Sacramento Real Estate Blog

Congratulations and thanks to Donald and Jeanne D., buyers who get their keys today for a home they purchased for their children to use while they attend college.  Thank you again for your business, and if you have any questions or issues, please let us know!

And congratulations and as well to Jamie Boling-Puebla, their agent, whose execution on the disclosures and the rest of the file was so good that our transaction coordinator even made note of it.

Our transaction coordinator is one of those fussy, detail oriented people who’s not happy unless the file is perfect.   That’s WHY she’s our transaction coordinator!

Well, happy Friday, folks.  For many of you this means the start of Labor Day Weekend, which means many folks will otherwise would be laboring at work will be driving around laboring at having a good time.

Let me disclaim something Purva said.  Labor Day Weekend is a terrific time to buy a house, just not from Purva, since she’ll be laboring at having a good time and trying to stay away from playing too much computer chess (at the risk of having a good time).  We have agents working all weekend.  I know Bridget’s doing some showings in Foresthill.  Vicki’s manning the phones today, and Jamie is doing so the rest of the weekend.  So give us a call at (877) 735-5657 and prove Purva Brown wrong by buying one or more houses.

I’ll be working as well this weekend, though probably on several pet projects of the boss.  Oh hey, that’s me.

One of the pet projects of the boss that is on the back burner right at the moment is the ParticleWave real estate listing site.  My apologies to Dave Smith and the other intrepid early adopters.  By way of ammends, I can say that I have taken steps to getting my projectitis under control, but I hate to talk about it for fear of being part of the big trend of people talking about it.  David Allen, you da man.

Dang, there, I said it.

Metrolist MLS designates two areas as comprising “Downtown / Midtown” in Sacramento, 95816 and 95814. (To see which is which, you may find the zip code maps we’ve published elsewhere, for 95814 and 95816, to be of use.)

Today we look at 95814 by itself, which we have to do with a grain of salt. The reason is that the numbers of homes sold in this area are in general far too low to allow much in the way of generalization, much as you couldn’t guess the average height of the American male either by a single basketball player or horse jockey.

Nevertheless, for the sake of those who live there, we’ll report that this year’s nine sold units was an improvement on the the twelve-month average of four units sold per month. There are fifty-five units in inventory, which works out to a little over fourteen months worth. Only one of the four is an REO, giving us a charmingly low foreclosure rate of 1.8%, but again, remember, our overall sample size is low even at 55 actives.

The average home that sold in 95814 in July sold for $465,737, or about 97% of the average list price of $480,717. The median sale price was $475,000.

True. And I will not be working this weekend either.

However, this morning while browsing property for some prospects in the Colonial area (If you haven’t figured it out yet, I own and sell quite a bit of property in that neighbrohood) I found some eye-popping deals. This 95820 neighborhood features older homes built in 1952 with three bedrooms and one - two bathrooms. Almost all homes here have hardwood floors and minimal detail (crown molding improves the look instantly). Almost all have fireplaces.

Take it from someone invested in this neighborhood, if you want to buy low and sell high, this is the place. If you want to buy low and rent it out to cash flow (especially in this market!) this is the place for you!

I saw at least two outstanding deals today. Oh, and don’t think they’re all short sales. This neighborhood has a lot of homes that are paid for, so there’s also the possibility of seller financing if you have no money down.

Maybe Labor Day weekend is not such a bad time to be driving around and looking at homes after all!

I just finished running the numbers for Antelope, and found a few things as expected, and a few surprises.

First of all, here’s the author’s bias: I love Antelope. I think that dollar for dollar it’s one of the nicest areas in Sacramento County, and if I were looking for a home in Sacramento County on a budget, that’s probably one of the first places I’d look.

So I was a bit surprised to find a somewhat high value for inventory in Antelope (11.71 months). Also curious was that there were so many foreclosures (REOs represent 19.6% of the current available inventory, which is higher than the county as a whole, which runs around 12.5%).

Otherwise the numbers are fairly normal. The average sold price dropped 6.3% from July to July, from $356,017 last year to $333,714 this year. This year’s crop of homes, however, is some 19.5% bigger than last year’s however, so the actual sold price per square foot dropped a huge 21.5%.

