Real estate sales in the city of Orangevale have almost doubled year over year, largely due to the non-distressed sales in the area. Foreclosure sales fell 10% from 20 REOs sold last April to 18 this April, which constitutes not much of a difference. Short sales increased 25% while non-distressed home sales were up 300% year over year. 20 non-distressed homes sold in the city of Orangevale in April. Overall, 43 homes sold in the area, an increase of 48.3% year over year.
Average price per square foot is now $141.42 – a 5% increase year over year from $134.70 last April. Home buyers also afforded themselves houses on average 11.6% bigger year over year. The more accurate figure then of price increase year over year is the average dollar per square foot and not average sales price which has jumped 17.2% from $182,032 to $213,353 currently. Median sales price is now $201,000 a 9.6% increase year over year from $183,370 last April.
Inventory in Orangevale is now 5.3 months based on the last year of sales and 5.8 months based on the last six months. Foreclosure inventory is around 1.5 months.
31 homes sold in the Fair Oaks area this month, and as elsewhere in Sacramento county, non-distressed sales have increased by leaps and bounds. Overall inventory itself increased by 24% year over year. Foreclosures fell by 41.7% as compared with foreclosure sales in April of last year. Foreclosures now make up just 22.6% of all sales in the area. Short sales increased by 66.7% while non-distressed sales increased 90% year over year. 61.3% of all homes sold in Fair Oaks are now non-distressed sales.
Average price per square foot is now $154.76 which is 5.2% higher than it was a year ago. Last April, average sold price per square foot was $147.15. Average sales price is now $288,940 which is 5.3% higher than it was a year ago when it was $274,472. Median sales price has also jumped 16.4% year over year to rest at $270,000 from $232,000 last April.
Inventory in Fair Oaks is now at 6.4 months based on the last year of sales and 7.1 months based on the last six months of sales. Foreclosure inventory is right around 2 months while short sale inventory is at a year and a half.
The old rules remain important: if you’re buying a home and have been credit approved, please, please don’t put anything on credit between the loan approval and the closing of the escrow. I remember telling this to home buyers six years ago and it’s still true today, a nice reminder that the old rules still hold true.
Effective June 1st as part of Fannie Mae’s new loan quality initiative to control underwriting and prevent fraud by borrowers, your lender will probably order a second full screening immediately before closing. This means that if you have obtained or even shopped around for a largish purchase on credit like a car or even a new credit card between the original application for a home mortgage and closing, there is a chance the lender could put the closing on hold pending additional research.
With escrow times getting longer, it’s imperative that potential homebuyers understand how to handle credit wisely and not plan on getting additional credit to buy things for the house just because they were approved for a home mortgage. The logic is this: If you’ve taken out new loans that are sizable enough to affect the debt-to-income ratio calculations used in your original mortgage approval, the deal could fall through. The added debt load could render you ineligible for the mortgage because you suddenly appear unable to handle the payments without a strain on your household budget.
So follow the old rule: if you’re buying a home, don’t even think about buying anything else!
It seems like the Carmichael real estate market still has to hit bottom, although the price dips are becoming less sharp in the last few months. 39 homes sold in the 95608 zip code – the city of Carmichael – an overall unit volume decline of 13.3% year over year.
Foreclosure sales dropped 52.4% for the same period while just 5 short sales closed escrow. In an area where short sales don’t seem to capture the attention of homebuyers anyway, short sales declined 28.6% year over year. Non-distressed sales increased 41.2% year over year. Approximately 2 out of 3 homes sold are now non-distressed, a good sign if you ignore the short sale inventory, which unfortunately we cannot.
Average sold price per square foot is now at $152.05 which is 9.4% lower than it was a year ago when it was at $167.80. Interestingly enough, home buyers also bought houses on average 13.4% smaller than they did a year ago. This meant that average sales price seemed to decline further than usual at 21.6%. Average sales price in Carmichael is now $260,258, down from $331,856 a year ago. Median sales price fell 3% to rest at $245,000 from $252,500.
