It’s tough to be a renter in the Sacramento market now. Per the US Census Bureau, the Q1 2022 rental vacancy rate dropped to 3.0%. Good luck to anyone trying to find a home to rent.
For appraisers and real estate agents, this data is published for the top 75 markets in the US by the US Census Bureau. Go here to grab the data plus some other cool stuff from the Feds.
Like many appraisers, the past two years have been crazy for me. Life is starting to slow down so I hope to post more frequently.
I hope you’ve had your Covid-19 vaccine shots. If not and you’re in California, sign up now here.
Inventory continues to be low in the region with rising prices and competition for most properties. Sales volume is rising as shown below for Davis and Woodland:
Inventory has risen in Davis but is still on the low side. Woodland continues to run significantly below normal.
Prices overall are increasing rapidly in Woodland and moderately in Davis. Keep in mind that specific market segments may be trending differently depending upon demand.
Everyone is talking about competing against 15 offers and prices 30% over initial list. Davis and Woodland are competitive, but not that competitive, as shown below.
Arbuckle is an unincorporated community of approximately 5,000 people located about 45 minutes northwest of Sacramento along Interstate Highway 5 in Colusa County. It features homes built in the 1940-50s plus newer subdivisions built over the past 20 years and is surrounded by farmland.
Inventory is very low, not that unusual given how small the Arbuckle market is. Sales volume in 2020 was down 10% from 2019, not unusual for the area. Prices have increased significantly over the past 12 months as shown below.
A longer look shows the effect of the pandemic on pricing:
Of the 37 homes sold in Arbuckle since 1/1/20 in Metrolist, 17 had one offer and 20 had more than one with a peak of 17 offers for one property. Competition has picked up in Arbuckle, following trends throughout the area.
Every day I receive calls and offers from lenders, agents, and buyers hoping I can help them with a purchase appraisal. I’m very fortunate to be busy and can’t finish anything quickly now because of my workload. I strongly suggest everyone to be patient if an appraisal is part of your transaction. This graph below from Freddie Mac will help explain the situation.
Appraisal volume ties directly to interest rates. When rates fall, mortgage financing rises and drives appraisal volume up. When rates rise, appraisal volume falls. However, as shown above, the number of appraisers in the US who work with lenders has been relatively stable over the past eight years. The interest rate cycle rises and falls much more rapidly than the time it takes to develop a productive appraiser, causing appraiser shortages in times like now.
Good luck.
I enjoy many aspects of my career as a residential real estate appraiser. I’m self employed so I have no one to blame but myself; I set my own hours; I get to see a lot of places in the region; I spend much of my time trying to find meaning in data then communicating my findings; I even get to use a laser.
The best part of my job is the great animals I get to meet every day. I grew up with dogs in the house and have always gotten along with them. After college in the first year of our marriage, a friend offered us a kitten, Damien, who enriched our lives for 21 years. Thanks Dave.
Being able to read animals and owners is a key skill. I have yet to be bit after entering more than 5,000 homes over the past 18+ years which shows I’ve been successful.
(So that means I’ll get bit on my next inspection, I know how it works)
Anyway, here are pictures of some of the animals I’ve met over the past year.
I even met some goats recently.
And this is Brooke, our rescue from the pound, and Cat, who showed up on our patio.
What has been your experience with animals while inspecting? Any harrowing stories to share? Or have you been lucky like me and not yet bitten?
It was my pleasure to speak at the Sacramento chapter of the Real Estate Appraisers Association last night at the Story of Value class with my good friend Ryan Lundquist. I discussed ways to explain markets in residential real estate appraisals and focused on using graphs and was surprised to see that maybe half of the crowd didn’t include graphs in their reports. This post is the first to offer advice and instructions on how to create meaningful graphs for residential appraisers.
Four appraisers out of 50 in the room reported using histograms. The histogram is a great tool for analyzing residential real estate markets that all appraisers should use.
For our needs, a histogram is a graph that shows the distribution of one continuous variable. The histogram splits the variable into equal-sized bins and counts the number of occurrences. It works well for important residential real estate variables like gross living area, lot size, age, and sale price.
Bin size is key to creating a useful histogram. Bins too wide loses meaning as your data is clumped together. Bins too narrow spreads the histogram out too much.
The graph above shows the sales of homes in a market area with homes of certain sizes. There is one sale less than 1000 sf and one more than 3500 sf. The most frequent size of home sold recently is around 2000 sf with the bulk of the homes in the 1400 sf to 2000 sf range.
Every report prepared for a lender asks the question “Is the subject conforming?” At a glance, any home sold in this neighborhood with between 1300 sf and 2600 sf is reasonably conforming in size. There are no sales in the 4000 sf to 5000 sf range so any homes in the neighborhood of that size are likely non-conforming. The two extreme sales, at 800 sf and 5000 sf, are unusual and likely non-conforming.
