The Woodland, California real estate market continues to see the effects of a slow economy and the tight credit markets. Sales of homes in Woodland slowed to just 147 in the 3rd quarter of 2009, while the median price fell to just $215,000.

Here is a snapshot of Q3 for Woodland:

 

There are buyers out there, but the market seems to be dominated by first time home buyers and investors looking for homes below $200,000 that may cash-flow.

The first time home buyer is being spurred by the $8,000 federal tax credit. Many have expressed an interest of closing quickly in order to take advantage of this offer by the November 30th deadline.

Bargain hunters and investors are looking at homes in the $130,000 to $180,000 range and fixer-uppers. 

It is also taking a little longer to sell a house in 2009 than it did in 2008. But a well priced home can still attract buyers and sell quickly. A friend of mine just put his 3 bedroom north side home, built in the 1950’s, on the market for $220,000. It was sold in just 8 days and received multiple offers.

If you are a seller in Woodland, get a realistic estimate of your homes worth. Don’t try to over price you home in hopes of finding a naïve buyer that will pay more than it’s worth. They don’t exist anymore. It’s not 2004, it’s 2009 and it’s a buyers market. Savvy buyers know a good priced when they see it. They also can spot a home that is overpriced and they stay clear of it. Why should they bother dealing with a seller of an overpriced home in today’s market, when there are so many motivated sellers, short sales and bank owned properties to choose from?

The answer is……. they don’t.  If your home has been on the market for seven days and it has not been shown to a prospective buyer, it is overpriced. The buyers are out there, but they are focusing on well-priced homes. 

If you are ready to sell, give me a call. 80% of buyers are using the internet to find their next home. I have the internet presence to bring buyers to you through my websites www.WoodlandHomes2sell.com and www.DavisHomes2sell.com . They are top ranked by Google and get thousands of visits each month from buyers all over the world.

If you have been in touch with the real estate industry in the last week or so, I'm sure you are aware of the predatory activity of the Metropolitan Indianapolis Board of Realtors (MIBOR) toward their own members, namely Paula Henry http://www.hometoindy.com and her Broker, Mike Taylor http://www.reddoorindy.com.

You can read all the details of this issue at Agent Genius or Real Estate Webmasters, but the short version is that MIBOR has gotten confused as to the difference between the indexing of web pages and the scraping of web content. MIBOR has come to the conclusion that Google is a Scraper site because MLS data from an Agents website IDX was being indexed by Google and other search engines.

Mibor issued a cease and desist letter to the agent and her broker for allowing Google and other search engines to index the detailed information about properties in the MLS via their IDX that are not their own listings.

Since MIBOR seems to be unclear about the difference between Indexing and Scraping, I thought I would illustrate.

I made a posting on the REW forum a couple of weeks ago. The title of the post was "Davis CA Real Estate Prices Hold Up Well 2005 to 2009" It was indexed by Google within a few days. Below you can see the results from Google when I searched for the Title of the Post. It shows up in the #1 spot, right where I posted it, at Real Estste Webmasters.

When you click on the Google result, it takes you right to the page where I posted my original content. You can see the original content by clicking here .

This is called INDEXING !!

But just two results down the page you will see the same title post that is attributed to a URL that is "our-footprint.com/real estate". You can see what my content looks like on this scraper site by clicking here .  (I hate to give this scumbag any link juice, but if it will help clarify things for MIBOR, I'll hold my nose and do it.)

THIS IS A SCRAPER SITE !!

I don't know anything about this site, I didn't write content to be posted on this site. I certainly did not join a "Multiple Listing (type of) Service" with the full knowledge that others would have access to my content (Like MIBOR members do, I presume.)

If you click through and look at the resulting page you will see that the creep that runs this site just "scraped" the information I posted on REW and pasted part of it into his own website/blog on a page with no relevancy, for the sole purpose of having soemthing to advertise around. I can't seem to find a way to read the whole post, just the first paragraph. But there are plenty of ads.