Of course, when you compare this year’s average 1852 square foot home with last year’s average 1550 square foot home, even if all the sales took place in the same time period you would expect the 1852 square foot home to sell for less per square foot (given that the fixed value of the land is spread over a bigger house). So when you take this into account, it’s possible to adjust the sold price per square foot yet again, and we come up with a more realistic drop of 12.1% from year to year.

Days on market increased 53.7% during this period, from 41 days on average last July to 63 days this July. The expired to sold ratio was about 97% last year, and about 97% this year as well. Unit volume has fallen 20%, from 45 last year to 36 this year.

I’ve become absolutely obsessed lately about playing chess on my computer and likening pretty much everything I come across to it. And I began to think - well, how different is investing in real estate from chess anyway?

Besides the fact that there’s no king to kill or threaten? Well…

Both chess and investing require you to think about your next move especially in an if-then circumstantial way. You could get into serious trouble in both if you don’t plan for contingencies. The more you do both, the better you get at them.

Oh, and by the way - no one else cares about it as much as you do.

The real estate market in Carmichael, California (95608) in July was a bit stronger than Sacramento County as a whole. Unit sales were the same as last year at the same time (thirty-six), though less than the twelve-month average (forty-four). The average home sold in Carmichael in July for $416,588, or 95.6% of the average list of $435,906. The average sale price this year was down 8.6% from last year’s average of $455,987, however, unlike many of the snapshots we take, the average size was down somewhat, so the average sold price per square foot was down only 4.2%. The median price dropped dramatically (13.8%), from $429,000 last year to $370,000 this year.

With unit volume staying the same and falling expireds, the expired to sold ratio in Carmichael dropped from 83.3% last year to 58.3% this year.

With 328 units unsold as of this writing, there are currently 7.5 months of inventory in Carmichael, somewhat less than for Sacramento as a whole but still in the “Buyer’s Market” category. The thirty-one foreclosures (REOs) listed in the MLS make up 9.5% of the total.

The real estate market in Folsom is somewhat stronger than Sacramento County as a whole, with lower inventory.  In July, 2007, the average home sold in Folsom for $498,793, or 98.3% of list.  This was down 5.5% from last year’s average of $527,616.  This year’s home being somewhat larger, the average price per square foot fell 8.2% during this period, from $249.94 last July to $229.33 this July.  The median price was down 4.2%, from $490,000 last July to $469,500 this July.

Unit volume is actually up slightly this year, from 73 units to 74.  This year there were 7 REOs (bank foreclosures) sold out of those 74 units, so just shy of 10%.  Last year of the 73 units that sold, none of them were REOs.

The real estate market in Fair Oaks in July was pretty typical of Sacramento County. The average home sold for $476,462, down 1.4% from last July’s average of $483,236. However, at the same time, this year’s home was 6.4% bigger than last, so price per square foot dropped 7.4% from July to July.

I think we should borrow a phrase from Jebediah Springfield and call this process of buying a larger home for roughly the same money “embiggening“. It happens quite a bit in a lot of markets, and is certainly a commonplace in El Dorado County as well.

Back to Fair Oaks. This year’s median home sale price was $400,000, down a substantial 13.8% from last year’s median of $464,250. The average home that spold spent 48 days on the market, up 9.1% from last year’s avearge of 44. Unit volume was down to twenty-seven units, a drop of 32.5% from last year’s 40 units.

Currently there are just under 10 months of inventory in Fair Oaks, with 372 units active. Of these 472, twenty-one, or 6.8%, are bank foreclosures.

The expired to sold ratio stood at 100% (i.e., exactly the same number of listings expired as sold) in July, up from last year’s figure of 87.5%

I had to open the door for an appraiser yesterday for a property where I represent the buyers in a purchase and he seemed a little opinionated. I know, appraisals are supposed to be “opinions based on market comparables” but he seemed a little too happy about the market going down. And I kept thinking, Should I be worried for my buyers? The home is a cosmetic fixer and seems like someone’s failed flip, but perfect for my buyers that wish to put sweat equity into it and are first time buyers.

But the appraiser said he had no sympathy for investors because they drove prices through the roof and now we’re hurting because of them. And so, no - I did not mention that I was an investor and owned rental properties of my own. Why this hatred toward investors?

I’m worried. I have a problem with passionate appraisers.

