Category: Real Estate

As usual, I’m a little tardy in posting my annual market forecast.  I assume everyone else’s Januarys are as hectic as mine, so its likely you wouldn’t even read it if I were to send this out at the turn of the New Year.  By more happenstance than design, my annual forecast release in early February has worked out over the years, as more readers view it over any other MattsMemos.com post during the year.  I’m honored you find entertainment, and perhaps a little insight, from this annual tradition.

2014 Year In Review

Before I get ahead of myself, let us review 2014’s forecast and see how my predictions stacked up to what truly transpired.  In short, I forecasted we would see stabling home prices due to a healthy balance of supply and demand of traditional buyers & sellers.  I can’t help but brag for a moment that this was the exact script for last year’s market.  Sacramento homes appreciated less than 5% (Folsom was less than 2%), and the market maintained between 1.8-2.7 months of inventory (this is a balanced level).  Short sales and REO sales accounted for less than 15% of Sacramento area sales.  All of these signs clearly indicate a return to normalcy for our real estate market.

My accurate aim stops abruptly, however, when you peek at last year’s interest rate forecast.  With The Fed easing and ultimately exiting their campaign of buying mortgages (known as “quantitative easing”), I anticipated 30-year fixed rates would steadily climb through the year and end up around 5%.  In actuality, rates somehow defied logic and plummeted back down well below 4% towards the end of 2014.  There are a number of factors that led to this, but the main cause was the falling price of oil.  When oil costs less, so does everything else as it costs less to produce and transport goods.  With little to no threat of rising costs of goods, interest rates on mortgages tend to slip lower as investors are not worried about inflation.

2015 Market Forecast

There is much “writing on the wall” that makes me very excited for 2015’s real estate market.  Compared to the meager demand of buyers seen in 2014, I anticipate many more first-time & “boomerang” (folks who lost a home to short sale or foreclosure who are now looking to purchase again) home buyers entering the market.  Why?  Rent prices are skyrocketing everywhere, thus making it less financially attractive to rent versus own.  Also, lending guidelines are becoming more favorable for folks with small down payments.  For example, FHA financing (which allows down payments of as little as 3.5%) slashed monthly mortgage insurance rates by more than 35% last month.  When combining this drop with the overall decline in interest rates, homes have instantly become more affordable for most buyers.

With more first-time & boomerang buyers on the scene, entry level home prices will appreciate more rapidly than other segments of the market, but the tepid pace of entry level home sales will have a positive ripple-effect on larger homes as more folks look to move-up.  I boldly predict we will see more homes sold this year in the Sacramento area than we have in over 5 years.

As always, interest rates will be a big wild card.  It always seems an unpredictable global, political, or financial event causes rates to swing in the opposite direction conventional wisdom suggests.  Will 2015 play out the same way?  Perhaps, but given the low cost of oil (which keeps rates low) and the sputtering pace of the stock market (if stock market does poorly then rates tend to fall) I would be incredibly surprised to see rates increase more than ½% from their current marks.  30-year rates are below 4% presently and 15-year rates are inching towards 3%.

All in all, the real estate market looks rosy.  Perhaps that’s due to the shade of my glasses, but the combination of hungry buyers, willing & able traditional sellers, and accommodative interest rates and lending guidelines make it hard to believe 2015 will be a poor year for the market. As always, I’m thrilled to have a front row seat while it plays out, and I’m honored to have your trust to help navigate your real estate affairs.

Its that time again…time for my annual market forecast.  I like to consider March as the turn of the Real Estate year, as many folks begin to think about their real estate affairs this time of year.

Forecasting, to be honest, is just as much about reviewing the past as it is about predicting the future.  How can you know where you’re going if you don’t know where you’ve been?  With that said, its always a scary (albeit entertaining!) exercise for me to review last year’s forecast with what actually took place.

In short, 2013 was a two-faced trip around the sun for the Sacramento real estate market.  From January to June, I couldn’t have been more accurate with my projection of “steady price increases for sellers and challenging times for buyers”.  The market was ON FIRE with average home prices rising 21%, interest rates hitting rock bottom lows, and the number of homes for sale at the lowest point in over a decade.  However, after The Fed meeting on May 22^nd that quickly raised interest rates, the real estate market hit the brakes and my forecast accuracy fell off the tracks.  In the second half of the year, Sacramento home prices only increased 4%, and the number of homes for sale (known as “inventory”) nearly doubled. 

