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Sacramento County Real Estate Market Update, January, 2011

Opportunity for Home Buyers

Sacramento County real estate market in January 2011 registered growth in sales primarily caused by foreclosures. This growth in sales indicates investor buyers and home owners continue to prefer the Sacramento County real estate. The drop in price also offered a good opportunity to home buyers to go for shopping. Low price of units helped many to found bigger houses within their budget, and this led to an increase in average size of units sold.

Foreclosure Sales Push Up Volume

Sacramento real estate market statistics show 1,343 units were sold in January 2011. This is a big increase compared to conditions a year ago. There were 1,176 units changed hands in January 2010. This 14.2 percent rise is attributed to huge increase in foreclosure sales this January. There were 643 foreclosure sales last month, 130 units more than the last January figures. This 25.3 percent hike in foreclosure sales gives this segment 47.9 percent of total sales volume this January. A year before, foreclosure sales were 43.6 percent of total sales.

Short sales also witnessed growth this January and around a quarter of total sales are from this segment. They went up by 17.8 percent compared to the figures of January last year. There were 337 short sales this January compared to 286 units in January 2010.

Nondistressed sales this January stands at 363 units. This was 14 units less than January 2010 figures. As the price of real estate in Sacramento County continue to remain less than the last year, the decrease in nondistressed sales is understandable. Despite registering 3.2 percent drop in sales, this segment with 27 percent share in total sales in January 2011 stands at second position after foreclosure sales. Nondistressed sales had 32.1 percent share in total sales a year ago.

Moderate Decrease in Price

The increase in foreclosure sales and absence of large number of buyers caused decline of prices in Sacramento real estate market compared to last January. In January 2011, the average price of one square foot was $110.92. This is about 6.8 percent less compared to the $118.99 average per square foot price in January 2010. The drop in average square foot price was big attraction for home buyers. It gave them an opportunity to save money on their purchases. Some home buyer went for bigger homes within their budget. The average size of homes, as a result, went up 2 percent, from 1,612 sq ft in January 2010 to 1,644 sq ft this January.

The average sale price crashed down by $9,447 in a year, from $191,806 last January to $186,353 in January this year. This 4.9 percent deep this year has its impact on the average list price, which shaded $7,002 compared to last January. In January 2011, the average list price was $186,353 compared to $191,806 a year ago. The median sales price took a 3.9 percent beating. It dropped down to $160,000 in January 2011 from $166,500 exactly a year ago. This sharp fall in Sacramento real estate market is due to decrease in prices and simultaneous rise in number of sales.

Inventory Status

The average inventory status for short sales in the past one year was 10.7 months. The inventory status for foreclosures sales was the lowest at 2.1 months. In the past six months, there was slight fall in monthly average sales all segments.

Market Statistics for Sacramento County for January, 2011

The following figures show changes in Sacramento county real estate market in January 2011.

Unit Volume Data

Units Sold	January, 2010	January, 2011	Change
Foreclosures Sold	513	643	25.3%
(% of total units)	43.6%	47.9%
Short Sales Sold	286	337	17.8%
(% of total units)	24.3%	25.1%
Nondistressed Sold	377	363	-3.7%
(% of total units)	32.1%	27.0%
Total	1,176	1,343	14.2%

Price Data

Prices	January, 2010	January, 2011	Change
Sold Price / Square Foot	$118.99	$110.92	-6.8%
Square Feet	1,612	1,644	2.0%
Average List Price	$193,355	$186,353	-3.6%
Average Sale Price	$191,806	$182,359	-4.9%
Median Sale Price	$166,500	$160,000	-3.9%

Inventory (Based on 12 months of prior sales)

Sale Type	Average Sales Per Month	Active	Months of Inventory
All Sales	1,544	7,232	4.7
Foreclosures	631	1,320	2.1
Short Sales	371	3,960	10.7
Nondistressed	544	1,958	3.6

Inventory (Based on 6 months of prior sales)

Sale Type	Average Sales Per Month	Active	Months of Inventory
All Sales	1476	7,232	4.9
Foreclosures	626	1,320	2.1
Short Sales	356	3,960	11.1
Nondistressed	496	1,958	3.9

