The El Dorado Hills housing market, a predominately residential portion of the larger Central Valley and Sacramento real estate markets, appeared to be in the midst of a rebound following the economic recession. Sacramento foreclosures were declining, and other key indicators seem to point towards a more positive direction for local real estate. According to a June 25, 2010 report from the Sacramento Bee, “What's true on national news may not be true where you live. Nine days ago the nation hyperventilated because a federal agency reported May single-family housing starts fell 17 percent from April. It was "the largest monthly drop since January 1991." Oh no! But Thursday came new California counts from the Construction Industry Research Board. May housing starts in Sacramento, Placer, El Dorado and Yolo counties were up almost 10 percent. End of the world? Not here. Nobody said recovering from a crash would be easy or fun. But one day, one house at a time, this market is resetting itself. Foreclosed homes get buyers at today's prices. These owners stay and heal neighborhoods. Negative equity – owing more than your house is worth – is still terrible. But it's slowly, slowly easing. A year ago more than half of area mortgaged houses had negative equity. Now it's less than half. The trend is moving the right direction. It is not getting worse.”
Foreclosed properties, which used to be a disproportionately large component of El Dorado Hills homes for sale, are becoming less dominant relative to a year ago. According to a June 10, 2010 article from the Sacramento Business Journal, “Foreclosure filings in the Sacramento region, including notice of default, trustee sales notices and repossessions by banks, were down 12.53 percent in May compared with the same period one year ago, real estate information firm RealtyTrac reported Thursday. But May’s number of filings was slightly higher, by 2.25 percent, than in April of this year. According to the report, 1,488 homes in the four-county region became bank owned through foreclosure sales during the month, the company said.” It is unclear how the expiration of the federal tax credit, which spurred many non-foreclosure sales, will impact either sales numbers or the rate of foreclosure.