sacramento real estate market update

March 2018 Sacramento County Real Estate Market Update

March 2018 Sacramento County Real Estate Update

If you don’t find our March 2018 Sacramento County real estate market update a bit disturbing, you might not be paying close enough attention to what’s going on. And really who does when we’re all busy? My closed sales for March finished out the month at #2 at Lyon Real Estate, unlike January when I placed #1. The difference for me is I closed 5 listings in January, 3 listings and 3 buyers in February, and 5 listings in March, plus 2 buyer sales. Those numbers are nothing, though. Our market is just starting to pick up steam. So I’ve been incredibly focused on Sacramento real estate.

Unlike an agent who shall remain anonymous and seemed agitated that we expected a response to an offer prior to expiration. When queried, he snorted: “You know some people have lives they live and don’t just sit around all day with nothing to do.” Meaning he has other things that are more important than real estate, I guess. I’ve noticed that the agents in this business who are successful top producers are committed and passionate about their jobs.

Most of the time, I can tell you what’s happening in real estate without looking at the March 2018 Sacramento County real estate market update stats. Buyers are active but they no longer seem frenzied. They are more particular about what they want to buy and if they can’t find it, they don’t want to accept less than their ideal choice. It’s not easy to find that perfect home, and it’s only becoming more difficult.

That’s not to say we don’t have a good selection of homes available but there are not a lot choices. It’s like shopping for shoes. I don’t care how cute that Nordstrom shoe looks, if it’s a size 5 and I wear a size 6, I’m not cramming my toes into a size 5. If I want red and the shoe is only available in orange, I’m not buying that either. Everybody’s tastes are unique, what one person loves another does not.

Inventory rose only 7.4% in March over February. We still don’t have enough listings. The solds jumped by 18.5% over that time period. But the real story in the March 2018 Sacramento County real estate market update is the pending sales. Homes under contract and not closed soared by 34.5%. Will they all close? Maybe not. Maybe we’ll see a big fall out rate. Buyers do not seem as committed.

March 2018 Sacramento County Real Estate Market UpdateIt’s a sad tale for Sacramento, though, when homes are pending and closing escrow faster than we can list new homes for sale. Look at this chart above of our remaining inventory in Sacramento County. Inventory is down 17.7% over last month. If it continues to fall, we will experience a more difficult market. Will inventory level out and stay flat like last year? Perhaps not.

Most of my clients are not selling and buying a new home in Sacramento. They are selling and getting the hell outta Dodge. We need that healthy circle of sales, that cycle of life, and the momentum is not really there.

Having said all of that, sellers undoubtedly want to know is this a good time to sell? What do you think? I am a Sacramento Realtor whose business consists of taking listings, marketing the crap out of them, and closing sales. Of course it’s a good time to sell. Because next year, who knows where we’ll be, especially with interest rates on the rise.

My advice to home buyers, if you find a home you love, buy it. Right now. Today. Do not dillydally or somebody else will buy it and you might indeed find nothing to suit your tastes. Make no mistake, this is a seller’s market. If you wait for a buyer’s market, you might not be able to afford the prices by then.

Elizabeth Weintraub

Sacramento Real Estate Market Update April 2017

Sacramento Real Estate Market Update

Tower bridge early summer in Sacramento from the banks near the levee bike trail.

There seems to always be good news and bad news in a Sacramento real estate market update for single-family homes. The really bad news (because I always like to get the bad news out of the way first) is we have only 1,318 homes in Sacramento County for sale (not counting condos). That’s pitiful. It’s really low. The only thing that makes it worse is the fact we have so many interested buyers who would like to buy a home and there are not enough homes for sale to satisfy that demand. Which happens to be the good news: there are a lot of buyers out in the April market.

Our pending sales (in escrow, waiting to close) are 1,547 homes. The single-family homes that have sold in the month of March number 1,326. No matter how you look at these numbers, we have fewer single-family homes for sale than the number pending or the number sold last month, which means without new listings, we could shut down the real estate market in about 3 weeks. There’s your Sacramento real estate market update in a nutshell.

Sacramento Real Estate Market April 2017Tell me about it. I’ve been closing escrows left and right lately. I can’t keep a home on the market longer than a week to save my life, not that I would really want to make a seller wait any longer than necessary, but geez, I get attached to my listings and then they are gone. I have quite the large number of listings in my lineup right now that I’ve been working on, some for months.

One of my soon-to-be-on-the-market sellers asked me yesterday, how can you do my open house when you have so many properties to sell? What properties to sell? They have all sold. Every single one of them. Sold. S-O-L-D. I have not had zero listings in my inventory for maybe 10 years. OK, says the client, but you’re getting probably at least one a week. Yes, but then it sells. S-E-L-L-S.  She was worried I would not have time for her.

You’re my sole focus, I assure her. Get that furniture out of the master bedroom, clean up the house and let’s sell it. She’s already done all the hard work and the repairs that were needed. Let’s get that baby on the market. If I have to be in twenty places at the same time, I can work that magic. Why, I can remember juggling 75 listings about 6 or 7 years ago. I’ve got all of this energy and no place to direct it.

If you’re looking to sell a home in Sacramento and would like to hire a top  Sacramento Realtor with more than 40 years of experience, call Elizabeth Weintraub at 916.233.6759. Sellers should capitalize on this momentum.

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