Monday, April 7, 2008

Trends in Auburn

MCB44 was kind enough to send an update on the Auburn area (which he tracks on a weekly basis). He put together a summary comparing sales in Q1 of 2007 to Q1 of 2008. The trend of more sales at lower price points is also similar to what we have been seeing in Folsom and El Dorado Hills.

Note that the high end of the graph is on the left, with the low end on the right.

Highlights: Median price decreased from 439,750 to 339,700. Sales volume decreased from 87 to 69.



I also totally agree with his conclusion regarding the data.....that we "will continue to see further downward pressure on prices and we will likely see more of the listings migrating down into the price bands where sales are occurring."

3 comments:

mcb44 said...

What caught my attention when I put the numbers together, was that whiles sales decreased 21% YOY, the decrease in sales >400k was 56%. At the same time, sales between 200 and 300k doubled.

Looking a level below the aggregate sales volume gives a different slant on what's going on out there. It sure appears that as we move into a phase where to buy a house, you need to be able to afford it, the demand for houses above 400K is not all that robust.

alba said...

I still think Auburn is lagging in downward movement, since they seem to have been less affected by subprime and hardly have any new homes. Resets and ATM effects will impact many more homes in the next 18 months. I've had some interest in buying in LOP, which has their fair share of distressed homes, but can't get the cfo to consider moving the kids out of their current school.

mcb44 said...

Alba, I think you've hit the nail on the head about why prices are sticky in Auburn. That's why I think it is premature to buy. We plan to give the market forces more time to do their work.

We've looked at LOP, but ultimately decided the HOA was too restrictive for our tastes. There were a couple of other factors as well.