This next histogram examines the frequency of sale price in the market area. The most frequent sale price is in the $240,000 to $280,000 range with $360,000 to $400,000 the second most frequent range. A home in contract at $375,000 is fairly typical. A contract price of $700,000 is very unusual and is indicative of a non-conforming home.
The first two graphs were generated using ggplot2 in RStudio. Here’s an example from Excel 365 showing the year built for homes of sales in a market:
Most homes sold in this market area (Placerville, CA small residential acreage) were built in 1970s and 1980s. A couple of homes were built in the 1800s and there are a couple of newly built homes.
The lender forms used by appraisers ask for similar information in a table format:
Which describes the market better, the two histograms or the table?
Here’s how to use the latest version of Excel to make a histogram. This page has instructions for the latest version and older versions.
Start with your data in an Excel workbook with the top row field names and rows below sales data.
Starting with the field name, select the data to generate the histogram (ctl + shift + down arrow will select all consecutive data down)
Press F11 to insert a graph. Then chose Change Chart Type
Select Histogram then press Ok
You’ve made your first histogram!
However, it’s really ugly. Standard formatting for histograms is to have no space between the bins (columns). To fix that, double left click on one of the bins to activate the Data Series editor. Select the bars to active Series Option
Change the Gap Width to 0%. Notice how the columns come together. If you like having gaps between the columns, set the Gap Width to 6%.
To change the bin width, double left click on the x-axis labels (GLA in this case). Using the Format Axis Axis options, select the Bin Width control and type in what you want. Play with it until you’re happy with the shape of your histogram.
Excel defaulted to a bin width of 370 sf. Below is what the histogram looks like with bin width equal to 100 sf:
Here’s bin width equal to 500:
Here’s bin width equal to 200:
Which one appears most useful to you?
I use histograms to understand some aspect of a market. How big are the homes? When were the homes built? How big are the lots in the neighborhood? What do homes sell for in the market area?
Then consider where the subject fits in the market. Is it bigger than typical? If so, you have support for concluding market value is higher than typical. Is it smaller? Well, now you can show a reason why the price is lower.
Let’s consider the histogram above. The subject is one of the larger homes in the neighborhood but still relatively common in size. I would expect, without knowing anything else, that the subject’s market value is on the higher side for the neighborhood but with a reasonable number of homes larger than the subject. Take a look at the graph below.
What if the subject was one of the largest homes in the neighborhood? The subject’s market value is likely on the upper end of the neighborhood range. Also, there are fewer directly competitive sales, implying market value may be less reliable in this market area than for a smaller home. Now let’s look at an extreme case.
I pity the appraiser asked to appraise a 6500 sf house in this market. However, you do have sales either smaller or larger. Here’s the time to really open your eyes to what is a competitive sale. Throw this graph in your report and your client will immediately see your data difficulty.
After you arrive at market value and as part of your reconciliation, consider using a histogram to support your market value.
“The subject is newer than typical, above average quality custom home on a larger than typical lot. As shown above, the subject’s market value is on the higher side for the greater market area, as expected based on its superior characteristics.”
I hope you agree that histograms can be a powerful tool for appraisers.
Ways to use histograms:
I learned about histograms from George Dell. Thanks George. Get smart by taking his Stats, Graphs, and Data Science classes or at the very least, sign up for his blog. More info on George’s website.
Postscript: I am working towards moving away from Excel to using R, the data analysis package. I’ll link to the R code used for the two graphs as a separate post/update soon.
Once again, the fine state of North Dakota has requested regulatory relief from mandatory federal appraisal requirements. Current law requires lenders to obtain independent appraisals when loan limits are above certain levels for federally related transactions. This law, passed in the aftermath of the savings and loan crisis in the 1980s, supports prudent risk management for a lending industry that has shown time and again an inability to manage itself.
This time, Governor Doug Burgum has requested a five year exemption on the argument that appraisers are hard to find in North Dakota. His argument for the waiver is that there is a shortage of appraisers in North Dakota. But is that really true?
I decided to test this. I downloaded a list of all active appraisers in the US from the Appraisal Subcommittee website and compared the number of active appraisers in each state to that state’s population. If North Dakota has a shortage of active appraisers, the population to appraiser ratio would be higher than in California, my state, where there is an oversupply in Southern California, right? I prepared the two graphs below to answer this for 1) residential clients (residential appraisals can be completed by any licensed appraiser); and 2) commercial lending clients (certified general appraisers only). So where does North Dakota fit in?
As of yesterday, North Dakota had 2545 people per appraiser. California, in contrast, has 4,194 people per appraiser. The US overall has 3,490 people per appraiser. North Dakota is in the top 15 for coverage for all appraisers.
North Dakota has even better coverage for commercial with 4,069 people per active certified general appraiser (US Coverage: 8,371 people per appraiser). It is top 5 for coverage in the US.