Okay, MIBOR, now that you have seen the difference, repeat after me:  Google is an Indexing Search Engine. On the other hand "our-footprint.com", whoever they are, is a Scraper site. 

There is a difference. 

MIBOR, you're not helping your members, you're hurting them.

The first question local friends and neighbors ask when the subject of real estate comes up is "how much are prices down"?, which is a simple question that can lead to complicated answers.

The answer could be different depending on the type of home you are talking about.

Conventional wisdom says that the high end homes have taken a bigger hit because the volume of buyers at that level has fallen off.  Conventional wisdom also says that lower priced homes have held up better because there is still demand at the low end (more so now with first time buyer tax incentives).

There was a headline in the New York Times recently saying that Phoenix is the first major real estate market to make a 50% drop from the market high prices of 2005 to current market values.

With that in mind, I thought I would review how prices have behaved in the Davis, California real estate market over a similar period to see how we compare.

I took the average sale price per square foot for home in the third quarter of 2005, which seems to be about the top of the market here.

The figures then are broken out according to the size of the home, from small 950 square feet up to home in the 3,000 square feet and above category. The data includes only single family homes, no condos.

Then we look at the same information for homes sold Year to Date through April 20th, 2009, to see how far home prices have fallen, when expressed in price per square foot.

The results show two interesting facts;

1) Davis has been spared the steep price declines that other markets have suffered. The biggest drop in home prices from 2005 to 2009 is just 21% for the smallest homes, while homes of most other sizes dropped in price in the 14% to 19% range.  This is not bad for a a 3 1/2 year price change.  There are many factors that contribute to the resilience of real estate prices in Davis, the lack of new home inventory being one of them, as Davis is a "slow growth" town without the sprawl development of other areas (... like Phoenix). I have written previous blog posts about the factors that make Davis a unique real estate market.

2) There is not a huge disparity between the price drop of large homes vs. the price drop of smaller homes. The common wisdom that higher end home prices were suffering more are not born out by these numbers.

There is one anomaly in the numbers. At the 2,200 to 2,500 square foot range the data shows that prices have dropped just 6%. But only one home  showed up in the 2009 data, so that price per square foot number is not necessarily an accurate representation.

Having seen this information, I feel relieved, as I am a Davis homeowner. It also makes me feel for those folks in Phoenix, Las Vegas, and Florida whose markets have not held up as well.

Davis is a vibrant community and a great place to live. As proof, I offer my previous blog about Davis being one of the Five Friendliest Cities in the US and also my Top Ten Reasons to Live in Davis.  And now we have reason #11...Davis has a relatively strong real estate market, when compared to other California cities and many markets nationwide.

The peak selling season has come to an end in Davis. Spring and Summer are the most active months for home sales in Davis for two primary reasons:

1. As a University town, most things in Davis tend to revolve around the school year calendar.  Many times new Professors, employees and staff relocate to town over the Summer. This brings an influx of buyers in the Spring looking to buy homes and close the sale over the Summer so they can move in and get settled before the school year starts.
2. As Students vacate rental housing in June, landlords find it a good time to sell rental homes over the summer while they are empty.

So sales of homes in October hit the lowest point since February, in regards to the number of units sold. Surely the recent problems with the financial "meltdown" also contributed to the slowdown in sales.

Here's the details on October home sales in Davis vs. the same month in 2007:

 Sales were flat in October vs. a year ago, but the rest of the figures a not so good.  The median price dropped 8% from a year ago. The price per square foot is down from $323 a year ago to just $304 today. The lowering of prices is the only reason the units sold were the same as a year ago. And sellers are getting 96% of their asking price vs. 97.5% of asking price last year.  Sellers have had to be more flexible in negotiating, ask lower prices, and still it is taking longer to sell a house now than a year ago.

This is the classic buyers market. One caveat though, with just 19 homes sold, the median price number may be skewed with such a small sampling. It could be that a few more low end homes were sold in October than normal, thus bringing down the median price. Look for more data over time that includes a higher sample to get a more accurate feel for the market.

