It was a busy week for real estate.  For starters, there were dozens of reports on the impending expiration of the tax credit.  Countless news outlets used the expiration as an opportunity to focus on what to expect next from the housing market.  Of course for us, we used this as a prime opportunity to plug our new Buyer Bonus program, a unique strategy that provides sellers with the opportunity to credit buyers 3% of the sale price up to $8,000.  The fact is, the tax credit has had a very positive effect on the market, but many buyers will be either too late or ineligible to take advantage of the federal tax credit.

As a result, many sellers have told our Agents that they’d like to find a way to extend the benefits of the tax credit to keep the market vibrant and help their sale.

The Buyer Bonus event encourages buyers to stay in the market, while appealing to those who did not qualify for the federal tax credit.

It will also enable sellers to differentiate their homes from others on the market with national marketing support.  We are confident this program will benefit our sellers tremendously and we’re truly excited about its launch.

Now on to a look at the national market.  It is increasingly apparent from recent Case-Shiller reports that home prices are stabilizing in many markets, which signals a much healthier outlook for housing. Both the National Association of Realtors (NAR) and Fannie Mae remain directionally positive in their full-year forecasts for 2010 and 2011. On a combined sides and price basis, Fannie Mae expects 2010 to be up 5% from the prior year, and the NAR forecast calls for a 10% improvement over 2009. By the same combined measure, Fannie Mae expects 2011 to bring a 9% volume increase and NAR estimates an 8% year-over-year volume increase from 2010.

While these third-party forecasts point to a recovery in housing, we think the best yardstick of where we are in the process will become more apparent later in the year as we gain some perspective on how the existing home sale market is behaving absent the impact of the homebuyer tax credits. Generally speaking, we believe that the material declines in the average sales price are over and modest increases should now be the expectation, and our market outlook is more optimistic than it has been in the past four years.

Now, let’s take a look at this week in Sacramento/Tahoe real estate.

Auburn

We continue to write many contracts and the number of accepted offers continues to rise in the price range of $200,000-$500,000.  The buyers are coming from the Bay Area as well as the higher foothills as many want to be closer to town.  No new issues with appraisals during this period.  Areas such as Todd Valley continue to see only a fraction of the change in price compared to other areas closer to Sacramento.

Listings are scarce.  Past clients are talking of listing their homes, but are holding off to see if there is better news when Spring finally gets here.  (We are still seeing snow in many of the foothill areas!)

Bank owned properties (REO’s) are also very slow, but we are still getting many requests for Broker Price Opinions (BPO’s) but the agents are not told the reason for these.

There have not been many open houses due to the weather and the shortage of listings.  The couple of open houses have produced some new prospects.  We will see if the upcoming Buyer Bonus program will generate some new interests and/or get some of the clients off the fence.

Prices are staying about the same and we continue to see more short sales.  The upside to this is that the lenders seem to finally get it and we are closing in a much shorter time frame.

It was announced this morning at the Auburn MLS, that there is a new 100% loan to be introduced within the next 30 days.

El Dorado Hills:

Inventory remains low and buyers are still picky. Sales activity was a bit slower this month but open house activity is brisk.

Elk Grove

Elk Grove is hopping!  We’ve worked on 22 transactions alone this week- the market is crazy in a good way.  Lots of buyers just not many good listings for those buyers.

Placerville:

Inventory is still low but buyer activity is brisk. Short sales continue to increase in this part of El Dorado County but REO inventory has not

Rocklin/Lincoln

Sales continue to be strong but we have many multiple offers- very discouraging for agents and prospective buyers.  Agents are still writing over a dozen offers before their client has an accepted contract.  Also, we are seeing an increased number of agents from other companies that do not know or follow the contract and are issuing more notices to perform.

Listings are few and far between, but when priced right are sold quickly and we are starting to see a few more listings that aren’t REOs or short sales.  We have received approval for one with the new program being offered to the military when they are being transferred and are in a short sale situation.  Short sales are still dominating this market but we are getting them closed.  A number of other companies are still using negotiators who seem to get in the way more than help and charge the buyers as much as $1500.