Do 35 states have a shortage of residential appraisers? Not that I’ve heard. Do 45 states have a shortage of commercial appraisers? No other state is asking for relief.
So why does North Dakota want undermine prudent financial safeguards?
I hope everyone who reads this will comment on the Federal Registry. Use this link. Comments close on 7/1/19.
I’m excited to join the nationwide network of appraisers Find My Appraiser.
The residential lending industry is moving away from appraisals after seven years of rapid appreciation when many markets in Northern California are showing signs of slowdown and stability. I joined FindMyAppraiser.com because of their strong advocacy for appraisers and consumer protection.
From the FindMyAppraiser.com website:
“FINDMYAPPRAISER.COM IS A NATIONAL REAL ESTATE APPRAISER DIRECTORY AND JOINT MARKETING CAMPAIGN
FindMyAppraiser.com serves as the link between local property appraisers and the public that needs these services.
Let the buyer beware! Now more than ever American consumers must protect themselves when purchasing a home, buying rental property or investing in a business. These decisions are “life changing” and can effect consumers for many years to come. Buying a home is the biggest financial investment one will make and getting an accurate property value from a qualified local appraiser is best way to make sure you are making a wise decision.
Many banks don’t order appraisals! That’s right. Many home buyers believe banks will order an appraisal when they apply for a mortgage but more and more banks are using AVMs (Automated Valuation Modules) or out-of-the-area “valuers” in the mortgage process. These valuations are not performed for your benefit, they are only used by the bank. You don’t own them and you should not rely on them to make your purchase decision. You need a properly trained market expert. You need an Appraiser.
FindMyAppraiser.com is dedicated to supporting professional appraisers and promoting consumer protection.”
Thanks to Phil Crawford and Lori Noble for putting this together.
I’m in Portland this Thursday to give a two hour talk on tips for appraising complex properties at the ASA-IFA Portland/Rose City Chapter Monthly Luncheon.
Hope to see you there.
Recently Brian Melsheimer and I spent time discussing the benefits of joining an appraiser organization with Dustin Harris, the Appraiser Coach.
http://theappraisercoach.libsyn.com/395-why-should-an-appraiser-join-an-association
I enjoyed the discussion. Thanks to Brian for the introduction and to Dustin for his insightful questions.
Much of what we discussed is covered in the article I wrote for Appraisal Today (link).
Are you a member of your local appraiser association? Or a national group? If so, what are the benefits? If not, what are your reasons for not joining a group?
I’ve posted the full version of my article Why You Should Join An Appraisal Organization with links to the organizations mentioned in the article. Now is an important time for the residential appraisal industry to join together because of threats to our place in the US real estate market. We need to spread the word of the role of appraisers, especially to federal regulators who want to diminish our standing.
If you haven’t heard, federal financial oversight groups such as the FDIC, Federal Reserve, and others have proposed changing the de minimus for residential lending in the US from $250,000 to $400,000. This is exactly the wrong time to reduce oversight in residential real estate given widespread signs nationally of markets slowing and potentially nearing a peak. Did we learn nothing in the last market crash?
Ryan Lundquist has an excellent summary on his blog (link). I strongly encourage you to sign the petition started by Ryan and Jonathan Miller at change.org (link) and to comment in the federal register about why this is a bad idea.
I want to add to the praise for the first AppraiserFest held last week in San Antonio. Kudos to Phil Crawford, Lori Noble, and Mark Skapinetz for a great first event! I’m very glad I made the decision to attend.
I was struck by how positive everyone was at the event. Even though the residential appraisal business is under threat from changing client needs and reduced loan volumes, AppraiserFest speakers gave us many ideas for how to grow our business.
I greatly appreciate that this was an appraiser-centered event with a distinct lack of client presence.
Attendees were younger than typical for industry events, a refreshing change. Also, a larger percentage of attendees were women.
I spent much of my time at AppraiserFest with George Dell and Steve Smith at the Valuemetrics booth discussing data analysis with attendees. Hanging out with George and Steve for several days was like a master’s seminar in appraisal. I’m so fortunate to have mentors so willing to share their experience like these two.
Tom, Ryan, Jamie, and Bill with yours truly at AppraiserFest
Meeting online friends in real life was the best part of AppraiserFest. I was fortunate to break bread with some of the best appraisal bloggers in the country including Tom Horn, Jamie Owen, and Bill Cobb. And Ryan Lundquist, a long-time friend in real life (!), was kind enough to put up with my snoring. Thanks for sharing the room Ryan.
This was my first trip to San Antonio so I had to visit the Alamo and the Riverwalk.
It was great catching up with Diane, John, and Teresa from the Excel class I gave in Portland two years ago. Can’t wait to see you again.
Takeaways:
I will be back next year!