Sacramento Housing in October: Sales down 5% YoY, Active Inventory up 2% YoY

During the recession, I started following the Sacramento market to look for changes in the mix of houses sold (equity, REOs, and short sales). For several years, not much changed. But in 2012 and 2013, we saw some significant changes with a dramatic shift from distressed sales to more normal equity sales.

Note: The Sacramento Association of REALTORS® started breaking out REOs in May 2008, and short sales in June 2009.

In October, total sales were down 4.7% from October 2016, and conventional equity sales were up 0.9% compared to the same month last year.

In October, 1.4% of all resales were distressed sales. This was down from 2.2% last month, and down from 4.4% in October 2016.

The percentage of REOs was at 0.7%, and the percentage of short sales was 0.7%.

Sacramento Realtor Press Release: October marks highest median sales price in 10.5 years

October ended with a 3.2% decrease in sales, down from 1,560inSeptemberto 1,510. Compared with the 1,584 sales of October 2016, the current number is a 4.7% decrease. Equity sales for the month continued to grow, accounting for 98.5% (1,510) of the sales this month. REO/bank-owned and Short Sales made up the difference with 11 sales (.7%) and 11 sales (.7%) for the month, respectively.
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Active Listing Inventory decreased slightly, decreasing 3.4% from 2,625 to 2,536.The Months of Inventory remained at 1.7 Months. A year ago the Months of inventory was 1.6 and Active Listing Inventory stood at 2,492 listings(-1.8% from current figure).
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Here are the statistics.

Click on graph for larger image.

This graph shows the percent of REO sales, short sales and conventional sales.

There has been a sharp increase in conventional (equity) sales that started in 2012 (blue) as the percentage of distressed sales declined sharply.

Active Listing Inventory for single family homes increased 1.8% year-over-year (YoY) in October.  This YoY inventory increase followed 29 consecutive months with a YoY decrease in inventory in Sacramento.

Cash buyers accounted for 13.6% of all sales - this has been generally declining (frequently investors).

Summary: This data suggests a normal market with few distressed sales, and less investor buying - but with limited inventory.  Keep an eye on inventory - this might be a change in trend.