 months.

Interesting times are coming up, too, in that the market started to slow down about one year ago — oh, right about now or thereabouts. So in the months ahead, I’d expect to see less dramatic sorts of “slow-down” numbers (because we’re comparing to an already-cooled market).

Let’s see how it works out.

Sacramento County Condo Market

This May’s Sacramento County Condo Market is down by any measure you care to name from last year. The only exceptions are those where the market is more “down” if the numbers are more up. That is to say, days on market are up and expired listings are up. If you’ve been putting off a lowball condo offer, now might be just the time to go ahead and write it up! Or at least, it’s a good time to check out the inventory.

(“No, no, no, John, we’re waiting until they’re three for seventy-five cents, and then we’ll do it…”).

Anyway, unit sales are not that badly off, really, down only 14.6%, showing that there’s still a strong pool of first time buyers and some demand (unit volume is off 25-50% in other markets we’ve studied). Days on market are up dramatically, however. With inventory currently at 6.2 months, days on market now average 51, as compared to only 21 days last May. The ratio of expireds to sold is up to 58% (75 expired /129 sold), compared to last year’s 7.3% (11 expired / 151 sold).

The average condo that sold in May was listed for $251,799 and sold for $250,627. The median sale price was $235,000. The median price was down 3.7% from last year, while the sold price per square foot was down 2.7% (from $223 last year to $217 this year).

Updated Listings

I updated the Sacramento County Duplex Listings page a few days ago, and today I got a plea from a buyer asking me to do the same for the area New Home Listings. While I was at that, I also of course went after the Condo Listings.

I have to apologize for my slowness to update listings lately. There are just more things to do than there are hours in the day, but I’ll try to make ammends and get back to a more regular schedule. And remember, whatever else is going on with those more or less static listings, if you visit my Search Page or the Advanced Search Page, those results are updated almost as often as my own MLS system. (The MLS is updated in Realtime, whereas the web site search results are a snapshot of the MLS that gets updated six times per week — so it’s pretty current!).