A good day off in the snow

I took my wife to Tahoe for some good outdoor fun on Wednesday. For Christmas she had asked for sit-ski lessons and we have finally made it happen.

Here we are in Alpine Meadows near the end of her first of a several days of sit-ski lessons. Hopefully we'll make it back up several times this season!

966 Q Street is Pending

I am very happy to announce that 966 Q Street is now Pending Sale!

This is a wonderfully updated townhouse in the great Saratoga Townhomes community.

45 days out and we should be closing this transaction...

3331 L Street Just Listed

I have a great new listing in East Sac. This is a wonderful two story brick home. Nice and spacious at 1780 square feet.

Stop by during any of our open houses and see this wonderful and unique home.

You can see all the details about this property at www.3331L.East-Sac.Com or here.

4 Marina Blue Just Sold

Hey, I never posted that this one closed. It had everything that my client was looking for. We missed it on the first time through by a day and it went Pending as he put in an offer, but we got into back up position and when the first buyer fell out we stepped in and made the deal work!

You can see the full details of this property here.

4441 I Street Just Sold in East Sac

My investor clients just purchase this property. It is in need of lots of work and that is what they will do!

It is on a great street. Nice and quiet with a canopy of trees. This is the smallest house on the street right now, but soon it will fit in with the others a bit better.

You can see the full listing here.

900 Q Street Just Sold

Well, it sold a few weeks back, but I've been very busy and as usual, my blog suffers when I am spending all my time helping my clients.

It is a great 3 bedroom and 2.5 bath townhouse and I was happy to help the owner make this big transition. 

You can see the full listing here. 

1457 47th Street is Almost Done

The builders of 1457 47th Street are almost done with this amazing transformation!
In a few weeks we should be able to bring it to market and sell this great Fab 40's home.
It is going to be 3223 square feet with 4-5 bedroom and 3.5 bathrooms.

1210 40th Street New Listing!

The amazing property at 1210 40th Street is going to go live is the MLS today.

I'll be holding it open both Saturday and Sunday from 12:00 to 4:00. Please stop by and see the high quality of the craftsmanship of these builders.

You can see the full listing details of this property at www.Fab40.East-Sac.com

584 34th Street Floor Plans

Here are the floor plans for this amazing home that is being completely rebuilt at 584 34th Street.

The demo part of construction is pretty much finished now and they will start into building it up into an amazing home. I would expect them to finish with this one in early spring.

Sacramento A Seller's Market Again – Nathan Sherman on Fox 40 News

A little over a week ago Fox Dennis Shanahan of Fox 40 News interviewed me to talk about how Sacramento has become a seller's market again. This is something that us in the industry have known for most of the year, but now all the market data is out to support that.

The market analyst's over at Zillow had identified Sacramento as the third hottest seller's market in the country!

You can see the two minute news spot here.

I had the good fortune to have the whole video shot in my upcoming listing at 1210 40^th Street. This is an amazing 5 bedroom 4.5 bathroom home in the Fab 40's of East Sac.

Here is the text summary from the Fox 40 site, but much more was covered in the video.

Real estate website Zillow recently listed Sacramento as the third hottest sellers’ market in the country, right behind San Francisco. San Jose was listed number one.

FOX40 visited with Nathan Sherman of Dunnigan Realtors in Sacramento, who confirmed what the Zillow ranking suggests.

“There is not nearly enough inventory, and buyers are struggling to get a home under contract,” Sherman said of the Sacramento market.

Year-over-year detached resale home prices in Sacramento County have been consistently positive over the past six months, according to DataQuick. The median price in November was $185,000. That is 17-percent higher than the price in November of last year. Potential buyers are finding themselves in bidding wars.

Sherman also said it is not uncommon these days to call a listing agent when a house comes on the market, and learn that the agent already has ten offers in.

People waiting for the right time to buy a home might be well advised to start looking soon, before things heat up even more.

As Sherman put it, “People were waiting for the bottom of the market. That has come and gone.”

http://fox40.com/2012/12/13/sacramento-a-sellers-market-again/

1344 39th Street Just Sold

To complete my Just Sold catch up series, we just closed on 1334 39^th Street in the Fab 40's of East Sac!

