Carmichael’s median home price slipped to $535,646 in the three months ending August, down 2.5% from $549,500 a year earlier, according to newly released data from Redfin. But that headline figure obscures a subtler story: the median price per square foot fell just 0.8%, from $333 to $330. When the median sale price drops faster than the per-square-foot price, it usually signals that buyers gravitated toward smaller homes — the mix of what sold shifted, more than the underlying value of the housing itself. The roughly 1.7 percentage-point gap between the two measures suggests square-foot values in this suburb of about 77,000 people held up far better than the headline decline implies.

A closer look at prices

The distinction matters because a 2.5% drop in the median can read as a meaningful cooldown, while a near-flat price per square foot points to a market that has largely held its ground. Buyers in the three months ending August appear to have favored smaller or lower-priced properties, which pulls the median down without reflecting a broad decline in home values.

Over a longer horizon, prices remain roughly where they were two years ago, when the median stood at $560,000 in the three months ending August 2024. Compared with five years ago, prices are up just 1.1% from $530,000 in the summer of 2021 — a modest gain that trails general inflation over the same stretch. Nationally, home prices continued to rise year-over-year, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index.

On a month-to-month basis, the median eased 2.2% from $548,000 in the three months ending July, a small move that carries limited signal given typical late-summer variation.

Sales and market speed

Sales activity was the clearest bright spot. A total of 212 homes changed hands in the three months ending August, up 14% from 186 during the same period last year. Sales held steady from the prior period, which also recorded 212.

Homes also sold faster year-over-year. The median time on market was 27 days, down from 31 days a year earlier — meaning the typical home found a buyer about four days sooner than last summer. That said, homes sat noticeably longer than they did in the immediately preceding period, when the median was just 18 days, a 50% increase that reflects the normal seasonal slowdown as summer winds down. By comparison, homes were moving in just 14 days two years ago and a remarkable 8 days at the height of the 2021 market.

Other signs point to continued competition. The share of homes selling above list price rose to 32.4%, up from 27.4% a year earlier, and the sale-to-list ratio held at 99.5%, meaning the typical home sold just under asking. Active inventory stood at 429 listings, up 5.9% from a year ago, giving buyers modestly more to choose from.

With 429 active listings against the current sales pace, Carmichael has about 2.0 months of supply — well within the range that defines a sellers’ market, where limited choice tends to favor those listing their homes.

Affordability and borrowing costs

Affordability remains stretched. At the current median price, a home costs about 6.2 times the median household income of $85,914, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures — comfortably above the 5x threshold generally considered unaffordable. A buyer putting 20% down on a median-priced home would face a monthly principal-and-interest payment of roughly $2,757, or about 38.5% of median monthly household income.

There is a small measure of relief compared with last year. Despite the 30-year fixed mortgage rate averaging 6.67% in August, up slightly from 6.59% a year earlier, the lower median price means the typical monthly payment came in about $48 less than it did a year ago — $2,757 versus $2,805. Rates ticked up from an average of 6.54% in July, according to Freddie Mac data.

Taken together, the data describes a Carmichael market that remains tilted toward sellers — homes selling faster and more often above asking than a year ago — even as the headline median has softened. For buyers, the falling median owes more to what has been selling than to any broad retreat in home values, a nuance the per-square-foot figures make plain.