It looks as though spring is in the air! Along with Spring comes the fury of home buyers and sellers looking for the best deal in town. I have the totals for the number of homes and properties sold in Pymouth, Fiddletown, River Pines, Sutter Creek, Ione, and Jackson during the month of February, I am anxiously waiting  to compare these numbers to March in a few weeks. According to the Amador MLS none of the homes in Plymouth or Fiddletown sold, however one property sold in River Pines, and the little (growing) town of Ione sold 7 homes with an average price of $245,285.00! A total of 6 homes sold in Jackson with an average price of $264,666.00 and in Sutter Creek 4 homes sold with an average price above all of $490,250.00.

HOPE Flyer    Are you looking to buy a home in Amador or El Dorado counties? We are holding a workshop to help you prepare yourself for the home buying process,  on Saturday March 10th from 9am-1pm at Placer Title in Jackson, you will have the opportunity to talk with lenders, Amador County Realtors, Title & Escrow officers, and receive assistance in understanding your credit.  Please call or e-mail Bridget at Bridget@BridgetSells.com  (530) 306-9111 reservations or required. We will have a list of homes in various price ranges in areas such as: Plymouth, Ione, Sutter Creek, Jackson, Pine Grove, Mt Aukum, Fairplay, and River Pines.

I thought I’d give you all a preview of our new look. I promised Bridget I’d figure out how to upload images from within Wordpress and let her know.

Anyway, here’s roughly how our new sign will look.

Hey, that was too easy.

We owe special thanks to Linda Bartlett of Truffle Gateau for putting that together for us. We’ve already incorporated it into our Sacramento site.

I have had the honor of listing one of the most exquisite homes and settings I have ever seen. From the creek, pond, and lake to the detailed rock & brick work to the conveniences of dual heating & air. This paradise has it all. Situated in the “Heart” of Fairplay Viticulture, located in El Dorado County, this homes rests on over 6 usable acres with deeded access to a private lake located just a short walk across the road. There is plenty of room for a couple acres of vines, horses, alpacas, or whatever you have in mind. You can view more of this home at www.BridgetSells.com. Some of the possibilities might be a Bed and Breakfast, vacation retreat, or just an amazing place for your family to call home. 4 bedrooms 2 baths family/dining combo room, living room, and updated bathrooms. Rock fireplace and a beautiful propane stove. If you would like more information or to schedule your own private tour please call Bridget at 530-306-9111 or e-mail me at Bridget@BridgetSells.com.

Today before going out with the family to have some fun and get some new tires put on the Honda so I can continue to drive buyers around in safety, I did some work on a spreadsheet covering the last three years of Amador County real estate prices. I’ve been wanting to do that for several different areas, since I knew that once I’d done it I could get a pretty good idea of when the market started to turn in Amador County. Also, lazy writer that I am, I knew I could probably mine such a spreadsheet for at least three to four articles immediately, and many more over the course of time.

The first thing I thought I’d publish that you might enjoy are the curves showing the average sold price and average sold price per square foot. Here they are:

To me, what stands out here is not that we have a curve upwards and a downward trend — it’s pretty much old news that Amador County like everywhere else is in something of a buyer’s market. Instead, what strikes me about the situation in Amador County is that the downtrend happened some six to twelve months later than it did in Sacramento County. I’ve done smaller charts of the same kind for Sacramento, and the market peak there can be dated to about July / August of 2005. In Amador County, in contrast, the market reached its zenith sometime between about January and May of 2006.

I have a couple of suspicions as to why that is, but I think I’ll keep them to myself since at this point they’re on the order of wild-eyed guesses.

Well, I’ve just taken a more comprehensive look into the numbers for El Dorado County residential real estate sales for January than I usually take, and I have two general conclusions:

1. El Dorado County is not immune to the price drops that have happened elsewhere, we’re just behind the times (but we tried to play catchup in January in a big way).
2. As for where we are now, my advice to El Dorado County sellers in general (based on average numbers) would be this: get over yourselves. It ain’t worth that much.

Prices dropped sharply from last year in January in El Dorado County. The median price fell some 8.2%, from $487,000 to $447,000. At the same time, the average price dropped a whopping 16.6%, from $570,391 to $475,767. To be sure, this year’s 121 sold units (coincidentally identical in unit volume to last year’s 121 sold units) were somewhat smaller, so some of that average price drop is based on smaller size. But there’s still a double-digit portion that we can blame on the market changing (or on prices being overvalued to begin with). Average price per square foot dropped from $265.79 last January to $237.64 this January, an 11.5% decrease.

As we noted above, unit volume is unchanged from year to year. However, the expired to sold ratio has risen from 83.5% to 110.7%, and average days on market have risen from 70 to 98 (a 40% increase).

The really interesting story in January is in the expireds and the actives. It’s here where we will find the answer to the question: Why is this Realtor®, who lives in El Dorado County and presumably has a stake in the property values, advising El Dorado County sellers to get over themselves?

OK, good question. Hold on to your statistical hats (average size, 7 1/4). The average home that sold in January sold for $237.64 per square foot. At the same time, the average price for a home expiring in January was $279.07, which if you work it out is 22.8% higher. But that’s not the fun part. The average home that’s on the market today, two days after January, is listed at a higher price than the average expired home, at $285.04!

