Like most local areas, the Auburn has experienced price drops over the last year of “about 10%” (depending on the indicator you look at).  From October to October, the median sale price fell from $425,000 to $382,500, a 10% drop.  The average sale price this October was $444,880, down 13% from last October’s average of $511,638.  This year’s crop being somewhat smaller, however, the average sold price per square foot dropped somewhat less, 11.1%, from $254.93 last October to $226.52 this October.

The overall volume for Auburn is not high at only 23 units this October (versus 21 last October).  As a result, month by month statistics are not all that reliable.  Even with that, however, it’s curious that no bank owned foreclosures sold in Auburn in October, even though they currently make up 7.3% of inventory.  At ten months, inventory for Auburn is slightly higher than for Placer County as a whole (9.5 months).

This market update covers both Auburn 95603 and 95602.

Related Resources:

Auburn Zip Code Map

Auburn Homes for Sale

Did you ever notice that Real Estate Agents always seem to have three important things?

1. Nice cars we may or may not be able to afford.
2. Our pictures on our business cards.
3. Some kind of motto that describes our business.

Well, naturally I’ve noticed it, too — hence my ability to point it out. Of course, if you saw my Honda Accord you wouldn’t exactly accuse me of extravagance in the car department. But I do have my picture on my business card. I even wore a tie.

And when it comes to marketing slogans, brother, sign me up! I love those things. “Putting service first”. Wow, that one’s bound to put me head and shoulders above the competition. Or how about, “It all adds up to better service”? That’s actually our Real Estate PLUS Team’s latest motto. (Back when I was a solo act, I used to use: “Professionalism You Can Count On.”)

In fact, I’m such a motto junkie that I’ve considered many alternatives over the years. For some reason, a few of these mottos never made it into our marketing materials. I don’t know, maybe it was fate, or maybe wisdom. Maybe that certain marketing “je ne sais quoi” just wasn’t there.

Now these misfit mottos are revealed. I’ve kept them in my sock drawer so long, but I thought that not sharing them would be an unfathomable loss to the mythopoeic literature of Real Estate Marketing.

Top Ten Rejected Real Estate Mottos

Rocklin’s real estate market in October, 2007 was fairly typical of Placer County as a whole, with no really big surprises.  This October, forty-five homes sold, so the overall volume was down 29.7% from last October’s 64 units.  (September and October have been fairly slow months all throughout the greater Sacramento area).  Prices have dropped only slightly, but some of this is misleading because this October average home was 7.7% larger than last year’s average.  Thus, the average sold price per square foot was down 12.3%, but the average sold price was only down 5.6%.   *This year the average sold price of a home in Rocklin was $190.04, versus $216.72 last year.  The average home sold for $446,204, versus $472,671 last year.

This year the average sale price was about 95.2% of the average list price of $468,791.  Thus, buyers this year negotiated almost a five percent discount from the list price, on average, as opposed to last year’s average discount of 3%. 

The median sale price of a home this year was $446,204, down 5.6% from last year’s median sale price of $419,000.

Rocklin currently has 8.54 months of inventory, some 12.5% of which are bank-owned properties.  28.9% of the sales in October were bank-owned properties, versus none of the sales a year ago.

This report covers both Rocklin East (95667) and Rocklin West (95765).

Arguably, Granite Bay is "the" luxury community in Greater Sacramento.  Granite Bay’s real estate market fared pretty well in October, with relatively low inventory given the higher prices.  Before we get into the numbers, I should point out that the overall volume of Granite Bay homes is low even in the best of times.  As a result, statistical data becomes somewhat less reliable just because of the smaller sample size.

The average home that sold in Granite Bay in October sold for $913,423, a 12.9% increase over last year’s average sale price of $808,962.  Of course, this year’s home was quite a bit bigger on average, 3436 square feet this October versus 3013 square feet last October.  Still, the drop in sold price per square foot was mild at only 1.0% — which really is less than you’d expect according to the usual rule that larger homes in the same area often sell for less per square foot anyway.

Not surprisingly, with this year’s crop so much bigger, the median sale price in Granite Bay is way up as well — 18.9%, from $735,828 last October to $875,000 this October.  Expired listings are up 33.3% this year, pushing the expired to sold ratio up to over 180%.  Nevertheless inventory — though not low — is low given the price range and by comparison to other local markets at 9.3 months.

Compared to other areas, foreclosures do not factor very heavily in the Granite Bay’s numbers, with one foreclosure selling out of 13 units in October (7.7%), and only 1.4% of the 207 active listings being bank owned.

Though Placer County has taken its share of losses this year as has most of the country, the numbers for Placer compare favorably to Sacramento County.  For example, as of our last estimate a few days ago, Sacramento County currently had 11.6 months of inventory on the books, while Placer County has a "low" 9.45 months.  Of course, this is all a matter of degree, really.  The traditional cutoff point is six months of inventory — more than that and we’re considered to be in a buyer’s market.

Placer’s relative strength can also be seen in how average sold price per square foot has held up over the last year.  In Placer County, this value dropped 11.4%, from $236.83 in October of 2006 to $209.74 in October of 2007.  In Sacramento County, in contrast, this same indicator fell 18.4%.

The average home sold in Placer County in October for $462,268, down 5.3% from last year’s average of $488,101.  The median sale price was $399,950, down 5.9% from last year’s median sale price of $425,000.  Unit volume was down 17.8%, from 331 sold units last October to 272 sold units this October.

Foreclosed homes (REOs) make up 10.6% of the active inventory in Placer County at present, and 20.2% of the sales for October. 

Roseville’s real estate market in was fairly slow this October.  This is no surprise given the slowdown in other local markets.  However, by comparison, Roseville is holding its own fairly well.

This report covers the three Roseville zip codes: 95661,95678, and 95747.

The average home sold in Roseville in October for $419,296, down 9.7 % from last year’s average of $464,497.  However, given that this year’s average home was some 7.2% larger than last years, the sold price per square foot dropped even more dramatically, 15.8%.  Last October the average home sold for $241.53 per square foot, while this October the average Roseville home sold for $196.02.

This October the median price was down 11.8% from last October’s.  The median sale price was $375,000 in October, compared to last October’s median of $425,000.

Unit volume was down, but not as dramatically as in other markets.  105 units sold in October, down 16.7% from last October’s volume of 126 units.

By current standards Roseville inventory is fairly low at 8.21 months.  Again, this compares favorably with most other local markets, where it’s not uncommon to have over 11 months of inventory.