These are blog posts that address real estate statistics updates for Placer County and the surrounding area.

Election Day is here, and it’s natural to wonder how the results might affect the real estate market. Whether you’re considering buying, selling, or just curious, the question often arises: does an election really impact home prices?

Historically, the answer has shown a consistent trend. My friend Ryan Lundquist over at the Sacramento Appraisal Blog has shared a fantastic visual that illustrates what’s been happening in the Sacramento market since 1975. The green sections indicate election periods, with white periods showing what followed. The trend is clear—whatever the market was doing before the election usually continued afterward. If prices were rising before an election, they generally kept rising; if prices were dipping, that trend tended to…

325 Views, 0 Comments

Read Full Post

 Welcome to our monthly Placer County real estate update! In this post, we'll delve into the latest statistics and market trends for May. Whether you're a buyer, seller, or real estate enthusiast, this update will provide valuable insights into the current state of the market.

Key Highlights:

  • 42% Increase in Listings: May saw a significant uptick in the number of homes for sale compared to the previous year.
  • Faster Sales: Homes are selling at a quicker pace, with an average of 28 days on the market.
  • Stable Prices: Despite the increase in listings, the average price per square foot has remained steady at $341.
  • Inventory Levels: Currently standing at 1.7 months, the inventory favors sellers but is showing signs of softening for buyers.
…

627 Views, 0 Comments

Read Full Post

Are you keeping tabs on the pulse of the Placer County real estate market? If you're a buyer, seller, or simply an enthusiast of housing trends, buckle up for a concise yet comprehensive update on what's been happening in our local market.

January brought forth some intriguing shifts in the landscape. Let's dive into the numbers:

  1. New Listings: We witnessed a modest increase of 2.2% in new listings compared to the previous year. While this might seem like a positive sign, it's essential to note that we're still contending with a significant 23% shortage compared to last year's inventory levels.

  2. Sales Activity: On the brighter side, both pending and closed sales showed promising growth. Pending sales surged by 4.4%, indicating a healthy…

1134 Views, 0 Comments

Read Full Post

What a year!

We saw rates climb consistently throughout the year to as high as 8%, only to fall back to the 6% range by the end of the year. Thank goodness.

We also saw the supply of homes remain very tight in the 1 to 2-month range, even as the rates climbed. As of this afternoon, we have 546 homes for sale in Placer County and 337 in contract. That is only 1.6 months of inventory!

Many homeowners were simply uninterested in leaving their existing low rates throughout the year. The good news is that with rates falling recently, we may see more homeowners willing to make a move after holding off the past year.

The biggest surprise of all for many of the experts was the increase in home prices, due to the lack of supply. The median home price…

1192 Views, 0 Comments

Read Full Post

I tend to report the medians and averages for the market as a whole because they give us the best indicator of what is happening in general.

With that in mind, it is important to realize that there are cases that occur on the extremes and all along a spectrum.

While our average home price in Placer County in June 2023 was $786,000 and the median was $680,000, there are examples on the extreme that are far above and below that.

On the top end of the market, a home in Loomis sold this June for $4,000,000,

At the bottom end of the market, a condo in Auburn sold for $205,000.

On average, homes sold for their asking price during June, but there are extremes on either side of that too.

A home in Roseville received 35 offers and was bid up 39%…

1804 Views, 0 Comments

Read Full Post

Home prices in Placer County reached their most recent peak in April/May of 2022.

Prices then fell between 17% and 19% from that point until January of 2023.

Prices have changed direction again and have risen between January and May by 10% and 13%.

Why have prices risen, while interest rates have remained higher?

The primary reason is that many prospective home sellers have decided to sit on the sidelines and not list their homes.

Per a recent Inman article, 62% of homeowners have interest rates below 4%.

https://www.inman.com/2023/06/14/nearly-92-of-all-us-homeowners-now-have-a-mortgage-rate-below-6/

With rates hovering between 6 and 6.5% recently, many home sellers who will become home buyers themselves have decided it makes more…

1914 Views, 0 Comments

Read Full Post

The changes in the weather have been crazy this year, but so have the changes in the real estate market.

We went from a red-hot market a year ago, firmly in home sellers’ hands, to a market at the end of 2022 that had rising inventory and buyers capable of negotiating price reductions and credits from home sellers.

Those changes lasted for a few months, but now we face a new type of market.

Demand from home buyers is now lower than last year due to their purchasing power being diminished by higher rates, but we also have had an equal if not greater decline in supply due to fewer listings being added to the market compared to last year, possibly due to the same increase in interest rates.

There were 42% fewer new listings added to the market…

1199 Views, 0 Comments

Read Full Post

We have seen some large changes in the real estate market here in Placer County since the beginning of the year.

As of today, we have 597 homes for sale and 447 homes pending sale.

Those two numbers combined, leave us with 1. 3 months of inventory, which is down considerably from the 3 months of inventory that we averaged during the 4th quarter of 2022.

This is due to multiple factors, including, but not limited to:

1) Interest rates peaked in October and trending lower since then.

2) Sellers of the existing listing inventory were willing to price at or reduce their price to the market rate and then were willing to negotiate for discounts and closing cost credits.

3) Buyer demand building up during the second half of the year before…

1343 Views, 0 Comments

Read Full Post

The real estate market here in Placer County has been a roller coaster in 2022.

During the first third of the year, the vast majority of homes were sold in weeks, rather than months, their asking prices were bid up, multiple offers were the norm, and home buyers were forced to accept terms that often left them with no appraisal contingency, no opportunity to request that items be repaired after inspections, and no control on how the process unfolded.

Many buyers that had homes to sell of their own, or that had unconventional or less appealing finance requirements, were often unable to compete on the most sought-after homes and in many cases were left without a home after many, many offers.

The middle third of the year was a period where the ball…

860 Views, 0 Comments

Read Full Post

1) The median price for Placer County homes has remained stable over the past 3 months starting at $649,000 in August and then staying at $645,000 for both September and October, which is actually the same median price as October of last year.

2) The number of new listings added to the market and the number of homes sold over the past 3 months have been offsetting each other by both falling, which has had the effect of keeping the inventory level stable at around 2.5 months. Had either of those stats risen or fallen without the other, we would have seen a change in that number and a change in market conditions.

3) Interest rates dropped last week due to better than expected inflation numbers after rising consistently for months. The Federal Reserve…

587 Views, 0 Comments

Read Full Post