December 2018 Report Sacramento Housing Market

The December 2018 Sacramento Housing Market is not pretty from a seller’s point of view, but from a buyer’s point of view, it is beautiful. This is not to say that sellers should not be selling because if a seller owns a gorgeous home in a fantastic location, it will quickly sell. The others, not so much unless they are priced accordingly, and that is a struggle.

Because you don’t work in the Sacramento real estate business for as long as I have without knowing that almost every seller thinks they have a gorgeous home in a fantastic location. So that means I have my job cut out for me in 2019, because it will be a lot tougher for us Sacramento listing agents.

For this Sacramento listing agent, I am not concerned. I can weather any kind of market because I’ve been in real estate for over 40 years.

Also, I forgot to mention this earlier, but my Elizabeth Weintraub Team placed in the top 3 agents at Lyon Real Estate for the month of December. What makes this particular feat of worthy note is three-fold.

1. About $2.5 million of sales rolled into January and did not even close in December!
2. I spent the entire month of December in Hawaii, still working!
3. And the company has close to 1,000 agents so to place in the top 3 is an honor. How do you like those pineapples?

Which means you absolutely cannot say the December 2018 Sacramento Housing Market is faring poorly. It’s doing just fine for some of us. However, inventory is up almost 30% over last year at this time. The number of homes sold in December of 2018 as compared to December of 2017 is down by more than 26%. And pending sales for December over a year ago have fallen by 11%.

What the December 2018 Sacramento Housing Report should signify to sellers and buyers is the market has transitioned to a buyer’s market. Twice the inventory offers twice the choices for buyers. Further, the second take away is if you are thinking about selling, try to make your home conform to what buyers want. Buyers will not overlook defects or dated houses, even if you think they will because you would. They won’t. And third, hire the best damn listing agent you can find. This is definitely not a time to consider discount agents with little experience.