In the business section of the Sunday paper, they list the recent sales prices of homes by zip code and address. Since you know your budget, you can use that information to see in what neighborhoods you can find homes selling for prices in your price range. Then you can look up those address on zillow and see how many rooms the home had, how many bedrooms. Its a good way to get a general sense of what homes are selling for, not what they are listing for.
You also might want to spend some time looking at this chart. What is shows you is median price per sqft to buy a home.
http://www.sacbee.com/static/live/bu...ome_sales.html
While East Sac might be a nice place to buy a home, on a per sqft basis it has some of the most expensive real estate in the region. If you are looking for a minimum housing size, because you have family members living with you, you may discover that there are no homes in that neighborhood that would give you both the size you need and that you can afford for 150k.
If you are willing to look further away from downtown, what you will notice is that you can find neighborhoods that are still safe but cheaper on a per sqft basis.
Lastly, I wouldn't be in a rush to buy today. I would take your time and make sure I found exactly what I wanted. In the past year housing prices have dropped by about 20%. Additionally most people when they buy a home are pretty leveraged (they come in with a small downpayment). If you bought last year with 20% down and your home did as well the average home in the area, you would have lost your down entire down payment. A twenty percent drop on a 150k home is 30K. As a result, right now renting is still probably much cheaper than buying because housing prices are dropping so quickly.
HousingTracker.net: Median Home Asking Price & Inventory Data for Sacramento, California
Housing prices are still falling today. The largest local employer in the area is the government and they are furloughing people and talking about layoffs because there budget is totally out of whack. The local unemployment rate has gone up by almost 3% in the past year.
http://www.calmis.ca.gov/file/lfmonth/sacr$pds.pdf
If you can find a home you can afford and you really like it, I think you probably should go ahead and buy it, especially if you are planning on staying in the area for the next 7 years or longer.
But if you can't find a home you like, I would be in no hurry to rush into buying, just to stop renting. When prices are falling and the local economy is doing really badly, generally housing prices tend to keep falling, not abruptly turn around.
You have plenty of time to find a home. Don't rush this decision. Find something you really like, then and only then should you buy.
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