Sacramento Is California’s Newest Real-Estate Hot Spot (The Wall Street Journal)

Sacramento Is California’s Newest Real-Estate Hot Spot

The once-sleepy government town is attracting a rush of buyers and flurry of development near its Golden 1 Center, a new NBA arena.

Price cuts have been replaced by bidding wars. A once-sleepy downtown is flush with urban-renewal projects. A luxury condo tower with penthouses priced over $4 million is under construction. Sacramento, Calif., long seen as a fairly bland government town, is in the midst of a real estate boom.

When Suzanne Greer listed her six-bedroom home just outside of Sacramento last month, so many potential buyers showed up to the three-hour open house that her real-estate agent had to extend it by two hours. Offers started coming in that evening. Eight buyers entered a bidding war.

“We’ve been here 17 or 18 years and have never seen it like this,” says Ms. Greer, who, with her husband, owns a commercial air conditioning business. She sold the home for $40,000 over the $799,000 asking price—plus two months of free rent so she doesn’t have to move out right away while she builds a new home nearby.