Ryan Lundquist

An unexpected year in Sacramento real estate. Some highlights. More on my blog. What stands out to you most below? http://sacramentoappraisalblog.com//the-housing-market-no/

Nobody predicted 2020. Who would’ve thought during a pandemic we’d see such an explosive year in real estate? Here's my annual recap. This post is organized by county too, so scroll to find the place you're most interested in. Any thoughts?

Glowing stats? Yep. Here's a recap of the Sacramento region real estate market in 2020. Tomorrow I'll have stats for four different counties on my blog. Stay tuned. For now, what stands out to you?

In 2020 we saw an 8.4% increase in homes with built-in pools sold in the Sacramento region. Yep, wanting a pool during a pandemic is a real thing.

It's unreal how low housing inventory is right now. It's likely the lowest it's ever been. SACRAMENTO - 0.40 months (12.4 days)... PLACER - 0.52 months (16.1 days) YOLO - 0.90 months (27.9 days) EL DORADO - 0.66 months (20.4 days) REGION - 0.48 months (14.8 days) Thoughts?

How long did it take to sell last year in the Sacramento region? - We had the lowest days on market in 9+ years - It took 30 days on average to get into contract - The median days was only 10, which means half of all sales spent 10 days or less on the market.... Thoughts?

This year there have been 6.4% more homes sold with built-in pools in the Sacramento region. In short, pools have been clearly more popular during the pandemic. Any thoughts?

It hasn't been a normal fall season. In my latest video I talk through some big trends to watch in the Sacramento region. I'm excited to share new stats. Enjoy if you wish. Any thoughts?

Home prices are up 16% from last year. That's a crazy number, but does it mean your home is worth that much more? Probably not. We've had clear price growth, but we've also seen big changes at the top and bottom of the market that are affecting the stats. I talk about this in my weekly post and my hope is to explain what is going on and maybe give some language for how to talk about prices. This is so important for sellers too because it's easy to get infatuated with price stats. Enjoy if you wish. Any thoughts?

Big news. Sales volume has finally caught up to last year. For most of the year in the Sacramento region we've been down because sales stalled big-time during the beginning of the pandemic. Well, we are back now to a normal level because of so many sales over the past few months. But the real X-factor is increased volume in El Dorado County in particular (as well as Placer County). Sacramento County is still down about 800 sales from last year, so it's El Dorado and Placer that have made the difference here. I'll have more on this through the month. Stay tuned. Thoughts?

Just in case you're thinking about real estate on Election Day. Here's preliminary price data from last month in the Sacramento region.

Huge stat. We have 47.3% fewer listings today compared to last year in the Sacramento region. That's a whopping 1,999 fewer listings to be exact. Here are the stats by county: SACRAMENTO - 46.2% fewer listings... PLACER - 44.3% fewer listings EL DORADO - 55.9% fewer listings YOLO - 41.7% fewer listings Any thoughts?

Not normal. That's a good way to describe the fall season so far. Here's a visual to show what normally happens to prices during this time of year. I've shared this before, but I tweaked a few things, so I hope you like the changes. Anyway, normally we see prices go up for about half the year and then soften for the second half. The light blue line is 2019 and the green line is 2018. Both these years give us an idea what a normal year should look like. But this year in dark b...lue is another story. Prices should be softening, but that's just not happening. Heightened demand, ridiculously low rates, and anemic housing supply have made all the difference. Yet in in the background we are seeing fewer sales and pending contracts have slowed also. So even though this fall season isn't normal, we do see some signs of mild seasonal slowing. Any thoughts? See more

There are so many real estate predictions lately, so here is a test to see if you actually are a market prophet... :)

Is vacant land all the rage during the pandemic? Here are some thoughts and a visual. I hope this is interesting and helpful for understanding and explaining market trends. 1) Once the year is done it looks like we'll have slightly more land sales compared to last year. 2) The dream is to buy land, build, and quarantine in style. But land is expensive. When a market increases in value much of the increase has to do with the value of the land. ... 3) We watch shows about tiny houses on HGTV, but it's hard to make that work in California because of the cost of land and permits. 4) Land sales this year have about a 3% share of the entire market. In other words, when we compare land sales to all single family sales, we're seeing about 3% of all sales would be land. 5) Land sales are far from what they used to be 15-20 years ago as they were closer to 5-7% of the market. Another way of saying this would be there used to be about 1,500 land sales per year, but now we're seeing less than 700. 6) NOT all vacant land sales occur on MLS. These stats are only from MLS sales. Yet there are enough land sales to give us a good idea of the trend. The market has clearly changed over time. 7) Knowing how building out vacant land works is something to watch in today's market because it can really help clients wanting to sell and deploy their equity into something brand new. Wanting more space and privacy is a very real dynamic today. Anything to add?

An investor friend bought a house with a concrete halfpipe in the backyard. Should she keep it or remove it? That's the big question on my blog today. But I also have two big trends to watch in the Sacramento housing market. Seriously, I talk about 14.1% fewer condos lately and a cooling of the 2-4 unit market in Midtown. Any thoughts? I'd love to hear your take.

What's the market doing? Grab your Folgers or Yuban and let's talk shop. The dark blue line represents 2020 & the light line is 2019. 1) Prices should be softening at this time of year, but they've continued to rise. 2) Sales volume is starting to soften. This shows the market is slowing down some during the fall, though this doesn't mean the market isn't still really aggressive. It's worth noting volume is higher than last year too.... Thoughts?

Low appraisals. I've had so many conversations lately about challenging low appraisals. I have lots of thoughts about that and I'll link to an article in the comments, but let's remember the best time to challenge a low appraisal is before it begins. Sometimes the real estate community is hands-off about talking to appraisers. My advice? Be proactive about communicating well with the appraiser up front rather than waiting until there is a value issue. There is no silver bulle...t, but here is an information sheet I highly recommend using to tell the story of the property. I created this to help agents be proactive about answering questions and provide information that is useful to the appraiser. Anyway, this is a loaded topic. Let me know if you have any questions. Any thoughts? NOTE: It's obviously not the appraiser's job to hit the contract price. I'm not saying that. In this market we should absolutely be seeing appraisals coming in lower than the contract price. Bottom line. But there are certainly situations where the valuation really is too low.

The million dollar market. Here is what it looks like so far in 2020 in Sac, Placer, Yolo, & El Dorado County. This is less than one year of sales, but it's still fascinating to visualize the market like this. This could be good for some sellers to consider price points that are actually moving too. In short, if the comps and demand support a lofty list price, that's great. But otherwise be careful not to aim for a price where you're only going to get clicks instead of offers. Any thoughts?