Inventory in Carmichael is now at 6.5 months based on the last year of sales and 7 months based on the last six months of sales. Foreclosure inventory is just over 2 months and the scary, scary short sale inventory is just under 2 years.
66 homes closed escrow in the month of April in Antelope, an overall unit volume increase of 10% year over year. Foreclosure sales fell 45.5% while short sales increased 86.7% for the same period. Non-distressed sales also increased year over year 66.7%. In fact, 1 out of every 3 homes are now non-distressed sales as compared with 1 out of 5 last April, a bit of an improvement in the overall health of the Antelope real estate market.
Average price per square foot is now $112.49, which is a 1.8% decline year over year from a high of $114.57. Average sales price now rests at $179,596 which is a 2.3% decline for the same period. Last April, the average sales price for a home in the 95843 zip code was $183,855. Median sales price is now $185,000.
Inventory in Antelope is now at 5.1 months based on the last year of sales and 5.7 months based on the last six months of sales. Foreclosure inventory is around 1 month.
Unfortunately, for a lot of homeowners, that might just be case. If you’re one of the homeowners who has had his home foreclose due to lack of mortgage payments, there is a chance that in the state of California the lender may be able to sue you for the difference the home is currently worth and the mortgage amount. This can happen only if you have refinanced the home since you bought it.
Currently, if a homeowner defaults on a mortgage used to purchase his or her home – called a “purchase money mortgage” – the homeowner’s liability on the mortgage is limited to the property itself. Unfortunately, the original law did not extend the purchase money protection to loans that refinance the original purchase debt, even if the refinance only was to obtain a lower interest rate.
Californians who refinance a property currently do not have protection if they default on a mortgage greater than the property’s value. Called a “deficiency” liability, under current California law, the lender can sue the former homeowner for the amount of the deficiency even after taking back the property. This is also called a deficiency judgment.
The California Association of Realtors is sponsoring a Senate Bill to close this loophole. We’ll keep you posted. For more details on the SB 1178 go here.
Nope. You got that one wrong. Just kidding. I have no possible way of knowing what you were thinking. I’m not John Lockwood! (Sorry, John.)
But seriously, we’ve gone ahead and made ourselves one of the sheep on Facebook and wouldn’t you know it – have a little group forming. So if you’re into being awake at 4 am just to check on what we’re doing here on this blog while getting your first cup of coffee or on your way to check on your kids, or whatever those crazy people in the blogosphere do (no pointing fingers, now!) come check us out. And join our group.
Or just friend John. Apparently I’m still maintaining my artistic integrity.
If you have missed out on the federal tax credit by not getting into escrow on or before April 30 to close June 30, 2010, you might want to consider the state tax credit. But be forewarned, this credit is limited to available fund and might run out soon.
Here are some highlights of the tax credit:
Tax credits are limited to either 5 percent of the purchase price or $10,000, whichever is less.
The home can be a single-family house, condominium, townhouse, houseboat, manufactured home, or mobile home.
The home must be a primary residence and not an investment property.
Taxpayers must receive a Certificate of Allocation from the state Franchise Tax Board to claim the credit.
If the available tax credit exceeds the amount of taxes owed, the unused tax credit may not be carried over to the following year.
The state credit, worth up to $10,000 over a three-year period, became effective May 1, 2010.
Even with its relatively relaxed real estate sales, El Dorado county managed to get 189 homes sold in the month of April. That was a 44.3% increase year over year. In fact, every category of real estate experienced a renewed interest and foreclosures gained 24.2%, short sales increased 95.2% and even non-distressed homes jumped 47.9% year over year, promising a better spring real estate season than we have had in a while.
37.6% of all homes sold are now non-distressed while 40.7% are foreclosed homes and 21.7% are short sales. So in that regard, the ratio of distressed property to non-distressed does not look very different from last April.
Average price per square foot now rests at $153.41 – almost the same as last April, but higher by 3.4% if we really wanted to nit-pick. Average sales price has risen 5.9% from $335,233 to $354,982 year over year. Median sales price has fallen 6.3% from $320,000 to rest at $299,900. All in all, a fairly stable (or stabilizing) spring real estate market in El Dorado county.
