The real estate market in Placer County in January fared worse than the real estate real estate market in Roseville alone.  While sold price per square foot fell a non-trivial 17.7% in Roseville from January to January, it fell 20.1% in Placer County overall.  214 homes sold in Placer County in January, down 8.9% from the volume last month.  This January, the average home sold for $412,092.  In contrast, last year’s average home sold for $511,143, so the drop in the average price was 19.4%.  This year’s median home sold for $346,908, a drop of 17.9% from last year’s median price of $422,500.

As in every area we study bank foreclosures (also known as REOs — Real Estate Owned — or commonly called "Bank Repos") — were on the leading edge of the downward slide in prices in Placer County in January.  If you’re thinking about buying a foreclosure in Placer County, keep this statistic in mind:  in Placer County in January, bank foreclosures sold for 35% less than non-foreclosures. 

This statistic is awesome.  Another way to put that is that the average foreclosure buyer in Placer County saved about $186,000.

Sorry, I don’t usually do bold print — but that one really got my attention! 

With these fantastic price differences, it’s no wonder that even though bank owned properties make up 11.4% of the current inventory of homes in Placer County, they made up 43.5% of all sales in January.  And it’s also no wonder that while inventory overall in Placer County is at 8.04 months, the inventory of unsold REOs based on January’s absorption rate works out to be only 3.07 months.