Andrew Lam (Lam team) gives a short video blog market update focused on the Solano County/Northern California housing market. He states the market is a seller's market with about 1–2 months of inventory, notes current mortgage rates are hovering near 4% and are forecast to rise (roughly +1 point in spring/summer, to ~5.5% by Q4 next year), explains that <6 months of inventory indicates a seller's market, and projects steady appreciation (~5% annually) after recent rapid gains (he cites ~67% appreciation over the prior two years and Vacaville average price rising from about 240 to 360). He recommends sellers consider listing now and buyers consider acting before rates rise. Contact info and free resources (Home Value Report; Search for All Homes for Free via MLS) are offered.
Questions this video answers
About 1–2 months of inventory.
About 4%.
Forecast: up about 1 percentage point in spring/summer and up to ~5.5% by Q4 next year.
Anything less than six months of inventory.
About 5% per year.
Chapters
Hi, this is Andrew Lam with the Lam team and I wanted to welcome you to our video blog. Today we'll be discussing local market conditions and before we get started, I want to draw your attention to two links on the blog. Number one, if you're looking to sell your home, you can check out our free Home Value Report link. And also if you're looking to buy a home, you can click the Search for All Homes for Free link and get access to every home on the market direct from our mls. So you have all the info that we do now. Back to the Market Update so a lot of my clients right now are asking me certain things about how is the market, how are interest rates, what type of market are we in right now? Obviously it's winter and there's a bit of seasonality in there, so we just wanted to address that. Number one, it is still a seller's market. We have about one to two months of inventory right now, which means it'll take about that long one to two months for every home on the market currently to sell off. So if no other home came on the market, everything would sell in one to two months. Or some homes would be pulled off the market just because people have the idea that they should take it off now and put it back up in the spring. A couple of things to think about there. Interest rates do look like they're going up pretty soon. We're hovering at about 4%, but that, according to Fannie Mae and a couple of other government agencies, should be going up about a point in spring or summer and going up to even 5.5% in fourth quarter of next year. So something to think about. The buyer market isn't going to be as hot if interest rates are moving up. So if you're thinking of selling your home, you'd probably want to do that sooner rather than later while it is still a seller's market and there are buyers out there who can actually afford their payments currently. Another question we get is how does the current inventory affect pricing? Usually anything less than six months is what kind of classifies the market as a seller's market. Six months in inventory. So being at one to two means your home can sell pretty quickly and usually the faster it sells, the more money it sells for. So definitely a seller's market. And I'm projecting as well as a lot of government agencies and other real estate experts that real estate in California, especially our market here around Solano county, will continue to move up steadily at about 5% every year. We've actually had very high double digit appreciation the last two years, 67% to be exact. The average price in Vacaville, California in fact went from about 240 to currently about 360. So rapid appreciation, but we are still seeing some appreciation even though it's slowing down quite a bit. So even though it's a slower time of year because of that mindset that buyers pull out of the market and sellers should as well, homes are still selling. They're still selling fast. They're still selling for a lot more money than they did a year or two ago. And if you're thinking of selling, now is the time to sell. If you're thinking of buying because of that interest rate issue, I do think that now's the time to buy as well. So thanks for watching and joining our video blog today. If you have any questions for me, any real estate related questions, feel free to give me a call. Email us andrewamrealestate.com we'd be happy to help out. Of course it's free, no obligation, and we just look forward to hearing with you and helping you out. Thanks.
