Folsom Real Estate Market - 2007 Year In Review

Posted by John Lockwood on January 24th, 2008

2007 was a year of decreasing real estate prices throughout the greater Sacramento area, with homes in Folsom retaining their value better than the rest of the county, especially later in the year.  For 2007 overall, the median sale price in Folsom was $450,000, down 7.2% from 2006’s median of $485,000.  811 units sold in Folsom in 2007 through the MLS, at an average sale price of $490,588, down 5.3% from 2006’s average of $485,000.  In both years, homes sold for more than 97% of list price.  In Folsom, sold price per square foot fell 8.4% from year to year, and only 8.9% from December to December.  In contrast, Sacramento County’s sold price per square foot fell 11.7% for the whole year 2006-2007, and a much more substantial 21.8% from December to December.

In other words, Folsom’s prices have not dropped as rapidly as in Sacramento County as a whole, and the trend does not seem to be accelerating as it is in other areas.  The number of short sales and foreclosures taken together are also much lower in Folsom than county-wide averages.  Short sales account for 17.1% of active inventory, and REOs only make up 5.8%, for an overall figure of 22.9% — compared to 55.7% for Sacramento County overall.

The other good news in Folsom is continuing low inventory, 5.1 months as of this writing.  In Sacramento County overall, the inventory numbers are more than twice as high at 10.4 months.  Six months is traditionally the cutoff beyond which we’re said to be in a “buyers’ market”, so one can consider Folsom to be in a bit more of a seller’s market than Sacramento County generally.