Folsom’s Maket Insulation: Is There a Chill in The Air?
November 30th, 2008 Categories: Pre Foreclosures, Real Estate News, Real Estate Trends, Sacramento Real Estate, Shortsales
As the market continues to change… Is Folsom’s insulated real estate market beginning to feel the chill?
Folsom has been one of the Sacramento areas strongest and most resilient markets-
While other areas have been inundated with foreclosures and shortsales (pre-foreclosures), Folsom has enjoyed one of the Sacramento Metro’s strongest and least affected markets, with the lowest percentage of distressed properties (Bank owned, and short-sales) making up our overall market of available homes for sale. Subsequently, with less ‘have to’ sellers on the market, and more of our market consisting of well maintained, move in-ready properties, we have led the area for strength.
The fact is; our inventory in Folsom has never hit ‘critical mass’. That’s where there are so many listings that in order to move them, new listings of distressed homes entering the market are priced by banks and folks in preforeclosure well below the current market value, causing prices to trend lower and lower very quickly. (see Elk Grove, Natomas.) Our market here in Folsom has seen less than a 13% drop from it’s high water mark. Compare that to a well over 50 % drop in some local areas: Sacramento County’s $195,000 median price is 34.9 percent below October 2007 and 49.6 percent below its August 2005 high of $387,000.and a total drop of 49% in median prices for Sacramento County as a whole.
Now, don’t get me wrong; I am definitely an optimist; you could consider me a ‘bull’ as a Market Analyst, but I can only say what I see: the percentage of vacant homes on our market (a leading indicator) has grown almost two-fold in the last three months… my research indicates a mass majority of these homes are either bank-owned or Short sales. Very few are “equity sales” (kind weird, that we have a nickname for a traditional sale, they are becoming so rare!) Our number of REO (bank owned) properties has also more than doubled in just the past sixty days…
Bundle up; it could be long winter….
