From the Sacramento Bee:In Sacramento County, sales of new and existing homes totaled 1,961 in April, the highest since Sept. 2006, according to DataQuick. The April sales tally was 26.3 percent higher than April 2007 -- the first time that year-over-year sales in the county have posted a gain since March 2005, DataQuick reported.
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Prices have rapidly dropped with heavily discounted, bank-owned homes accounting for a majority of purchases in the eight-county capital region. That means the lower end of the housing market is fueling much of the surge. Median sales prices -- where half the homes sell for more and half for less -- are down to Feb. 2003 levels in Sacramento County. The county's median sales price in April fell to $232,000 -- down 32 percent from a year ago [the steepest decline yet] and 40 percent off its Aug. 2005, high of $387,000.Jim Wasserman has the breakdown by county here [xls].

From the Sacramento Bee: A persistent housing slump that has relentlessly driven down home prices has now wiped out at least three years of home equity gains across much of the Sacramento region...For buyers, who have driven home sellers and much of the real estate industry mad by patiently remaining on the fence, it's fresh proof of a market getting ever more warm and friendly.

That's especially true in suburban neighborhoods with plenty of new construction. "I've got two sets of buyers looking at property in Lincoln, 2,943 square feet listed for $325,000," said Viki Benbow, a Coldwell Banker real estate agent. "It's like $106 or $107 a square foot. Those houses three years ago were selling in the mid-$500,000s."
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DataQuick estimated that 27.6 percent of the region's existing home sales in October involved foreclosure properties. It was 35.9 percent in Sacramento County.
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Some January price statistics for Sacramento County via the Sacramento Real Estate blog:

• Median: -27.5% YoY
• Average: -28.4% YoY
• Price per square foot: -27% YoY

From the Stockton Record:

A second major foreclosed-home auction will be coming to Stockton next week, with about 85 Stockton-area houses going up for sale at the San Joaquin County Fairgrounds.
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"The sellers are motivated, but they're not going to just dump the properties on the market," company spokesman Joe Joffrion said.
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From the Sacramento Bee: It's only one month's data, and it came from a winter month that's considered unreliable for trend spotting. But February sales of new and existing homes in Sacramento County -- the largest sector of the region's real estate market -- were just 7.7 percent fewer than in February 2007.
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From the Sacramento Bee: Sacramento County's median sales prices slipped to $280,000 during the month, down more than $100,000 and 27.6 percent off their August 2005 peaks. Those prices were the lowest since February 2004, DataQuick reported.
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Home prices in the Sacramento region fell by the largest amount on record, according to a report [pdf] released today by the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight. Sacramento's House Price Index (HPI) dropped 8.41% in the third quarter, the largest year-over-year decline since 1977, the year the government started tracking home appreciation for the Sacramento real estate market.

Top 5 year-over-year price declines since 1977:

2007 Q3: -8.41%
1983 Q3: -7.80%
1994 Q4: -6.67%
1995 Q1: -6.45%
1994 Q3: -6.24%

From the Sacramento Bee: Every business day in the region an average of 85 people lost their homes to lenders, near double the number of foreclosures from June, according to Fair Oaks-based Foreclosures.com, a Web site for real estate investors.
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"I don't think we are seeing the worst of these numbers," said Robert Kleinhenz, deputy chief economist for the California Association of Realtors. Kleinhenz and others said they expect high foreclosure numbers to continue for at least another six months.DataQuick Stats by County
DataQuick Stats by Zip

From the Sacramento Bee: As foreclosures continue to grow in the capital-area real estate market, Sacramento and Elk Grove are copying a trend launched last year in Stockton: bus tours of bank-owned homes. As the buying season begins, three tours are planned for Feb. 23. There's one for investors in Sacramento and two for first-time buyers and investors in Elk Grove.
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The Sacramento Real Estate blog reports that Sacramento County's price per square foot was $149.84 in April, a 33.9% drop from last year. That translates into a 41% decline in 31 months. Of note, this is the first resale home metric to cross the 40% off peak mark.