Sacramento Real Estate Market Update, December, 2010

Sacramento real estate market update in December, 2010 shows an increase in the sales volume and a moderate fall in prices compared to the same period last year. This principal city of the Sacramento County has the highest number of real estate sales and purchases in the area. Job changes and migration are viewed as possible factors causing the increase in volume sales. However, the year-end trends do not show unexpected growth, and there is no boom in Sacramento real estate market to show compared to the market conditions exactly a year ago in this posh settlement. The sales of real estate in Sacramento City were mostly through the efforts of agents and participation of investor buyers, and foreclosure sales continued to hold the limelight in December, 2010.

Number of Units Up

Continuing the trends from neighboring Placer and El Dorado Counties, the Sacramento real estate market also witnessed considerable increase in the sale of total units. There were 2,257 units sold in December, 2010. This constitutes a healthy jump of over 10 percent compared to the situation a year ago. This growth is largely attributed to foreclosures sold, which constitute around 41.6 percent of total volume this time compared to 39 percent last December. The total sale in December 2009 was 2,035 units. Out of this, 796 were from foreclosure sales. However, a year after, foreclosure sales had gone up by 18.1 percent to 940 units.

The statistics of December, 2010 shows growth registered in all segments. There was moderate hike in both short sales and nondistressed sales, and their market shares in total volume continue to remain without any significant change. Short sales went up by 7.1 percent in December 2010 compared to the data of December 2009. This is 5.8 percent for nondistressed sales.

Price of Units Down

The price of real estate in Sacramento and its neighborhood is yet to regain the level achieved last December. The economic trends are encouraging across the nation, and this has stopped real estate prices from nose driving. But Sacramento real estate market prices in December 2010 were less than prices exactly a year ago. There was 5.9-percent fall in the per-square foot selling price due to double digit growth in foreclosure sales. It had come down to $122.07 in December 2010 from $129.69 in December 2009. This resulted in increase in average size of homes by 1.2 percent.

The hike in the average size of units sold has moderated the average listing and sales prices despite diving per-square foot prices. The average list price is down by 3.6 percent compared to last December. For average sale price, it is 4.8 percent in negative. Again foreclosure sales by institutions kept average sales price low compared to last December. This negative trend in Sacramento City real estate market in December had also its impact on the average median price, which came down to $192,000 in December 2010, about 4.5 percent fall in prices in December 2009.

The price decrease compared to December last also had its effect on the inventory status in all segments. While foreclosure sales have shortest inventory status, short sales remained for an average of 11.6 months before being sold.

Market Report for Sacramento for December, 2010

The following is the bare analysis of Sacramento City real estate market in December.

Unit Volume Data

Units Sold	December, 2009	December, 2010	Change
Foreclosures Sold	796	940	18.1%
(% of total units)	39.1%	41.6%
Short Sales Sold	495	530	7.1%
(% of total units)	24.3%	23.5%
Nondistressed Sold	744	787	5.8%
(% of total units)	36.6%	34.9%
Total	2,035	2,257	10.9%

Price Data

Prices	December, 2009	December, 2010	Change
Sold Price / Square Foot	$129.69	$122.07	-5.9%
Square Feet	1,803	1,824	1.2%
Average List Price	$237,025	$228,598	-3.6%
Average Sale Price	$233,874	$222,763	-4.8%
Median Sale Price	$201,000	$192,000	-4.5%

Inventory (Based on 12 months of prior sales)

Sale Type	Average Sales Per Month	Active	Months of Inventory
All Sales	2,105	11,305	5.4
Foreclosures	796	1,920	2.4
Short Sales	514	5,775	11.2
Nondistressed	798	3,624	4.5

Inventory (Based on 6 months of prior sales)

Sale Type	Average Sales Per Month	Active	Months of Inventory
All Sales	2,045	11,305	5.5
Foreclosures	775	1,920	2.5
Short Sales	496	5,775	11.6
Nondistressed	776	3,624	4.7

Sacramento County Real Estate Market Update, December 2010

Encouraging Trend for Buyers

Sacramento County real estate market update in December 2010 presents an opportunity for those looking for long-term investment in this picturesque county. The volume of houses sold in December is up, considering the same situation one year ago. The prices are lesser than what they were in December last year. The overall changes are moderate, and there is not any big gap in the volume and prices in December this year compared to the same time last year.

