Sacramento Real Estate Views

Has The Bottom Of Sacramento Housing Market Been Reached?

The Last 6 Months Suggests Maybe It Has

Calling the bottom of the real estate market is impossible.  The best you can do is get close and when you’re close, it’s time to buy.  You’d be getting the lowest price and right now, at the lowest interest rate if you were financing your purchase.

I wrote an article about the Lincoln Crossing real estate market in Lincoln and was a little surprised to see that over the last 6 months, the market had been mostly flat.  No declines or advances in the home values in that area of Lincoln.

What prompted this was an appraisal I got back on a home I have in escrow in Lincoln.  The appraisal form has a check box that indicates whether the market is appreciating, is stable or is declining.

The box checked was “stable”.  I know over the last year, most of the region has lost value but what about the last 6 months?  Sure enough, the numbers indicated that the average sales price in Lincoln was, month over month, selling in a very narrow range between $211K to $218K.

I then got curious about where the Sacramento county market had been headed over the last 6 months.  Of the 56 zip codes in Sacramento county 40 of them had viable real estate sales statistics to draw from.

Of the 40 viable zips, only 3 of them had declining values over the last 6 months.  The rest were either flat or appreciating slightly.  The graph and table below is a good graphic depicting this.

Banks Holding Homes Off The Market?

All year, the number of available homes for sale has been declining.  As of now, there is roughly 2.7 months of homes available for sale in Sacramento County.

During a time of the year where you’d expect increases in the total number of homes available for sale, inventory levels have been going down.

We know the banks own roughly 113,000 homes in California.  How many of those are on the market is unclear.  There are 230,000 homes in California in foreclosure and 650,000 homes are behind on their mortgage.  Doesn’t it make sense that there should be more homes available to chose from?

It seems to me that this flattening of the home values could be being created on purpose by the banks to stabilize the housing markets.  By controlling the inventory of homes for sale, by not releasing homes that have already been foreclosed upon to the market and also not foreclosing on the rest, the average time to foreclose in California is 313 days which is up almost 20% over last year, are the banks now controlling the housing market to the benefit of values rather than the detriment of values?

This is what it looks like to me.

Last night at 830pm I answered a call from a prospective investor who is interested in purchasing a fourplex in the Sacramento region.  I went to the MLS, Metrolist Services, Inc. and pulled all of the available fourplexes on the market in Sacramento and Placer Counties.

In both counties combined, there are only 36 fourplexes on the market for sale.  5 to 8 just won’t work on the surface and that will turn into another 10 that won’t work after viewing them, that leaves less than 15 to chose from.  That’s not much to chose from.

Summary

Bank involved real estate sales in Sacramento and Placer Counties equal approximately 62% of all sales.  The majority of what’s going on now is either short sales or bank owned foreclosures.  While this is nothing new, it shows that with a little manipulation, the banks can control our market place if they chose to.

While some will say that this has always been the case, I would contend not to this extent.  It hasn’t been the case in the past where the banks control what homes came on the market or not.  This market could be being artificially created but that said, in this case, it’s helping the market to recover so it seems.  If it continues, we might begin to see gradual appreciation to our housing market which will in turn help recover consumer confidence and increase sales.

Seems like a good formula but, and this is a big but, we’ll see.

Looking for a Realtor to help you purchase or sell a home in Sacramento or Placer County?  Please call, text, email or simply fill out the form below and I’ll get back to you promptly.

Thanks for visiting!

Contact me

1. Your Name(required)
2. Email (email required)
3. Phone(required)

 

cforms contact form by delicious:days

Your email:

 

 

Tags: rockin roseville foreclosure statistics, sacramento foreclosure statistics

Foreclosure Report – July 2009 – Sacramento County 11th in Foreclosures Statewide

Foreclosure Statistics Mixed

ForeclosureRadar.com, the only website that tracks every California foreclosure and provides daily auction updates, issued its monthly California Foreclosure Report for July 2009.

This report is very comprehensive with great information looking into the housing downturn here in California. ( If you’d like a copy with more details, contact me.  I’ll email it to you.)

I was surfing my ForeclosureRadar.com account yesterday and I was amazed how up to date the information is.  I found a property that was listed in the MLS as a short sale that had been sold at auction that day and was recorded as such on the site.

That should not be a surprise for the listing agent. That said, it most likely will be as it was still listed.  Crazy!

Report Highlights

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: sacramento foreclosure statistics

Sacramento Foreclosed Homes

Sacramento County Foreclosure Activity Up 5% in November

While the nationwide foreclosure statistics ticked down 7% in November, Sacramento County actually increased 5% and the state as a whole increased 6% after two months of declining foreclosure activity.  California, Arizona, Nevada and Florida have been the most affected by this downturn than other parts of the country.  Michigan is also in the top foreclosure affected states.

According to RealtyTrac.com, 9 of the top 10 metro areas with the highest foreclosure rates are in Florida and California.  In California, 1 in every 218 homes received a notice of default* in the month of November, in Arizona it was 1 in every 198 homes and #1 on the list was Nevada with 1 in every 76 homes receiving a notice of default in November.  1 in every 76 homes!  Las Vegas lead the way with 1 in every 61 homes receiving a notice of default in November.

I don’t even know what to say about that!  That seems simply astounding.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: sacramento foreclosure statistics