It seems no matter where I go or who I talk to these days the conversation eventually ends up at the rumor about thousands of Sacramento foreclosed homes being held by lenders.  Supposedly these homes have been taken back by lenders over the past six months and are now going to be released.  I am sure there is always some inventory of homes which have been foreclosed by lenders and not yet on the market.  The reasons for this include providing time for occupants to move out, preparing the home for market and even selecting an agent to market the house.  Holding these houses longer or for other reasons and in large numbers doesn’t make sense to me. 

Someone said the lenders didn’t want to hurt the market as activity levels started to pick up.  When was the last time you could verify a lender did something noble for the community and can you imagine the guys at Bank of America and Wells Fargo agreeing to sit on these expensive assets for the good of the Sacramento real estate market?  Every day I see firsthand how they deal with their own customers who are struggling to make their house payments.  It is not pretty!

We have clients who want to buy but are now waiting to see if thousands of homes come on the market and drive prices down even further.  I have talked to agents and companies who are now counting on this flood of inventory to maintain their business.  Like all rumors it is hard to find out where this started and even harder to find any facts to support it.   Although not a large drag on the market the rumor of 20,000 homes about to be dumped on the Sacramento area market has caused a dampening.

Over the past few months the Sacramento real estate market has been very active, especially in the lower price points and in certain neighborhoods.   Often homes priced below $300,000 which are clean and show well are going for over asking price and have multiple offers.  The foreclosure overload rumor has in the past few weeks tempered this activity but as the days and weeks roll by without a dump of vacant bank owned property in Sacramento and the surrounding area I believe our local market will continue to build steam thought the summer.