Could it get any worse for Sacramento's home builders?

Publicly traded home-building giants and family builders alike endured their harshest year in possibly a generation in 2008, according to statistics being released today by the Folsom-based Gregory Group.

Area home builders sold just 4,695 houses last year in El Dorado, Placer, Sacramento, Sutter, Yolo and Yuba counties as an historic real estate collapse diverted thousands of buyers to steeply discounted bank repos, the report shows.

The survey provides the newest evidence of how banks, desperate to unload their foreclosed properties, have pushed area builders to the sidelines and into grim battles for their own survival. Several builders filed for bankruptcy protection as repos climbed to two-thirds of Sacramento County sales, and the median sales price fell to $175,000.

"There's a lot of good-quality bank-repossessed properties, good, clean homes that would be in direct competition with the builders," said Warren Adams of Security Pacific Real Estate in Fair Oaks. Many are nearly new, he said. "I've had several listings where they're still selling the models in there."

During the fourth quarter, average new home prices fell 10 percent from 2007, to $384,347, reported the Gregory Group, a consulting firm that tracks new home sales. It's the lowest average since mid-2003. The capital region's new home average peaked just shy of $500,000 in the second quarter of 2006, statistics show.

In 2008, area builders sold 2,712 fewer homes than in 2007 – itself one of the worst years in recent memory. According to Gregory Group statistics, 2008 area sales compared to:

• 7,407 in 2007.

• 9,588 in 2006.

• 14,094 in 2005.

• 17,155 sales in 2004, the peak year of the capital region's housing boom.

While the entire year was difficult, fourth-quarter sales fell to 705, the lowest since the Folsom firm began keeping track in 1999. Builders have said customers became frightened by warnings from Washington, D.C., of potential economic collapse. The quarter also followed major Wall Street bank implosions and featured a plunge in the stock market to lows last seen in the 1990s.

"We're in a situation where people aren't buying anything," said Gregory Group President Greg Paquin. "It's not just homes. It's cars. It's retail. … It's the economy."

Atlanta-based Beazer Homes finished 2008 as the region's top-selling builder, outpacing Texas builders Centex Homes, which ranked first in 2007, and D.R. Horton, which led the region in 2006.

The region's top five builders – all publicly traded – accounted for 38 percent of the year's sales. The leading local builder, Roseville-based JMC Homes, ranked seventh with 226 sales, a 4.8 percent market share, the Gregory Group statistics show.

Beazer's 432 sales represented nearly one in every 10 homes sold in 2008. Beazer was also one of the few firms to beat its 2007 numbers. Last year, it had 386 sales. Arizona-based Taylor Morrison Homes also bettered its 2007 performance. It sold 259 homes last year, eight more than in 2007, statistics show.

Michael Penbera, Beazer's Sacramento division sales manager, attributed the rise to prices beginning at $179,900 in Rancho Cordova's Capital Village and even lower at its Natomas Field project north of downtown Sacramento.

Penbera acknowledged that many buyers come to model homes to compare against foreclosure prices. But he said, "There's some peace in purchasing a new home with a warranty, with a lot of the energy-efficient features that older ones aren't required to have."

Rancho Cordova, indeed, was the only part of the region to see higher fourth-quarter sales in 2008 than 2007.

Paquin attributed that to Beazer sales at Capital Village and sales by building giants Centex Homes and Lennar Corp. at Kavala Ranch in the Sunrise-Douglas area.

Call The Bee's Jim Wasserman, (916) 321-1102. Read his blog on real estate, Home Front, at www.sacbee.com/blogs.