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When Will New Homes for Sale in Sacramento Be Listed?
Near the end of August every year, this Sacramento real estate agent begins gearing up for the fall real estate market by listing more homes for sale in Sacramento. Normal people, on the other hand, are winding up family vacations, buying school gear and getting ready for Labor Day celebrations. Not busy real estate agents because we are not necessarily normal. We are loaded with listing appointments on our calendars to meet with sellers getting ready to list their homes for sale in Sacramento.
This is the second swing and revived housing interest period in town. The Sacramento real estate market is different from other parts of the country in that even with four seasons, the weather is so mild that we don’t deal with snow or much of a down market as the year winds down. Our fall real estate market generally starts off with a bang and then fizzles around Thanksgiving. If there is any time of the year that is a good time for vacation, and that’s questionable, December is generally the best time to escape for a Sacramento listing agent.
That’s because we work our tails off from January through November. But the second biggest months past the spring market are typically September and October. If you haven’t been able to sell your home all year, maybe it’s time to take a fresh approach? Re-list as a new listing at an improved price? Make a few repairs? Some homes take longer to sell than others, especially if they are unique and appeal to a smaller pool of home buyers.
I have new homes for sale in Sacramento coming on the market around Labor Day. A duplex in Fair Oaks, an affordable ranch home in Parkway Estates, a single-level in Natomas, a gorgeous waterfront home in the Pocket, among others. If you’re looking for a home to buy in Sacramento, why not use that first week in September to find the perfect home? This is typically when new inventory opens, not to mention, we desperately need more homes for sale in Sacramento to meet demand.
Why the Time to Buy or Sell a Sacramento Home is Now
Clients have been asking lately if the end of summer of 2014 is a good time to buy or sell a home in Sacramento, because they are wondering whether prices will continue to rise. If we have collectively learned nothing from the market crash years of 2006 to 2011, it’s that prices will not always continue to go up. I’ve been advising clients all year to sell now or buy now and to not wait until 2015, and that’s not just because I’m a Sacramento real estate agent who stands to make a buck or two.
It’s because I watch and analyze the market. I sell a lot more homes than your average Sacramento agent, and I see first-hand a lot more activity than your average agent. It doesn’t matter all that much to me whether home prices go up or home prices go down, like that Eddie Murphy movie, I will still be in business. People are yakking that Sacramento home prices have risen only 8% and lamenting that figure instead of rejoicing. I am very happy with the market prices lately because they’ve made huge gains over the past 2 years. Enough so that many homeowners are pulled out from being underwater — no more short sales, thank goodness — and scores of Sacramento homeowners are able to sell and move up.
All of a sudden, like an overnight magical fairy-wand tap on our chimneys, many sellers have an additional $100,000 of equity that they didn’t have a few years ago. Even sellers who bought a home in 2010 and 2011 are able to sell now. All of those foreclosure buyers and short sale buyers are morphing into equity sellers in this new Sacramento real estate market. Interest rates are incredibly low, and I can tell you this, they won’t stay there forever. You can get a loan around 4% right now, and that gives you heart-pounding savings. Don’t be crying a few years from now when interest rates are up to 5% or 7% or worse.
Once rates begin to edge up — and interest rates absolutely will rise — watch out, because Sacramento home prices will feel the affect. The impact of interest rates on the rise is huge, for example, each 1/2 percent interest rate increase can lose a buyer roughly $25,000 of purchasing power. What do you think that kind of rate increase will do to home prices in Sacramento? It will suppress prices a bit, sure, but you’ll lose more disposable income through the interest rate increase. Overall, your payment will be higher than it will be today.
You’ve got a window of opportunity right now to sell a home in Sacramento and capture the momentum of our upcoming fall market in Sacramento — which is the second hottest real estate market in Sacramento. It’s also an excellent time, due to low interest rates, to buy a home. Are you in or you are you out? Call me, Elizabeth Weintraub, at 916.233.6759.
Longer Days on Market Does Not Mean It’s OK to Lowball
The days on market are getting longer in Sacramento and, in particular, where I sell a lot of homes in Elk Grove. I would not go so far as to say that my real estate activity in Sacramento is 100% indicative of what’s going on across the board, but there certainly are parallels due to the vast territory I cover as a Sacramento real estate agent. Lots of agents work in only one neighborhood but I cover four counties and, as I have promoted the crap out of, I am the # 1 Sacramento agent at Lyon*, so I see a lot of listing activity up close and personal.
In fact, I wrote a newsletter for homebuying subscribers at About.com about the longer days on market last week and no sooner did I send it out last night than I received an almost duplicate piece from some other company. Coincidinky? Perhaps.
The reason I started to look at the days on market is because homes had been selling so quickly last spring, but once we got past mid-summer, the days on market began to grow. When days on market get longer, it seems that some buyers expect to lowball. I don’t know if they do this on the advice of their agent or if they saw it on TV show somewhere but the strategy for days on market can change depending on market swings. Our real estate market in Sacramento has swung. We’re pretty much back to normal and nobody knows how to handle it, it seems.
When I asked an agent to explain why her buyers wrote an offer at 85% of market value, her retort was the days on market were almost 30 so that meant the home was overpriced. What is this? Laurel and Hardy? Where did she get that idea? I’m not sure if it’s clueless agents or ignorant buyers or a combination of both or maybe something else that’s in the water, but 30 days on market is pretty darn normal. In fact, many homes are taking 45 to 60 days to sell in this market.
And they are selling at market value, which in most cases is list price. I see this is my own inventory of homes for sale. But just to show independent third-party statistics, I pulled a chart from Trendgraphix, which also illustrates this point and attached it to this blog. You don’t have to take my word for it. Take Rod Stewart’s: Every picture tells a story, don’t it?
Image: Trendgraphix, Day on Market and % of Sales Price to List Price, February 2014.
*per Trendgraphix stats for units sold, Sacramento County
