Over on my Sacramento Blog, I’ve been discussing how Sacramento County real estate sales are starting to heat up in a big way, fueled by high foreclosure rates and huge year-on-year price reductions.  I believe that we’ll see prices start to improve in Sacramento County as early as next year, as fewer option ARM resets hit the books (though depending on how you slice and dice those numbers, that may be an overly optimistic assessment). 

In El Dorado County, the story is a different one in several respects:

• The overall cost of homes is higher.
• There are fewer foreclosures and short sales available, though still many more in this market than in previous years.
• The Year on Year price reductions have been large enough to hurt, but still not as dramatic as Sacramento County.
• Because of the factors above, fewer first time buyers are entering the market and competing for homes.

The upshot is that while Sacramento County’s unit volume has soared 64.2% from May to May, in El Dorado County unit volume went down slightly, from 151 units in May of 2007 to 146 units in May of 2006.

This May’s average home sold for $429,434 in El Dorado County, down 20.3% from last May’s average of $538,590.  The median price has fallen 20% during the same period, from $488,000 to $390,500.  Sold price per square foot dropped 21.4%, from $242.61 in May of 2007 to $190.77 in May of 2008.

This year short sales and bank foreclosures made up 35.6% of the total sales, compared to 13.2% last year.  Short sales accounted for 7.5% of the total, and REOs made up 28.1%.  There are currently 12.4 months of inventory in El Dorado County.  The expired to sold ratio is up slightly this year — at 54.1% compared to 48% last year.  The average discount from list price for a sold home was 3.6%, compared to 4% last year.

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.

The good news for Amador County in October is that inventory has declined somewhat from last month’s 14.76 months, but the numbers are still higher than Sacramento, El Dorado, etc., at 13.84 months.  The average home sold through the MLS in Amador County in September for $325,238, approximately 94% of the average list price of $345,170.  This year’s average was down 10.6% from last year’s, but on a sold price per square foot basis, the decline was only 3.9%, since this year’s “average home” was 1452 square feet, 7% smaller than last year’s average of 1561.  The average sold price per square foot was $224 this year, compared to $233 last year.

This year thirty units sold in Amador County, down 9.1% from last year’s figure of 33 units.

Homes in Amador County are taking longer and longer to sell.  The average home that sold in Amador County did so after a 194 days on the market — over six months.  Last year that figure was less than four months (113 days).

What the heck happened in September?

Will someone tell me what happened to unit volume in September? In El Dorado County it was down 25.3% from last year, while in Sacramento County it was down 43%.

I don’t know about you, but for me, selling fewer houses is bad for business.

OK, ok, on to the El Dorado County numbers:

The average home sold for $494,933 in September, down 11.3% from last year’s average of $557,866. The median price dropped 10.2%, from $484,250 last year to $435,000 this year. As if reading its mind, the sold price per square foot also dropped 10.2%, from $250.61 last year to $225.07 this year.

As we mentioned already, unit volume dropped 25.7% — the actual numbers involved are 144 units last September, and 107 units this September. On the plus side, there are 157 units pending, so it’s looking like in October / things may pick up.

Average days on market remained constant at 76 days in September of 2006 and September 2007.

Bank owned foreclosures (REOs) accounted for less than one percent of the units sold in September 2006 (one unit out of 144). This September, of 107 units sold, eleven were REOs (10.3%). Of currently active properties, 5.8% are Real Estate Owned.

Comparing the first half of 2006 to the first half of 2007 for Ione, California, we find the Ione real estate market characterized by a marked decline in prices — that’s the bad news.  The good news is that these price drops seem to be having an effect on the inventory on Ione, which is fairly low compared to the rest of Amador County.

Thirty-five residential units sold in the first six months of 2006, and by the first six months of 2007, that number had increased to thirty-nine units.  This year’s average home sold for $281,484, a 15.9% drop from last year’s average sold price of $334,814.  The sold price per square foot was not far from that — it dropped 15.2%.  The median sale price from January to June of 2007 was $305,000, down 9% from last year’s median price of $335,000.  The time it takes to sell, expressed as average days on market, have gone up to over six months (187 days), a 53% increase from last year’s average of 122.

There are currently sixty-five units active in Ione, and with 80 selling over the course of the last year, this puts inventory at ten months.  This is a high figure, but low compared to the rest of Amador County, which has an average inventory of 14.8 months.

Prices fell in El Dorado County in August from the year earlier, with moderately falling unit volume. This year’s average home sold for $520,956, a nine per cent drop from last year’s average of $572,647. This year’s home being slightly bigger than last year’s the sold price per square foot dropped somewhat more dramatically, 11.5%, from $255.87 last August to $226.40 this August.  The median price fell 14.8%, from $502,000 to $427,500.

This year we saw our first significant foreclosure activity in El Dorado County in some time. There were no foreclosures among the 176 units that closed escrow recorded in the MLS for August of 2006. A year later, nineteen of the 164 units (11.6%) that sold were bank-owned properties. Of the 1797 properties currently active in El Dorado County, 96 (5.3%) are bank owned.

Over the last twelve months, an average of 155 units sold every month, so the 1797 active units we have now represents 11.6 months of inventory.

Amador County’s real estate market in August picked up some in terms of units sold, but there is still quite a bit of unsold inventory remaining.

This August there were 47 residential units sold through the MLS, up 6.8% from last August and besting the running monthly average over the last twelve months, which was about 38 per month.

The average home sold for $379,159 in August, up 8.8% from last year’s average of $348,381.  So far so good, but this year’s average home was 16.8% bigger than last year’s, with the upshot being that the average sold price dropped 8.8%, which is a fairly typical year on year depreciation compared to Sacramento, El Dorado, and other nearby markets.

The median price dropped 14.2% from year to year, from $349,500 last August to $300,000 this August.  Average days on market are up 36.5%, from 134 last August to 183 this August — yes, that’s six months alright, and you can blame the number of homes competing for that.  Inventory remains high in Amador County at 14.76 months.

In July, the average home in El Dorado County sold for $541,094, down 6.4% from last July’s average of $578,118.  As we’ve seen elsewhere, buyers have continued to opt for larger homes, so this year’s average home in El Dorado County was 2,289 square feet, up modestly from last year’s average of 2,224 square feet.  As a result, sold price per square foot showed a more dramatic drop from year to year.  This year the average was 236.39, down 9.1% from last year’s average of $259.95.

At the same time, the median price of a home this year dropped only modestly.  This July’s median home sale price was $490,000, compared to $499,475 last year, a 1.9% drop.

The expired to sold ratio for July was 91.7%, compared to last year’s value of 68.2%.

Inventory is just over 12 months worth.  Unit sales in July (157) were pretty close to the average for the last year (155), however, they’re down 10.8% from last July’s total of 176 units.