I decided to write this post as a response to John’s comment (and disclaimer) - I was going to write something different, but I know our clients like to read about the other side of our business as well, so here goes!

Many brokerages have weekly meetings that are mandatory. I believe some meetings are important so that everyone in the real estate office knows the other agents and so that we may learn from one another what we’re doing right and what we could improve upon. Sometimes however these meetings - especially in larger offices - tend to get a bit tedious. What those get reduced to is advertising other businesses which we could use while conducting our business. They become shameless plugs for title companies, lenders, home warranty companies and so on. The worst part is that this is all done under the guise of “getting market updates” and “helping Realtors market themselves.”

Here’s the thing I absolutely believe - the people are successful at this are that way because they do something very authentic to themselves and very different. Even if you learned the obvious strategies, you have to personalize them to your own self. That’s what clients are attracted to. And meetings - especially training meetings - tend to leave out the individual aspect. Company meetings focus on standardizing the service, which works well for the company but not so well for the individual Realtor.

Which is what I love about being at Elite. We’re all very different and our clients appreciate our authenticity and differences. And that is my disclaimer.

This is a test post.  I just finished installing Peter Westwood’s handy SK2 Moderate Plug-In.  Let’s see if it works.

Now to come in not logged in under IE and comment on myself.  I hope I agree with me.

[Later:  Looks like it works great.  Thanks Peter!]

A number of social justice activists and others have pointed out the relationship between race and poverty and predatory lending practices. For example, the Center for Responsible Lending has published a study on Unfair Lending: The Effect of Race and Ethnicity on the Price of Subprime Mortgages, documenting that African-American and Latino borrowers receive sub-prime loans more often than white borrowers, even when their credit history and other lending qualifications may qualify them for a more inexpensive loan.

Unfortunately, the geographical pattern of REO (Real Estate Owned, or “Bank Repo”) sales in the greater Sacramento area tends to support the idea that the link between predatory lending and race may be a very real one indeed. I recently examined the percentage of sales that were foreclosures (REOs) for the period January 1st, 2007 to August 21, 2007. Aside from a few statistical oddities, overall the pattern was pretty clearly one in which the most foreclosures occurred in the poorest neighborhoods.

Of course, just based on such a study, it’s impossible to say how much predatory lending is the culprit, and how much can be attributed to the rather banal idea that living in poverty may make the choice between food and the mortgage more of a common one than it is for rich people.

Well, as ever, we’ve all been working hard, including me, except when I’m not. And we like it when I’m not best of all, because when I’m not I’m often using Stumbleupon to brew up this week’s batch of fun stuff. To wit:

• Ever had an anonymous commenter giving you grief? You know you have. Theoretician John Gabriel explains it.
• I’ll find a picture later.
• Elite Properties should do this. It’d give us an excuse to wear ties and sit around a meeting table without Purva getting upset about “too many meetings.” Disclaimer: she doesn’t really get mad, she’s quite agreeable.
• USB Necktie Cooler. Aside from the obvious fun in the concept, the real entertaining part of this is watching English as created by a computerized translator. Example? “There is ‘an issue column of the receipt book’ when ordering. In case of receipt book desire ‘the receipt book please select issue’.” Right. Just let me get my credit card…
• Never mind that. Will it blend?
• You think Realtors® have writer’s block? You should check out this Doctor prose.
• And finally: If you have a bunny, please make sure it stays current on its meds. Bunnies are known for their suicidal tendencies.

Still not convinced the air conditioned necktie is a good buy?

“The air conditioner being effective, because the る room, with consequence of the necktie, the air does not go in the shirt, this season which very does not become cool. If such a time, the USB necktie cooler is used, because mandatorily the air is sent facing toward the neck origin, also the body which becomes hot instantaneously cool down! ! As a present of the father, how probably will be?”

I recently congratulated my friend Susan when she closed escrow on a beautiful home in East Sacramento. At the time I told her about some earlier articles I had written about East Sacramento in general and the fabulous forties in particular, and told her about the sense I had that East Sacramento was a sort of a market anomaly — in a really good way — in that in the midst of falling prices elsewhere in Sacramento county, East Sac was holding its own quite well.

