Those of you who played with toy databases as a child may remember the song:

I’ve been working on the database
All the live-long day
I’ve been working on the database
Just to pass the time away…

Oh wait, that was about railroads, wasn’t it? 

That’s so 19th century.

I haven’t been working on the railroad, but I have been working on my MLS "mirror" database, and lately I’ve been adding some statistics reporting capabilities to it. 

To date, the statistics I can get from the report I’ve generated are not as comprehensive as my handy-dandy spreadsheet-generated statistics, but the killer thing is that I don’t have to sit and look up the data, I just pop in the zip code or county I want (city name coming soon), and the numbers pop out automagically, already formatted as HTML.

This is how I should have been doing things all along.

More to come!

Placer County’s market remains slow in May, and is experiencing both falling unit volume compared to last year and lower prices.  This May the average home sold in Placer County for $396,805, down 20.1% from last May’s average sale price of $496,667.  Combined with a somewhat larger average footprint this year, the sold price per square foot figure dropped 25.5% from May to May, from $239.36 last May to $178.34.  The median price fell 21% over this period, from $428,000 in May of 2007 to $338,250 in May of 2008.

We’ve been noticing for several months in Sacramento County that prices have fallen to a point where unit volume is increasing in a very dramatic way.   The same phenomenon has not yet happened in Placer County.  In Placer County, the decline in price has yet to be large enough to bring buyers out in huge numbers, so unit volume is still falling off.  In May, 406 residential units were sold through the MLS, down 4.2% from last May’s 424 units.

In May, 44.3% of the homes that sold were bank foreclosures, up from 9.7% last May.  Short sales made up 7.9% of the total, versus 4.7% last May.  Non-distressed sales outsold short sales by about six to one.  Currently in active inventory there are 10.3% bank foreclosures and 27.9% short sales.

There are currently about 8.2 months worth of homes in inventory.  Based on last month’s sales data, it would take just 1.4 months to sell off the existing REOs, 8 months to sell off the non-distressed sales, and 22.2 months to sell off the short sales.

April saw declining house values throughout the greater Sacramento region.  Placer County homeowners were not immune to this trend, however they can take comfort in the fact that the 24.6% decline in sold price per square foot value from April to April was at least not as pronounced as in Sacramento County, where sold price per square foot fell 33.9% from April to April.  Nevertheless, prices fell enough to drive demand up, so in April unit sales rose 15.3% from the previous year, with 370 sales compared to last year’s 321 sales.

With buyers purchasing a larger home on average this year, the average selling price this April in Placer County fell less dramatically than the sold price per square foot.  This average home sold in April in Placer County for $420,208, down 16.8% from last April’s average of $505,041.  The median sale price fell 19.5% during this time, from $435,000 in April of 2007 to $350,000 in April of 2008.

Placer County Foreclosures make up only 9.8% of active inventory, but accounted for 43.2% of all sales in April.  Conversely, short sales account for 26.2% of the active inventory, but made up only 9.7% of sales in April.  Seen from the point of view of how many units are available in each category, we can break inventory down as follows:

Overall inventory:  8 months.

Bank foreclosures (REO) inventory:  1.5 months

Short sales inventory:  18.3 months

Non-distressed sales:  9 months

The expired to sold ratio in Placer County, one indicator of the direction the market is moving, is down this year to 37.3%, compared to last year’s figure of 56.4%.

The large number of foreclosures and the falling prices that result caused an upsurge in demand in the Roseville real estate market in April.  April’s average home sold in Roseville for $362,468, down 17.4% from last April’s average sale price of $439,080.  Sold price per square foot fell 25.9% during this time, from an average of $225.40 in April of 2007 to an average of $166.96 in April of 2008.  At the same time, the median home selling price fell 13.2%, from $401,950 in April of 2007 to $348,950 in April of 2008.

Taking advantage of falling prices, buyers bought 40.2% more homes than last April, as unit volume rose from 102 units in April of 2007 to 143 units this April.  Sixty-six of the 143 units that sold this April were bank owned (46.2%).  Only 11.2% (sixteen homes) were short sales. 42.7% of sales were non-distressed, so non-distressed homes continued to outperform short sales even though short sales are much more inexpensive, on average.

Overall, inventory numbers are at the border between a buyer’s market and a seller’s market — though to be sure this is something of a paper victory, since what’s driving demand are the distressed sales.  There are 6.2 months of inventory overall.  For non distressed sales there are 6 months, while for short sales there is a huge 16 month supply.  For REOs — the real seller’s market — the inventory available is only 1.6 months.  The expired to sold ratio was an encouraging 21.7% this April, down from 52.9% last April.

Forsesthill is a small town in Placer County, with few units selling every month. The small sample size tends to throw off statistical generalizations you might want to make. Nevertheless, let’s take a look at the numbers we do have and see how Foresthill is doing in the first quarter of 2008.

Seven units sold during this quarter, at an average sale price of $292,071, down from eleven units last year at an average sale price of $393,000. This looks like a very dramatic drop in price on the face of it, until you realize that this year’s crop of homes was almost 25% smaller than last year’s. The net result is that sold price per square foot fell only 13.6%.

There are forty-nine homes currently for sale through the MLS in Foresthill. Of these, two are bank foreclosures (4.1%) and five are short sales (10.2%). This year of the seven homes that closed, two were foreclosures (28.6%).

With fifty-three homes selling yearly in Foresthill, the forty-nine available homes means that there is 11.1 months of unsold inventory.

I spend a lot of time writing about the numbers in different areas, and yes, I can assure you:  statistics really are pretty dry.  Sometimes the results you get are entertainingly obvious, however.  For example, last year Granite Bay’s homes lost only 9.2% of their (sold price per square foot) value, as compared to a 35% drop in Lincoln.  Well, see, that’s obvious.  Everybody who has money enough to live in Granite Bay would want to live there.  Why not?  The schools are great.  The houses are gorgeous.  You’re near the lake.  I love Granite Bay.  Everybody loves Granite Bay.  What’s not to love?