REOs and BPOs are slow but even at $600,000 we get numerous calls and even offers before even being on the MLS.  It appears we will see more FHA/HUD REOs later this year.

Open houses are doing very well.  Last weekend we had several open houses with more than 18 groups and they all now have new qualified clients to work with in various areas. The buyers are coming from the Bay area as well as locally.  We are seeing more agents asking to hold other agents listings open as a source of lead generation.

We continue to see a higher number of cancellations with the number one reason being financing.  There are a number of lenders issuing letters for clients that will not qualify and yet they keep requesting more information to keep them hanging on.

Roseville- Granite Bay

The listings were slower this week, but sales continue to be increasing. Our area continues to move forward as we work off the inventory. The agents are in full press work habits and the results are starting to show. There are a lot of open homes for this coming weekend and traffic last week was excellent according to the agents. We are still looking for OPPORTUNITIES every day!

North Lake Tahoe-Truckee Region

Active Listings: The active listing inventory for the Tahoe-Truckee increased slightly from the previous week.  Currently there are 1,638 active listings – 1,120 residential properties and 518 lots and land listed for sale.

Active REO-Short Sale Listings:  Of the active listings, there are 152 properties listed as short sales, (9%) and 55 properties listed as REO sales, (3%).

Months of Inventory:  Based on the current inventory and sales for the previous 30-day period, the market has a little over 11-months of inventory available.  The inventory of homes and land at today’s prices continues to favor the buyer interested in an investment property, vacation home or moving up to a bigger home or better location in the Tahoe-Truckee market.

Sales Summary:

Total Sales 2010 Vs 2009:

For 2010, year to date (YTD), there have been 376 properties sold in the market as compared to 200 for the same period in 2009 which is an 88% increase in sales.

Of the properties sold, 90 were REO’s, (24%), and 56 were Short Sales, (15%) which results in 39% of the properties sold being a short sales or REO.  In 2009 for the same period, there were 25 REO sales and 20 short sales or 23% total.

For 2010, there have been 237 properties sold priced below $500,000, 106 properties sold between $500,000 and $1,000,000 and 33 properties sold over $1,000,000.

Median and Average Sales Prices 2010 Vs 2009:  The median sales price for properties sold year to date in 2010 is $400,000 while the average sale price is $514,844.  For the same period in 2009, the median sales price was $436,250 and the average sales price was $579,706 which is an (8%) and (11%) decline in price respectively year over year for the same period of time.

Last Week’s Sales:  For the week of April 19th to 25th, a total of 25 properties sold which is consistent for the three previous weeks.  Of the properties sold last week three (3) were sold with a price over $750,000.

Pending Sales:  Pending sales have increased from the previous week to 180 properties.

Market Activity Summary:

What do you say when home sales are up 88% year over year for the same period except that savvy buyers are interested in investing in Tahoe-Truckee real estate that is priced right  and that the inventory of good homes to choose from is meeting their needs.

The month of April has been outstanding with over 126 properties sold so far this month and we still have another week.  April has been the largest sales month of the year and all indications are that this last week will be equally strong.

One of the key reasons for the spike in unit sales is likely due to the fact that median and average sales prices for properties have gone down as compared to the 2009 prices for the same period.  Median sales prices have decreased by 8% to $400,000 and average sales prices have decreased by 11% to $514,844.  It certainly stands to reason that continued favorable pricing is fueling the robust sales activity.

We are continuing to see the trend for sales towards homes priced under $500,000 with 63% of the sales this year being in this price range.  REO and Short sales are occurring at a much greater rate this year than last year as roughly 38% of our sales are either REO or short sales.  Within the under $500,000 price segment of the market we are often seeing multiple offer situations occur routinely.

We continue to see solid activity in the market as buyers are very interested in taking advantage of our large inventory of properties that are priced at 2003 levels.

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