Sacramento, Emerging from Bay Area's Shadow, Becoming Booming Alternative #realestate #homeownership #investment

Source:  Curbed

Many out-of-towners are discovering the burgeoning city of Sacramento, which is equidistant from San Francisco and Lake Tahoe and offers the best aspects of the Northern California lifestyle for a fraction of the price.  This "cow town," in fact, was recently anointed one of the nation's busiest real estate markets for 2017 by Realtor.com.

According to the Sacramento Association of REALTORS, new construction hasn't kept up with demand, while buyers from the Bay Area are beginning to flood in, leading to incredible competition for new developments and the city's stock of Victorian homes as well as a steady uptick in the average home price.  It hit $317,000 in April, up from $311,000 in March and $295,000 in April 2016.  Median rent is up 18 percent since 2000, according to the California Housing Partnership Coalition.  The average home is on the market for just eight days, and homes near the $300,000 mark were spending just 14 days on the market, a record low.

Is the Bay Area changing Sacramento, or as one local realtor, Pat Shea of Lyon Real Estate, put it, has what happened to San Francisco - the insane homes prices and ever-tightening inventory - already arrived in the nearby city?  It's true that Bay Area prices - $531 a square foot on average compared to $228 per square foot in Sacramento - have meant more people are relocating to Sacramento (20,000 a year, according to census data).  With telecommuting increasingly acceptable, more are willing to make the commute or split their time between both cities.  According to 2013 census data, of the 2.4 million people living in the six-county Sacramento region, about 119,000 work in the Bay.

But Sacramento isn't growing faster than any large California city, at 1.4 percent more residents a year, simply because it's a cheaper satellite city for Bay Area techies.  It's coming into its own, and just happens to be near a metro area filled with residents looking for a cheaper option for urban living.

Check out the full story here:  https://www.curbed.com/2017/7/11/15949960/sacramento-real-estate-development-bay-area

---