In the first quarter of 2008, the average buyer spent $913,000 for their home, 3.6% more than last year’s average of $880,932.  Prices were falling, however, so that 3.6% increase in price fetched a home 3521 square foot home, 14.2% bigger than last year’s 3084 square feet.  As a result, as we mentioned above, sold price per square foot fell 9.2% from first quarter of 2007 ($285.65) to first quarter of 2008 ($259.30). 

If homes are holding their value much better in Granite Bay than in other areas, the flip side of that equation is that far fewer Granite Bay homes are changing hands.  Last year, twenty-six homes per month sold during the first quarter.  This year that number is down to eleven.  As a result, inventory is creeping up in Granite Bay, and currently is at 11.4 months.

This market update covers West Rocklin 95765, and East Rocklin, 95677, over the period from the first quarter of 2007 to the first quarter of 2008.

From the first quarter of 2007 to the first quarter of 2008, home prices dropped substantially in Rocklin. In the first quarter of 2008, the average home sold for $383,233 in Rocklin, down 17.3% from the year before, when the average selling price was $463,240.  The median sale price fell about the same amount, 17.8%, from $432,000 in 2007 to $355,000 in 2008.  With a larger group of homes being sold this year, sold price per square foot fell a little bit more, about 19%, from $209 per square foot last year to $169 per square foot this year.

Short sales sold moderately well in Rocklin, but still only reflected a fraction of the short sales in inventory.  15.1% of the sales in the first quarter of 2008 were short sales, but 30.1% of homes on the market are short sales.  In contrast, 42.4% of the homes that sold in the first quarter were bank foreclosures, but only 10.9% of the homes in inventory are foreclosures.

Related Links

Roseville Real Estate Market Update

Homes for Sale in East Rocklin

Homes for Sale in West Rocklin

General Home Search

In the first quarter of this year, the average home sold in Auburn for $431,818, down 11% from first quarter of 2007.  At the same time, with buyers purchasing a house that was eight per cent bigger than last year, sold price per square foot fell 17.6%, from $259.15 in 2007 to $213.67 in the first quarter of 2008.  This year’s average home was 2021 square feet in size and was on the market 104 days before being sold (i.e., 104 days between being listed and when a purchase agreement was accepted).

In the first quarter of 2007, 3.7% of the homes that sold were bank foreclosures, and 1.2% were short sales.  This year those numbers had risen to 24.5% and 3.8%, respectively.

Unit volume was down in Auburn in 2008, with 53 homes sold in the first quarter compared to 82 in the first quarter of 2007.  Partly as a result of these sluggish recent sales, inventory is fairly high in Auburn at 10.1 months.

One of the indicators that tells you a lot about how a particular real estate market is doing is the amount of outstanding inventory there is. When we talk about real estate inventory, all this means is the number of homes that are for sale divided by the average number of homes that sell every month. Thus, for example, if there are 100 homes for sale in a given area and 25 homes sell every month in that same area on average, there are four months of inventory.

When inventory levels are below six months, especially if there are few distressed sales (short sales and bank foreclosures), we say that an area is experiencing a seller’s market. As I’m sure you’ve heard if you haven’t been living on Mars, most of Placer County and Sacramento County are currently in a buyer’s market.

When we look at the Placer County numbers, one interesting result we find is that the areas with the most distressed sales have the lowest inventory numbers. On one end of the spectrum, Foresthill and Granite Bay have high inventory levels — above eleven months — but the lowest percentages of active short sales and foreclosures. On the other end, Roseville has the lowest inventory number of any Placer County area we looked at — seven months — but also has the highest number of foreclosures and is second only to Lincoln for short sales.

This high foreclosures means low inventory is not a rule that applies universally, however. Outside Placer County it breaks down completely. Sacramento County overall has higher numbers for foreclosures and short sales than any area we looked at in Placer County, yet inventory is high at 10 months. And in a true buyers market, we find extremely low inventory coupled with low levels of distressed sales.

The following table shows how the current inventory breaks down for several areas in Placer County, and shows how this compares to Placer County overall and Sacramento County. We include current inventory as well as the percentages of current inventory that are bank foreclosures (REOs) and short sales.

In the first quarter of 2008, Roseville’s home prices declined moderately compared to other Placer County communities.  In Roseville in the first quarter, the average home that sold was 2095 square feet and sold for $369,019.  Square footage was up 6.7% from last year’s average of 1963 square feet, while the average price was down 14.4% from last year’s average of $430,945.  As a result, sold price per square foot fell 19.8% during the period, from $219.53 in the first quarter of 2007 to $183.39 in the first quarter of 2008.

Unit volume was down slightly (2.5%), with 324 units selling in the first quarter of 2007 versus 316 in the first quarter of 2008.

Whether this glass is half empty or half full for Roseville home owners depends on whether you compare your numbers to owners in Granite Bay, whose homes lost "only" 9.2% of their value during the same period, or to Lincoln, where prices eroded a huge 35%.

Most of the price drop in Roseville can be attributed to the brisk sale of bank foreclosures.  44% of the homes that sold in Roseville in the first quarter were bank foreclosed properties, and another 7.3% were short sales.  As in most areas, the savings for foreclosures are substantial.

Currently in Roseville, there are some 774 homes for sale.  Foreclosures make up only 15.5% of these, though they accounted for 44% of sales in the first quarter.  Approximate list price per square foot in Roseville is as follows:

Bank foreclosures:  $163.

Short Sales:  $178.

Non distressed sales: $211

Overall average:  $194.