Sacramento Real Estate Blog

We’ve updated our list of Sacramento Duplexes and our list of area new homes (Sacramento County, Placer County, El Dorado County).

Enjoy!

We’ve updated our listings for Sacramento County Condos. Enjoy.

Well, for all the market updates I used to write about how things were going along fairly slowly, here’s a bit of a riddle: If the market’s going slowly when the Realtor® has lots of time on his hands to write about it, how’s it going when two weeks go by without a post?

I have more work than I can do — which is how I like it. It means I can help some other folks in the office with a few referrals.

I can hear the bears now: “Oh, John, you’re just saying that to make people buy.”

Meantime it’s been awhile since I’ve updated some of the manually updated listings on the site. Maybe I should take care of that right away while the phone’s not ringing.

But I’m not really working every day and trying to catch my breath. I’m just saying that to make you buy.

Careful.

Conventional wisdom has it that condos are the first to depreciate and the last to appreciate. It was tough to see this at play in the thick of the appreciation that we witnessed in 2003 and 2004, since at the time it looked like the ugliest condos in the most crime ridden neighborhoods had defied whatever natural laws might otherwise govern them, and they were rising in value at an incredible clip.

I thought it would be worthwhile however to break the Sacramento County down somewhat to see how condos have fared over the last year compared to single family homes. Sure enough, conventional wisdom seems to apply, with the condo market having slowed more than the market for single family homes.

In the first place, condos are taking longer to sell on average than their detached counterparts. In March of 2005 they were selling somewhat more quickly (24 days on average versus 26 days for single family homes), but the average days on market have risen for condos to 58, while the average for single family homes has only risen to 49.

Similarly, unit volume has been hit harder for condos than for single family homes. From March to March, single family home unit volume decreased 33.5%, from 1999 units last year to 1329 this year. During the same period, condo unit volume decreased 51.6%, from 188 last year to 91 this year. Moreover, inventory is currently higher for condos (7.4 months) than for single family homes (4.6 months).

Likewise, appreciation for condos has been lower than it has been for single family homes for this period. The median sale price for condos increased 4.9%, as opposed to 7.4% for single family homs. On a cost per square foot basis, single family homes increased 6.1% from last year, while condos only increased 2.8%.

We had a pretty fun time talking about the rally in home prices in Sacramento County in March. This post digs a little deeper into the numbers.

The average home sold through the MLS in Sacramento County in March of 2006 listed for $404,280 and sold for 98.7% of list, at $399,025. The median sale price was $365,000. Homes appreciated by the following amounts, from last year.

• Average sale price: 9.6%
• Average sold price per square foot: 3.7%
• Median sale price: 7.7%

I usually go for sold price per square foot, but in this case it gives the most pessimistic result.

Days on market are almost doubled, from an average of 26 last year to an average of 50 this year. Meantime, units sold are down considerably from 2255 last year to 1322 this year, a 41.4% decrease. Inventory is currently at 5.6 months.

A year ago, the number of listings that expired (taken as a total of all those that either expired or sold), was five percent. A few months ago it had deteriorated to something very close to 50/50. We’ve regained some of that back now, so that the expireds are 35% of the total, and solds are 65%.

The real estate market in Sacramento has slowed considerably from last year, but the Bubblers* took it on the chin in March when both the median and average sale prices increased for the second straight month. When prices increased in February, naysayers blamed the phenomenon on a picturesque “dead cat bounce”. Presumably the cat has now gotten up and walked away under his own power. (The least trustworthy dead animal metaphors are those where the animal in question already has a rich metaphorical reputation of being blessed with multiple lives).

The average price increased by .28% from February to March, but taking the Bubblers at their word that the median is the more statistically important number, we come up with a more substantial 1.25% increase.

Yes, the rate of increase is slow. Hang in their, Bubblers. By August at the latest you should be able to claim your first year to year decrease. Meantime I’m enjoying the heck out of the title of this post.

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* As used here, “bubbler” denotes a person dedicated to finding a bubble-like structure in the real estate market, as opposed to it’s more traditional meaning of being Rhode-Islandese for water fountain.