Sacramento Real Estate Market Inches Upward

Homes sales in the Sacramento area may have slowed down in August, but that doesn’t mean the capital city’s real estate market is experiencing a downturn, The Sacramento Business Journal reported.

Citing research from the North State Building Industry Association, the report said that the city’s local real estate market has seen 184 new home sales, 25 sales short of last month’s total.

However, thanks to June and July sales which outperformed 2013’s transactions, the report said that NSBIA officials expect new home sales this year would still manage to surpass last year’s.

The report also added that 2,585 new escrows were opened during the month.

Despite lackluster sales, Lyon Real Estate president Pat Shea said that the Sacramento property market in general is “similarly strong.”

In a statement cited by the report, Shea said that “a normal market based on equity sales is likely to have both longer escrows and more contingency sales.”

“It is difficult to get the entire picture from just a 30-day snapshot,” Shea told the Journal. “Often, closing numbers roll into the following month, especially when a holiday weekend is in play.”

But Shea said sales of premium properties are “an encouraging sign” that the market will grow further. According to Shea, sales of homes priced between $400,000 and $750,000 rose by 23 percent from the third quarter of 2013.  Sold properties above the $750,000 mark have also grown by 43 percent.  

Relatively flat sales would ensue until November as year-end price drops are expected to happen, Ryan Lundquist, a Sacramento appraiser, noted to the Journal. 

Zillow’s estimates revealed that the median home value in Sacramento is $249,900. Sacramento home values have risen by 12.8% over the past year, and are expected to rise by another 6.5% by next year, the real estate data provider stated.

In a separate report, data from real estate information service CoreLogic DataQuick revealed that home sales in August have dropped by as much as 18 percent from last year’s figures.

“The numbers suggest the housing market is continuing to recover from the crash, but not nearly as swiftly as before. In 2013, home prices were shooting up in excess of 30 percent a year in Sacramento County,” stated the report, which was published on The Sacramento Bee.

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