Moderate Increase in Volume

Sacramento real estate market has witnessed an increase in the number of units sold in December 2010. The total number of houses sold stands at 1,644 compared to 1,548 exactly one year ago. This 6.2 percent rise is moderate and mainly attributed to climbing foreclosure sales. Following the November 2010 trends, the total number of foreclosures sold has gone up by 16.6 percent, which constitute 45 percent of total units sold. There were 634 foreclosures sold in December last year. In December 2010, this number went up to 739. This noticeable increase, however, is not visible in short sales and nondistressed sales, which together constitute 55 percent of the total Sacramento real estate business.

Short sales constitute 22.6 percent of the total units sold in December 2010. However, statistics show a slight decrease of 2.1 percent compared to the available data of December last year. It stands at 371 this December compared to 379 same time last year. Sacramento County real estate nondistressed sales statistics has almost remained the same. Though there is just 0.2 percent or one unit difference between the two years, the share nondistressed sales in total units sold has come down by 4.1 percent.

Slight Decrease in Prices

The price of real estate in Sacramento County has gone down compared to December last year. Though the price remained the same as they were a month ago, there is moderate decline compared to the price one year ago. The price of per square feet witnessed a decrease amounting to 6.6 percent, from $122.94 a year ago to $114.78 at present. However, the decline in average size of homes is nominal, 1,680 sq ft in December 2009 and 1,674 sq ft in December 2010. There has been more than 5 percent slump in both average list price and average sale price. You can also notice decline in median sale price despite increase in volume. It has gone down by 6 percent, from $180,000 in December last year to $169,250 this December.

Inventory Status

Foreclosure sales continue to have the lowest inventory average of 2.4 months. However, average months to get through the inventory have increased somewhat for short sales and nondistressed sales in the past six months. Short sales have to go through 12-month inventory listing.

Sacramento County Real Estate Market Statistics for December, 2010

The following data in tabular form presents a quick review of trends of Sacramento real estate market in December 2010 compared to that of December 2009.

Unit Volume Data

Units Sold	December, 2009	December, 2010	Change
Foreclosures Sold	634	739	16.6%
(% of total units)	41.0%	45.0%
Short Sales Sold	379	371	-2.1%
(% of total units)	24.5%	22.6%
Nondistressed Sold	535	534	-0.2%
(% of total units)	34.6%	32.5%
Total	1548	1644	6.2%

Price Data

Prices	December, 2009	December, 2010	Change
Sold Price / Square Foot	$122.94	$114.78	-6.6%
Square Feet	1680	1676	-0.3%
Average List Price	$207,480	$196,650	-5.2%
Average Sale Price	$206,634	$192,436	-6.9%
Median Sale Price	$180000	$169250	-6.0%

Inventory (Based on 12 months of prior sales)

Sale Type	Average Sales Per Month	Active	Months of Inventory
All Sales	1530	7773	5.1
Foreclosures	620	1461	2.4
Short Sales	367	4229	11.5
Nondistressed	546	2093	3.8

Inventory (Based on 6 months of prior sales)

Sale Type	Average Sales Per Month	Active	Months of Inventory
All Sales	1473	7773	5.3
Foreclosures	608	1461	2.4
Short Sales	351	4229	12.0
Nondistressed	516	2093	4.1

Sacramento County’s Real Estate Numbers — Another Look

Here’s a Short Version of This Article

At least part of the dramatic drop in price that we reported for Sacramento County for first quarter of 2008 is a result of the fact that the cheaper homes are selling better, not the fact that individual homes have fallen as much as the overall average.

Here’s the Long Version

The nice thing about being an surly old bastard is that at some point you begin to care a lot less what people think of you, unless it’s someone with a gun pointed at you, or someone who might make you dinner.