July’s numbers certainly bear this intuitive feeling out in a really big way. East Sac is doing quite well indeed. While the average price of a home in Sacramento County fell 7.4% from July of last year to this July, the average price of a home in East Sac rose an incredible 18.5% during the same period, from $468,094 to $554,571. To be sure, this year’s “average home” was a good deal bigger, but even adjusted for square footage, the sold price per square foot did a little better than staying relatively steady. It actually rose 7/10 of one per cent from July to July (when on larger homes you’d expect it to fall just by virtue of bigger sizes). So while greater Sacramento County’s sold price per square foot fell 9.5%, East Sac’s actually rose slightly.

At the same time, many other market indicators show East Sac going strong. Days on market actually decreased during the period, from 54 days on average last year to 38 days this year. The expired to sold ratio, which stood at a “buyer’s market” 66.8% last July, was down to 17.4% this July. At the same time the ratio rose in the county from 80.5% to 103.7%. Similarly, inventory in East Sac down to 3.91 months, compared to a county-wide average of 10.7 months. While unit volume dropped 47.3% county-wide, it rose 43.8% in East Sac.

So we have:

• Low inventory
• Rising prices
• Falling expireds
• Rising unit sales volume

Hey, I remember something like that. We used to have something like that in 2004 or so. What was it we called it again?

Oh yeah, I remember: Seller’s Market!

Sweet.

I did a home inspection yesterday with my first-time buyers in Colonial Village of Sacramento and had some pretty interesting things happen. The house is a short sale and during escrow the price has jumped about $7,300. (Net sheet blunder on the part of the listing agent and banks that don’t want to talk!)

Anyway, my clients love the home, see the potential and - eventually when they have built up enough equity - will rent it out and move to a bigger, better home. The house has two bedrooms and one bath and was someone’s failed flip. A rough wall has been placed between the kitchen and dining area in the hope of turning it into a third bedroom. (By the way, I see people do this all the time - bedrooms must have closets to be bedrooms!) So we went from room to room turning on switches and then waiting for some light or something to come on.

In the bathroom, as soon as the switch turned on, there was a “whirrrr!” sound. Except there was no exhaust fan. Well, there wasn’t one we could see anyway!

Any wonder the last few flippers failed?

I heard a bit of a rumor that Intel is asking more of their workers to move out of locations in the Bay Area to their location in Folsom. So far, according to the story, the move is voluntary, but my source tells me he believes it may signal more Intel facilities eventually being moved out here.

Naturally, if true, and if AMD follows suit as he expects it to, that’s great news for our economy out here.

Has anyone heard anything along these lines?

Maybe it’s because I’m showing too many houses in the evenings, returning home about 8 or 9 everyday. It’s hard to think like a writer when you’re thinking like a Realtor all the time. Oh, just kidding.

I had the wonderful experience of driving home with the sun setting behind the hills and the pines yesterday. And although John has not been bullish on the market in his previous posts, I am definitely beginning to see more activity in terms of people beginning to look for a home. The problem comes in when they have to sell a house to buy another one. Which is why the market is seeing first-time buyers for now.

Here’s the pattern: first come the first-time buyers, then the move-up buyers and then the investors.

You would think it would be the long term investors jumping in first.

Brian Buffini and several other lesser known real estate sales trainers preach a gospel known as “by referral only”.  The idea is that you someday provide such incredible service that your past clients will beat a path to your door in droves, and you’ll no longer have to advertise.

No, wait, that’s not really the idea.  That’s the idea behind the title.  If you search for “By Referral Only” on Google, you’ll find four or five companies doing pay per click advertising on that keyword, as well as a host of websites.  So the idea is “by referral only”, except when it’s not.

My own business philosophy is that referrals are the icing on the cake of doing a good job, not that I should be sending out some expensive drivel to everyone every month reminding them about daylight savings time and when they should prune their dinkleberries, meantime begging for referrals every time.  (Of course, if I were selling the expensive drivel, I’d probably tell you how important it is, too, but I’m not).

So I suppose that given that my marketing is successful, and given that the “by referral only” crowd clearly indulge in the same sort of not-by-referral-marketing that I do, I’ve historically taken a bit of a dim view of the whole by referral only movement (if that’s what it is). 

Lately, however, my marketing-friendly business model notwithstanding, I’ve been very fortunate in that my own personal business has been comprised almost exclusively of referrals from past clients, friends and other folks I know wanting to do business with me. 

