low inventory in sacramento
May 2019 Homes Sold in Sacramento Spell Competition
The number of May 2019 homes sold in Sacramento could spell heavy competition between buyers. This is your Market Update: If a picture paints a thousand words, this photo says it all. The pendings have met the active listings, and this has not happened in the last 15 months. This is huge for the greater Sacramento County and could spell out even fewer homes to buy. It is a seller’s market, and buyers do not kid yourself; write your highest and best offers and throw in the kitchen sink too . . ..
The low inventory of homes is slim pickings and, in some areas, it is a deficient number of homes for sale. Look at the March pendings vs. April, the light green, then the red line, the pendings. This shows that even with a slight increase in homes available, this increase was absorbed by the buyers.
The pending sales in Sacramento have steadily increased since December 2019. This is a crossroads we face. Inventory based on prior years should, by history, increase starting in February; however, our inventory decreased in February and March of this year. We had a slight uptick in April, but it all sold.
May 2019 homes sold in Sacramento is the highest number in 15 months. Here are some tips you can use when you are buying a home.
- Write: short inspection time periods such as 10 days to complete your inspections.
- Shorter loan approval time frames make your lenders hustle.
- Shorter appraisal days, pay for a rush.
- Split title, escrow and transfer taxes fees.
- Pay for your own home inspection.
- Tell the seller in the offer you will not ask for repairs.
- Provide loan preapprovals, proof of funds and other relevant information.
- Close escrow quickly.
- Offer a seller rent-back at no cost.
What does all this mean for buyers? In short, buyers stop thinking you are going to get a deal; as reflected in this May 2019 homes sold in Sacramento report, you could face months and months of letdowns. You must write competitive offers. Think out of the box. Use great lenders like our preferred lender with Guild Mortgage, Dan Tharp.
If you want to hire agents who think out of the box, call Weintraub & Wallace at RE/MAX Gold, 916-233-6759.
— JaCi Wallace
The Lowdown and Gritty Story of the Sacramento Housing Market
Where is the Sacramento housing market headed? You might very well sing the answer. Where have all the houses gone, long time passing. Damn, if we couldn’t use a peace-loving force like Pete Seeger right now. I find it disturbing to read pieces by our trusted journalists because all of the articles are loaded with, well, news: Trump did this atrocious thing and Trump did this horrible thing and Trump did this other completely outrageous thing, and it’s disheartening, sad to the point of sobbing, miserable news. Lots of kudos, though, to those who are fighting the right fight, standing up, asking questions, demanding coherent answers, leading the way with progressive values.
But back to the Sacramento housing market. You didn’t come to my blog to listen to me rant, even though with our current state of affairs, it’s almost impossible not to. Our housing market is in big trouble with a capital T. I can’t get away from music today. At least it doesn’t stand for Trump. It’s a capital T that rhymes with C and stands for curtailed. Our housing inventory in Sacramento has been curtailed, diminished, reduced, cut, slashed and fallen off to the extent our pending sales are about to exceed the number of houses for sale.
You can see it clearly in the image above, copyrighted and used by permission from Trendgraphix. Our total number of houses for sale last month was 2,586. Not only is it the lowest number of homes for sale in Sacramento over the past 15 months, to give you a better comparison, it’s fallen about 80% from of our all-time high from August of 2005. Without any new listings, we could sell every house in Sacramento over the next 45 days. A month and a half. That’s tight inventory. So tight it squeaks. It’s a seller’s market.
Almost across the board, everything else is up. Pending sales (those homes that are in escrow but not yet closed) are up over last month by 17.6%; pending sales have increased over the same quarter a year ago, and same month a year ago. More homes closed in December than in January, but that’s because December’s closings were pending sales from October and November. December itself is seasonally a slow month. It’s why I take my annual wor-cation in Hawaii in December.
The second biggest story about the Sacramento housing market, apart from low inventory, is the whopping increased number of pending sales in the first two weeks of February. We are up 44.8% in pending sales over the first two weeks of January. That means demand is extremely high. Buyers are off the fences and ready to buy. Multiple offers are more the norm than not. Our inventory dropped another 8.5% since January 1. And prices are relatively stable at $208 per square foot, as it has been for the past half year.
If you’re looking to buy or sell a home in Sacramento, call the Elizabeth Weintraub Team at 916.233.6759. We can make sense of what’s going on and guide you.