10 Years of Sacramento Real Estate Trends

Ten years of Sacramento real estate trends by quarter from 2005 to 2015.

There seems to be an abnormal amount of buyers who are canceling escrow lately in Sacramento. Some of them don’t even make it into escrow by the time they cancel. Whenever I spot something weird going on in Sacramento real estate, I look at Sacramento real estate trends to see if I can find an answer in the numbers. Well, that, and I have an abnormal fascination for math and its relationship to our ordinary, everyday lives. Plus, I’ve been in real estate for so long that I can actually recall what happened 10 years ago and 30 years before that.

The chart above shows you 10 years of Sacramento real estate trends by average list prices versus average sold prices. There is always a gap between the average list price and the average sold price, and the two lines don’t necessarily relate to each other unless there is an unusually high number of homes for sale in Sacramento, like there was during 2005 to 2007. In fact, zeroing in on 2007, which was only 8 years ago as far as Sacramento real estate trends go, there are astonishing differences between that year and today.

For example, to gain a better understanding of Sacramento real estate trends, look at the statistics comparing quarters of October 2007 to October 2015 below:

Quarter Oct 2007                    Quarter Oct 2015

For sale 31,322                         For sale 8,354

Sold 2,476                                  Sold 4,684

Mo. inventory 12.7                  Mo. inventory 1.8

Absorption rate 7.9                Absorption rate 56.1

Av. CDOM 98                            Av. CDOM 36

Median 318,000                       Median 289,000

What this tells you is we have 73% fewer homes for sale in 2015 than in 2007, but we are selling more than twice as many in one-third the number of cumulative days on market at about the same sales prices. That’s pretty astonishing. It’s a tight market. Buyers can’t afford to be squirrelly about it. If you need advice about Sacramento real estate trends, call your Sacramento Realtor, Elizabeth Weintraub, at 916.233.6759. I’ll be happy to help you sell or buy a home in the Sacramento area.

Chart: Trendgraphix, used with permission