Placerville Real Estate Blog

I just had to use that title once.

I’ll try not to wear it out.

Having just gotten through singing the praises of Jackson’s strong market, we now turn to Ione and paint a much darker picture. I think many of the differences in the two communities also point out what we’ve been saying all along about our Amador County statistics in general — small sample sizes mean results may swing pretty widedly from one sample to the next.

Ten units sold in Ione last November, as opposed to only three this year, which is a fairly huge drop in volume. The low number for this year’s sales in turn feeds back into how we calculate inventory, so with 68 units in inventory we come up with an alarming 22 months worth. (Of course, if 10 units sell next month, that will be down to 6.8 months — so keep your eye on those sample sizes).

The average sold price per square foot dropped 13.8% from November to November, while all other indicators were up. What this means in practice is that this year a buyer spent about as much for a home as last year ($303,840 in November 2005 versus $304,518 in November 2006), but this year’s buyer found his money buying a home that was 16.3% bigger, at 1813 square feet compared to last year’s 1558 square feet.

And with that, I have to turn my attention to El Dorado County rather literally, and go meet a seller there. More blogathon fun when we return.