EL DORADO HILLS REAL ESTATE MARKET SNAPSHOT

June 26, 2020

By Jim Barnes RE/MAX GOLD

With significantly fewer homes than normal being added to the MLS, those homes that are available for sale have been selling quickly, particularly as buyer demand has begun to rise. Sellers have also been receiving close to asking price at 99.7 percent.

The best way to understand what is happening right now in our market is to look at the relationship between the number of homes that are currently PENDING SALE and the number of homes available for sale in a given area.

Currently, the pending to active listing ratio for El Dorado Hills is 83%.  There are 133 homes in contract and only 161 active listings. This time last year, there were just 75 homes pending sale in El Dorado Hills and 262 active listings for pending to active ratio of only 29%.

Below is a break-out of pending sales and active listings by price range. There is a lot of strength in the upper end of the market right now, and the average list price for a home pending sale in El Dorado Hills is $919,000. ZILLOW’S HOME VALUE INDEX, a lagging indicator, is $673,865, which is pretty typical.

In general:

Last week, for the third straight week, the number of borrowers needing forbearance dropped. Still, the number of loans in forbearance represents over $1 trillion in unpaid principal, which could indicate a future wave of foreclosures. A recent Stanford University study provides fresh insights on the long-term financial impacts of foreclosures.

Meanwhile, with mortgage rates averaging a low 3.13 percent last week, mortgage applications have surged to an 11-year high. Mortgage application rates were 21 percent higher than they were one year ago, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s seasonally adjusted index. As mortgage applications have increased, so too have applications for home improvement loans.

From CAR : Homebuying sentiment and demand increases.

As expected, California home sales fell in May to the lowest level since the Great Recession as the housing market suffered the full impact of the coronavirus pandemic in May and remained below 300,000 units for the second straight month. At the same time, pending sales increased 67.2% from April as the incremental relaxation of shelter-inplace orders coupled with record low mortgage rates boosted interest in housing.

According to C.A.R.’s monthly California Housing Sentiment Index, the percentage of consumers who thought it was a good time to buy a home increased to 32 percent last month, a high for the series that began capturing data in September 2018.

Closed escrow sales of existing, single-family detached homes in California totaled a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 238,740 units in May. May’s sales total was down 13.9 percent from 277,440 in April and down 41.4 percent from a year ago, when 407,330 homes were sold on an annualized basis. The year-to-year drop was the largest since November 2007, contributing to a year-to-date sales drop of 12.9 percent.

The pace of growth for California pending home sales has continued to tick up, but at particularly slow speeds: under 3 percent in three of the four past weeks. And the number of new homes added to the MLS has been essentially flat for the past month, suggesting sluggish sales to come in the next few weeks. Nationwide, according to Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman, homebuying demand is up 25 percent from pre-pandemic levels.