With regards to asking prices, Housing Tracker shows a median price decline of 28.9% year-over-year. The median has dropped 37.7% since August 2005.

More Sacramento real estate market figures for April at the Sacramento Real Estate Statistics blog.

From the Central Valley Business Times:Home values in the first quarter of 2008 fell 1.6 percent from the fourth quarter and 7.7 percent from the year-ago quarter, marking the most significant year-over-year decline in the past 12 years, Zillow says.

From the Central Valley Business Times: Five of the top ten [California] counties for foreclosures last month were in the Central Valley, led by San Joaquin County with 1,000 homes going on the auction block, a 700 percent increase over the number a year earlier. Stanislaus County is ranked third in the state on a per capita basis with Sacramento County fourth, Yolo County fifth and Merced County seventh, according to the computations by ForeclosureRadar.From the Central Valley Business Times: The Stockton metro area in the Central Valley had the nation’s second-highest home foreclosure rate last year among the nation's 100 largest metro areas, says a new report from RealtyTrac Inc. of Irvine, a foreclosure information company. With 4.866 percent of its households entering some stage of foreclosure during the year, Stockton saw a total of 22,184 foreclosure filings on 10,608 properties, up 271 percent from 2006, RealtyTrac says.
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From the Sacramento Bee:
When DataQuick Information Systems reported this week that Sacramento County posted its first gain in year-over year home sales in 37 months, these were the neighborhoods that made it happen: working-class areas in south Sacramento, North Highlands and North Sacramento, Elverta and Citrus Heights...What they have in common is an abundance of homes with falling values, heavily discounted bank-owned residences and scenes of multiple bids by investors and first-time buyers.
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During the third quarter of 2007, Meadowview's 95832 was one of California's most default-prone ZIP codes....April sales jumped 266 percent over the same month in 2007. The ZIP code's median sales price was $185,000, down 44 percent in just a year...[DataQuick's Andrew] LePage said 79 percent of the April sales in that ZIP code were homes lost to foreclosure during the past year.
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From the Chicago Daily Herald: Kimball Hill Inc. today warned it might become the latest Chicago-area victim of the national housing crisis. The Rolling Meadows-based homebuilder said in a filing today it has "substantial doubts about whether we will be able to continue as a going concern."

From the Sacramento Bee: [T]here's no doubt the steep drop in home values – median prices in Sacramento County are almost 28 percent below last year's figures – and relatively low interest rates have sparked interest. [DataQuick's Andrew] LePage said investor buys accounted for 18.6 percent of February closings in Sacramento County. That's up significantly from 12.7 percent in November and December. [The high for investor buys was May 2004 when they accounted for 25 percent of sales.]
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Overall, sales remained weak, though real estate broker Tom Zipp of Citrus Heights said Thursday that rising investor activity "traditionally signals the bottom part of the market."DQ stats by county (All Homes & Existing SFH/Condos/New Homes)
DQ stats by zip code

From the Modesto Bee:Northern San Joaquin Valley home prices have plummeted, but they haven't fallen enough to become affordable for most wage earners, a new study shows. Home buyers must earn about $98,000 a year to comfortably afford a median-priced house in Stanislaus County, the Center for Housing Policy reports. But workers in only one of the 64 occupations studied -- construction managers -- earned that much last year. Even two-income couples with good jobs -- such as accountants, police officers, school teachers and firefighters -- barely can cover ownership costs, the report showed.
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In calculating what's affordable, the study assumed not more than 28 percent of household income should pay the mortgage, property taxes and insurance. It also assumed buyers had a 10 percent down payment with a conventional loan.
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From the Sacramento Bee: "We keep seeing more and more horror stories about the economy," said Michael McGee of Winchester McGee Financial, a Rancho Cordova mortgage brokerage firm. McGee said higher mortgage rates aren't helping a housing market that he believes is the worst of his 36-year career. "It's never been as bad as it is today," he said.
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Consultant Steve Dutra said higher rates will blunt the impact of falling housing prices, which analysts had hoped would kick-start a new round of buying. "With prices coming down, we were hoping interest rates would stay low as well," said Dutra, a vice president in the Sacramento office of Irvine-based John Burns Real Estate Consulting. Higher rates means "a certain amount of people will be taken out of the market," he said.
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Alan Wagner, president of the Sacramento Association of Realtors, said he's trying to persuade potential homebuyers to jump in now before rates get any higher. "Now's the time to buy your property," he said.

