What Will April Rains Bring?

I have been looking at the April real estate activity reports for Rocklin and Roseville and have not found any clues that the market is doing any big turnarounds from the winter doldrums. I will remind you that the first two weeks in April were still wet and cool, we had schools out for Spring break and taxes due. Having said that, lets look at the numbers.

April sales numbers for Rocklin were virtually flat from March activity. Total Rocklin sales were reported at 59, only one more than March. Rocklin zip codes, 95677 and 95765 were more than 50% off the pace from April 2005. In regards to median price, Rocklin results were mixed. In zip code 95677 the median price paid in April was $489,950, a 27.9 percent increase from a year ago. This number is also up from March but down slightly from February. For zip code 95765 the annual appreciation in April was only up 1.58 percent to $482,500 and down 4.5 percent from March with a decline of $22,500 in median price.

Roseville results were even more dismal. There were only 119 homes sold in April significantly below the April 2005 activity and down 13 from the March level of sales. For March all three Roseville zip codes reported median price increases from a year earlier. In April only zip code 95661 showed an annual increase in median price, 15.1 percent. Zip codes 95678 and 95747 were off 2.9 and 1.5 percent respectively. Compared to last month 95661 median price increased to $495,000 a 5.49 percent increase month over month. Like the annual numbers, zip codes 95678 and 95747 both showed declines from March. The median price in April for 95678 was $380,000, down $27,750 from March (-6.8 percent). The same numbers for 95747 were $448,000 down a whopping $39,000 of 8 percent from March.

For a good overview of the April real estate activity see the story in today’s Sacramento Bee, Forget about housing rebound - Sales, inventory and prices all point to a significant downturn in region's market by Jim Wasserman.

I think it is worth waiting to see what happens in May but I am becoming increasingly convinced that if we are moving back to a “normal” market the pendulum may be swinging abnormally negative this year to get us there over the next two years.