Sacramento County median home price falls to $195,000 – Sacramento Business, Housing Market News | Sacramento Bee.

There is a lot of interesting data in the above linked Sacramento Bee article in spite of the scary headline. From my point of view, the continuing strong sales numbers are still the top bullet point. Sales in the Sacramento region made their 7th consecutive month of strong year-over-year sales gains with sales 68% higher than in October 2007 and only 4% below very strong September numbers.

There are 7 counties in the Sacramento region and Sacramento county has been the heart of foreclosure activity pushing the median sales price down 35% in the last year. 2/3 of all sales in Sacramento county were foreclosed properties. The other counties in the region saw sales prices decrease from ony 7% to 34%.

The strong sales numbers are approaching the levels of activity in early 2006. Available inventory is now down to less than 3 months supply, but the amount of bank owned property is the unknown variable. If government and lender programs to reduce the amount of foreclosures are successful, this market will turn around in a hurry. I think this quote sums up why sales activiity is so strong:

The bad news is there’s a lot of foreclosures in the market. The good news is they’re selling,” said Pat Shea, Sacramento regional manager for Prudential California Realty. “Teachers, policemen, nurses – they can all buy houses now”.