Placerville Real Estate Blog

Like most local areas, the real estate prices in Pollock Pines declined sharply over the last year. The average home sold in first quarter of 2008 for $255,519, down 32.1% from last year’s average of $376,310.  Part of this decline in price was simply a result of this year’s average home being 12.4% smaller than last year’s.  Still, in the first quarter of 2008, the average home sold for approximately 22.5% less on a sold price per square foot basis than in the first quarter of 2007.  The median sale price fell 25.8% during this time, from $325,000 in first quarter of 2007 to $241,000 in the first quarter of 2008.

Pollock Pines sales a traditionally sluggish in the first quarter, since this is the time this area is still seeing some snowfall.  An average of 12 units per month have sold over the course of the last year, with only twenty-six selling in the first quarter (8 2/3 per month).  However, this year’s unit volume compares favorably to the same time last year, when twenty-four homes sold in the first quarter.

Interestingly, in both the first quarter of 2007 as well as first quarter of 2008, the expired to sold ratio was 100% — i.e., as many listings expired and sold in both periods.

At present, some 12.3% of the homes in active inventory are bank foreclosures, and 10.8% are short sales.  In the first quarter of 2008, 46.2% of homes that sold were bank foreclosures, and 15.4% of the sales were short sales.

The real estate market in El Dorado Hills is behaving like a typical "luxury" market in the Greater Sacramento area this year.  That is to say, compared to nearby areas:

• It lost some of its value, but less than in other areas.
• It has a lower overall percentage of distressed sales, though more than last year.
• Although prices are not off by that much compared to other areas, unit volume is down dramatically.

Let’s look at some specifics.

In the first quarter of 2008, the average home sold in El Dorado Hills for $592,958, down 11.3% from last year’s average price of $668,752.  The average for sold price per square foot fell 11.8%, from $230.92 in 2007 to $214.72 in 2008.  At $499,500, this year’s median price was down 18.4% from last year’s median sale price of $612,500.

Distressed sales make up 24% of active inventory, and 38.6% of sales in the first quarter. 8.3% of the 408 currently available homes in El Dorado County are bank foreclosures, a category that accounted for 28.4% of sales in the first quarter.  Short sales make up 15.7% of active inventory, and accounted for 10.2% of the sales in the first quarter.

This year the most outstanding feature of the Placerville market is the extent to which things simply aren’t moving compared to last year.  Unit volume is down by more than half.  In the first quarter of 2007, 66 units sold in what we can call "greater Placerville" (i.e., the 95667 zip code, which is quite a bit larger than the city limits).

The average home sold in Placerville in the first quarter for $413,636, 4.3% more than last year’s average of $396,453.  This year saw a bigger crop of homes selling, however, with the net result that sold price per square foot is down 17.2% from last year.  This year’s median price of $355,000 is down 5.8% from last year’s median of $377,000.

As in most areas in El Dorado County, foreclosures played less of a role than they do in Sacramento County.  Four of the 29 homes that sold in the first quarter were short sales, and four were foreclosures, so the percentages in each case were 13.8%.

A corollary of the slow sales in the first quarter was that a number of listings expired.  As a result, the expired to sold ratio changed very dramatically from year to year, from 30.3% in 2007 to 169% in 2008.  As you might also expect, inventory is high at 12.1 months.

Today I noticed (just in time, too!) that this blog has turned one year old, when I happened across our kickoff post. Bridget and I started the blog on November 9th, and a week later, Bridget officially signed on with Elite Properties. Or more precisely, John Lockwood Associates hired Bridget with the understanding with Bridget and with her former broker that she could continue to use the name Elite Properties.

We did trail off a bit in the writing at some point, as I moved on to other projects and Bridget decided that being serially verbose was not for her. However, I think we’ve managed to make the blog a fairly credible resource, especially for Amador County, which has no other similar site that I know of. Lately we’ve gotten a huge help from Purva Brown, who is doing a great job of helping me beat back the tremendous onslaught of blogs that I keep putting up. This will be post 135 — not a bad year’s work for a side project!

To me the site is special because its beginning also serves to mark the real beginning for my brokerage, even though on paper it started in July of 2006.

Those of you that are homebrewers (called Zymurgy, go figure!) should consider coming to the HAZE club meeting at the Wine Smith in downtown Placerville tonight at 7 p.m.

HAZE stands for Hangtown Association of Zymurgy Enthusiasts and although zymurgy covers fermentation of wine as well as beer, this is a beer maker’s meeting.

This will be my first meeting. I’m going along with my husband who is one of those zymurgists. You can visit the HAZE club website here. Apparently, they taste (TASTE, not drink) homebrews and discuss recipes and share secrets to make better beer.

I rarely have trouble taking sides with most issues, but today’s article in the Sacramento Bee about homeowners upset with Placer County’s budding wineries for ruining their country living peace and quiet is just difficult for me. There is no greater proponent than me for your ability to enjoy your home in peace and not have to listen to loud music around you when you come home, but I must say I am happy to live close to wineries here in El Dorado and Amador Counties.

This story explains it all.

I’m curious, especially from a marketing point of view as a Realtor. Does “winery minutes away” not count as a positive statement then?

And if you’re a wine enthusiast don’t expect prices on wine from these parts (El Dorado, Amador, and now Placer) drop any time soon. Not with this kind of resistance.

An article by the Sacramento Bee sent chills through me this morning. It wasn’t long ago that the South Lake Tahoe fires had forced me to cancel all appointments and stay home just in case we had to evacuate. I live in Pollock Pines, and everyone thought it was pretty safe around here, but nevertheless - I have a dog. And the thought of him caught inside a burning home… well, you know.

So this article from the Sacramento Bee made me wonder if we shouldn’t be doing something about clearing some of the brush around the home, just to make it safer. If you live in the foothills, or the hills, you should read it. If for nothing else than a good Halloween scare. Boo!

And oh yeah, I also learned I’m an “urban refugee.”

Last year Bridget and I sponsored a Blogathon for Hunger, which, interestingly enough, raised no money online even though it was a blogathon, and raised a little bit of money offline.

This year I’m returning to the scene of the accident to see how much money I can can raise for this year’s Hunger Walk, sponsored by the  El Dorado County Food Bank.

I was feeling pretty badly about the donations a couple of hours ago.

What a difference a couple of hours make.

Last year online we raised $0.  This year thanks to the generous donation of New York Realtor, Laurie Mindnich (blog) — not only did we raise more than zero dollars, we reached our goal of raising $200 for the El Dorado County Food Bank.

But we don’t have to stop there.  Let’s see if that donation form still works if we go past our goal.

Remember, the El Dorado County food bank contributes $9.00 of food for every dollar in cash donations they receive.

Thank you, Laurie Mindnich, and congratulations on your achievement award! 

For those of you who are already here and enjoying the snow, good for you! For those others who wonder what it’s really like, here’s a picture from my house - I took it last week as it was snowing. It was my first snow up here in this new home and it’s beautiful.

If you’re considering moving uphill to Placerville or beyond, take a look at the picture and imagine yourself here.

Then, give us a call! There are a lot of homes to look at. I’m sure we can find you something you’d absolutely fall in love with!