If you bought your home in Folsom, El Dorado Hills, Granite Bay, or anywhere in the Sierra Foothills before about 2005, you’re sitting on more equity than you probably want to think about. I have clients who paid $280,000 for a house that’s worth $1.1 million today, and most of them aren’t sure what to do with that information.
I’m going to tell you what I tell them at the kitchen table, which is this: if you’ve been thinking about selling in the next two or three years, the conditions you’re waiting for probably aren’t coming. The smart move for most longtime owners is to sell now. Not in a panicked way, not tomorrow, but inside the next twelve months while the math still works the way it does.
Here’s why I’m saying that out loud instead of giving you the usual “every market is a good market” answer.
What changed, and why “wait for rates to drop” stopped being good advice
For about two years, the standard advice from agents was “wait until rates come down — buyers will come back and prices will jump.” That advice made sense in 2023. It doesn’t make sense anymore.
Rates have settled into a range that buyers have adjusted to. The shock is gone. What that means for you, as a seller, is that the buyer pool you have right now — the people relocating from the Bay Area, the families upgrading from Roseville or Sacramento, the cash buyers from out of state — that’s roughly the buyer pool you’re going to have. Lower rates won’t unlock a flood of new demand the way people keep predicting, because the people who would have been those buyers have already either bought, given up, or moved somewhere cheaper.
Meanwhile, the supply side is moving against you slowly. More longtime owners are deciding to sell. Builders are still finishing inventory in Folsom Ranch, in Serrano, out toward Lincoln. The number of homes competing with yours twelve months from now will almost certainly be higher than it is today. That’s not a crash signal — the Foothills market isn’t going to collapse — but it does mean the leverage you have as a seller is at its peak right about now.
The longtime-owner math nobody talks about honestly
Most agents won’t say this part because it sounds like they’re pressuring you. I’ll say it because it’s just true: the people sitting on the most equity have the most to lose by waiting, not the most to gain.
Here’s what I mean. If you bought in 1998 for $310,000 and your house is worth $1.05 million today, the dollar value of a 5% price drop is $52,500. That’s a real number. If the market softens — and over a long enough timeline, every market softens — you’re absorbing that hit on a house you already paid off years ago. You’re not protecting future appreciation. You’re protecting equity you’ve already earned.
The people who benefit most from holding are the ones who still owe on the mortgage and need more appreciation to make the math work. If you’ve been in your home twenty-plus years, that’s not you. You’re past the point where holding rewards you. You’re now in the part of the cycle where holding mostly just exposes you.
I’m not saying sell out of fear. I’m saying sell because you’ve already won, and the smart move when you’ve won is to take the chips off the table.
The Prop 19 window is actually open right now
This is the piece longtime Foothills owners ask me about more than anything else, and a lot of you are getting bad information about it.
If you’re 55 or older, Proposition 19 lets you transfer your property tax base from your current home to a new one anywhere in California, up to three times. For someone who’s been in their Folsom or El Dorado Hills home since the 90s, your assessed value is probably somewhere around $400,000 to $600,000, even if the house is worth a million plus. That low tax base is one of the most valuable things you own, and most people don’t realize they can take it with them when they downsize.
Practically, that means you can sell your $1.1M house, buy a $750K single-story in Folsom or a place in Cameron Park or even out toward the coast, and keep paying property taxes based on roughly your original assessed value. The savings are usually somewhere between $6,000 and $12,000 a year, every year, for the rest of your life in that home.
What I tell people is this: Prop 19 is a benefit you’ve earned by staying in California and paying into this system for decades. Use it. The rules can change — Sacramento has tried to modify property tax law more than once — and the right time to lock in that transfer is while the rules are clear and your equity is high.
What “waiting” actually costs you
When clients tell me they want to wait, I ask them what specifically they’re waiting for. Usually it’s one of three things, and I want to walk through each honestly.
“I’m waiting for prices to go higher.” Foothills prices have been roughly flat for two years. They might inch up. They’re not going to do what they did between 2020 and 2022 — that was a once-in-a-generation event driven by zero-percent rates and pandemic migration. Waiting for that to happen again is waiting for lightning to strike twice.
“I’m waiting until I’m ready emotionally.” This one I respect, and I won’t argue with it. But I’ll tell you what I tell my own family: the emotional readiness usually comes after you make the decision, not before. The people who wait to feel ready tend to wait five more years than they meant to, and then sell anyway under worse conditions, sometimes with an estate involved instead of with their own hands on the wheel.
“I’m waiting until I know where I want to go.” Fair. But you can list your current home with a sixty- or ninety-day close, which gives you the time to figure out the next place without sitting on two houses. I’ve structured this for dozens of clients. It’s a normal thing to do.
What I’d tell you if you were my parent
I’m going to be direct, because that’s what I’d want from somebody if the roles were reversed.
If you’re 60+, your house is paid off or close to it, and you’ve been in the Foothills more than fifteen years, the next twelve months are probably the best selling window you’re going to see in this decade. Not because the market is about to crash — it isn’t — but because the combination of your equity position, current buyer demand, available Prop 19 benefits, and your own age and energy level isn’t going to get more favorable than it is right now.
The people I see regret their decisions are almost always the people who waited too long, not the people who sold a year early. The ones who sold a year early bought their next chapter with cash, traveled, helped their kids with down payments, and stopped worrying about property taxes and roof repairs. The ones who waited too long ended up selling under pressure — health, family, or financial — and got less for the house and less control over the process.
You’ve earned a different ending than that. The window to choose it is open right now.
Let’s talk about your specific situation
Every house and every family is different, and what I’ve written here is general — your equity position, your tax situation, where you’d want to go next, what your kids want, whether you’re married or widowed, whether you have a Prop 19 transfer available, all of that changes the answer.
I do a free 15-minute call with Foothills homeowners thinking through this exact decision. No pitch, no pressure — just an honest read on your specific numbers and what the market would actually do with your house. Sometimes the answer after that call is “yes, sell this year.” Sometimes it’s “wait eighteen months and here’s why for you specifically.” Either way, you’ll leave the call knowing more than you came in with.
You can grab a time contact page, or call or text me directly at 916-532-3514. Twenty-six years in this market, and the only thing I’ve learned for sure is that the people who think it through with somebody honest tend to make better decisions than the people who try to figure it out alone.
— Coach Soto CalDRE #01339521
Mark Coach Soto is a licensed California Realtor (CalDRE# 01339521) with 26 years of real estate and mortgage experience, serving buyers and sellers across Folsom, El Dorado County, Placer County, and the greater Sacramento area.
- Mark Coach Soto
- Mark Coach Soto
- Mark Coach Soto
- Mark Coach Soto
