Sacramento Real Estate Blog

My wife and I moved to the Sacramento area in 1996, and at that time our 3-bedroom, 2-bath home cost $145,000. Years later, 2002-ish or so, I was getting into Real Estate, and the news from the California Association of Realtors® at the time was that housing in Sacramento was still quite affordable (by California Standards), with about 50 per cent of households being able to afford the median priced home.

Today of course, the numbers are far different. I’m still able to tell folks from the Bay Area or Southern California that we’re the second most affordable area in California (with only the high desert doing better), but the affordability index is down around 19 or so even for our region. Saying we’re the second most affordable in California is like saying we’re the second ugliest girl at the Miss America Pageant — it doesn’t really tell you much.

Today I found the National Housing Conference’s Paycheck to Paycheck page, which shows how affordable different metropolitan areas are to a cross-section of different types of workers. It’s interesting stuff, if not very encouraging for a buyer of a median priced home. The two silver linings, of course, are the fact that the median have reduced somewhat, and that the median is just a statistical point, and by definition, half the homes fall under it. Lately I’ve been somewhat surprised to be showing single family homes for under $300,000 again.

For years now I’ve told buyers and sellers that more expensive homes take longer to sell, so one should expect longer days on market. One might also expect that homes in higher price ranges might have suffered more than others in the recent market slowdown.

February’s numbers support this for most of the higher price ranges, though at the bottom of the range there’s not much difference between 0 to $250,000 and $250,000 to $500,000. (I suspect we could get more information by breaking down the latter category further, but I haven’t done so yet — a man’s gotta leave himself a follow-on post, after all).

Anyway, here are the numbers for February, with inventory figures quoted as of today. This is for the combined inventory and sales of Sacramento, El Dorado, and Placer Counties.

Price	Days on Market (Feb)	Sold (Feb)	Available Now	Inventory (Months)
Under $250,000	54	114	707	6.2
$250,000-500,000	53	979	6407	6.5
$500,000-750,000	60	256	2387	9.3
$750,000-$1,000,000	72	57	697	12.2
Over $1,000,000	107	20	539	27.0

I’ve just listed a 57.7 acres on Mosquito Road in Placerville (not Swansboro). Per the county, it’s splittable into 2 20+ acre parcels, so it’s a good opportunity for someone who wants to put some sweat equity into the development to create two parcels for resale. Or keep it all for exceptional privacy and great local views. (Interested parties should verify ability to split and check costs with county).

It’s listed at $499,900.

I should have links to MLS data and some photos up soon, but meantime give me a call at 800-767-1975 if you’re interested in more information.

Road access will be needed, but there is an apparent easement (I could help you research to nail it down), with a recorded road survey to get you started.

I’ve updated the listing pages for the following listing categories:

• Sacramento Condos
• Sacramento Duplexes
• New Homes in Sacramento County, El Dorado County, and Placer County

As always, you can also get more up to date listings by visiting our search page, or just call me at the number above if you want a custom search done directly from the MLS. The MLS system that I use allows me to tailor the search based on multiple criteria, so if you’re looking for a particular subdivision or school district or some other exotic search, let me know and I’ll get you started.

El Dorado County’s real estate market in February showed significant slowing from last year, and a sharp dip from January numbers as well. The average home sold in February in El Dorado County through the MLS listed for $508,942, and sold for $497,090, or 97.7% of list. Average sale price increased 2.8% from last year, or 7.4% on a cost per square foot basis. The median sale price was $430,000, a 3.4% drop from last year.

Median sale and average sale were both down from January as well, a five percent drop when calcluated on a cost per square foot basis. The expired to sold ratio currently was 76.8% in February, up from 15.4% a year ago. Volume was down from 195 to 125 sold units, and days on market are up from an average of 43 last February to an average of 76 this February. Inventory in El Dorado County is currently 9.6 months.

Wow, there’s been a lot of angry people lately giving me grief over my post about the February Sacramento home sales numbers.

One fellow was good enough to give me grief in another post — hey, thanks for breaking up the monotony.

