Looking at it on a month by month basis, sales volume was up from the previous year in each month of 2008 so far except January (which was down .4%).  The increase was modest in February at 1.6% over the previous February, but grew to a high of 134.3% in May, when 1,879 units sold compared to only 802 in May of 2007.  The average increase in each month over the same month the same year is 57.3%.

So far as of August 19th we have 864 units reported sold this month, beating the month end figure we have for last August of 846 units.  By the end of the month we are likely to see at least a 50% increase over last year’s numbers, especially since it generally takes several days for all sales to be recorded.

Homes in Antelope lost 21.5% of their (sold price per square foot) value from July of 2007 to July of 2008, with the average home fetching $175.99 per square foot last year and $138.07 per square foot this year.  With more demand for the smaller homes (no doubt a reflection of having more smaller sized homes in foreclosure), average sale price fell more dramatically, 35.3%, from $343,354 in July of 2007 to $222,219 in July of 2008.

Driving the declines were above average sales of foreclosures, with short sales and foreclosures accounting for 85.4% of all sales in Antelope, versus "only" 30% in July of 2007.  Buyers grabbing these opportunities in huge numbers, inflating unit sales 122.5% over last year, with 40 units selling in July of 2007 and 89 units selling in July of 2008.  As a result, currently there are only about 4-5 months of inventory in in Antelope

7 lbs 9 oz.

Sierra Brown was born Thursday, August 14th, 2008 at 3:45 AM.  Congratulations and we can’t wait to see the gorgeous new bundle of joy!  Sierra and her mom (AKA Sacramento Real Estate Gal, Purva Brown), are doing fine.  Congratulations Purva and James!

Landscaping, gardening?  Those must be the lame, pre-labor, post-to-future articles.  OK, so they’re not that lame, the point is:

We want pictures.

We want pictures.

Oh well, good things come to those who wait.

To me, this is what makes writing about "the" real estate market much more interesting than it would be otherwise.  You see, there is no "the" real estate market — there are just lots of little local markets.  A given market at a given time may behave differently than how you would expect.  The reason may be either that it’s too small to be statistically significant, or because it just flat out doesn’t follow the rules (or both).

Based on my background writing about greater Sacramento County, I generally expect that most local markets around here will have

• Declined in price between 2007-2008.
• Increased in demand between 2007-2008.

In the Downtown Sacramento area (95814 and 95816), in contrast, what I find for July is that the market:

• Increased in price between 2007-2008.
• Decreased in demand between 2007-2008.

To be sure, the average sale price did drop 5.3% from July to July, from $486,849 in 2007 to $460,809 in 2008.  However, a more accurate indicator of price, sold price per square foot increased 4.8% from 2007-2008 downtown, with the average home fetching $284.53 per square foot in July of 2007 and $298.19 per square foot in July of 2008.

While most of Sacramento County was losing value from July to July, downtown Sacramento was gaining value, but losing buyer interest.  This year only eleven units sold in July, down 42.1% from last July’s 19 units.

The average Citrus Heights home sold in July for $203,616, down 30.9% from last year’s average of $294,564.  Sold price per square foot fell somewhat more moderately, 25.5%, from $192.06 per square foot in July of 2007 to $143.00 in July of 2008.

In response to falling prices, some 82.5% more buyers purchased a home in July than a year ago, so last July’s unit sales of 63 homes climbed to 115 homes sold during July of 2008.  With increased demand over the last few months, Citrus Heights now enjoys low inventory numbers — 5.5 months if you base your average monthly sales on the last twelve months, or 4.4 months if you’re inclined to pay more attention to the last six months of sales.  Either way, having inventory as low as it is is a good thing — but we’ve yet to see the low inventory start to have an impact on prices.

Here in the meantime are the condo I sent my buyer and two others for your consideration.  As always, please give us a call if you have questions at (877) 735-5657.

