Median Home Prices Drop in Sacramento

No way around it, the median home prices in Sacramento dropped during January 2019. We haven’t seen median home prices in Sacramento this low since February of last year, when it was $350K. Our last few months of the year in 2018 reflected a median home price of $365K, and along comes January and wham. The median home price slipped to $352K.

Our highest median home price was $375 from last June. Then it bounced around, leveling out in November and December at $365K. It’s been a rough month for Sacramento housing this January. Although, I did rank as the #1 agent at Lyon Real Estate for last month, so it wasn’t a bad month for me or my clients.

Look at those sold numbers for January. A dismal 840 homes closed last month in Sacramento County. That’s a 25.4% decrease over January of last year. Awful, just terrible. Another terrible sign is inventory is up almost 25% year-over-year as well. Which is great news for buyers but not so hot for sellers. The only redeeming statistic I can report is our pending sales have leapfrogged through the roof.

Yup, pending sales is where it’s at. Pending sales are the future. It predicts the direction we are heading, and our pending sales for January is up 35.9% over December. However, before you get all giddy about our pending sales, please know that we have no statistics on how many blow up and do not close escrow.

It is not unusual in these types of markets for buyers to develop cold feet or some other problem and agents might have to sell a home three times to get paid once. Buyers flake out, and that rate seems to be accelerating in my experience. One day they love the house and the next day they cancel for unknown reasons. Just means the market will likely be a bit rougher on all agents, and we may all end up performing more uncompensated work.

Oh, shelter my poor eyes from this chart, which shows the cumulative days on market in Sacramento real estate. Ordinarily, when the days on market go up, it can cause buyers to want to pay less than list price. This might very well be a catalyst as to why we are seeing our median home prices drop in Sacramento. OK, squinting at it, I can make out our days on market for last month is 49. That’s high!

Of course, the super hot desirable properties that anybody would give their eye teeth to own are still flying into escrow fairly quickly. But the main thrust of the market is price reductions, longer days on market and some pretty good deals for home buyers.

For more information, please call your top producer Sacramento Realtor, Elizabeth Weintraub, at 916.233.6759.