Petaluma is the southern gateway into Sonoma County from Marin and San Francisco. The proximity to the big city makes Petaluma a great commute center. Thousands of people commute south every morning along Highway 101. Before the advent of commuting, however, Petaluma was (and still is) a real town in its own right. From the early days as an agricultural center to today's broadband and networking strengths, Petaluma has been an important contributor to the economic vitality of Sonoma County.
You can see in the chart below (live chart with continual updates) that the downturn in real estate prices is still in force near the end of May 2008. One of the factors to note is that the four quartiles don't share the same trajectory. The lower two lines representing the more affordable half of the market are still trending downward. On the other hand, the third and fourth quartiles are showing either a leveling off or slight increase in median price within their ranges. These are small moves, but are a sign that some buyers are back in the market.
Healdsburg is a fun place. One week it might be barrel tasting along the Russian River Wine Road. Another time it might be the famous FFA parade. We manage to get through these small town treats and the start of our Farmers' Market with a fair measure of pride and joy in our small town.
Coming up at the end of the month is an event to prove that our life doesn't completely revolve around wine or growing grapes and specialty vegetables. This year is the tenth anniversary of the Healdsburg Jazz Festival, and there's a great lineup of music. Acts include Charles Lloyd, Zakir Hussein, Cedar Walton, Charlie Haden, Billy Hart, Joshua Redmond, George Cables, Julian Lage, Pete Escovedo, Eddie Palmieri ... and so many more! Ten great days of jazz to celebrate ten great years of jazz in Healdsburg.
Bargain hunting buyers are back in the hunt for homes in Sonoma County. In the last thirty days there have been 226 new residential REO properties added to the market, primarily in Santa Rosa, but with homes in Petalua, condos in Rohnert Park, and even a wine country property near Healdsburg. 68 of these new REO listings have already been bagged by people who appreciate bargain prices. Anecdotally we are hearing stories of multiple offers and overbids that are firming up prices at the low end of the market.
My crystal ball is not clear enough to tell me we are at the bottom of the market. However, what is demonstrated by the renewed activity by buyers is that many investors and wanna-be home owners have decided that the time is right to begin to buy again. We have sales of REO properties from $107.000 to nearly $1,000,000, so there are bargains to be had at all price points.
I'll extend to all my ActiveRain readers the same offer I made to readers of my sonoma.net blog. I will do a custom search of REO properties in Sonoma County for you if you tell me what areas of Sonoma County you are interested in and/or what price range you want. I can set this up either as a one time search or an ongoing automatic search to look for new REO listings.
Sometimes a graph is the best way to demonstrate a trend. I have been working with Altos Research to develop charts for Sonoma County. I love country property and small towns, so I generated some charts for Sonoma, Sebastopol, Healdsburg, and some of the other agriculture-surrounded towns in Sonoma County's wine country. One of the surprises that jumped out at me was that Sebastopol, alone among the Sonoma County towns, has continued strong median prices in the top quartile of the market.
This is a live chart, so the data will change over time, but as of the middle of April, 2008, the upper quartile of homes in Sebastopol is about 5% above a year ago. For Sonoma County, that increase in value during the past year isn't replicated anywhere else. The data set for charts like this is small. Not a lot of properties are changing hands, so one or two large sales can skew the market. Still, this is a good demonstration that real estate in Sebastopol is still strong.
Here's some more Sebastopol market data:
Once again, the data is live so these comments are for mid-April, 2008. The blue line represents median days on market for the top 25% of homes. There was the typical mid-winter doldrums period where the time increased, but the chart clearly shows that homes at the high end of the market are selling faster than any other market segment.
This final chart shows both the early spring uptick in people listing their homes for sale in Sebastopol, but also a healthy reduction in overall inventory back to levels from a year ago (as of mid-April, 2008) before the August meltdown in the sub-prime market.
If you are interested in the Sebastopol market, you can subscribe to a weekly report on many Sonoma County cities from my sonoma.net site.
We all have friends and coworkers that work hard and may never hear a word of praise or recognition. I wanted to take a minute out of my day, and yours, to send a shout of recognition to Gail Ryan of Healdsburg, California. Gail is a realtor at Healdsburg Sotheby's International Realty with superbly comprehensive knowledge of our town. She's the first to know of new listings and her brain contains histories of all the families who helped build the wine industry in Sonoma County.
That's all great and by itself would make Gail a wonderful addition to any office. What sets her apart is her fierce dedication to her rental clients, both the owners and tenants. She juggles thousands of details of repairs, vacancies, and showings with an impressive combination of telephone expertise, knowledge of available subcontractors and their foibles, and the occasional trio of girl renters who may have had just a little too much tequila.
She was just awarded the North Bay Bohemian's Best of the Year for 2008, an honor she richly deserves. Congratulations, Gail.
If you're looking for someone to manage your rental property in Healdsburg:
Gail Ryan
Healdsburg Sotheby's International Realty
709 Healdsburg Ave
Healdsburg, CA 85448
707-431-9757
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I love helping clients find homes and land in Healdsburg, Sebastopol, Santa Rosa, and west Sonoma County. I work hard helping sellers use the internet to effectively market their properties. Call me.
If you do most of your work via email, I may be the agent for you.
If you're the office Google expert, I may be the agent for you.
If you dream of building your own country estate, I may be the agent for you.
If you prowl old neighborhoods looking for the perfect fixer, I may be the agent for you.
My happiest days as an agent are spent with buyers looking for a property that will bring them joy. I'll scour the Guerneville woods, the apple orchards of Sebastopol, the beaches near Jenner, the beautiful vineyards and valleys around Healdsburg, and the Railroad Square and downtown areas of Santa Rosa looking for the right fit. I enjoy the mental detective work involved in helping clients understand themselves and what they really want in a house, and will persevere until we find the house that will become their home.
My favorite clients include technophiles, authors, young families, and plenty of just plain folks. In me they found a language loving agent that enjoys clients with brains, has a deep sense of house-finding duty, and a willingness to approach the house finding task with humor and enthusiasm. I like funny clients, serious clients, childless clients, massive families with oodles of kids, careful drivers, big lunch eaters, booze hounds, foodies, sports fans, and tree huggers. That's a partial list. I'm sure I'll like you, no matter who you are, and that we'll have a great time looking for a place.
I'm a happily married father of two grown children. I love Wild Jane, my jazz singing spouse of thirty years. We live in a redwood forest in Guerneville near the Russian River and have a lovely grand-dogger poodle. I've been a general building contractor, renewable energy expert, computer consultant, and restaurant owner. My business goal in life is to connect you with the property of your dreams.
On the flip side of the real estate equation, I'd love to represent you during the sale of your fixer, your splendid redwoods, or your serene, pond-covered retreat. I'll build you a web site, crank our brochures in record time, and plaster the Internet with slide shows and great coverage on the third party real estate sites. Most importantly, I'll keep you up to date with the marketing, showings, and sales process.
I'm very proud to be associated with Eric Drew and the Healdsburg Sotheby's International Realty team. I first started working with Eric over 23 years ago when he brought me to his weekly staff meetings to train his agents on the Macintosh computer soon after it was introduced. Eric has always embraced both history and new technology and our office is awash in maps, photography, historical documents,and the latest GIS software. My fellow agents are smart, professional, and fun to work with as well as being immensely experienced.
I talked about fixers and country estates earlier, and I'd like to expand on those topics. Fixers is a very general term. My definition would include a house that isn't just worn out, but that also include some character or detail that gives the property some extra value. A fixer, by that definition, implies that something in the house is worth salvaging. Maybe it's a perfect setting, a beautifully detailed porch, or generous proportions that catch the eye. It might be historically significant like the first barn in Healdsburg. Those examples are what define a fixer for me.
I like to search for those special fixers for my clients and determine if there is a reasonable opportunity to "fix" them. In many cases, the asking price is too close to the value of the "fixed" property and there is no chance for a reasonable return. In other cases, the work required to restore or upgrade the house to the required level is just too costly to undertake. Somewhere between those two extremes is a fair purchase price and a home that needs just enough fixing to be done that the buyer can realize a profit by doing the work. It's those few homes that I most enjoy pursuing. The fact that I have taught construction to homeowners and have been a licensed general contractor gives me more insight in this field.
The second category I enjoy searching for is classic country estate property. Sonoma County has a wide variety of terrain that includes forests, river valleys, hillside view sites, vineyards, orchards, beaches, and even geothermal mountain land. We can't offer you Sierra-like snow conditions or Hawaiian beach type property, but just about everything else is available. Whether you want five acres or five hundred, I'd love to help you find the property that can support your dream. I'm well versed in the requirements of the county for water, septic, roads, building, fire roads and all the other regulations that control what you are able to do with your land. I've got some lovely multiple parcel properties for family or group compounds that I'd love to show you.
needless to say,
we've thought of you often
[we *did* make it clear
how much we preferred you
to all other realtors
we dealt with
hands down
...and feet and knees
and shoulders...?]
Pamela Ryan
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