Housing Market Status in El Dorado Hills

Earlier this month I was really surprised when I took a look at the MLS in my zip code. So I decided to take some time to scrape the MLS for El Dorado Hills to get a better idea of what is happening. The results are presented in the table below.

As you can see, I was not imagining things, PS and PSB together make up over 100 listings. It is also obvious why median is a better statistic, because the average is strongly skewed toward the high end, due to some really pricey homes in this zip code.

Month's inventory, while low by these numbers, is somewhat useless in a distressed market. PS take longer to close when dealing with banks, and all the AS/ASC listings can take months to go PS, even when they have a legitimate offer.

It will be very interesting to see if this pace keeps up.

Housing Market Stress Indicators Two Year Perspective

With this month's update of market stress indicators in our local area, I now have 2 years of historical data on NOD (notice of default) and REOs (real estate owned). These two metrics for El Dorado Hills and Folsom, while off their previous peaks, are still highly elevated compared to normal times.

It's safe to say that home prices in the area are no longer in free fall, but continued stress will keep a lid on any appreciation for a long time to come.

Speaking of market predictions, by now I had expected interest rates to be at least a full percentage higher. It was one of the factors (not a huge one, but certainly material) that led us to purchase when we did. But there has been a lot of talk on the blogs and in the MSM lately about interest rates, and how we have managed to keep a lid on inflation. Guess it's a good thing I still have my day job, cause predicting economic indicators doesn't seem to be my strong suit.

Yearning for Yard Crash

As most of you know, when you purchase a new home, they typically come with front yard landscaping. This leaves a blank slate for the backyard . So Mr.BT and I regularly watch Yard Crashers on DIY to get some ideas. Of course, every time we hit the hardware store, we are hoping to find the host, Ahmed Hassan there.

Recently I realized its not a completely far fetched fantasy. Now that we have started doing work on our yard, I've become familiar with some local Sacramento companies. Lately, when watching the show I noticed some of the same local Sacramento companies. For instance, we bought wood for our deck from Berco, which is a local lumber yard that is regularly featured in the show. I also saw the lighting geek appear a couple times. From what I can see of the store layout where he meets people, I think he prefers OSH , but I hear he has also hit Emigh's.

So I did a little research after tonight's show out of curiosity, and apparently Yard Crashers is produced by a local Sacramento company!

Unfortunately, by my calculation, I doubt we will ever make the show cause I figure they find folks on a Friday afternoon, so that they can come back over the weekend to do the work (and Mr. BT and I are usually hard at work then). With spring upon us, we are envisioning all the possibilities, but certainly wishing we had a little help.

Housing Market Milestone in EDH

The new DQ stats are out for the Sacramento area zip codes. February 2010 marks a milestone for EDH. This is the first positive year-over-year median price since November 2006.

I also took a look at the MLS the other day. I was stunned by how many high end homes were PS. By my rough count, less than 6 months inventory at the high end, which is simply shocking, as I remember it being over 30 months a while back. Again, this assumes that everything PS closes in a month, which we know it doesn't.....but still, a huge sea change from earlier, especially given all the gloom and doom hype about the high end.

Lot o' Caveats:
It's a small increase for EDH, and I don't have the #s for Feb 2009 (for the 38 data points, ironically that's the one I am missing), and the year-over-year price per square foot is still slightly negative.

One additional caveat, this happened to Folsom a couple months back, but now they are back to double digit declines. I should also note, that recent statistics show that Folsom has caught up to EDH in terms of correction. Both have corrected between 38-40% off the peak price, and are only 5% above late 2002 levels (which is the earliest my data goes back).

All stats are based off DQ resale numbers.

Update: Some corroboration from today's WSJ.