September 2017 Housing Report for Sacramento

September 2017 Housing Report for Sacramento

Everybody and their uncle has a story to tell you about the September 2017 housing report for Sacramento. But the one place you can always count on to give you accurate information is Trendgraphix. However you decipher it is up to you. I’m sure there are agents out there who will look at the square-foot-cost chart in Sacramento and predict a bubble, and I’d say they are crazy because the conditions that created a bubble do not exist today. We don’t have a plethora of 100% financing, and a little over half of all transactions are conventional, with the rest about 12% cash, 25% FHA loans. Our qualification guidelines are stringent.

What we do have in Sacramento is continued limited inventory, even with a bit more on the market, we’re still under last year’s inventory. We have a shortage. Also, this time of year sales begin to dip a little bit. It’s seasonal. It’s not Chicken Little time. What is unusual is the first 9 days of October produced an uptick in pending sales. We are up by 26.5% over the same time period in September. That tells me demand is still strong. Even if the number of buyers are a bit less, that’s OK, because maybe it will even out with the inventory we have available.

Average square foot prices in Sacramento through September 2017.

Of course, the sign that I look to that is staying course regardless of how other numbers fluctuate is the average square-foot-cost in Sacramento. Like Tom Petty, RIP, it has not backed down. From January of 2017 forward, the September 2017 housing report for Sacramento shows another increase. The square-foot-costs have steadily risen since January. They started at $201 in January and are now at $224 a square foot. Prices are still going up. Even last year, they were somewhat stable, but March of this year saw a giant leap from $204 to $211, and there is no stopping yet.

The average sales price in Sacramento is now $384,000. The median price, those homes where half are worth more and half are worth less, is $348,000. As long as buyers can afford to buy the median-priced home, we’ll be OK. But if buyers get pushed out of their comfort zone with rising prices and rising interest rates, we could see a market stall. I predict prices will remain strong and activity high right through the winter and into spring.

Master bedroom with fireplace in Campus Commons Sacramento

We might have to deal with slightly longer days on market and instead of putting a home on the market on Friday and going into escrow on Monday, it might take another week. But compared to what it once was, the days of 30- to 45-day market time, this is still easy street for sellers. I hope you have enjoyed this September 2017 housing report for Sacramento, and please call your Sacramento Realtor, Elizabeth Weintraub, if you’d like to discuss your real estate needs at 916.233.6759.

Charts: Trendgraphix, used with permission.