In Woodland, on the other hand, you see a much more dynamic market. Prices have fallen much more than in Davis, and Woodland has a large number of Bank-Owned and pre-foreclosure homes. Take a look at the data for Woodland in October:

The number of homes sold in Woodland is up 138% from a year ago. While this may look good on the surface, the rest of the numbers tell the whole story.

The median home price has fallen from $355,000 to just $205,000, a whopping 42% in one year. As the number of homes on the market ballooned earlier in the year due to mortgage issues, sellers were cutting prices to get the home sold.

While it took nearly 6 months to sell a home a year ago, the time has been cut to just over 2 months. With prices falling, some sellers wanted to get their homes sold before the market slid any more and were more aggressive with their asking price. The good news is that aggressive pricing has brought in the buyers and they are paying 98% of the asking price vs. 94% a year ago.

The dynamics of the real estate markets in Davis and Woodland have many more reasons for their fluctuations than I have listed here. I'm just providing some basic highlights for those of you that follow the real estate trends in the area.

If you have any thoughts about other information you would like to see on a regular basis, just let me know and I will include it in my next post.

Let's see what November brings........

A recent blog post by Paul Shigley of the California Planning & Development Report lists Davis as #1 among true college towns in California. "Davis is the prototypical college town. Downtown Davis, located an easy bike ride from campus, is a lively place..." says the report.

DOWNTOWN DAVIS

"The open and inviting campus offers plenty for non-students, including recreation, and cultural and sporting events. Plus, practically everyone gets around via bicycle or foot."

Other towns mentioned in the report include Chico, San Luis Obispo, and Berkeley.

I have to agree with Mr. Shigley that Davis is a special place to live, a small town feel with many big city amenities.

For more details on what makes Davis unique, check out The Top 10 Reasons to Live in Davis.

People that buy homes in Davis, do so for a variety of reasons. The most frequent buyers include:

1. People relocating to Davis to work at the University or in area Bio, Ag, or Hi Tech businesses.
2. Parents of students buying homes/condos as housing for their child and/or investment.
   
3. Investors buying rental homes for students, grad students, or University staff.
4. People from throughout the region that are attracted to Davis for it's small town feel, environmental awareness, and exciting opportunites for culture and education. 

For more details on the housing market, you'll find Davis Real Estate to be a great information source.

You have seen many posts detailing the hi-jacking of Marc Rasmussens Sarasota Real Estate website by the Sarasota Association of Realtors on Active Rain and many other blogs.

Now, the SAR has had Marcs domain name redirected to their own site, effectively taking all of Marcs hard work and investment in his website, and making it their own.

For the full story and details on this issue, the best sources are Real Estate Webmasters blog and Erick Blackwells Bloodhound Blog.

What happened to Marc can happen to any of us. You can help Marc to fight the Sarasota Association of Realtors, and get back what is rightfully his, by visiting Sarasota MLS legal fund to help Marc.

To see a list of many of the sites and blogs carrying details on this issue, check out the synopsis of the SAR hijacking by Judy Orr.

As a Realtors, we have to band together to stop this type of predatory activity by the SAR. Please help Marc so that this type of situation is not repeated by other Realtor Associations and MLS's across the country.

It's Fall now. The leaves are turning colors and the students have returned to the University of California, Davis. The streets are now full of bikes after the usual summer lull.

Davis's love of bicycles goes back to the early days of the town, and the City of Davis logo includes a prominent, old fashioned "high-wheeler" bicycle.    

A large high-wheeler bike sculpture sits prominently in front of Davis City Hall.

Davis has always been a town with more bikes than cars. With over 100 miles of bike lanes and bike paths integrated into the towns transportation infrastructure, automobile drivers have to remain on the lookout for new students trying to negotiate the bike-ways as they learn their way around town.

What's the difference between a "bike path" and a "bike lane"?