The other night I got a call from a past client who bought a home in El Dorado Hills earlier this year referring his brother-in-law, who’s looking for an investment in the greater Sacramento area. 

Vicki and I were also very gratified recently that our real estate transaction coordinator, who — because of the business she’s in — knows a lot of different agents (including some that I would consider to be real “heavy hitters”), chose us to list her home for her.

In addition to those two that I’m working on now, my last two closed escrows are from folks I know personally.

Of course, marketing is the art of getting people you don’t know to like you, but it’s gratifying to know that the people who do know me think well enough to use me, too!

This is one of the best homes we’ve listed in some time, and is definitely worth a look if you’re looking for an impeccably maintained home on acreage in Placerville at an affordable price.

Beautiful Home Among Peaceful Pines

Location: Pleasant Valley

This beautiful manufactured home on peaceful acreage shows better than many “stick built” homes we’ve seen. Plenty of room for a growing family or for vacation home with 1950 square feet and four bedrooms. Back yard features pool, a seasonal creek, and a large deck, with low maintenance landscaping and the smell of pines. Open floor plan with bright and lovely kitchen and a pantry. Large master bedroom with walk-in closet. Minutes from downtown and highway 50. Don’t miss this one!

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John Lockwood

(530) 672-9160

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Asking Price: $430,000.00

Property Location

3400 Fort Jim Road
Placerville, CA 95667
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Features

Bedrooms: 4

Bathrooms: 2

Parking: Ample

Year Built: 1999

Lot Size: 3.856

Garage Size: None

School District: Placerville Union

Square Footage: 1950

Agent Name: John Lockwood

Broker: Elite Properties

MLS #: 70087796

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Range/Oven

Dishwasher

Sink Disposal

Satellite

Interior Amenities

Kitchen Island

Wood Stove

Pantry

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Swimming Pool

Secluded setting

Large Front and Rear Decks

Low Maintenance Landscaping

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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.

I have a listing coming up in Cameron Park soon, so I went around to preview the competition and came away thinking, This is perfect! Of the four homes in a five mile radius around the listing coming up, three are non-competition. I only saw one as a real threat.

Let me explain. These are approximately 2000 square foot homes on pretty decent sized lots, but some of them are dark and dingy, some of them still have nails on the wall, some are not freshly painted and others are cluttered. All in all, only one of them was ready to be showed. And the price tag on the homes? Almost a half million dollars!

I know we’re spoilt here in California. There are million dollar fixer-uppers on the market still. But if you want someone to plunk down quite a bit of cash to buy your house, at least give it a fresh coat of paint.

Or drop the price and market it as a cosmetic fixer.

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”.

We had lunch during which I got a chance to meet the other members of the Elite Properties team and heard some interesting stories about some of the unknown perils we as Realtors encounter in our profession of selling real estate, some of which are: a biting dog, sellers who sleep during the day and work at night, people enjoying their spas in the middle of the day! This is by no means a comprehensive list, of course.

And speaking of perils, read this (not very) concealed threat I received about my real estate advertising on my car.

But I digress. The meeting was thankfully not like all other sales meetings I’ve attended. And we didn’t do the “needs and wants.” Blech! I just think if you provide a comfortable enough environment for Realtors, they are eventually going to talk about their listings and buyers. We do it naturally. I haven’t met a single Realtor yet who didn’t want to talk about their listings.

Well, unless it’s in that forced office meeting “Wants and Needs.”

We did however get an ultimatum on keeping our paperwork updated. And John went a step ahead and created a checklist. Yay, John! I’ve been wanting one of these at every company I worked with - and you’re the only one that’s taken the time to put it all down on paper!

We have a sales meeting tomorrow.  This is something of a big event at Elite Properties, because we don’t have sales meetings very often.

Let me put it this way:  if we started having them once per month, we’d be moving in the direction of getting more corporate.

Being the pointy haired boss, in the last couple of days I’ve been putting together some good pointy haired boss stuff, to make sure we do our paperwork flawlessly. 

The joke in real estate is this:  if it weren’t for paperwork, we’d have no work at all.  I’m a pretty good pointy haired boss about the paperwork, because I come from a background in software, which is a similar “devil is in the details” sort of operation.