And so it is that I know that there’ll be those in the Chicken Little Subculture who’ll see this article as an attempt to minimize the bad news coming out of Sacramento County, and I am blissfully indifferent.

Let me be clear: the real drops in value that we’ve seen in Sacramento County, Placer County, and El Dorado County have been fairly substantial. Ask anyone who bought a home in 2005 and is selling one in 2008 — that’s not a great position to be in. Of course, if you bought in 1996 and are selling in 2008, you’re probably kicking yourself for not moving in 2005, but other than that you’re sitting pretty.

So accuse me of minimizing the drops if you want, but I want to re-examine the numbers that came out in my last Sacramento County real estate market update in light of this other update that I did for Placer County.

The Problem With Averages

There’s always a problem when you aggregate data about a population. On the one hand, you can’t analyze statistical data at all without more than one data point. But the fact that the average man in America is 5′ 10″ tall (or whatever the average is this year) doesn’t mean that YOU are 5’10″ tall. This much is obvious.

One of the interesting things I found out in looking at the Placer County numbers was that part of the reason for the roughly 30% price drop in the county was that the places where prices had fallen the most were selling more, so the higher priced homes were underrepresented. In Lincoln, for example, home prices fell by 35%, and made up a bigger percentage of the total sales Placer County in 2008 than in 2007. Meantime, Granite Bay, where prices fell only 9.2%, made up 8.8% of the total sales in Placer County in 2007 but only 4.1% of the total in 2008.

Looking at some of the areas we’ve considered in Sacramento County, the same sort of thing appears to be happening. In Elk Grove, sold price per square foot fell 32.3% from year to year; volume went up in Elk Grove by 19.8%. In Folsom, in contrast, sold price per square foot fell more moderately (11.7%); unit volume went down in Folsom by 38.1%.

So what we’re seeing in Sacramento County is the same sort of thing I talked about in Placer County. Prices have fallen dramatically, but only part of that drama comes from actual drops in the value of individual houses, and the rest is made up of the fact that the homes that have fallen more dramatically are selling better than those where the value has held on better.

Sacramento County Real Estate First Quarter Market Update

It’s the fourth of the month, and that means that all good real estate brokers who don’t want to get fined $100 by the MLS have entered their sales data for the month of March into Metrolist. This means we can start digging into the data for the first quarter in earnest now.

In the first quarter of 2008, 3,011 homes sold through the MLS in Sacramento County, a 4.6% increase in unit volume from the first quarter of 2007′s 2,879 units. No doubt this reflects buyers taking advantage of the bargains that have happened as more and more foreclosed homes come on the market.

Prices have fallen substantially over the last year. Here’s a table that breaks the numbers down:

Indicator	Q1 2007	Q1 2008	Decline
Average Sale Price	$381,143	$268,867	29.5%
Median Sale Price	$345,000	$250,000	27.5%
Average Sold Price Per Square Foot	$224.86	$159.47	29.1%

What’s Selling, And What’s Available

I’ll be publishing an article shortly where we analyze the data from one community, Elk Grove, in terms of how many non-distressed homes are selling versus short sales and foreclosures. If you want to see that when it comes out, please subscribe now.

We’ll probably do a similar analysis for all of Sacramento County, but to whet your appetite and show the numbers a slightly different way, let’s show how many months of inventory there are for short sales, foreclosures, and non-distressed sales, based on the absorption rate for the last three months.

Sacramento County Real Estate Inventory By Type

Here’s a table that breaks it down, but you can read the text below to see how we got the numbers:

Type of Home	Unsold Inventory
Bank Foreclosures	4.4 months
Overall Inventory	9.6 months
Non-distressed (Neither short sale nor foreclosures)	10.5 months
Short Sales	52.8 months

There are 9,661 homes in inventory (for sale) right now, and 1,004 homes sold per month for the last three months. Overall, then, there are 9.6 months worth of inventory (i.e., 9,661 divided by 1,004).

Of course, how much inventory there is varies widely by type of sale.

3,494 non-distressed homes are currently available in Sacramento County. (I use “non-distressed” to mean sales that are neither short sales nor bank owned foreclosures). 333 non-distressed homes per month sold in Sacramento County over the last three months. Inventory for non-distressed sales, then, is 3,494 / 333, or 10.5 months.

