It’s May. Bring on…EVERYTHING!

May seems to always be the most hectic month of the year.  Weddings, picnics, school parties, swim team, boating…commitments and fun keep us busy all month long, and I’m sure the same is true for you.

The real estate market has a way of hitting its full stride in May as well.  For the last few years, May has signaled the time when many homeowners decide to put their homes on the market.  This year appears to be similar as I’ve already spoken to several clients in the first few days of this month. This is a good sign for the market at large since the single greatest issue we have in our market is too few homes for sale.

At time of this writing, there are only 100 single-family homes for sale in Folsom. 

This is an incredibly low amount, considering we are a town of over 70,000 people and 26,000 housing units (according to the US Census in 2010).  Over the last few years, beginning in May, we start to see this figure increase through the summer months, but since 2014 we have seen the number of homes for sale in the summertime decrease each year.

What will this summer bring?  Unfortunately, much of the same.  Unless I get more calls from clients interested in selling their homes this summer, I expect the number of homes for sale to be similar to last summer.  This means there won’t be enough homes to meet demand, which will push prices up further.  For current homeowners, this is great news.  For those looking to buy their first home, this is truly discouraging.  Perhaps they’ll be too busy with a hectic May schedule to notice right now, but by the end of summer I predict home values in most areas will increase 2% per month through August.  If that pace holds, we may see Folsom home prices eclipse their previous all-time high levels before summer is over.

Much like May’s relentless calendar, higher home prices are on their way. Some of the cause is inevitable, like wedding invites in May, and some of our own doing, like over-scheduling boating picnics. Either way…Bring. It. On.