This is an amazing 3100 square foot 5 bed, 3 bath home on a large lot. I got my client in contract on this property back in mid-September while the property was still under construction. We just closed on Monday and I was able to hand off the keys to this amazing new home.

Some times in this competitive market we have to get it under contract long before it hits the market...

You can see more details about the home here. 

7001 Pocket Road Just Sold

To continue the catching up on my Just Sold series, 7001 Pocket Road closed last week! This is a great half plex that my wonderful clients wanted in order to be in the right neighborhood to get their adorable daughter into a great school in a couple years. Genevieve Didion Elementary is known as a great school in the Pocket/Greenhaven neighborhood.

There were many offers before we were able to get them under contract. I think the cute family photo in our cover letter help cinch us this deal.

You can see more about the property here.

584 34th Street Starting Construction

The builders have started work on 584 34th Street. This will be an amazing home with 5 bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms and 3146 square feet that is just steps from McKinley Park.

They expect to be finished with the addition and complete remodel some time in the Spring.

I'll post the floor plans and other details here as the project moves on.

Here is the digital rendering of what the property will look like when they are done with all the work.

905 46th Street Just Sold

OK, it has been over a month since my last post almost a month since 905 46^th Street has closed. I have been very busy and the idea that the holidays is a slow season is again proving to not be the case for me. I'm not complaining, I'm just justifying my neglect of my blog :)

905 46^th Street is a great property that my favorite builders have done a complete remodel and addition to. It fits well into East Sac and it's location just outside of the Fab 40's is perfect.

I have some other projects coming up with these builders and know of many other that will be coming on the market, so give me a call if you would like a home that is pretty much new construction nestled into the old world charm of East Sac.

Click here to see more details about this house.  

Less Foreclosures, Less Discounts

I read an interesting article in the Washington Post today. 

It was about the reduced number of foreclosures and the greatly reduced discount of buying a foreclosure. These have both been obvious to any agent that is active in the Sacramento market, but it is always interesting to see the national market and media realize it too. 

The quote that I like the most out of the article is “Zillow found that in Las Vegas and Phoenix, there is “no discernible difference” between foreclosure and non-foreclosure sales. Discounts have shrank to less than 1 percent in Sacramento, 3 percent in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale area and barely 4 percent in Los Angeles.”

While I never refer to Zillow for specific property prices, they are a huge number crunching organization and have a vast amount of data at their command. For them to state that the discount for a foreclosed property in Sacramento is only 1% is a pretty significant statement. 

The market has shifted greatly and inventory is down to less than one months supply, the lowest it has been in over a decade. Prices have been climbing since December and multiple offers are common. 

To top it all off, the national news is now reporting all about the tight market. 

The housing market has definitely shifted! 

New Listing: 966 Q Street, Downtown Sacramento

I have a second wonderful listing in the Saratoga Townhomes in Downtown Sacramento. This is a great complex and I love having listings here. This is one of the few complexes in the downtown/midtown area that has garages with direct access to the units. Add that this is within walking distance to the Capital and lots of great restaurants and you can see why these sell so well. Low HOA dues, great updates, light and bright, what else could you ask for?

You can see all the pictures and the full listing at www.966Q.east-sac.com or at my site.

New Listing: 900 Q ST Downtown Sacramento

I am very pleased to present my newest listing. 900 Q Street in the Saratoga Townhomes is a great property with all the right updates.

This is my third listing in the Saratoga Townhomes in the last 20 months. I look forward to making another great sale for this complex!

You can see the full listing on my real estate site or the properties own site.

McKinley Park Fundraiser with SactoMoFo

The fundraising for rebuilding McKinley Park continues and the target numbers have gotten better. They are now projecting approximately $200,000 for a minimum rebuild and $600,000 for a major rebuild. It sounds like insurance and city funds will add up to $500,000 so the fundraising target for the community is $100,000 and they are already fast on their way to this. Several more great fundraisers and we should have a new playground next summer.

Want to get in on the fundraising and have a great meal too? Then go to the SactoMoFo (Sacramento Mobile Food) event on Sunday October 28^th from 12:00 to 4:00 at the Sutter Landing Regional Park (28^th Street over the tracks past C Street).