There’s an old joke about a plane that loses one of its four engines at a time, and becomes progressively more late to its airport destination. When they’re down to the last engine, one of the passengers quips, “I hope we don’t lose that one — we’ll be up here all day!”

The situation in El Dorado County reminds me of a version of that joke — only it’s not so funny, because it’s happening now. Not only are El Dorado County homes priced too high to sell, they’re so high that we’re going to have to lower them before they can even expire.

I wonder if what lurks beneath this phenomenon is just raw pride or — more likely, I think — a large number of sellers who are significantly upside down. In any case, we could sell off that nearly eleven months of inventory with an average sticker price of $694,632 if sellers would be willing to drop that average down to $553,933. Listing agents, show your people comps for January — they aren’t the same as when you took the listing in November. Sellers, I know you like to look at that sign down the street and base your price on that, but your neighbor’s home is likely to be priced some 25.4% too high. That’s why the sign is still up.

Well, with February almost upon us, I can sense the excitement Bridget feels about a new set of statistics to write about!

Oh my gosh — two months with me and she’s already in danger of being a nerd! I have that effect on people. With some people after just a few minutes they’ll go out and buy a pocket protector or put tape on their glasses.

But Bridget’s pretty safe, because she’s doing a simply wonderful job out in Amador County, and whatever other county she travels to as well.

This has been a terrific month for the company. Two new agents joined us, Vicki Agregado-Babcock, who lives out by me in Cameron Park and Susan Norris, who lives in East Sacramento. This means we now have three strong agents working in three counties (actually four strong agents if you count the verbose broker).

Bridget has sold her listing on Wheeler Loop in Plymouth, and is burning the candle at both ends between listings and sales.

As for me, I’m working with a smaller number of buyers and sellers and trying to get organized enough to keep up with it all. I’m looking into new software and systems for the company, and trying to nail down many of the other happy tasks you’d expect Joe Startup to have. It’s a time of tremendous excitement and growth for me personally, so I’m jazzed about that. I think on some level that enjoying a leadership role on a productive and creative team of people is something I’ve longed for on some level for the past ten years. Of course, I’m sure there will be ups and downs as time goes on, but as for right now I’m thinking you can’t beat my job with an aluminum bat.

Today I changed our site motto and added the following entry into our Real Estate Mottos History.

“January 27, 2007, finally gave in to the underlying urge to blatant self-promotion with ‘Goll danged great agents.’”

I think it has a nice country flair while being charmingly un-self-deprecating.

I was just working on some disclosures in answer to a client’s question and thinking, hey, gee, you really spelled this out nicely, and then I thought about how smart and careful the rest of my team is, and I came up with that.

I’m still not sure if we’re more “Goll danged great” or if we’re really “Gosh Durned Great, Con Sarn It!” This is, after all, Gold Country, so we need to explore the full extent of our 49er prospectorisms.

     I would like to share some news about our famous Amador County and our progress toward helping those whom without programs like, H.O.P.E. would be unable to own a piece of Amador County Real Estate. We resumed our H.O.P.E. meetings this morning at the Amador County Board of Realtors and had a great turnout. Thank-you to all of those who attended, Barbara Nichols  and Gina Grubb from Diablo Funding, Susan Brown and Diana Rethford from Placer Title, Cathy Yochheim from Coldwell Banker, and of course myself, Bridget Felmley-Gay from Elite Properties. H.O.P.E. is also known as Homeownership Opportunity Planning Enterprise, the Amador County Association of Realtors and local lenders and title companies have teamed up to help assist you with the purchase of a home. The funds are donated by local Amador County Realtors,  loan officers, escrow officers, concerned citizens, and federal grants. There are some qualifications, one being the willingness to provide your new home with “sweat equity”. The funds typically help pay for improvements and items like pest work. If you would like more information regarding donations or an application for funds please contact Bridget@BridgetSells.com (877) 735-5657 ext 82 or the Amador County Board of Realtors (209) 223-3874.

      H.O.P.E. is offering a “Workshop” on Saturday March 10th at 10 am at Placer Title in Jackson. The workshop will focus on helping you to get your credit to the point of qualifying to purchase a home. For more information or to sign up for the workshop contact Bridget@BridgetSells.com (877) 735-5657 ext 82.

Watching Bridget start to blog more about Amador County has been a real treat for me, so I thought I’d come in with some Thanksgiving words.

OK, granted, it’s January, but I have my own fiscal year.

So many good things have been happening in a row that I find myself at a loss to keep up. Bridget, who just joined the company a few weeks ago (or should I say hired me as her broker since she had a company already), is already closing her first escrow, is nice and busy with lots of other buyers, and is taking our company’s first listing, seemingly at the same time! Meantime we were recently joined by an Realtor® out in Sacramento, Susan Norris. We’d hardly had time to hold our first company meeting with Susan, and when I got back to the home office in the afternoon I heard from another great agent who I’ve been absolutely pining to work with for many months now, and it looks like that one will be a done deal before the end of the month.

Unbeknonwnst to me, I must have had my Wheaties this morning.

As if that weren’t enough, one of my favorite search engines did an update recently, and our sites got very favorable treatment. Exactly what I mean by that is pretty geeky, so lest I scare you with my taped glasses and pen pocket protector, let me just say this: It’s a good thing for buyers and sellers in the area, because more of them will get to work with the best agents in the business, who (as it’s turning out) are almost all working with me now.

Not bad for an old guy.

God bless us, everyone. Oh wait, that’s Christmas!