Monterey Village Getting Shredded - photos & video at the Sacramento Real Statistics blog

From Forbes (hat tip Patient Renter):It's no secret that homeowners with subprime mortgages have taken a beating. Next up: those who have combined their mortgages with home equity loans, second loans or both. These combinations spell especially bad news for homeowners in Sacramento, Calif., San Diego, Washington, D.C., and Colorado Springs, Colo., markets with some of the nation's highest concentrations of homeowner debt. In these spots, prices are dropping, making it very difficult for homeowners to refinance as lenders are reluctant to take on risk.
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1. Sacramento, Calif.
Percent change [in median price] from 2007: -18.5%
Total outstanding mortgages: 480,881
Second mortgage or home equity loan: 129,736 (27%)
Both second mortgage and home equity loan: 7,288 (1.5%)Compare to other cities here.

From the Wall Street Journal (hat tip Calculated Risk):If you own a home in a former bubble region like California or southern Florida, there's bad news… and really bad news. And they suggest that it is still way too early to go bargain hunting in these markets, although -- of course -- there is always the occasional deal around.

The bad news is fresh market data published Monday night by real-estate Web site Zillow.com. They show prices, as expected, kept slumping through the end of last year.

From the Sacramento Business Journal:Add one more casualty from the housing downturn: homeowners associations. They need a steady flow of monthly dues, which can slow down when a member loses a house or condominium to foreclosure, or even when family budgets get tight.
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Some associations are no longer getting dues from 30 percent or even half of their units...The Wild Wings Homeowners Association has seen a 30 percent drop in the amount of dues being paid, said board member Jordan Durbin. The development has 337 freestanding homes about five miles west of Woodland. Far less than 30 percent of the homes are in foreclosure, but even some residents who aren't facing foreclosure don't send in the checks. "Money is pretty tight for a lot of families," Durbin said.
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From the Granite Bay PT: Michael Lyon, chief executive officer for Lyon Real Estate...told the audience the market has changed drastically. In 2001 about 800 homes were sold throughout Placer County in about a month. "Today there are about 2,460 homes for sale in Placer County and only about 219 are sold each month," he said.

From Bloomberg:

Prices dropped in 54 of 150 metropolitan areas in the third quarter and the median sales price tumbled 2 percent nationwide, the National Association of Realtors said today.
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Palm Bay, Florida, had the biggest price decline in the third quarter, tumbling 12.4 percent from a year earlier. Sacramento, California, fell 10.5 percent and Sarasota, Florida, dropped 10.4 percent.NAR Report [xls]

From the Central Valley Business Times:

From the Wall Street Journal: Cities and counties with some of the worst fallout from the nation's housing slump also are seeing a sharp upswing in vacant homes, a trend economists say might set up further declines in home prices. The national homeowner vacancy rate, which gauges the number of vacant homes on the market, rose to 2.8% in the fourth quarter, according to Census Bureau data.
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Vacancies...jumped in some once-booming Western cities. Between 2005 and 2007, homeowner vacancies more than tripled to 3.8% from 1.2% in the Riverside-San Bernardino area, part of California's Inland Empire, east of Los Angeles. In the Sacramento area, vacancies jumped to 4.2% from 1.2%.Interactive Map - We beat Detroit!

