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 numbers for residential sales in Pollock Pines from November, 2005 to November, 2006 are a kind of mixed jumble that makes them difficult to characterize.

On the one hand, sales are up 50%, from twelve units sold last November to eighteen sold this November.  So looking just at November, that’s great news.  Of course, if you take the year as a whole (December to November for 2005 versus 2006), a different picture emerges, with 261 units sold in 2005 versus 156 in 2006, a forty per cent drop.  Perhaps it’s safe to say just what we noticed recently in our other writings, that buyers, lured both by bargains offered with prices falling and the recent drops in interest rates, have been coming out in droves these last couple of months.

This year’s median sale price was up 15.6% in Pollock Pines, from $360,617 last November to $416,737 this November.  Also, the average sale price was up 11.6%, from $355,792 last November to $397,217 this November.   Don’t get too excited yet, however — it turns out that a little more money bought a lot more house, with the average size of sold units growning a big 45.7%, from 1355 square feet last November to 1974 square feet this November.

As a result, when we look at average square footage, we no longer find appreciation.  Instead, we find a significant drop — of 23.4%, from November to November.

It’s hard to find much to fault with Pollock Pines’ November performance overall, however.  Given the good divisor of eighteen units sold, inventory is a modest 6.6 months.  I’m sure sellers are hoping that December and January will bring them more of the same, but we’ll have to wait and see on that one.