Real Estate at the Broker level is genuine nerd work.  I’m right at home.

Fortunately for me (and for our clients), I also seem to have one non-nerd quality that has been really helpful:  I almost invariably pick really good people to work for me — or they pick me.  Our transaction coordinator, Becky Nagel, has been tremendously helpful on the detail side of things, and our agents have also been very patient with me as I relentlessly pursue getting our transactions done flawlessly.

I wrote about the free 1031 seminar and a little bit about why it’s important for investors and landlords to know about a 1031 exchange but it seems like we’ve all been hit with the lazy bug lately and have received no responses so far.

So I must reiterate in John Lockwood style, maybe:

It’s free.

“Free, really free?”

Yes. You pay nothing.

What is a 1031 exchange?

“It’s a vehicle that allows you to exchange your non-cashflowing rental into a cashflowing property - even a commercial property, if you so choose - and defer paying taxes.”

Details?

“Attend the seminar.”

When?

“Just drop me an email and let me know you’re interested at purvabrown@msn.com and I’ll let you know! Seriously, shouldn’t you learn more if you could save thousands?”

Of dollars?

“Cut it out, John. You know I mean dollars!”

I should probably ask Purva Brown to come over and join me here at the Sacramento Real Estate Blog. 

I need air support.  I am pinned down by enemy entropy.

(You can see:  I’ve been watching too much of the Military Channel, and taking my daughter out to see Transformers last night didn’t help at all).

The thing that has me pinned down and semi-literate is the new real estate listings site.  The reason it has rendered me semi-literate is that there’s a large body of work in front of me, and even though an intrepid early adopter (can I get an intrepid early adopter?) could start blogging right now, I’m trying to get the site to the point where I’m not embarrassed to even be calling for intrepid early adopters.

The usual dynamic on software projects goes something like this:

CEO:  “Ship it.”

Programmer: “It’s not ready.”

CEO:  “I need something to show people.”

Programmer: “It’s not ready to show anyone.  If I get a demo ready the whole project will take longer.”

CEO:  “Ship it.”

Programmer: “It’s not ready.”

The problem with a one man software project is that I’m both sides of that argument. 

I wonder which one of me will win?

Meantime, in order to get the work done at all, the programmer needs to be sitting at the keyboard thinking about nothing else but the project, period, and every twenty minutes the CEO comes along and says:  “Did you blog something today?  You know we need to keep up on our existing stuff while we’re doing new development, right?”

I really hate that guy.

Thanks and congratulations to Susan S., a good friend of mine from back in my software days .  Susan closed escrow this week on a fabulous home in East Sacramento, one which was offered at approximately 13% off of comparable sales value. 

Susan was fortunate inasmuch as when we previewed it, it was actually pending sale with another buyer.  However this buyer — who was a first time buyer — had a concern because of some slight irregularities in the carpeting, so they cancelled their transaction.  The irregularities were no big deal to Susan even if they’d been let stand — and it turned out they were corrected in escrow in any case.

Susan is shown here having a good time at her new home with several of her friends (some of whom helped informally with her inspections, though she was very dilligent with her formal inspections as well) and her dog, Sage.

It’s been some time since we reported on the real estate market’s impact on the price of investment properties.  Last time we did, we found that investment properties were generally hit harder than residential properties in terms of having bigger price drops and more inventory.

Our look at the duplex market for July shows this dramatically.  This July’s average duplex in Sacramento County sold for $375,777, down 19% from last year’s average of $464,804.  This July twenty-four duplexes sold in the county, roughly half the forty-seven duplexes that sold last July.  The average duplex sold after eighty-three days on the market, for 92.3% of it’s asking price.  At the same time last year the average sold duplex had spent 52 days on the market and sold for 98.2% of asking price.

With 690 duplexes in inventory and 372 having sold in the last year, we currently have almost two years (22.3 months) of duplex inventory to choose from.  If the trends continue, we may begin to see rental properties that have something we haven’t seen much of in Sacramento County until now — positive cash flow.

We’re hearing good news from Bridget Felmley-Gay about her beautiful listing on Boondock (see the full details or slide show) — looks like there are a couple of offers coming in on this listing.  We’re keeping our fingers crossed that one of these buyers will soon be enjoying one of the most picturesque settings we’ve seen in some time.