On February 14, a story in the Sacramento Bee reported the following:
In the most ominous indicator yet of the capital region's struggling housing market, January saw nearly as many people lose their homes as buy them. January's 1,815 closed escrows in Amador, El Dorado, Nevada, Placer, Sacramento, Yolo and Yuba counties was only 33 more than the 1,782 foreclosures recorded in the same counties that month, according to statistics from La Jolla-based DataQuick Information Systems of La Jolla and Foreclosures.com. of Fair Oaks.
To use a technical economic term: Yikes!
What about prices?
Median sales prices for all new and existing homes combined -- where half the homes sell for more and half sell for less -- have returned to June 2003 levels in Sacramento and to December 2003 levels in Placer County, according to DataQuick statistics.
• Sacramento County's median sales prices for all new and existing homes are down a record 26.8 percent from January 2007, the firm reported. The county's $253,000 median sales price is down now 34.6 percent from an August 2005 high of $387,000.
• Placer County's $360,500 median sales price for new and existing homes combined is down 14.9 percent from a year ago, and 31.4 percent off its August 2005 peak of $525,000, DataQuick reported.
That’s bad for sellers, but good for many buyers. And while it obviously is a harsh process, the market is adjusting, as one would expect. The close of this SacBee report did provide an important reminder regarding why this is going on:
Sales typically rise in February and March, but foreclosures are rising, too, experts say. "We could see that number continue to go up," said Fred Arnold, president-elect for the California Association of Mortgage Brokers. He credits the continued increases to "the enormous run-up of (home) values and the enormous number of loans that went out where many people weren't giving thought to whether they could afford the home."
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