Sacramento County home sales hold steady in April

Sacramento County’s recently improving housing market held steady in April and fared better on a percentage basis than other metro regions of California.

Irvine-based real estate tracker CoreLogic said the median price for resale homes in Sacramento County last month was $295,000, matching the March median, which was the highest since the fall of 2007. The April median was a 9.3 percent increase over $270,000 in April 2015.

Area home prices are still far below the overinflated peak of August 2005, when the median sales price for an existing home in Sacramento County was $374,000.

In an unusual development, all of the resale medians exactly matched those for all homes sold in Sacramento County in the period.

The median is the point at which half the homes cost more and half cost less.

Sales of existing homes in Sacramento County totaled 1,779 last month, a 1 percent decline from 1,797 in April 2015 but a 13 percent improvement over 1,573 in March. Historically, home sales pick up in April compared with March.

Countywide sales of new and previously owned houses and condominiums totaled 2,189 in April, up 1.7 percent from 2,153 last year and a 12 percent improvement over 1,951 in March this year.

CoreLogic said there were 211 new home sales in Sacramento County last month, up 20.6 percent from 175 in the year-ago period. The median sale price of new homes sold in April was $403,000, down 1 percent from $406,250 in April 2015.

 

Percentagewise, Sacramento County’s numbers for all home sales outpaced the Bay Area and Southern California.

In the nine-county Bay Area, 7,518 new and resale houses and condominiums sold in April 2016, down 7.3 percent from 8,108 sales from April 2015. CoreLogic analyst Andrew LePage noted “thin and increasingly expensive inventory.”

CoreLogic said the median price paid for all homes sold in the Bay Area in April hit a record high of $686,000. The prior peak of $665,000 was reached in June and July of 2007.

In the six-county Southern California region, 21,312 dwellings sold in April, a 3.2 percent decrease from 22,020 in April 2015. That decline marked only the second time in the past 12 months that sales fell year-over-year.

LePage noted that “sales perform better on a year-over-year basis in comparatively affordable markets like Sacramento … markets that might have some more inventory.”

This story was originally published May 18, 2016 at 11:00 AM with the headline "Sacramento County home sales hold steady in April."