A wide split opened across the East Sacramento suburbs in March, with two of the region’s high-end markets moving in opposite directions. El Dorado Hills posted the largest year-over-year price gain of any city tracked — up 16.0% to a median of $1,050,000 — while Loomis recorded the steepest decline, with its median sale price falling 13.8% to $815,000, according to data released by Redfin. Between those poles, Rocklin emerged as the region’s most competitive market, with nearly half of homes selling above list price, even as Granite Bay and Loomis showed clear signs of cooling at the top end.
The newly released March figures suggest a market that is no longer moving in unison. Five of the eight cities posted year-over-year price gains, while three — Roseville, Orangevale, and Loomis — saw prices fall. Sales activity was similarly mixed, with Folsom and Orangevale picking up while Rocklin, Lincoln, and Loomis pulled back.
Prices: El Dorado Hills leads, Loomis lags
El Dorado Hills was the clear standout on price. Its $1,050,000 median was $145,000 higher than the $905,000 recorded a year earlier, a 16.0% gain that outpaced every other city in the region. Rocklin was second, with its median climbing 8.1% to $705,000 from $652,500 a year ago. Lincoln rose 5.0% to $636,500, Granite Bay added 3.7% to reach $1,415,000, and Folsom gained 3.2% to $799,500.
On the other side of the ledger, Loomis posted the region’s largest decline, with its median falling from $945,000 a year ago to $815,000 — though with just seven sales in March, the small sample size can produce outsized percentage swings, and the figure should be read with that caveat. Roseville’s median slipped 3.3% to $629,000 from $650,245, and Orangevale eased 3.2% to $532,500 from $550,000.
That spread leaves Granite Bay as the region’s most expensive city by a wide margin at $1,415,000, followed by El Dorado Hills at $1,050,000. Orangevale remained the most affordable at $532,500, with Roseville ($629,000) and Lincoln ($636,500) the next least expensive options. The gap between the priciest and cheapest medians in the region now sits at roughly $883,000.
Nationally, the S&P/Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index was essentially flat year over year in March, edging slightly lower from a year earlier. That makes the East Sacramento suburbs’ mixed picture — with several cities posting mid-to-high single-digit gains — a divergence from the broader national trend.
Sales activity: Folsom accelerates, Loomis pulls back
Folsom recorded the largest sales gain in percentage terms, with 66 closings in March compared with 53 a year earlier, a 24.5% increase. Orangevale was next, up 14.3% to 24 sales from 21. Roseville also added activity, rising 7.0% to 167 sales from 156 — and remained the highest-volume market in the region by a wide margin.
Sales fell in five cities. Loomis dropped 30.0% to seven sales from 10, Rocklin declined 17.6% to 61 from 74, and Lincoln fell 12.8% to 82 from 94. Granite Bay (21 sales, down 4.5%) and El Dorado Hills (63 sales, down 4.5%) saw smaller pullbacks.
The split between rising-volume cities (Folsom, Orangevale, Roseville) and falling-volume cities (Rocklin, Lincoln, Granite Bay, El Dorado Hills, Loomis) does not align cleanly with the price split, suggesting different dynamics are at work in different submarkets rather than a single regional trend.
Pace of sale: Rocklin moves fastest, Loomis slowest
Folsom and Orangevale tied for the fastest median pace of sale in March, with homes going under contract in a median of 13 days. Rocklin (16 days), Roseville (18 days), and El Dorado Hills (18 days) were close behind. Lincoln stood at 22 days.
The two slowest markets were both at the higher end of the price spectrum. Granite Bay homes took a median of 39 days to sell, up sharply from 15 days a year earlier — a 24-day increase. Loomis was slower still at 47 days, compared with 21 days a year ago, a 26-day jump. In a region where most cities are transacting in under three weeks, those two markets stand out as meaningfully slower.
Most other cities saw modest year-over-year shifts in pace. Folsom got faster, with median days on market dropping from 16 to 13. Lincoln also accelerated, falling from 32 days to 22. Rocklin, by contrast, slowed from 11 days a year ago to 16 — still fast in absolute terms, but a five-day increase. Roseville (17 to 18) and El Dorado Hills (20 to 18) were essentially unchanged.
Competition: Rocklin is the region’s tightest market
Rocklin posted the highest share of homes selling above list price at 49.2%, the only city in the region where more homes closed above asking than below. Its sale-to-list ratio of 100.1% was also the only figure above 100%, indicating the typical home sold for slightly more than its list price.
Roseville was the next most competitive market, with 38.9% of homes selling above list and a sale-to-list ratio of 99.9%. Folsom (37.9% above list, 99.8% sale-to-list) and Orangevale (37.5%, 98.8%) were close behind. Lincoln rounded out the middle of the pack at 36.6% above list and a 99.5% sale-to-list ratio.
