About Sonoma County, CA

“Busy” this is one word that has not been on real estate agents for the past few years. The market has been see sawing between dull and hopeful and many of them have had to do with just that –hope. In spite of the downturn that has persisted since 2005 things have been slightly changing and the years ahead are looking better.

At Sonoma County, 2011 there was a marginal rise in home sales in 2011 with buyers purchasing 4,637 homes which is a second best since 2005. Prices fell 8 percent to a median of about 325,000 which is the lowest since 2000.

These figures may look low to the ordinary observer but not so according to industry averages because most of the other close communities returned far much higher drops in the region of 45 to 56 percent for Windsor and Santa Rosa respectively.

These figures indicate a changing trend in Sonoma County coming into 2012. In my best bet, the turnaround experienced in 2011 is an indication of what agent should expect. Buyers seem to be getting back to the business as issues of loans and refinancing point to a friendlier financial environment in this sector that has not shown signs of recovery since for the last 10 years.

Some buyers have even began to complain of shortage of homes to sell which may be a result of sellers taking a wait and see position expecting better prices going forward.

Agents and brokers now have their work cut. Their main challenge is to make the best out of the up turn. They must be ready to burn the midnight oil to convince sellers that it is time to let go and at the same time get buyers to accept the rising prices. The good and the best will be known at the “closing” table and it is time to get to work in this market.

The happenings in Sonoma may also trigger similar rebounds in the surrounding communities and the whole market may just be on the turn.

Visit my website www.homefinderinsonomacounty.com

THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY

The truth about Real Estate & Loan Agents

The purpose of this article is twofold: 1. To encourage Buyers to find an agent who will competently represent them in the purchase of a home and 2. To be prepared to dump any agent who demonstrates anything but number 1.

I know this article will ruffle some feathers, but who will it ruffle?

There is an inherent flaw to the current traditional means of selling a home. The flaw is that the listing agent and the selling agent do not get paid unless the home sells! So the worst thing about the current home selling method is also the best thing about the current home selling system – it gets people into homes because everyone wants it to happen! The seller wants to take the money and move on. The Buyer wants a new home. The listing agent and the buyer’s agent (sometimes they are one and the same) desire to be paid for their efforts and also want the seller to accomplish his stated goal and the buyer to get into the home.

The above is the ideal scene, of course. But here we are on planet earth, the site of Murphy’s Law - simply stated “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.”

After 23 years of real estate sales and lending, I’ve learned just that. Especially overseeing an office of 16 loan agents, 7 real estate agents and all the necessary support staff during the heydays of the market in Northern California. For 50 to 70 hours a week, my job was to train these folks and then “oversee” their transactions. “Oversee” really meant MAKE SURE THEY GOT DONE and a lot of the job was simply cleaning up the messes that really were the result of a lack of experience or honest desire to help.

I always preached to my agents that there were really no “problems” in a real estate or loan transaction, just items that had to be checked off a list. I assure you though, that if an agent did not have an honest desire to push through the transaction and well communicate whatever necessary to all involved parties, well, here came the problem(s)!

One thing that I know with certainty from all these years of being in the business, is that when someone came to me to help them buy a home, they wanted to buy a home - NOW. When someone came to me to refinance a loan, they wanted to refinance their loan - NOW. So the job really became finding the easiest, quickest path to that stated target on their behalf.

True professionals accomplish just that. The truth is “professional” in a lot of circumstances has nothing to do with years of experience. It is really more of a viewpoint to get the thing done in spite of barriers that will come up.

You want to avoid Buyer’s agents who are adversarial in their approach to the purchase. It is not rock ‘em sock ‘em robots. You want to buy and the seller wants to sell. How do you get a meeting of the minds in a boxing match?

This comes in varying degrees too. How about the real estate agent who counsels you to back out of a contract because the seller won’t pay for the home warranty? OK, maybe that’s an exaggeration but you get the point.

Avoid agents who are alarmists. To them everything is a problem and a big deal. Here is an example of an alarmist: You see some mold in a home you are viewing and the agent makes it out to be a huge big deal. Maybe it is maybe it isn’t. As I mention above, it’s just something to be checked off a list. The alarmist will try to stop your progress towards this purchase because of the mold. A true professional would move the purchase along and do the reports necessary to have the appropriate professional, who knows mold, tell you it’s a problem or not.

I could go on and on along these lines to include agents who will not communicate or answer your questions, those who are always late or no-show’s for appointments, agents who reschedule everything, those that are negative, have steered you wrong, those that continually bad-mouth others, are opinionated, agents who are just out for the money and not to honestly help, etc.

People innately know professionalism when they see it. You should demand that for yourself in the most expensive purchase you will make in your life.

Lynn Tardibuono- Flipper Chick - is a CA DRE Broker with more than 23 years of experience in real estate and lending. Her phone number is (707) 523-2099. Email is Lynn@sunpacmortgage.com. See website @ www.sunpacmortgage.com.

“One thing that I know with certainty from all these years of being in the business, is that when someone came to me to help them buy a home, they wanted to buy a home – NOW”. So who can you trust to get you into your dream house smoothly if not your Real Estate Agent? From an Agent to a possible Buyer I encourage you to find that Real Estate Agent that will competently represent you on your home purchase. For more on this subject check out my blog all about a Real Estate Agent’s responsibility to You as a buyer.

The below quote is from DSN NEWS. Click on the highlighted lettering to be taken to the story. Could this mean a huge bonanza of Short-Sales coming down the pike? Remember, one of the key players in the settlement was BofA which BOUGHT COUNTRYWIDE HOME MORTGAGE. You may recall that Countrywide was a HUGE player in the California marketplace. California got a big portion of the overall settlement.

Here in Sonoma County, California the "Short-Sale" is HUGE in the "under-contracts" section of our local MLS. With over 3100 properties in escrow as "Continue to Shows" or not yet firmed up real estate deals, approximately 1900 of those are Short-Sales. Check out the chart below:

This is the "Bank Portion" of our MLS "under-contract" properties which includes not ONLY Short-Sales but REO or Real Estate Owned--bank foreclosed upon homes. Note that this market segment is UP 36% over last year at this time. If this settlement rings true then this number could go through the roof! Reducing the average days on the market would be very welcomed as this is approaching 6+ months currently for a short-sale esrow--that's IF IT CLOSES.

As the article states below some $12 Billion will go to principal reductions and short-sales. We all thought HAFA was going to be the big game changer in regards to Short-Sales but THIS just might be THe game changer.

The full amount will be broken into several categories to assist various groups of struggling homeowners. According to the agreement, banks will offer $12 billion in principal reductions and short sales for about 250,000 homeowners. The banks are obligated to complete the principal reductions for homeowners in California’s hardest hit communities within one year of the settlement date.

As of February 8, 2012 43% of available listings in the beautiful wine country town of Sonoma are in escrow.

For the month of January 2012 28 homes (16 of which were distress sales) sold in Sonoma for an average final selling price of $652,193.

The average original asking price of these homes was $926,789.

The range of final selling prices was from a low of $149,000 to a high of $6,315,000.

Of the 28 homes that sold 4 sold at their original asking prices and 1 sold over its original asking price.

It took these homes an average of 139 days to sell.

To see everything that is currently available for sale through our MLS click here.

To learn more about this area in general search more around this blog, visit my website or contact me directly.