Sacramento Housing in December: Sales down 2%, Active Inventory down 17% 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.

This data suggests healing in the Sacramento market and other distressed markets are showing similar improvement.  Note: The Sacramento Association of REALTORS® started breaking out REOs in May 2008, and short sales in June 2009.

In December, total sales were down 2.6% from December 2015, and conventional equity sales were down 0.6% compared to the same month last year.

In December, 4.4% of all resales were distressed sales. This was up from 4.4% last month, and down from 8.3% in November 2015.

The percentage of REOs was at 2.5%, and the percentage of short sales was 2.3%.

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 decreased 16.6% year-over-year (YoY) in December.  This was the 20th consecutive monthly YoY decrease in inventory in Sacramento.

Cash buyers accounted for 13.1% of all sales - this has been steadily declining (frequently investors).

Summary: This data suggests a normal market with few distressed sales, and less investor buying - but with limited inventory.