The least competitive markets were the two highest-priced cities and Loomis. Granite Bay saw 28.6% of homes sell above list, El Dorado Hills 19.0%, and Loomis just 14.3%. El Dorado Hills’ 98.4% sale-to-list ratio and Loomis’ 97.6% ratio both indicate that the typical home there sold for less than its list price, even as El Dorado Hills posted the region’s largest price gain — a reminder that headline prices and bidding intensity can move on different tracks.
Inventory and new listings
Roseville carried the most active inventory in the region with 257 listings, followed by Lincoln (195), El Dorado Hills (175), Folsom (138), and Rocklin (122). Granite Bay (58), Orangevale (46), and Loomis (16) had the smallest absolute inventory counts, in line with their smaller transaction volumes.
New listings followed a similar pattern. Roseville led with 206 new listings in March, ahead of Lincoln (142), Folsom (120), El Dorado Hills (114), and Rocklin (87). Orangevale (53), Granite Bay (36), and Loomis (11) brought up the rear.
A few inventory-to-sales ratios stand out. Loomis had 16 active listings against seven sales — a notably thin market where each transaction can swing the medians. El Dorado Hills’ 175 listings against 63 sales represents a comparatively well-supplied market for a high-end submarket, which may help explain why its sale-to-list ratio (98.4%) and above-list share (19.0%) trail the regional average even as its median price climbed sharply. Rocklin, by contrast, had 122 listings against 61 sales paired with the region’s tightest competition metrics — a combination consistent with strong demand relative to available supply.
Rents: Granite Bay tops $3,800, Lincoln stays under $1,400
Rental medians varied widely across the region in March, according to Zillow data. Granite Bay had the highest median rent at $3,812 per month, followed by Loomis at $2,995 and El Dorado Hills at $2,986. Roseville ($2,573) and Folsom ($2,528) sat in the middle, with Rocklin at $2,415 and Orangevale at $2,124. Lincoln’s $1,313 median was the lowest in the region by a wide margin — less than half the rent of Loomis or El Dorado Hills, and roughly one-third of Granite Bay’s.
Year-over-year rent comparisons were available for six of the eight cities. El Dorado Hills posted the largest increase, with its median rent rising 2.6% from $2,910 to $2,986. Roseville was next at +2.2% ($2,517 to $2,573), followed by Lincoln at +1.9% ($1,288 to $1,313), Folsom at +1.4% ($2,492 to $2,528), Orangevale at +1.2% ($2,099 to $2,124), and Rocklin at +0.9% ($2,393 to $2,415). Year-ago rent figures were not provided for Granite Bay or Loomis.
The rent-to-price relationship varies meaningfully across the region. Lincoln stands out as a market where the for-sale median ($636,500) sits in the middle of the regional pack but the rent ($1,313) is by far the lowest — making it comparatively cheaper to rent than to buy relative to the rest of the region. Granite Bay shows the opposite pattern: its $3,812 rent is the highest in the region, but it also pairs with the highest sale price, $1,415,000. Orangevale ($532,500 median sale price, $2,124 rent) and Rocklin ($705,000, $2,415) offer the closest alignment between for-sale and rental affordability tiers within the region.
For renters comparing options, Lincoln is by a wide margin the cheapest place to rent, while Granite Bay is the most expensive. For buyers, Orangevale remains the lowest entry point and Granite Bay the highest. El Dorado Hills is the only city in the region where both the for-sale median and the rental median posted gains of more than 2% year over year.
Mortgage rate context
The 30-year fixed mortgage rate averaged 6.18% in March 2026, according to Freddie Mac data published by the Federal Reserve, up from 6.05% in February but down from 6.65% in March 2025. The 15-year fixed averaged 5.55% in March, compared with 5.43% in February and 5.83% a year earlier. Rates remain lower than they were a year ago across both products, providing a different financing backdrop than buyers faced in spring 2025 — though the month-over-month uptick from February gives the most recent reading a slightly different shape than the year-over-year comparison.
Bottom line for buyers and renters
The region’s headline finding this month is divergence. El Dorado Hills posted the largest price gain (+16.0%) while Loomis posted the largest decline (–13.8%), and Rocklin’s competition metrics — 49.2% of homes above list, the only sale-to-list ratio above 100% — set it apart as the region’s tightest market even as its sales volume fell 17.6%. Granite Bay and Loomis, the slowest markets at 39 and 47 median days on market respectively, both showed pace-of-sale increases of more than 20 days year over year, suggesting a different rhythm at the high end than in mid-priced submarkets like Folsom and Orangevale, where homes are moving in 13 days. Renters, meanwhile, continue to find the widest gap in Lincoln, where rents remain well below every other city in the region.