Four Bedroom Near Sac State This is the unit that had the over full priced offer, a four-bedroom, 1518 square foot condo listed for $129,000, which works out to be only about $85 per square foot.  This is on La Riviera Drive near Sac State — putting it just a few doors down from another condo the same client bought a couple of years ago. A lot of the units in this area are rentals to Sac State students.  Indeed, this is what first got my client interested in the area, because she had a daughter attending Sac State and was looking for a unit where her daughter and her roommates could stay. In addition to the low price, this unit also has fairly reasonable HOA dues at $165 per month.
Three Bedroom in Natomas This condo is one of the few I was able to find currently active that’s bank owned in Natomas, at a very popular condo Bella Rose subdivision on East Commerce Way.  Built in 2004, this condo is listed at $129,900 and features granite counters, 3 bedrooms and 2 baths, with two parking spaces (one covered, one not).  The subdivision features a pool, spa, media room, and a gym. The HOA dues on this unit are $204 per month.
Three Bedroom in Gold River Another good buy is this three bedroom unit in Rancho Cordova / Gold River, listing for only $106,500, or only $76.84 per square foot.  This is another good area where I’ve had investors buy in the past, and the prices have come down nicely in recent months, making it a better investment than ever.  HOA dues on this unit are $194 per month.

Our decision to move to Sacramento because we could afford a home out here led to owning a couple of dogs.  I like that.  Man’s best friend and all.

The thing I don’t like about Sacramento, though, is the weather in July and August.  As I write this, for example, Weather Underground tells me that it’s 97.5 degrees in Sacramento (95.5 degrees where I live in Cameron Park).  Today’s forecast tells us that we’ll get up to 101 to 107.

Note for you folks out of the country:  We use Fahrenheit here.  101 to 107 is pretty darned hot, but it’s not over the boiling point of water here.  Honest.

Sacramento’s average high temperatures for July and August are a bit balmier than that — 94 degrees in July and 93 degrees in August.

Those of you who’ve lived on the humid east coast may find those numbers alarmingly high, but they’re not too bad given the dryness out here.

In contrast, 107 degrees pretty much is too darned hot either way.

The bright side:

• I don’t live in Phoenix.
• August is almost half over.

Andrew was good enough to give me a blog roll link and he sent me a nice note.  He’s the author of two blogs. In one, he focuses primarily on New Condos in Toronto.  I hope that’s going well — I know the whole preconstruction condo thing here became somewhat emblematic of the market downturn.  But the thing about the Canadians is — well, who knows?  They have their own country up their and everything.  So again, I hope things are going well, since Andrew LaFleur is my new friend in Toronto.

Andrew also blogs about Toronto real estate on BlogTo, and you have to go check out this post on a home that’s not in Brooklyn, but instead is the smallest house in Toronto.  This is pretty cool!

I wonder where the smallest house in Sacramento is.  I’ll have to go searching…

I was hoping to find a Youtube video about this year’s California State Fair in Sacramento, but what I happened upon instead was the clip above from an earlier State Fair with Wierd Al living in an Amish Paradise.

I don’t know if that’s better or worse.

The State Fair will be happening from August 15th to September 1st.  For more details and prices, check out the State Fair web site.

And here’s a State Fair Video you can watch from the Sac Bee.  The Bee tells us the Fair this year faces hot weather and a cool economy.  Well, the economy part is a bit beyond our control, but as a tip to the Fair people:  you always face hot weather.  If you held the Fair in October you’d have better results!

Your friend,

John Lockwood

Realtor® & Weather Consultant

There have been a few reasons why I’ve been off my usual Elite Properties web site thing of beauty feed lately.  The first reason is that recently all my blogs got hacked (read more here).

Don’t we all just love Internet criminals?  Sure we do — we love them every bit as much as regular criminals.

At around the same time that these ne’er-do-wells were making up two days of security-related work for me to do, I was disabling the comments here.  Partly I got tired of the noise-to-signal ratio, and partly I was inspired to react to the smug hyperbole of the article, Without Comments Your Blog is a Web 1.0 Website.

No, without comments my blog is an efficient content management system.  Or better yet, it’s a better blog, because now it’s a place where someone who takes credit or blame for his work writes something that may or may not be credit-worthy or blame-worthy.  Indeed, as we learn from Joel on Software, a blog is very much a blog without comments, at least according to the guy who invented them.

The most disheartening development over the past few weeks, however, has not been the prevention of anonymous drivel, but the seasonal downturn in the number of web site inquiries from real people.  Over the last week or two it seems that the number of serious inquiries has slowed to something of a trickle, so if other companies are slowing as well, I expect to see a downturn in the September numbers.  (July’s volume figures bested June’s, which I didn’t expect — the jury’s still out on how August will shape up).

It’s time to get another part time job as a Chippendales model to tide me over until next year!