Two guys in a row didn’t get the difference between the median and the mean. I was lucky — I married a gal who took statistics in college, otherwise I wouldn’t know, either.

Tommy Hopkins, Builder of Sales Champions, used to talk about depression and the like as being in one’s psychological “danger zone”, and remarked that in sales we have the good fortune of being in a profession in which others use us to get out of their danger zones. I don’t know about that, but I do know that folks like to stop by and tell me how dishonest and so forth Realtors® are.

Hey, thanks for the input.

Sorry, was that in itself disingenuous?

On the other hand, those folks who I’ve been privileged to serve as clients and I get along quite well.

I think it would be awfully neat if I could do what others claim a blog is supposed to be good for — establishing oneself as an expert. It’d even be neater if this process would in turn translate into business. But it seems to me there’s quite a hefty disconnect between this forum, where I meet with folks who like talking about real estate in a polemic way, and the rest of my business, where I get to talk about real estate in a let’s go shopping or I need to get it sold way. Or at least, let’s be lookie-lous, which rises at least to the minimally civil standard of not leading off with insults.

Actually, as a Buddhist, I might say that here is where I work off my karma. (Or more precisely — given the tenor of some of these threads — create more of it!).

Frankly it’s a bit late to figure it all out.

Yesterday I went out on the Realtor® Tour in Cameron Park — sometimes called a “caravan” in other markets.

There were a lot of great homes on tour today. Joani Hewett and Karen Lalonde listed a well priced 2 bedroom condo right down the street from my house. For landscaping on beautiful oak-studded parcels, I also enjoyed Nan Raley’s listing on the fourteenth hole of the Cameron Park Country Club, as well as Bev Parry’s wonderful offering on Paloran Court.

My favorite home of the whole tour, however, was the fabulous mediteranean style home at 3172 Chasen Drive. Though some folks thought the bright colored paint detracted from this home, I thought the color scheme worked well — and in any event paint is such a minor issue that’s easily changed to suit. Outside of that, this home had it all, fabulous pool, a terrific floor plan, beautiful curb appeal, rich and tasteful upgrades. If you’re in this price range in Cameron Park, let’s not miss this one. (The photos really don’t do it justice).

Well, it appears we have some good news for Sacramento home owners, and bad news for Dr. Lee, who’s waiting to stop renting, and the naysayers at Sacramento Land(ing), who are hoping to be those who told you so when we all go to hell in a handbasket.

Prices rose again in February. Darn, aren’t they supposed to keep falling? Isn’t Sacramento Land(ing) begging for us to call them price drops instead of price corrections?

Well, it looked like they “dropped” up this time, by about a point, or $4,000.

For those wishing it would do something bad, bummer. For the rest of us, reporting what it’s actually doing, there it is. There’s more of heaven and earth than is dreampt of in your philosophy, Horatio. And come to think of it, even when dropping that was a pretty smooth curve compared to a bursting bubble, wasn’t it? And now it’s on the rise again.

Awww… and just when Sacramento Landing was reporting Central Valley “Bubble Appears to be Bursting”, we had to go screw it up with a price increase.

As we move into March and look back on February’s numbers for Sacramento County, we find the same “slow compared to last year news” coupled with some seasonal warming as we’d expect.

“Seasonal warming?” Seems I’m not a weatherman, but I sometimes play one on the Internet, albeit without intending to.

Anyway, what I mean to say is that our expired to sold ratio is now down from it’s winter high of almost 50/50, to 58% sold to 42% expired. Yes, this is still high compared to a year ago, when the numbers were 93% sold to 7% expired, but things are starting to pick up in the Spring rush.

For Sacramento County residential home sales, February’s median price was $360,000, up 7.5% from last year. The average list price was $402,883 and the average sale was 98.8% of that figure at $397,893, meaning the average sale price appreciated 12.8% from last year. (There appears to be a bad apple or two in the square footage data, inasmuch as the cost per square foot’s value is not believable — that said, I won’t report it).

Unit volume is down considerably (35.6%) from last year, based on 1494 units last February as opposed to 962 this February. Inventory county-wide is currently at 7.4 months.