 

 

In hindsight, this second-half slow-down was healthy for the real estate market.  Things had become out of balance and the rally unsustainable.  Now looking forward to 2014, the big question will be are we going to see a resurgence in home prices as Spring nears or will it continue on its plodding pace?

My prediction is we’ll see stable 2014 home prices as both inventory and sold homes increase to remain mostly in balance with one another.  Despite the sharp increase in inventory in recent months, its still low at a level not seen since 2005 (see below).  More sellers will look to sell in 2014 as life events dictate homeowners to move.  Similarly, more buyers will look to buy in 2014 as folks re-enter the market after a prior short-sale or foreclosure.

In short, we should see a traditional market with a healthy balance between traditional buyers and sellers.  Short-sales and REOs will account for fewer than 15% of the market, real estate speculators will gravitate away from California, 30-year fixed rates will hover around 5%, and transactions will be dominated by repeat buyers.  In fact, I couldn’t agree more with Trulia’s Chief Economist who coined 2014 as “The Year of the Repeat Home Buyer.”  The Blue Waters Group is uniquely equipped to help clients buy, sell, and finance all at the same time.  Moving up or down can be an anxious experience, but our clients find having a single, trusted team handling all facets of their multiple transactions makes for a smoother, confident, and successful transaction.

Even a “normal” market requires just as much know-how, expertise, and calm nerves as any other market we’ve seen over the years.  If you or someone you know is considering a real estate transaction this year, I look forward to the opportunity to share my knowledge and experience.

I recently went up to Donner Lake for a beautiful fall weekend. When I came back it felt like I brought the cool air back with me.  The autumn air here in Sacramento feels crisp, healthy, refreshing.

Similarly, the real estate and mortgage markets are cooling off too.  THIS IS GREAT NEWS!  Much like the changing weather, the current market changes are healthy and refreshing too.  After months of sizzling home price increases, we’re beginning to level off.  Interest rates, too, have cooled off and have fallen from their summer highs.  All of this means home buyers, particularly MOVE-UP buyers, have more opportunities to find their next home at a reasonable price.

This past summer we saw an unbelievable real estate rally.  Much like a caged animal, the market sprung from hibernation and jumped with reckless abandon  Sacramento area average home prices spiked 13.8% from April to August!!!  This rally was exciting and, thankfully, unsustainable.  Had we kept on that pace, we simply would have created a market bubble that surely would have popped in the near future.

 

Instead, we’re seeing prices level off, homes sit longer for sale, and more homes available to purchase.  This is incredibly good news for home buyers.  I had several clients who looked to buy a home earlier this year who opted to sit on the sidelines and wait for the market to calm down.  These clients now look very savvy & patient (you know who you are :-), as the coming months should present them a more reasonable marketplace in which to buy.

Furthermore, the interest rate spike we saw this summer is beginning to reverse.  In May & June, the markets were largely expecting The Fed’s influence on mortgage rates to “taper.,” thus sending rates higher.  Now, the expectation is beginning to change.  With sluggish economic indicators and a political stalemate threatening to bring our country to a halt, uncertainty is high.  As a result, fixed mortgage rates have fallen nearly ½% in the last month.

Again, all of this means home buyers are in a much better position to find the right home without the worry of insane, multiple-offer situations.  If you are a first-time home buyer, there’s no need to panic about being “priced-out” of the market in the near-term. If you are a move-up buyer, this balanced market between buyers and sellers is the perfect environment to buy your new home and sell your old home.

As most clients know, our firm is perfectly suited to help you with all of your home buying, financing AND selling needs.  Many clients find this one-stop-shop form of real estate service incredibly valuable and convenient.  For the rest of the year, if you enlist us to help with all three services (buying & financing a new home as well as selling your old home), we will reduce our listing commission by ½%.  On a $400,000 home that’s a $2000 discount!

Thanks as always for reading Matt’s Memos and your continued support by returning to and referring The Blue Waters Group.