Inventory remains high at 8.2 months based on the last year of sales and 8.6 months based on the last six months of sales. Foreclosure inventory hovers around 2 months.
222 homes sold in the city of Elk Grove in the last month, an overall unit volume decrease of 10.5% year over year. Foreclosure sales, as elsewhere in Sacramento county, are down year over year while short sales have increased by 66%. What this does not change however is the ratio of distressed to non-distressed home sales, which remain at about a 3:1 ratio since this time last year.
Average price per square foot also remained the same or thereabout at $115.43. Last April, average price per square foot for real estate in Elk Grove was $113.04. The average sales price fell very slightly by 2.4% to hit $242,962 in April. Last April, it was $248,841. Median sales price is now at $228,00, a 5% decrease year over year.
Inventory in Elk Grove is at 4.1 months based on the last year of sales and 4.6 months based on the last six months of sales. Foreclosure inventory remains around 1 month and short sale inventory remains the largest at slightly under a year.
51 homes sold in the city of Folsom this month. As compared with 66 homes last April, that was a decline of 22.7% year over year. Foreclosures fell 33.3% and short sales 38.5% while non-distressed homes fell 9.4% making Folsom one of those rare areas where there were year over year declining real estate sales in all categories. (In most other areas of Sacramento, foreclosure sales are falling while short sales and non-distressed property sales are increasing.)
Average price per square foot remained almost the same year over year in Folsom at $177.16. Last April, it was $178.32. Interestingly though, homebuyers purchased homes on average 12.4% smaller this April than they did the last, which led to the average sales price to drop by 12.9%. Average sales price currently rests at $331,343 from a high of $380,617. Median sales price is now $325,00 down 9.7% from $360,000 last April.
Real estate inventory in Folsom hovers around 5.5 months. Foreclosure inventory remains higher in Folsom than most other places in Sacramento county at right around 2 months.
Another month with lower unit volume and higher prices. A total of 1562 homes sold in Sacramento county today – a unit volume decline of 18.2% year over year. That was compared with 1910 homes a year ago. The largest change in sales has been in the category of foreclosure sales, which recorded a 50.3% drop year over year. In fact, only 40% of all property sales are now REOs, down from 65.1% just a year ago. Short sales gained ground by 46% year over year while non-distressed properties also increased in sales by 39.2%.
April was another month of year over year price gains. Average sold price per square foot is now $123.14 – up 8.8% year over year and also higher than last month’s average price per square foot at $120.00. The average sized home in Sacramento county sold for 7.5% higher this April than it did last April setting the average sales price of real estate at $196,232. Median sales price is now $175,000 – up 13% year over year.
Inventory in Sacramento county is at 4.4 months based on the last twelve months of sales and 4.8 months based on the last six months of sales. Short sale inventory is – unfortunately for this budding real estate recovery – still over a year.
Well, it’s news. And unlike the dramatic kidnappings, murders, your vanishing checking account numbers and other keep-you-awake-all-night kind of news, this news is rather tame.
For one thing, those of you who noticed that the website wasn’t working for a few days in between, there’s good news. We’re up and running again. The web hosting company was changing servers or servicing changes or some other technical stuff only John would really know. Happily, things have settled down now and you are free to go back to the website and search for homes to your heart’s content.
In other good news, which you may not care about quite so much is that now the MLS is Macintosh compatible! You see, for the longest time us Realtors needed a patch if we wanted to use the MLS on anything besides a PC with Internet Explorer. I know, I know. You don’t care. But it frees up my desktop from two extra folders, so I’m thrilled. So there.
And now for the non-news. Don’t get me wrong – it’s still news. But in true non-news fashion, you won’t care that much about it. And it is that I was reminded by an old email yesterday that I have now been official broker-of-record for exactly a year yesterday. Or in other words, John built Elite Properties from the ground up and then hired me to take over the day-to-day business of paperwork, writing the website and supporting our agents. Succinctly put, it’s been a lot of fun.
So, go ahead… look for a home! And come back – the website will still be up. And we’ll all be right here!
