El Dorado Hills/Folsom vs. W Roseville (Sacramento, Elk Grove: bank owned, for sale) - California (CA) - City-Data Forum

Marsh511 · 05-30-2009, 12:27 PM

I posted elsewhere with detailed questions on W. Roseville (& Rocklin, Lincoln), but another area with homes for sale that caught our eye is the El Dorado Hills/Folsom area. My main concern is commute time from Sacramento Airport. What is a good estimate of how long it takes to drive to SMF from El Dorado Hills? The environment/demographics/schools actually look better in ED Hills, but am I going to regret it everytime I need to catch a 7 a.m. flight out from SMF? I'll be doing that about once every 2-3 weeks (not everyday), so a little commute is ok. The rest of the time, I'll telecommute from my home office. Schools (elementary age) also seem better in ED Hills than W. Roseville, though they both seem to be rated fairly high. Our target would be homes around 4000 sq ft in the mid-upper $400K range. So yes, we would need to try and catch a great Short Sale or REO.
Thanks!

Jimbo15 · 05-30-2009, 01:53 PM

You are spending a lot of time looking in the wrong neighborhoods. If you are looking for a home with 4000 sqft for less than 500k, you are looking to spend no more than $125 sqft.

Of the neighborhoods you mentioned, only in Lincoln are you likely to find homes selling in that price range. If you are looking for other options you probably will be looking at either Natomas (95834,95835) Elk Grove (95757,95758) and West Sac/Brodrick (95691, 95605).

Here is a list of the per sqft selling price by zipcode in the region. Most sales in the market right now are short sales, so its probably unrealistic to assume that you will find big newer homes selling for significant discounts off these already discounted prices.

DQNews - Sacramento Bee Zip Code Chart

As betweeen Natomas and Elk Grove, overall the schools are going to be better in Elk Grove than Natomas, but Natomas is much closer to the airport if you need to fly fairly often.

Marsh511 · 05-30-2009, 10:39 PM

So Jimbo, are you saying the 3-4 new listings/week I keep getting from Metro-list and Realtor.com are not legitimate? I am seeing properties listed for around $100-$120/sq ft (x 4500 sq ft) in the 95747 area, some in the Morgan Creek communities. Granted, these are typically short sales and may not be properties in the best of shape. But are you saying they don't really exist. There was a beautiful property on French Creek Ct. (Lakemont side of Morgan Creek) - 4800 sq ft executive level home with a huge lot (well over 20000 sq ft) that was on the market for about the past 2 weeks for 480K. It appears someone made an offer on it the past few days, and yes, it was a short sale...but it did exist. I may be just looking at numbers and websites at this point, so please enlighten me if there's a "reality check" that I'm missing by just looking at the listings that come across my desk. I also saw someone post 3-4 days ago that their offer for 450K on a 4900+ sq ft home in Morgan Creek (Pinehurst) was accepted.

Thanks!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jimbo15

You are spending a lot of time looking in the wrong neighborhoods. If you are looking for a home with 4000 sqft for less than 500k, you are looking to spend no more than $125 sqft.

Jimbo15 · 05-31-2009, 01:22 PM

Essentially yes.

I am pretty sure you are looking at ads for active short sale contingencies. These are offers made by desperate people who are upside down on their loans who put the properties up for sale and then hope to get the bank to approve these sales. But the banks don't have enough staff to review these offers. Often there is more than one lender on the property and for the banks administratively its easier to just go through the foreclosure process.

You can go ahead and bid on these properties, expect several months to hear back from the bank and ultimately expect the deal to not get consumated.

Effectively these are phantom listings.

annaboyd · 06-21-2009, 02:31 PM

Many listing website will only show you the "Active" portion of the status and not show the "Short Sale" or "Short Sale Contingent" after it. Many short sales are priced ridiculously low just to entice an offer as most lenders won't even start working on a short sale till they have offer in hand. What happens months later is lender will come back and ask for market price for home and then buyer walks as he was hoping for a deal. Short sales have about a 1 in 7 chance of success. They are not for people with any time constraints as they can take anywhere from 30 days to 6 months or more - particularly if there are 2 lenders - which most short sales have.

Your best bet for the best price is a bank owned OR someone who has a lot of equity in their home and time=money to them - and those sellers are out there.

Getting to the airport by 7am? You should be reasonably OK with commute - starts really bogging just after that. There are back roads to go and negate some of the traffic.

