Sac Makes Lists of Hot Places to Buy

Sacramento is making lists left and right – lists and rankings of some of the nation’s top real estate markets. Realtor.com listed it among the top 20 hottest housing markets in July. More than half the list consisted of California cities, including Stockton and Yuba City.

“These hottest markets are the best in the country from both a supply and demand perspective,” Jonathan Smoke, chief economist at Realtor.com, said. “Sellers are seeing listings move much more quickly than the rest of the country and at an accelerating pace from just last month. Meanwhile, these markets are clearly attractive to buyers as the listings in these markets are viewed as much as three times more often than the national average.”

Earlier this year Forbes named Sacramento as one of the top 20 cities to invest in housing. The list accounted for cities where opportunities and populations were increasing. Sacramento was the only city in California (ranked 19) to make the cut with Forbes, primarily because, like Minneapolis and Atlanta, “it fared badly during the recession, but is recovering.”

“They’re large, lots of people there, lots of renters,” Ingo Winzer, president of Local Market Monitor, said. “Like ocean-liners they move slowly, but now we can expect this to continue for some time, so they’ll be stable markets. Regular investors like some predictability and stability.”

Forbes noted Sacramento’s average home price of $259,208 and three percent population growth from 2010 to 2013. It also acknowledged a 2.3 percent annual job growth and relatively low unemployment rate of 6.6 percent.

The majority of Forbes’ list was comprised of cities in Texas and Florida. Other Western cities that made the cut included Tacoma, Salt Lake City, Provo, and Phoenix.