You can find the answer on the Bicycle Friendly Davis page of my main website. You'll also find pictures of bike paths and lanes around town, and a map of the Davis Bike Loop, a popular 12 mile loop that connects many of the neighborhoods in town. The Bike Loop also allows you to see many of the points of interest and access shopping, libraries, and parks without riding on city street or sharing the road with cars.

With the price of gas at all time highs this year, more and more people are commuting to work on bikes also.

If you like to ride your bike, for pleasure, exercise, or to school or work, Davis is the place for you.

Bicycle Riders of the World Unite!!

...and move to Davis.

In many of my past blog posts, I have mentioned that the Davis market is unique and not always subject to the same market forces as other towns in Yolo County or the greater Sacramento region.

Below are some statistics that prove my point. Below is a study of Average Sale Prices. Two snapshots were taken and compared.  Figures were pulled from the Summer of 2005 (almost the top of the market?) and the Summer of 2008 (June, July, and August in both years).  The average home sales price for these periods was broken out by Zip Code to see how the decline is home prices effected different areas.

You will notice that Davis fared better than any other area of Yolo County and any other area of the Sacramento Region. If you look back through my previouos posts you will find detailed information about this market that explainis why Davis is not subject to the same downward pressures of other local real estate markets.

This is one of the reasons that Davis, is one the best places to invest your real estate dollar in Northern California.

2008 has been a year where each month more homes were sold in Davis than the previous month. Then we seemed to top-out in June with 65 single family home sales.

After dropping to just 36 homes sold in July, with the Average price per square foot falling below $300, sales of single family homes in Davis, California rebounded slightly in August.

The accompanying chart tells the story:

As you can see, the number of homes sold steadily increased each month to a peak of 65 in June, then fell off to 36 in July. It has now rebounded to 46 in August.  Meanwhile, the average price per square foot has remained in the $300 to $335 range all year.

Compared to other markets around the country, Davis has not seen the drastic decline in home values as other markets (see my previous post below). There is a certain seasonal nature to home sales in the Davis market, due to the University summer break. It presents a natural time for owners of homes used as student rentals to sell while the home is not occupied.

There are currently 112 single family homes and 20 condos listed in the MLS for Davis.

Average days on the market remains at 57, just about where it was a year ago

- Vicki Walker

The PMI Mortgage Insurance Co. recently released its Summer 2008 U.S. Market Risk Index. It ranks 50 cities around the country according to how likely they are to continue to see a decline in the price of housing over the next two years. You can read a summary of the report and the complete list by clicking above.

Real estate investors may find the list helpful by avoiding the markets with the highest risk of price declines and focusing on the bottom of the list, which shows the cities least likely to see home prices fall further.

As you might expect, the areas at the top of the list, with the highest risk, are all in California, Florida, Arizona, and Nevada. These are markets which experienced explosive growth during the last 10 years, with home prices showing huge appreciation, and thus have the farthest to fall.

Here are the top 12 markets and their corresponding risk percentage. NOTE - the percentage number indicates the likelihood of price declines, it has nothing to do with the amount of the decline.

Notice that our very own Sacramento ranks as #10 most risky markets. In regards to the Davis real estate market, as I have talked about in many previous posts, Davis may be just 10 miles from Sacramento but as a real estate market it is worlds away. The dynamics of the Davis real estate market are unique and largely unaffected by Sacramento home prices.

Looking at the other side of the coin, the "safest" markets, with the least likelihood of price declines over the next two years, would be those at the bottom of the list. If you are an investor interested in getting a good rental home with little chance it will go down in value, you might find it among these cities. As you might expect, most of these cities are in the Midwest and Texas.

Everyone is trying to do the impossible, that is, "time" the weakness in home prices so as to buy at the exact bottom of the market. It's a difficult if not impossible task. Perhaps the real estate investor should focus on opportunities in the less risky markets until things become more steady.

Are you a real estate investor? What markets are looking like good buys to you right now?