By Sara Beth Williams–
Home prices in Citrus Heights have remained relatively flat, mirroring broader regional trends, according to Sacramento-based real estate appraiser and housing analyst Ryan Lundquist. But there are signs of change, and there are conflicting views between buyers and sellers of what the future of the housing market may hold.
In a recent blog post, Ryan Lundquist compared the current market to the famous flick, “Back to the Future,” saying, “Sellers are stuck in the past and buyers are living in the future.”
While final data for median or average home price in Citrus Heights for April and May 2025 wasn’t immediately available, Lundquist confirmed in an email that activity has been cooling.
“There has been increased uncertainty lately in the housing market in light of economic uncertainty, and that has led to fewer buyers getting into contract,” Lundquist said.
That uncertainty is reflected in the growing gap between active listings and closed sales. In May 2024, there were just 52 active listings on the market in Citrus Heights. This year, that number has jumped to 90, which isn’t a historically high number but is still significant in a market where buyer activity has dropped.
Buyers, Lundquist said, are living in the future, “expecting 2007 vibes,” while sellers are still stuck in the past, thinking it’s 2021.
In another blog post, Lundquist addressed buyer concerns of a possible housing market crash like the crash that occurred in 2007 and 2008. In comparing the market of 2007 to the market of 2025, Lundquist explained that while there are signs of the market softening, the supply in 2025 is nothing like the supply in 2007.
In 2007, the housing supply reached over 10,000 in the county. So far, stats do not show nearly as much inventory as in 2007, according to Lundquist’s blog.
Homes throughout Sacramento and surrounding counties are taking longer on average to sell because there are fewer buyers, Lundquist said. When fewer people are making offers, homes tend to linger on the market longer, softening pricing power.
In an email to The Sentinel, Lundquist said Citrus Heights mirrored Sacramento County during the years of 2007 through 2009, presenting similar numbers of sales of distressed properties, which were either bank-owned sales or short sales. Where the county reported 84 percent of sales as distressed properties in the first quarter of 2009, Citrus Heights reported 84.7 percent of sales as distressed properties.
“In short, what happens in the county is what happens to Citrus Heights,” Lundquist said. “All ships rise and fall with the tide in real estate.”
Lundquist said while the current local market is also softening, like the rest of the region, he noted that Citrus Heights has outperformed the rest of Sacramento County in some key areas.
“It’s taking about ten fewer days to get into contract compared to Sacramento County as a whole,” Lundquist said. “And at the lower price points, Citrus Heights is more competitive, with a higher percentage of homes receiving multiple offers.”
County-wide, Lundquist said there is also still strong competition for properties that check all the boxes for price, condition, upgrades, and location, however there is weak competition for overpriced homes.
One chart on his blog post showed an average of 3.9 offers on homes priced below $400,000, compared to an average of 2 offers for houses priced between $400,000 and $500,000. The chart also shows 1.8 average offers on homes priced between $1 million and $1.25 million and on homes over $1.5 million, and 1.7 average offers on homes priced between $600,000 and $700,000 and on homes priced $800,000 to $1 million. There are also many listings which received zero offers.
Lundquist emphasized, though, that the market is “not crashing right now” and that it’s too early to build a doom narrative on only one month of preliminary data from May.
Lundquist told readers to expect a follow-up with final statistics from May to be released in mid-June on his blog.
