Sacramento Home Sales are up

If you read the headline in the Sacramento Bee this morning, “Home Sales up for 2nd month” it might give you a feeling that our real estate market is doing pretty well after almost three years of slumping. Don’t get me wrong, I am feeling optimistic about eventually getting back to a balanced real estate market but when you get behind some of the numbers it is pretty clear we have a ways to go.

Compared to a year ago, there were over 47 percent more sales of existing homes in Sacramento County during May than a year ago and up 154 sales from April to 1,827 closed escrows. This is a significant increase but for Placer County the news was not as positive. Sales or existing homes in Placer was down 24 percent from last May to 473 sales and this number was down 6.5 percent in the past month. Nevada County sales were also down while Amador, El Dorado, Sutter, Yolo and Yuba counties all experienced increase.

Prices of existing residences in all eight counties were down year over year. Not surprisingly, Sacramento had the largest decline at almost 36 percent. Placer was down 24.6 percent and Amador experienced the smallest decline, 18 percent. Only Yolo and Yuba counties had a price increase from the previous month.

Total sales for May in the eight county region totaled 3,420 which is up 204 from April but this number does not compare well to May 2004 when over 6,700 homes were sold.

The pressure on price will continue as long as we have excess inventory available. The good news is that even with the continued increase in foreclosures inventory has actually been declining over the past few months during a time when you would expect to have more houses coming on the market than

Check back tomorrow, I want to give my thoughts on the declining prices we are still seeing.