For foreclosures, which are selling like foreclosed hot cakes, the inventory numbers are much lower. Some 605 foreclosures sold each month during the last quarter, so the 2,633 foreclosures currently available represents 4.4 months of inventory.

Short sales are just the opposite of foreclosures, because they sell like crusty old hot cakes that nobody wants to eat, because the bank may or may not approve your syrup. Currently there are 3,535 short sales in inventory, and a whopping sixty-seven of such homes sell each month in Sacramento County. Dividing again, we get 52.8 months of inventory. Yes, short sale fans, that’s about 4.4 years.

Ask the Realtor – When Are Listings Updated

A reader recently emailed and asked: “Hi, I was wondering if your web page ‘New Houses In Sacramento’ is up to date since I saw them pretty much the same for more than a month.”

OK, busted. Actually those of you who’ve been reading the blog probably know the answer to this question because periodically I talk about it, but there are actually two sources of listings on this web site. If you go to the search page, you’re going to have access to listings that are updated once each day, so it’s almost as current as what we Realtors have access to in the MLS.

If you look at some of the other pages where we just have page after page of listings, such as the new homes pages, the condo pages, or the foreclosure pages, you’re looking at listings that are also from the Metrolist MLS, but that are updated manually, so they sometimes get a bit stale.

One thing I would take issue with this reader on length of time involved in this particular case, which has “only” been two weeks. Yes, I realize, in Internet dog-year time that’s “more than a month” — it’s practically an eternity.

Time for me to do another round of updating, it looks like.

Sacramento County Real Estate Market Update

Greetings, market statistics fans! Straighten up those pocket protectors and hang on to your slide rules, because it’s time once again for us to catch up on our REM sleep with yet another thrilling installment of our never-ending saga: Sacramento (County) Real Estate Market Updates!

And the crowds went wild.

The good news: 905 units sold in February, up some ten per cent from January. Unit volume was even up marginally from last February — and, yes, this still holds true when you adjust for the leap year. February’s unit volume was the highest since last July, when 977 units sold.

The average home sold for $273,603 in February, up slightly over January’s average of $269,301, but down 29.9% from last February’s average sale price of $390,043. The median sale price of $249,000 was down 29.2% from last February’s median of $353,000. Sold price per square foot is down 28.8% from February to February, at $162.76 this year versus $228.63 last year.

The 905 units that sold in February is not bad for a late winter month where the average over the preceding twelve months was 968 units per month. Currently there are 9,866 homes on the market, which works out to be 10.2 months of inventory. 33.9% of the homes in active inventory are short sales, but as we’ve reported earlier and a variety of our colleagues in other markets have reported since, the closing rate for short sales is much lower, at 6.6% in February. Bank foreclosures (REOs), in contrast, make up 28% of the current active inventory (2,763 of the 9,866 available units), but in February they accounted for 59.2% of the homes that sold in Sacramento County (542 out of 905 total sales).

How Much Does It Cost To Buy A Home in Sacramento?

Short answer for the median priced home in Sacramento County: $8,150 up front, plus $1,835 per month.

Read on for the longer answer.

If you’re buying a home (in Sacramento or anywhere — even, God help you, Boise), naturally you want to know what it’s going to cost.

In this article, I’ve taken the median priced Sacramento home and worked out how much it would cost you to buy it, and when you’d be paying what. We’re going to be buying a $255,000 home, which as of a few weeks ago was our median selling price.

What I’ve tried to do in this article is put together a scenario that is:

Accurate given current rates and information.
Doable. By doable I mean you won’t have to pitch lowballs all day in the hope that someone will bat your home out of the park, or write an offer using a program that wouldn’t work on a bank foreclosure. (Most of our buyers are interested in foreclosures because of the savings). In other words, I’m presenting you with what I believe is a reasonable scenario for an offer that stands a fair chance of getting accepted and that will actually close.

I’ve also tried to estimate high on some of these costs such as inspections, which may be $25.00 or so cheaper in some instances than I’m quoting here. In any case all numbers are estimates, so actual numbers may differ.

