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.

Well, the same day as that last post, Bridget Felmley-Gay and I signed on the proverbial dotted line and I am very pleased to announce that along with the purchase of Elite Properties for an undisclosed sum [eighty bucks:  dang, did I disclose that out loud?], John Lockwood Associates now comes with a whole staff to work at Elite Properties, Bridget.

It is always exciting to work with someone positive, bright, and knowledgable about the business.  Now all we need are another 20 hours in the week and we can really get some cool stuff done.  Meantime we’re out every weekend building something great.   Sell sell sell.

It gives me great pleasure to announce that John Lockwood Associates has just recorded the Fictitious Business Name “Elite Properties” in El Dorado County. Once we’ve let the DRE know and gone through our newspaper publication period, we’ll officially be Elite.

(Off the record, we’re already above average.)

Ironically, “we’re” becoming Elite at the same time as we’re finally becoming “we” and fulfilling the “Associates” prophecy that’s implicit in John Lockwood Associates. Bridget Felmley-Gay is in the process of joining us. Bridget had founded Elite Properties along with Hal Fishler, who has graciously agreed to let us use the name.

Bridget brings some four years of real estate sales to the table, along with a long and varied background in other sales fields. She’s also a good friend and a fine human being, who proves the old Zig Ziglar adage that “You can’t be a good person and a bad salesperson.”

Of course, there’s a possible down side if I finally just use “John Lockwood Associates” as the corporation behind the thone (so to speak — I don’t really own a throne, but maybe I should check on eBay). That is, I won’t be able to use the joke (so to speak again), “John Lockwood Associates — I stayed up all night thinking of that name”.

Any day now we’ll go into the Department of Real Estate and dot all the I’s on this one — when we do we’ll let you know, meantime, all I can say is “welcome to the team” or rather “hey, thanks for making me a team that so I can welcome you to it!”

This gorgeous 2 bedroom 2 bath home is located in the heart of Amador County’s famous “wine country” it is complimented with Hickory floors, Spanish style tiles, concrete patio, and two car garage. Low maintenance and an easy commute to Sacramento or Stockton areas.  Check out the virtual tour.

P.T. Barnum was said to have remarked, “There’s a sucker born every minute”.  As it turns out, however, P.T. Barnum never said that — it was a competitor of Barnum who said it, David Hannum.  Nevertheless, I was amused recently when I came across a home listed in the MLS at $329,000, to see this pathological little tidbit in the agent only remarks:  “Zillow says $369,000!”

If you follow real estate blogs at all, you’re probably familiar with Zillow, the computerized home pricing service with the brain dead algorithm that’s famous primarily for making Realtors’® jobs more difficult by telling buyers and sellers the wrong prices.  What’s amusing to me in seeing a colleague quoting Zillow in an MLS field meant for other agents are the many possibilities that are afoot in this case, including:

1) The agent doesn’t know that Zillow is brain dead.

2) The agent does know Zillow is brain dead, but is hoping his colleagues won’t.

3) The agent’s seller insists Zillow isn’t brain dead, so out of deference to his wishes he’s passing along the Zidiocy — oh sorry, I meant Zestimate — on to his colleagues.

Hopefully choice #1 is not the case, that there’s honestly an agent out there quoting Zillow and scratching his head about why the home’s not selling yet when it’s so “underpriced.”  This is a home down the hill, people, not one of our difficult to appraise properties on acreage that we have out here.   I knew how to correctly evaluate the worth of such a property in about the first week on the job, and I could probably come up with a better estimate than Zillow for such a property in my first month.

One wonders for whose words David Hannum’s observation would be most apt, the careless agent?  His colleagues?  The seller?

Well, I’ve been having some interesting times on my Sacramento County blog for many months now, because I haven’t been bearish enough on the market out here.

Especially lately, with three escrows open, two more referrals to close, and another offer in the pipeline, I’ve been feeling like I’m on a pretty handy little roll here.

Lately there’s been some excellent writing around about the folks who want to wait and the folks who are already taking advantage of the bargains that we’re starting to see. Steve Berg had a great article recently were he talks about the Bubbleheads in the San Diego market and the shrinkage of inventory. I share Steve’s opinion that:

The moral of this story is that trying to anticipate the future market and precisely when may be the perfect time to buy or sell is a losing proposition.

An interesting counterpoint however also appeared recently. Julie Jalone writes today about how there are folks ready to take advantage of the down market already, and folks who prefer to wait longer to watch the prices drop more, and how her business as a Realtor® is to be open to serving her clients well in either case.

Well of course we want Technorati to know about our new blog. So we just went over to claim this blog, and it turns out Technorati now lets you claim a blog by linking within a post.

I hope they’ve also made it easier to move blogs. That never worked really well.

Anyway, here’s my Technorati Profile.

One of the nicest people on the planet is selling this wonderful Beazer home in Cameron Park’s lovely Cameron Valley Estates subdivision (off of Meder Road). This 2001 three-bedroom home features an extra room that could serve as a fourth, and almost 1900 square feet of living space. Enjoy great Cameron Park schools and easy access to Highway 50.

Seller motivated. Call us at (530) 672-9160 for a showing or check all the details here, or take a look at additional photos (though to tell the truth, I don’t think the photos on this one really do it justice).

Wordpress lets you enter a tagline, so I entered one.  “We can’t quit now, we still have gas money” may not survive the first time Bridget looks at this thing, but you never know.

We’ve just broken ground on this brand new real real estate web site and blog, dedicated to providing top local real estate information for Amador County and El Dorado County, California.

This site is being developed by John Lockwood, a California real estate broker and web developer who lives in El Dorado County, and Bridget Felmley-Gay, a top producing Amador County Realtor®. Together our intent is to create a first rate resource and a genuine open community for buyers and sellers in Amador County and El Dorado County — one that’s very different from other sites John has done in the past and explores some new directions.