A Look at the Trends in Folsom

I saw the most laughable real estate article in the Folsom and El Dorado Hills Telegraph a couple weeks ago. It cited real estate statistics and reports from agents about how the El Dorado market was heating up again. I found his claims very hard to swallow (multiple offers, lack of inventory....etc).

I can't refute his realtor reports, but his data comparisons were with 2005, which makes his claims highly questionable and subjective. So I gathered up historical data on Folsom and EDH from two separate sources, DataQuick (via SacBee) and MelissaData. They don't even come close to agreeing. If I had to guess the main reason is that MelissaData includes new sales. But there were still months when MelissaData was below DataQuick.

Lesson learned here....look at multiple sources and trends, don't trust the actual numbers.

Below are the charts for Folsom. The drop in sales is rather pronounced (fuchsia), but the $$ seems to be holding on pretty well (dark blue). (MelissaData has average sales price and DataQuick is average price per sq foot.) The scale for sales is the same on both charts and all data includes a quarterly trend line to smooth out the noise.

Apologies that the graphics are so small, I'm very new at this and can't quite figure out how to make them bigger.

See updated charts (http://averagebuyer.blogspot.com/2007/05/updated-folsom-and-edh-charts.html)