Unit volume in Roseville has increased 15.5% over last November. Now this might not seem like a large number until you see that foreclosure sales are up 250% and short sales are up 67% for the same period. Only non-distressed sales have seen a drop in unit volume: a 51% drop, to be precise. 63 foreclosures sold in November in Roseville, 20 short sales also sold and the remaining 36 were non-distressed sales.

53% of all sales are now foreclosures, 17% are short sales and the rest non-distressed. Roseville is amongst the few areas in the tri-county area where a large third of all sales are non-distressed. We seem to see non-distressed sales take up a smaller and smaller portion of the sales pie every month.

And the reason (or it could be a chicken or egg question here) is that prices have fallen 21%. Average price per square foot has gone from a high of $192.58 last November to $151.92 this November. Average sales price also dropped 22% for the same period: from $383,670 to $299,792. Median sales price also suffered a loss of 19% from $364,900 to $295,000.

Inventory is at 4.4 months based on the last year of sales and at 3.7 months based on the last 6 months of sales.

Well, it’s nice to know that someone out there likes big houses! Whereas everywhere else, smaller and smaller homes are being sold, Lincoln has remained steady in its appreciation of big rambling homes. The average house selling in Lincoln is still right around 2200 square feet. But perhaps that is just the kind of home one finds here.

The rest of the news isn’t good, of course. There isn’t much good news in the real estate market lately unless you’re a buyer. Consider this: foreclosure sales have jumped 219% and short sales have jumped 180% since last November. Non-distressed sales have fallen 43.6% for the same period. 51.4% of all sales in November were foreclosures, 18.9% were short sales and a mere 29.7% were non-distressed. Which means more than two-third of all homes sold in Lincoln were distress sales.

A fact that always puts downward pressure on prices and this November was no exception. The average sold price per square foot in Lincoln has fallen 27.4% since last November from $189.08 to $137.23.  The average sales price has fallen 27.4% – hand in hand with the average sold price per square foot – from last November’s $427,736 to rest at $311,579. Median sales price has dropped 24.3% from $379,900 to $287,500 for the same period.

Inventory is at 6 months (based on the last year of sales) and 5.3 months (based on the last 6 months of sales.)

Home buyers just cannot get enough of the foreclosures! Last November, Rocklin saw that a quarter of the homes sold were foreclosures. Today, that number has doubled. Half the homes sold in Rocklin this November were bank-owned. And that doesn’t even include the short sales, which made up about 19% of the sold inventory. Total unit volume was up 50% over last November. That should give you a pretty good picture of the real estate market…

…and where prices were headed this last month. Of course, no prizes for guessing: downward. The average sold price per square foot has fallen 14.3% over last year from a high of $181.86 to $155.79. The average home sold for 22.2% less. What would have fetched $453,913 last November, today can command a sold price of $353,068. Median sale price has also fallen 17% from $388,500 to $322,500 for the same period. Interestingly enough, the average home sold was also 9.2% smaller than last November, a trend we seem to be seeing all over the tri-county area (except maybe El Dorado county.)

Inventory in Rocklin is at 4.4 months based on the last 12 months of sales and 3.9 months based on the last 6 months of sales. Foreclosure inventory however is at a mere 1 month!

Distress sales have finally caught up in Placer county after lagging behind Sacramento county for a long time. In this way, Placer is a lot more like El Dorado than Sacramento. The majority of sales this November were distress sales, a marked change from last month’s real estate sales, which were evenly divided between distressed and non-distressed sales and the month before then, where non-distressed dominated the real estate scene. Here are the details.

148 foreclosures sold in November, making up 48.7% of all sales. 51 short sales also sold, making up 16.8% of all sales. Foreclosure sales then have increased 174% over last year and short sales are up 143% over last year. As usually happens, the increased number of foreclosures on the market fueled sales and unit volume was up by 20.6%. Nondistressed sales suffered a decline of 41% – only a third of the market is now made up of non-distressed properties.

Obviously, this change has put a downward pressure on real estate prices. Sold price per square foot has fallen again. Last month, it was $166.99. This month, it is $155.52 a drop of 21.8% over last year’s high of $198.93. The average sales price for a house is also down 20.5% from $419,476 last November to $333,473 this November. This is also lower than last month’s average of $368,980. Median price has also declined 17.6% over last November’s high of $375,000 to rest at $309,000.

Inventory is at 6.3 months based on the last 12 months of sales and 5.5 months based on the last 6 months of sales. This is slightly better than last month’s inventory numbers of 7.3 and 6.2 respectively, but it’s too soon to tell if it signifies anything as wonderful as a real estate recovery.