Placerville Real Estate Blog

Welcome to our first market update article for El Dorado County.  We’ll start in on Amador County shortly as well, and get detailed articles on many specific areas as we go along.

El Dorado County’s prices in October 2006 have not lost much ground since 2005.  The average sale price even experienced a somewhat tantalizing gain of 6.3%, from an average last October of $506,093 to this October’s average of $538,019.  However, this year’s crop of houses being 6% bigger than last year (2158 square feet as opposed to 2036 square feet, on average), the real gain in the average price was a more modest .3%.  Meantime the median price dropped 3.0%, no doubt as many bargain hunters took advantage of homes in the lower end of the range.  The median for 2005 in El Dorado County was $469,000, while this year’s median was $455,000.

Unit volume is not off as heavily as it is in other areas, telling us that demand is still moderately strong.  This October 143 units sold, down 21.9% from last year’s number of 183.  What’s up dramatically however is the supply side.  We’re now at 11.2 months of inventory with 1599 unsold homes on the market in El Dorado County, and last year this oversupply was reflected in the expired to sold ratio numbers.  167 homes expired last month versus the 143 that sold, putting the ratio at 116.8%.  Last October the ratio, which was already starting to climb from it’s heyday, was up to 45.9%.

The average home that sold in El Dorado County took 79 days to sell, compared to an average of 51 days last year.

The sold price to list price ratio has changed as well over the period, but not as dramatically as many of our buyers expect.  As in other markets, homes priced well tend to sell fairly close to their list price.  In October, selling price was 97% of list compared to 98% last year.