Marsh511 · 06-23-2009, 09:59 AM

Backroads - between El Dorado Hills and Sacramento Airport??? Seems like no matter how you go, you need to cut diagonally through the core of metro traffic. Where's the shortcut??

That said, what about Lincoln & Rocklin? Frankly, I'm seeing a dearth of info on Rocklin (not just re: traffic, but anything). Schools there seem to be highly rated, but the properties seem a little more cramped/cookie-cutter than West Roseville. Any thoughts? EDH still looks the most enticing, except for (a) distance, (b) maybe hotter due to the foothills, and (c) asbestos concerns?? Someone else noted "recent issues" in EDH - could you refute or explain that? We have a 3-day trip coming up to see these areas, and I'd like some advice so I know if we should leave EDH in our search plans. FYI - we are not "afraid" of Short Sales since we have the time (if not the nerves) to wait them out LOL.

Quote:

Originally Posted by annaboyd

Getting to the airport by 7am? You should be reasonably OK with commute - starts really bogging just after that. There are back roads to go and negate some of the traffic.

annaboyd · 06-24-2009, 09:01 AM

Marsh511,
The back roads I was referring to is the nice country drive of White Rock Rd, but yes, it will only get you as far as Zinfandel before you need to hop back on the Freeway. Maybe just leave a little earlier? The I-80 side with their 4 lanes has their bog down of traffic also, though.

There aren't "recent issues re EDH and asbestos". They talk about it every few years, then it dies down, then they talk about it again.

When a person is in escrow, they get a report called a Natural Hazard Disclosure Report. There is a specific report for Naturally Occurring Asbestos and if your specific home is in an area that has it.
There's veins of it running through the foothills of California and there's specific maps showing where these veins are. IF you're home is in such an area (many are not), and you had major concerns but still wanted the home you could hire someone to test the specific dirt at the home you are buying.

Contrary to what the news sources make it sound like - this finding on the Natural Hazard report doesn't come up that often.

They found some a year or two ago in a subdivision that was being built and the County enforced
their guidelines to continue building. Water trucks at the site - dirt couldn't be disturbed higher than "x" feet off the ground. The idea being it should be contained on site. The potential danger is when the dust goes in the air and travels from the site. One of the reasons there is pressure not to build the custom home development of Oak Ridge which is between El Dorado Hills Blvd and Silva Valley Parkway. Various areas of the development have had their dirt tested and about half of the
areas tested had the Naturally Occurring Asbestos - the kind you don't want to dynamite into or I should say the nearby residents don't want the land disturbed.

There's nothing to be afraid of in a short sale - and as long as someone is willing to play the numbers game it may work out. Just don't lock yourself up in the deal to such an extent that you
can't act on another property should one come along while you were waiting.

Good luck!

Rocketir · 06-26-2009, 08:45 AM

You should be looking in W. Roseville. Great communities. Crocker Ranch is my favorite, but you have Fiddyment farms, Doyle Ranch, Morgan Creek. All in your price ranch and some are gated communities. 20-25 min commute at any time to the airport.
The problem with ED is that you HAVE to go through Sac. Downtown or somehow cross the river which can be a pain.
Rocklin is also a super area, however it would add to your commute about 10 mins but if thats no big deal...
There are deals out there. I just recently bought a 4k+ sq/ft house for under $115 sq/ft in a gated community. it was a REO house but the only thing wrong with it was the dead grass. So there are out there. Good luck and keep looking.

sms1967 · 11-10-2009, 05:19 PM

Jimbo is wrong. 4000 sq feet isn't easy to find for mid $450k but you can certainly find homes in that price range for 2500 square feet and up. Even Granite Bay, the 'elite' community next door has listings now for under $500k. None of the stuff I'm referring to is REO/short sale... it's all on the MLS through realtor.com. Enjoy!

Rob98LS1 · 11-10-2009, 07:06 PM

When you go to visit consider checking Edh as well. As you stated that you would be needing to get a flight out at sac every 2-3 weeks, commuting there from e-hills wouldn't be that big of a deal. Straight shot down 50 and hit 5 north and that's it. depending on when you go, you could do it in something like 45 minutes. Considering I really like that area, I would not hesitate one bit to do that commute every 2-3 weeks.

If you stop in Rocklin, be sure to check out both the old and new parts of town! Roseville also has a nice historic district that should be explored just as much as its newer suburbs (west side) and business/entertainemnt side (east side). Have fun and give us feedback about it!