Sacramento is somewhat different from the Big Three Metro Areas in California.
Unlike those, it sits on a vast expanse of flat land, with room to grow in all
directions.
Sacramento was pretty affordable even during the dot com boom. But during the
housing boom of last few years, prices have sky rocketed.
Bay area residents started taking refuge in Sacramento, as Bay Area home prices
headed to the moon. Sacramento has added 233K new residents since 2000, a 13%
increase. Placer county alone saw a 26% increase.
Most of the new homes have gone up in Placer County, as is pretty clear from
just driving around. Several new communities built in the last few years.
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Developers have plans for several more. And each of these proposed communities
is much larger than the ones I saw in Brentwood. The lots there could accommodate
a few dozen homes. But the amount of buildable land in just about every development
I visited here, was good for a few hundred homes. I have made an attempt to capture
it in the pictures, as much I could.
And yes, these streets are so new the Google Geocoder does not recognise most of
of them, so no map. Google Maps recognises some of the streets, but not all.
Slideshow : HBB Visits Sacramento
The highlight of the trip was Villa Lago, a Toll Brothers community and getting
a first hand look at their McMansions. They look pretty nice and expensive. If I
lived in one of those, I would'nt wanna leave for work in the morning.
Quite a few of them already completed, had "available" signs on them, which
indicates that either the buyer backed out of the contract or it was a spec unit.
Driving around I came across a small street which can aptly be called the
Flipper Alley. There were seven for sale signs on in Roseville,
just next to the Mirabella Development. That speaks volumes for the state of the
housing market here.
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At the end of the day, I decided to walk into the Sales Office of The Club. The
staff was pretty friendly and courteous, and I did'nt feel pressured. The sales
woman at the very start pointed out that this was a 55+ community, and I looked too
young to live there. I could buy one (for my mother) but would not be able to live
there myself.
She volunteered that they were giving huge discounts and incentives on the homes
that were already built, compared to if I wanted to get a new one built. In that
case the deposit would be 10K, and it would take about six months to be completed.
On the question, if I changed my mind (her face immediately dropped) about the
purchase later, I would loose my deposit.
And they had loans for every one, full income, no income, some income, employed
or unemployed. Thats what she had been told, and she said that with a sense of
disbelief.
My impression was that she was just doing the job she was hired to do, and was
herself in awe of what she saw was happening around her.
Later in the evening as I strolled in the downtown, saw three sale signs on a
single block of P Street between 22nd & 23rd streets. It was dark, and I felt using
flash could draw unwanted attention, so no pictures.
Yet another testament to the state of Sacramento's Housing Market.
Though the Big three get most of the press, when it comes to California housing
market. There are some excellent blogs on Sacramento's Housing Market.
1. Sacramento Land(ing)
2. Sacramento Real Estate Statistics
3. Flippers In Trouble
And yes, the infamous flipper kid Casey Serin of IAmFacingForeclosure.com is
from Sacramento.
The Community Counts for Sacramento, Public(164) + Other(72) = Total(236)
Standard Pacific (8) K Hovnanian (22) Lennar (18) Centex (20)
Richmond American (6) D.R. Horton (18) Ryland (7) Pulte (10)
Toll Brothers (2) KB Homes (13) Beazer (17) NVR (0)
Technical Olympic (0) Meritage (10) Pardee (2) Morrison (11)
Parkland Homes (4) John Laing (8) Shea Homes(10) Elliot Homes (11)
JTS Communities (8) JMC Homes (12) Tim Lewis (11) RB Communities (8)
12/17/06, SF Chronicle - It's a buyer's market in Sacramento
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