Sacramento Real Estate Views

Active Listing Watch

Homes For Sale Declines Slightly in Sacramento and Placer Counties

I was surprised to see that the amount of active listings in the Sacramento and Placer County areas decline over the last 30 days.  I think that most local industry people here believed that there would be an influx of new listings by now.  I believe it’s still there, just not on the market yet for whatever reason.

I read an interesting article from CNBC this week that shed a little light on why this may be happening.   Other than the foreclosure moratorium that has been extended, the article cites that 70% of foreclosures haven’t hit the market yet and that most of these homes are standing vacant.  I have noticed a very high percentage of vacant homes in the neighborhoods I’ve been working in.

There may be several reasons for this but it’s more prevalent than it has been, there are more of them out there.  Could it be that the banks are deferring losses on assets until it’s convenient for them to do so as the article suggests?  That would not be good for our communities at all.

More Value Declines Coming

A sudden influx of inventory on the market will further depress values in the area.  I’ve been saying this for the last few months as the efforts of legislators have proven ineffective at best and have been making matters worse at worst.  The simple economics at work here dictate that we will lose more value in the coming months as the “inventory time bomb” ticks away.

The institutions that our government is bailing out with billions of our tax dollars are sticking a proverbial knife in the back of our communities for their own gain.  It’s amazing to see what’s going on in the trenches of this downturn.

Sacramento County Active Listings

Active listings, homes for sale, declined last month 2.26% over the last 30 days in Sacramento County.

In the January report, there were over 6500 homes for sale in Sacramento County.  When I ran the numbers on this yesterday the listings had declined to roughly 6390 listing that were active for sale when I pulled the numbers.

The only thing I can say about the decline is that it’s the calm before the storm that is coming this year in Sacramento County. The decline will be short lived.

Placer County Active Listings

Similarly, but not as dramatic, the inventory levels in Placer County also declined slightly over the last 30 days.  When I pulled the numbers from the MLS yesterday, there had been a 3 home reduction in the inventory in all of Placer County.  I only consider this significant in respect to the lack of increase in the amount of homes for sale.

I read a report, however, that, due to the economy, there will be many, many more foreclosures in the higher end homes this year and layoffs/jobs losses take their toll on families in the area.  This will increase the number of Placer County foreclosures.

Stay tuned for this report for March as I’m sure there will be a change that will happen in the numbers between now and then.

Thanks for visiting.

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Tags: rocklin roseville homes for sale, sacramento homes for sale

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009 at 7:58 am and is filed under Real Estate Market Commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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