Home sales spiked across the Sacramento region this summer

More homes were sold across the four-county Sacramento region this summer than in any similar period since the peak of the housing bubble in 2005, CoreLogic reported Wednesday.

A total of more than 12,000 new and existing homes changed hands during June, July and August, the Irvine-based real estate tracking firm said. The last summer with a higher sales volume was in 2005, when more than 17,500 homes were sold, but that was during a time of lax lending standards and rampant speculation.

A significant increase in new home sales was a big part of the mix this summer. Sacramento County had 270 new homes sales recorded in August, a 37 percent increase from August 2016 and the highest for the month since 2007, according to CoreLogic.

Sacramento County’s median price of $332,250 for single-family resale homes was up nearly 7 percent over August 2016, the data firm said. Placer, Yolo and El Dorado counties also saw strong year-over-year gains.

Low inventory, strong buyer demand and 30-year mortgage rates of about 4 percent have fueled steady price appreciation for homeowners in recent years. Interest rates of around 4 percent or less have been commonplace since mid-2011 but are extraordinarily low by historical standards.

In the Sacramento suburbs, El Dorado County’s median sale price for new and existing homes in August was $483,000, up 16 percent from the same time last year and the highest it’s been in a decade, CoreLogic said. The high median price for new homes there, more than $600,000, helped boost that figure.

El Dorado County had by far the highest price for new homes in the four-county region this summer.

This story was originally published September 20, 2017 at 2:08 PM with the headline "Home sales spiked across the Sacramento region this summer."