For our scenario, I’ve assumed you’re going to get the seller to pay your closing costs, but you’re going to be bringing in a 3% deposit for an 30-year, fixed rate, FHA loan at 5.875%. Actual rates and APRs vary, but that’s approximately what we’ve been seeing lately.* The 3% can be gifted, so if you don’t have savings, you can purchase a home using that perennial favorite — the same program my wife and I used — PDPMAP. (Parental Down Payment Mooching Assistance Program).

OK, so what will you need in the way of cash, and when?

When you write your offer: First, you’ll usually need $1,000 for a good faith deposit. This amount is not set by law, but rather by local tradition. Some bank owned properties require a 1% deposit (i.e. $2,550), but unless that’s the case, I usually recommend a $1,000 deposit. Whatever the amount, you’re going to write a check to the title company when you write your offer and give it to your Realtor® — we send a photocopy of the check to the listing agent when we submit your offer. The check itself is held in the file uncashed until your offer is accepted, then it is cashed by the escrow company. When you close escrow, it’s credited toward either your down payment or closing costs. If you cancel the escrow during your inspection period, you get your deposit back.

While you’re in escrow: Once your offer is accepted, there are a few more costs, including an appraisal ($400), a pest inspection ($100), and a whole house inspection ($400). For all of these, you’ll typically need a check up front, but the cost of the appraisal will be credited back to you in escrow.

Closing Escrow: Remember our scenario. There are a number of closing costs, but we’ve asked the seller to pay those. We need a 3% down payment, but we’re getting a credit for the good faith deposit and the appraisal that we’ve already paid. Three per cent of $255,000 is $7,650, but with the $1,400 credit, our remaining cash to close is $6,250.

In other words, between the point when you wrote your offer and when you got the keys to your house, your total cost was your $7,650 down payment plus your pest inspection and whole house, for a total of $8,150.

Monthly Payment:

Because you’re financing a fairly high percentage of the cost of the home, your lender is going to want you to use an impound account to pay your tax and insurance. You’ll also be paying principle and interest, plus MIP. MIP, or Mortgage Insurance Premium, is the FHA equivalent of PMI — it’s insurance you pay because you’re borrowing a large percentage of the cost of your home. (Once you’ve paid down your mortgage to 78%, the MIP is canceled). Your total estimated monthly payment for all of these (Principle, Interest, Tax, Insurance, and MIP) will be $1,835.

So there’s how we got to our answer. The median priced home in Sacramento costs $8,150 up front and $1,835 per month.

For those of you who would like a bit more detail on what we mean by closing costs, the following is a somewhat more detailed version of what we just went over:

Purchase Price		$255,000.00

Costs needed prior to close
Good Faith Deposit	$1,000.00
Whole House Inspection	$400.00
Pest Inspection	$100.00
FHA Appraisal	$400.00
Total needed prior to escrow		$1,900.00

Loan Related Charges
Tax Service Fee	$70.00
Wire Transfer Fee	$50.00
Processing Fee	$495.00
Underwriting Fee	$795.00
Flood certificate	$13.00
Total Loan Related Charges		$1,423.00

Title Related Charges
Recording Fee	$75.00
Escrow Fee	$328.75
Documentation Fee	$50.00
Notary	$60.00
Courier	$50.00
Email docs	$75.00
Alta Title Policy	$475.00
Total Title Related Charges		$1,113.75

Pre-paid Reserves
Tax (6 months)	$1,593.75
MIP (12 months)	$618.38
Hazard Insurance (12 months)	$865.73
Total Pre-paid Reserves		$3,077.86

Subtotal Closing Costs		$5,614.61

Credits to buyer for costs paid already
Credit ($1000 good faith deposit)	($1,000.00)
Credit (Appraisal fee)	($400.00)
Total credits to buyer		($1,400.00)

Total Closing Costs		$4,214.61
Closing Costs Credited by Seller		($4,214.61)
Total Closing Costs		$0.00

Paid Prior to escrow and not credited
Whole House plus Pest Inspection		$500.00
Down Payment (3% of purchase price)		$7,650.00

TOTAL CASH NEEDED BY BUYER		$8,150.00
(May be gift from relative etc.)