As per Steve’s Facebook:

“Come and enjoy lunch & a beer with your neighbors, Councilman Steve Cohn, and MC Mark S. Allen – and great live music from Hero's Last Mission and Rebel Punk - with some of the region's best mobile kitchens and some of Sacramento's best restaurant chefs, too! We'll have an extensive beer garden full of local microbrews and everything from paella to sandwiches to BBQ to authentic Hawaiian shave ice and Belgian waffles. We hope you can make it - and please consider riding your bike! We will have lots of bike parking, and maybe even a bike valet!”

River Park Fall Festival at Caleb Greenwood Elementary

The Caleb Greenwood Elementary School is having it’s fall festival on October 19^th from 5:00 to 8:00. If you have some time to spend in River Park Friday, swing by for all the great things that a elementary school fall carnival can provide. Costume contests, face painting, cakewalk, live music and more. It is scheduled to start at 5:00 at 5457 Carlson Drive.

Shadow Inventory

I don’t usually post about new articles that I see, but this one was very good and relevant to so many conversations that I’ve had recently.

The article is titled “Now You See It, Now You Don’t” and it is about the “shadow inventory” and the market condition.

Anyone that works in the real estate industry knows that right now we have very low inventory and lots of interested buyers. Sacramento currently has 0.8 months of inventory on the market.

The Months of Inventory is a reflection of how many houses are for sale and how many are being purchased each month and how long would it take for them all to sell at the current rate. The lowest Month of Inventory durring the boom was April 2003 and the highest inventory in the bust was September 2007. 4 months of inventory is a very balanced level with numbers lower than that being considered a sellers market and anything above that being a buyers market. Now we have seen several months in a row with inventory levels lower than 2.0 and even below 1.0!

What is the reason for this? Are the banks holding onto a lot of shadow inventory, covering the carrying costs, keeping the non-performing assets on their books (or just doctoring them so they don’t show up) and waiting for/manipulating the market to improve before selling them? Do they have hundreds of thousands of houses that they have foreclosed on and are going to dump them on the market when prices come up?

While I love a good conspiracy theory, I also believe that the simplest explanation with the least assumptions is often the best (a version of Occam’s Razor).

This article went into several detailed aspects and included that by all expert analysis there is only a minimal amount of bank owned properties that aren’t put on the market quickly. I have often seen bank owned listings that show only 1 day on market (DOM) but hundreds of combined days on market (CDOM). I look at the history and see that this was a short sale that sat on the market for months waiting for bank approval for the sale but finally ended in foreclosure. The bank then had their asset manager arrange for the clean out, new paint and carpet and listed the property for sale, all in less than 30 days (otherwise, the CDOM would be the same as the DOM).

The big issue that this article pointed to is that there is a different kind of shadow inventory and it’s not what I or most people consider or refer to as shadow inventory. It is all the properties that are delinquent on their payments and will most likely never become current. It is the houses in pre-foreclosure, foreclosure or short sale status where no payment is being made, the owners are getting further and further under water and the most likely outcome for them is foreclosure.

The article then goes further to point out that all the people that are living in a home in foreclosure, pre-foreclosure or a long, drawn out short sale process aren’t selling, they aren’t buying (and won’t be able to for a long time) and they aren’t even renting.

According to the reports, if all the properties that are currently owned by banks but not on the market were listed tomorrow, we wouldn’t even notice it. On the other hand, if all the delinquent properties were foreclosed on in the next couple months and put on the market, that would make a huge impact and we would definitely feel it.

Of course, this hypothetical blood bath of massive foreclosures over a few months time isn’t going to happen for many reasons. The real reasons this wont happen and the conspiracy theory reasons include: foreclosure regulations, loan modification attempts, banks being too slow and bogged down, banks wanting to hold off on foreclosures until the properties are worth more, etc.

Many regular sellers don’t want to sell at the bottom of the market if they don’t have to, so they are sitting on their property waiting for the value to come back up. I’m pretty sure that the bottom of the market for Sacramento was in December 2011, but we still have a ways to go for many owners to have enough positive equity in their homes to do a regular sale.

Whatever the real story is, there isn’t enough inventory on the market and the banks are not sitting on vacant houses that they own but just don’t want to sell. My buyers are scrambling over the few properties that are on the market and competing with multiple offers. It is a brutal market and I look forward to getting back to something that could pass as “normal”. Fortunately, we live in a world of impermanence and this too shall pass.

You can read the full article here starting on page 14.