Goodbye to 2012 Sacramento Real Estate Market

This past year of 2012 could have been the best of times and also the worst of times but I’m not saying which. No sense making a proclamation. I will say for many sellers of short sales in Sacramento, the year was bitter sweet. It’s a relief to eliminate a financial burden, an albatross around the neck. For many, the road to a short sale was anything but comfortable. Nobody wants to come to the realization that it’s time to get rid of the house. The house they so desperately wanted to buy when it was purchased.

I’ve worked with sellers this past year who did not do a short sale. Believe it or not. Some of my clients were traditional sellers, that is sellers who had equity. Even the clients who were moving out of state, looking forward to a new life elsewhere, were not exactly ecstatic to be forced to release their home by selling it to a complete stranger.

It’s a little odd working with sellers who are not thrilled to be selling. It’s not like the old days, the days of the 1970s . . . and thank god I don’t have to listen to Barry Manilow anymore . . . the days when sellers were making money hand over fist. Sellers were selling even if they didn’t have to sell because there was too much money in their home, equity that was burning a hole in their pockets. They wanted to see it up close and personal. Cash in fist. Selling was a good way to capitalize on their equity.

So was creating paper. I worked with sellers who became buyers by creating a promissory note and recording a trust deed against their residences. These prom notes were often straight notes, without payments and accruing, often annually compounding, interest. Sellers used these prom notes as down payments on other homes, which also carried straight notes secured to them as part of the financing. This was like putting a roulette gun to their heads and not pulling the financial trigger for a few years. Maybe there was a bullet in that gun, maybe not. Riskier today than it sounded back then.

It’s much more straight forward these days. Although, in Sacramento’s frantic real estate market, I have been able to squeeze out a few sales this last quarter for sellers that were not short sales and probably would have or should have been if they had been listed with somebody else. Fortunately, we were able to stretch that sales price far enough to make the home sale an equity sale. That’s the advantage of hiring a Sacramento real estate agent with her finger on the pulse of the Sacramento real estate market. The market shows no signs of letting up. The tide is still rolling in.

Yup. Twice a day in French Polynesia, where I will watch fireworks tonight. Happy New Year to you!