Still-falling sales prices and a rush to buy discounted bank repos pushed Sacramento home sales still higher in September, reaching their greatest levels since June 2006, property researcher MDA DataQuick reported today.
But analysts have their eyes on next month, wondering if fresh public fears of an economic slowdown might have caused some buyers to pull back.
DataQuick reported 4,369 home sales during September in Amador, El Dorado, Nevada, Placer, Sacramento, Sutter, Yolo and Yuba counties.
The newest tally was nearly 2,000 more sales than the same month last year. It was 371 more sales than in August.
The sales burst also continued to bring down the number of for-sale signs across the region, an indicator that bank-owned homes are selling faster than they're being added to the market.
Sacramento researcher TrendGraphix reported 11,022 homes for sale in El Dorado, Placer, Sacramento and Yolo counties at the end of September. That was 5,059 fewer than in Sept. 2007.
About 25 percent of homes for sale in the region as October began -- one in four -- were bank repos, the firm said.
September's sales gain over August is a reversal of the typical trend that sees sales begin to decline for the year during September. The same oddity played out statewide as buyers outpaced those in August, scooping up some of the most affordable bargains in years.
Sacramento County's median sales price -- where half cost more and half cost less -- was just barely above $200,000. The median was last below that symbolic level in April 2002, at $195,000, according to MDA DataQuick.
Discounted foreclosures were 70 percent of all September sales in Sacramento County and in West Sacramento, according to the Sacramento Association of Realtors. Foreclosures were half of sales in the Los Angeles region and 42 percent of those in the Bay Area during September, MDA DataQuick reported.
High numbers of foreclosures are the primary driver of prices falling 30 percent to 40 percent across the past year, DataQuick analysts say. They counsel that the steep declines are a phenomenon of neighborhoods heavily impacted by defaults and don't mean values have fallen that far in all neighborhoods.
Highlights of today's MDA Dataquick report:
• Sacramento County's $201,00 median September sales price for new and existing homes combined is 34.4 percent below the same time last year, and 48 percent below its 2005 peak of $387,000. Sales were up 126.4 percent from the same time last year.
• Placer County's $330,000 median price is 21.2 percent below Sept. 2007 and down 37 percent from its 2005 high of $525,000. Sales were up 30 percent from the same time last year.
• El Dorado County's September median price was $375,000, down 9.6 percent from the same time last year. Prices are now down 29.4 percent from the 2006 peak of $531,250. Sales were up 29 percent from the same month last year.
• Yolo County's median sales price in September was $274,500, down 28 percent from Sept. 2007. Prices are 42.4 percent lower now than their 2005 high of $474,00. September sales were up 68 percent over the same time last year.
The sales tally represents closed escrows on homes that went into sales contracts in July and August, MDA DataQuick said.
Call The Bee's Jim Wasserman, (916) 321-1102. Read his blog on real estate, Home Front, at www.sacbee.com/blogs.
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