MotherLode Appraisal

Well, its been a while since I have created a post, so here we go.... What a year it's been. Pandemics, Interest Rates at historic lows, Populations hunkering down, Controversial elections. And to top it all off, we lost Alex Trebek, Sean Connery and Eddie Van Halen! So what do all these things do to home prices and real estate activity in general?... OK...maybe losing some celebrities doesn't have much of an impact on home values, but the other items I mentioned do. And here is a breakdown since the first of the year. Keep in mind that for clarity and consistency, the numbers I analyzed are non REO, non Short Sale transactions in Tuolumne County, under 2 acres. The overall feeling is that there isn't much on the market and fewer homes are selling. In fact, compared to the same period of January 1, 2020 to October 31, 2020 to the previous year, well, Realtors have been very busy. In that time period, Jan. - Oct 2019, 605 homes sold here in Tuolumne County. This year, Jan. - Oct 2020, the number of sales is up nearly 25% to 813 sales! And that is with the Pandemic. We have all heard the stories of of a societal shift, now that people are working out of their homes, from the city, to the county. Also, families in the metro areas of CA are buying 2nd or vacation homes at a record clip, because they aren't going to Hawaii and other traditional vacation destinations anymore. How long is it taking to sell homes in Tuolumne County, with all this increased demand? Less and less. OK, now that we have demand out of the way, what is happening to prices? Remember back to basic economic theory, when there is a limited supply and demand goes up, prices also go up. In Tuolumne County, at a record pace. Prices are up nearly 13% in Tuolumne County, since the pandemic started. The chart below looks like Bobby’s Freedom Run at Dodge Ridge. And my favorite, Price/SF, is up about 11% since the pandemic started. As an Appraiser, I use price/sf to make adjustments to comparables and demonstrate how prices are changing over time. Leave your comment on my page here and let me know what you are seeing! I am a Real Estate Appraiser in Tuolumne County.

Its been a long, busy summer and Its about time I posted some information on the Tuolumne County housing market. Overall, in the past year, property values have have generally followed traditional annual trends with a couple of exceptions. In March of 2019, the average price trend was spiked by the unusual occurrence of 2 sales of homes at $1,000,000 or more. One of these was a sale of a home in the Golden Oaks area of Jamestown for $1,250,000 and the other was a lakefront ho...me in the Pine Mountain Lake subdivision. Interestingly, of late, the housing market has seen 3 consecutive months of increases, when traditionally, the market is starting to seasonally slow down. MotherLode Appraisal serves all of Tuolumne and Calaveras Counties.

Here's a question I get asked all the time by Realtors. "What is the difference in price between "Site Built" and manufactured homes?" In general, markets view manufactured homes as inferior in overall quality and appeal, however, more and more, manufactured homes are becoming nearly indistinguishable from a site built homes.... Manufactured homes are built at a factory, generally in 1-4 sections, and are trucked to a site and assembled on a permanent foundation. They are built to a minmum standard of quality, set by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and must have a HUD tag on each section and a "Data Plate" inside the home. Don't confuse Manufactured with "Mobile" or "Modular" homes. Those are different animals. A form 433a is recorded at the county when the manufactured home is installed on the foundation, and with that, the manufactured home becomes Real property, as opposed to personal property. What does the market think about this? How do manufactured home prices compare to site built homes? I made this simple chart showing each quarter, for the past few years, what manufactured home prices/sf are vs. site built. In general, manufactured homes sell for about 15% less than similar sized site built homes, on average, in Tuolumne County. As an Appraiser, sometimes there just aren't a whole lot of manufactured home sales to choose from, so at times, I'll use a site built home or two as comparables in my report. I'll make a negative 15% adjustment in quality/appeal to the site built homes, to account for the market reaction to manufactured homes. As always, if you have questions about real estate appraisal, ask me and I'll answer!

Tuoumne County Real Estate in 2018 at a glance 1,049 sales of detached homes -2.9% from 2017 Median List Price: $297,000 +6% from 2017... Median Sale Price: $289,000 +5% from 2017 Median Days on Market: 77 days -12.5% from 2017 Highest Sale: $1,410,000 in Jamestown Lowest Price: $60,000 in the Southgate nieghborhood of Sonora What is your prediction for housing in 2019?

Home Price Trends for Tuolumne County What do the numbers say so far for 2018? Certainly the year started off very strong. But what has happened lately?... The past few days notwithstanding, the stock market has been strong, along with a high level of consumer confidence. This has allowed consumers to better justify the purchases of 2nd homes in vacation markets, like the eastern part of Tuolumne County. That, in part, along with historically low interest rates and high levels of demand helped the Tuolumne County Real Estate Market soar in the first half of 2018. But what has happened lately? Part of it is seasonal norms. School seems to start earlier and earlier every year. For a family to get settled into their new home by the time school starts, escrow should close by August first or so. So in the middle of July, demand starts to wane. The other drag on housing prices has been interest rates. After several increases by the Fed, the impact is starting to be felt in the housing market. The real test for the continued strength of the Tuolumne County housing market will be in February, when demand normally wakes up. Interest rates are likely to be higher then. That may put a damper on the annual Spring Fling for housing prices.