News, insight and some thoughts about the Sacramento-area real estate market

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May 05, 2008

It's a jungle out there

Two local reports by e-mail suggesting that The Sacramento Bee might pay notice to a buyer "feeding frenzy" out there:

From Tom Loffman of Loffman Realty: "I don't know if you are aware of what has been happening in the local real estate market in the past few weeks, but there appears to be a "feeding frenzy" for lower-priced units. This extends all the way up to at least 300K.

"..Just this past week I have been showing a client houses in Lincoln in the 200K-300K range, and when I call the agents they ALL tell me they have multiple offers. This hasn't happened here in several years. Yesterday, as I was speaking with an agent about a property, he told me he had already received an offer, and as we were on the phone he said a second offer was coming in on his fax machine."

From Elizabeth Weintraub of Lyon Real Estate: As you have probably heard, Lyon Real Estate has 784 pending sales in April, which was around 300 a year ago. We are now on par with August of 2005. What's driving the sales right now are REOs, and right behind that are well-priced homes in desirable neighborhoods.
I am working with a bunch of REO buyers. Every. Single. Property. Has. 16. Offers....It's a jungle out there — a war zone. Buyers are fighting hand over fist to win offers. She offers statistics here.