From the Modesto Bee: Monica Granados regularly encounters people who aren't even trying to fight foreclosure in San Joaquin County. Granados is a process server who delivers eviction notices to houses repossessed by lenders.
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From the Sacramento Bee:[W]ith 12,000-plus "For Sale" signs in the region, the market hasn't yet reached bottom, said ReMax's [Randy] Dunham. At month's end there were 12,606 homes for sale in El Dorado, Placer, Sacramento and Yolo counties, according to Sacramento-based researcher TrendGraphix. The peak in August 2007 was 16,262.
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"Borrowers are more cautious about what they can afford," said Michele Dillingham, a senior loan consultant at Sacramento-based Vitek Mortgage. "A lot of people are buying at below what they would qualify for. They saw what happened (with foreclosures) and don't want it to happen to them."DataQuick stats by county
DataQuick stats by zip (or xls)

From Home Front: Is this sustainable?

From the Sacramento Bee:Bubble bursts in Elk Grove

Elk Grove, already mired in an economic slump, may be at the forefront of what's coming to the entire Sacramento region. Already home foreclosures there are up fivefold. Unemployment has climbed. Vacancies at small strip malls are three times the regionwide average, and Laguna Ridge – a big new master-planned development – is largely a ghost town of unsold homes and vacant lots.
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The downturn calls into question just how strong the boom really was. Rising prices enabled an untold number of residents to tap their home equity to buy sport-utility vehicles and other consumer goods. But others did well just to buy a house. They were wealthy on paper but chronically short of cash.

From the Sacramento Bee:Pressured by a faltering economy and often burdened by loans they took out during the housing boom, more Sacramento-area homeowners are looking to reverse mortgages for an escape route. But many are finding the road blocked by the falling values of their homes. "A lot of them aren't qualifying now. With the falling values they don't have as much equity," said Sylvia Williams, a Elk Grove loan specialist with San Rafael-based Sequoia Reverse Mortgage.From Home Front:[A] lawsuit [was] f[i]led in Sacramento County Superior Court by the Park River Oak Estates Homeowners Association in Sacramento against Chuck and Victoria Scott Yeager. The lawsuits alleges that the Yeagers owe the association $12,000 in overdue assessments and fees. Yeager was...the first pilot to break the sound barrier in 1947 at Edwards Air Force Base.

From the Sacramento Bee: Calling the bottom of a real estate cycle is more than difficult these days. It's perilous, an invitation for news sources who answer the question to be ripped by critics. There are so many points of view and so much passion. And there are so many who have offered false sightings in the past two years.
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From the Stockton Record: Home-sales auctions have popped in the Central Valley since last summer, but the latest twist is an online auction for new homes with a bidding process similar to that used by eBay.
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Some residents there aren't happy about the impending auction. Richard Provencio lives at the north end of Crescent Park Circle, a lane that has 14 of the 18 houses to be auctioned off - the remaining four are model homes a block south. "I feel very robbed," he said. "These are the same houses I paid $620,000 for, and now they could be selling for $300,000 to $400,000."...Recently, he counted 15 houses for sale down the long street from his house, and many sit empty because of foreclosure. "Our ghost town," he said. "It's just sad, man."

Many of the homes in the development were bought initially by investors and then filled with renters, he said...The auction likely will draw only more investors, who then will put renters into the houses, he said.
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From the Sacramento Business Journal:Meritage Homes, the nation's 12th-largest homebuilder, is the latest to cut costs in Sacramento by consolidating operations...The company follows others that have consolidated to cut costs, including Warmington Homes and Standard Pacific Homes....

All homebuilders have gone through layoffs. But Greg Paquin, president of new-home analyst The Gregory Group, said the closings and consolidations have been the unexpected effect of the housing slump. "It's a new phenomenon," he said. "We haven't seen this type of contraction before."

From the Sacramento Bee:It would seem like one of the best locations to build a shopping center: Elk Grove Boulevard at Interstate 5, in one of Sacramento's fastest-growing suburbs. But retailers have been slow to flock to Stonelake Landing since it opened last March...[T]he Elk Grove center is 45 percent rented and has lost two tenants that had signed leases.
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The weakness in Sacramento's real estate market is no longer confined to housing. Commercial real estate is starting to soften – more so in retailing, less in the office and industrial markets. Projects are slower to lease up, and rents are coming down. Developers and lenders are becoming substantially more cautious about proceeding with new projects.
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