The Short Sale Market in Sacramento

April 2012 to June 2013 Sacramento Short Sales

At the beginning of spring, I wrote about how Sacramento short sales are slowing down and how the short sale market in Sacramento was pretty much over. I received some push-back on that statement, primarily from companies wanting to sell more short sale training programs and webinars to real estate agents. No, no, short sales are not over, they cried. Because they didn’t want it to be over.

After 8 years of the short sale business in Sacramento, some people are just waking up to the fact that it’s lucrative. Like with most things of this nature, once you figure it out, it’s gone. You’ve gotta be there when it’s happening.

It’s taken the federal government many years as well to straighten out its HAFA program. Just last month, the federal government extended the HAFA program to December of 2015, allowing closings to string out into September of 2016. The government has also decided in its June HAFA supplemental to remove the requirement of income / asset verification by the lender. When they do that, you know they’re scraping the bottom of the barrel to try to make sure every last short sale can squeak in. There will always be stragglers. But the big push for short sales is over.

You can see on the chart on this page that short sales have declined steadily since last year. In fact, when compared to the overall market in Sacramento, short sales make up about 10% of all homes for sale in June. Some of the short sales that are in MLS as a short sale are also not a short sale because some of those sellers don’t qualify. The sellers don’t qualify because they listed the home with an agent who doesn’t know how to qualify them.

I noticed the switch in my business this spring. As a Sacramento real estate agent, I list homes all over Sacramento. Much of my inventory is now traditional sales. When the top Sacramento short sale agent in Sacramento tells you that short sales are so Barry Manilow, you should believe it.

Chart: Trendgraphix