* This is an estimate from a Realtor — not an offer to lend. We use independent lenders. Please consult a lender for accurate APR information.

Sacramento County Condos – 2007 Market Year in Review

Our recent Sacramento Real Estate Year in Review article covered condos as well as other residential types like single family homes and halfplexes. Today we turn to our attention to condos only, to see how they compare to the general category.

When I looked at the numbers, the results were surprising given the traditional wisdom that condos are the first to fall in a down market and the last to rise in an up market.

Comparing 2006 to 2007 overall for all of Sacramento County, we find that the average condo sold in 2007 for $236,914, down 6.9% from 2006′s average of $254,370. 2007′s median price for a condo was $218,000, down 7.2% from last year’s median of $235,000. On a sold price per square foot basis, the average condo’s value fell 10.8% during the same period, from $218.16 in 2006 to $194.51 in 2007.

As we saw for residential units overall, the numbers from December to December were more dramatic than the year to year numbers. Sacramento County Condo values fell some 18.7% on a sold price per square foot basis from 2006 to 2007. Though of course that’s a non-trivial drop, it’s somewhat smaller than the sold price per square foot drop of 21.8% from December to December for the residential category generally.

I suspect the traditional wisdom that condos are the big losers in a down market fails to take into effect the slight but real differences in the number of foreclosures on condos. Among all residential categories, the number of bank owned foreclosures (REOs) sold in December was 47.2% of all sales — for condos that number was 28.1%. Similarly in active inventory, short sales and REOs make up 55.7% of inventory for all residential units, but 46.4% for condos.

There are two possible reasons for this. The more obvious one is that condos are cheaper, so buyers were less overextended and therefore slightly less likely to default. Another possibility — but I haven’t researched it so I only raise it as a conjecture — is that it’s possible more condos were owner occupied and fewer were purchased as investments.

Whatever the reason, a slightly lower default rate has helped condos retain their value somewhat better than residential properties generally.

Sacramento Real Estate Discounts

It Pays to Subscribe

We’ve started to write about the valuable discounts we provide on our real estate services that are available only by subscription to our blog / newsletter. In the future we may also be offering additional discounts and prizes that other merchants may provide, and other incentives to subscribe.

The point here is to develop a stronger readership of local people who may be interested in real estate, not to trick you into giving up your email address. I don’t sell email addresses, and no one so far has found themselves stuck in a home because I spent my days emailing “buy a house, buy a house, buy a house” to my unsuspecting victim. These discounts and other incentives will also be available to those who subscribe to the feed in an RSS reader. (What the heck is that? We’ll have a tutorial coming soon).

Today we’re taking our first step toward implementing this by installing the software that will show you these discounts if you are subscribed. At the moment we’re still in a testing mode to see if the plugin is on and putting together our first discount offer(s), but if all goes as expected (he said, crossing his fingers) we should be able to announce that our subscribers-only discounts are live within a post or two. Meantime if you subscribe now you’ll get these discounts when they’re ready.

No, that’s not shamelessness. It’s “transparency”.

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New Subscribe By Email Feature

I am pleased to announce that we are now offering you two ways to subscribe to the Sacramento Real Estate Blog (see the form at the left).

The subscription form says “Weekly” but please note that for subscriptions processed before October 15th, you may receive messages more often. We’re in a testing and roll-out mode, so we have it set to send messages more often.

For those of you who don’t want to mess around with RSS readers, or don’t know what one is, or don’t care what one is, you can now subscribe via email to get the latest Sacramento real estate news, including market updates, tutorials, the latest real estate bargains, and many new features that we’ll be rolling out in the weeks ahead.

After that, I think weekly is a good schedule. Leave me a comment and let me know if you prefer weekly, daily, monthly, what have you.

After all, we think most buyers and sellers will benefit from a more email-friendly approach, since RSS stands for “Realtors Sure Subscribe”.

“If you don’t subscribe, the terrorists win.”
– New York Mayor, Rudolph Giuliani

“Aren’t you going to laugh at my nose too?”
– Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer