I have a love hate relationship with charts. I love them...everybody else hates them. Unfortunately, there is no better way to convey a huge amount of information as quickly as you can graphically so I will continue to make occasional charts when the results can illuminate a story.
A lot of people are on the sidelines of real estate today. Interest rates are as low as we're likely to see them. The affordability index for my area is the best it has been in decades, so homes are as affordable as they have been in a long time. However, in spite of low rates and reasonable prices, many potential buyers fear the market may still have a long way to fall. So, in the same way that you might coax young children into swimming by being in the water to support them, a graphical presentation can reassure wannabe buyers that they aren't going to drown in today's market.
First things first: a giant chart and then a discussion beneath it.
The first thing to note here is not the bursting housing bubble. That's a fascinating story of loss and grand delusion on a national scale, but it's not the story this chart or I want to tell. My story is the right hand side of the chart that I have captioned as "More or Less Stable Market". There is definitely volatility in these numbers. I can see where the first time buyer tax credit bumped up prices in early 2010. I can see where worries about Europe helped slow down the market in the summer of 2010. What I can't see is anything that should scare a potential buyer out of the market.
We have had a run of nearly three years of relative stability in the housing market that has followed the worst recession to hit the United States since the Great Depression. As we creep into recovery there are still plenty of hardships. Lots of people remain unemployed and underemployed. But we have had those things for the last three years and the housing market has survived. People looking for fast appreciation don't see much to like in a flat market performance, but people looking for a house to call home can be reassured that a house bought in today's market is unlikely to suffer the fate of a home purchased in the summer of 2007. There just isn't that much excess value baked into the real estate cake.
I did a quartile analysis to see if the median price figures I normally look at might have been skewing the results. Instead, I am reassured that the median is still a useful shorthand for talking about the market as a whole. We can see that the 75th percentile has performed better than the median and is acctually up about $25,000 since the low point three years ago. I think that's telling us as much about the job market as it is about housing. The good jobs that can support a home priced in the $450,000 price range are still here. The big change for that tier of the market is the reduction from over $750,000 that buyers would have paid to be at the 75th percentile. It's a heck of a lot easier to make payments on $450K than $750K.
At the 25th percentile, the change is large in percentage terms even if they aren't saving quite as much as their more affluent peers. Here, the price change is over 50% with a dollar savings from pre-bubble of around $250K per home. People in the market know that much of the demand we are seeing in this price range is from investors buying single family homes. That was unheard of ten years ago when prices for any rentable home vastly exceeded the rent that could be charged.
It's all good, ladies and gentlemen. In April of 2009 I called March 2009 as the bottom of the bubble's deflation right her on ActiveRain. I may still eat crow if prices edge down through the lows from that time, but I don't see any cataclysm on the horizon that will take ten or fifteen percent off today's prices. So if you're a renter thinking of buying, get out there and stake your modest, affordable claim to a piece of the American dream. The money you save over the next 30 years will be your own.
I've shown some rugged coastal views in recent posts. I wanted to balance those rough images with a true sense of the coast as a life-affirming place. This photo from a few days ago shows the coast at Jenner where the Russian River meets the Pacific Ocean. You can see the right side beach covered with birds. In the water on the right is a small cluster of seals who are just hanging out. More seals are visible offshore.
After showing Bodega Bay property last week I took a leisurely drive up the coast. There are a few homes facing the risk certainty of falling into the ocean. This image shows the residue of former waterfront land now existing as rocks off the shore. Coastal property that fronts the ocean is beautiful and valuable, but just on loan from nature.
Hiking on a beautiful Russian River bench property today with very fun and athletic buyers who like to hike. Climbing between the pond and the crest of a view site we came across the wonderful specimen you see.
Hi, I'm Dave Roberts. I'd like you to trust me. I will patiently walk you through the process of finding and owning your dream property in Sonoma County wine country. I listen to your goals and experiences with real estate. That helps me deliver the kind of service you have always wanted from professionals you work with. I communicate. I explain. I love answering every question, from the most humble to the most perplexing. Let me share my enthusiasm for Sonoma County's land and architectural beauty with you. Mostly, though, let me become your friendly advisor and guide. I'll help as you step cautiously from early curiosity about Sonoma County real estate to the jubilation of crossing the threshold of your just acquired property. The process should be a blast. I'm there to make sure it is. I'm Dave Roberts, your guide to sonoma county real estate
Dave Roberts Elevator Pitch on YouTube
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I love helping clients find homes and land in Sonoma County. Today, that means lots of REO strategy and analysis. For my sellers' properties I use my blogs and the internet to reach buyers worldwide.
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 gardener's paradise in the middle of Sonoma County 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 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. In an earlier decade, I taught construction to homeowners at the Owner Builder Center in Berkeley and was a licensed general contractor. That background gives me insight into many fitfalls of remodeling projects, but also lets me see sound, well-crafted structures and wonderful vintage materials.
A 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.
I want to thank you for the excellent job you did selling my property in 2008 during a real estate market downturn. I interviewed several Realtors and was immediately impressed by your enthusiasm and personable nature. I was not to be disappointed in choosing you as my realtor. You helped me prepare the property for sale, walked the entire 8 acres, including steep terrain, to familiarize yourself with the property, and found corner markers in order to better inform potential buyers. Along with listing it for sale and holding an open house, you photographed it beautifully, prepared color postcards, color brochures and constructed a website for the property. This was clearly above and beyond anything I expected, and I truly appreciated it.
You showed equal enthusiasm in showing the property and following up with potential buyers. I am positive that the relatively quick sale of my not so easy to sell, unique, property was due to your excellent sales ability and follow-through. I cannot thank you enough and look forward to working with you again on the buyers side as I look for a new home to purchase.
Dianne R
I am so thankful to have worked with Dave Roberts to buy my first home. Dave is extraordinarily trustworthy. I always felt that he was working in my best interest, and trusted him to answer any question that came up. He is amazingly patient, extremely responsive, and throughout the process went above and beyond the call of duty. A house that seemed to meet my criteria came on the market while I was in Houston for work. Knowing I was out of town, Dave went to the house snapped photos of everything, and emailed them to me the same day. While that house didn't turn out to be the one for me, I am thrilled with the house that I did buy. Dave made what could have been an intensely stressful process so much smoother. I would absolutely recommend Dave Roberts to anyone looking for a Realtor and I would not hesitate to work with him again.
KM
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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