Building and Remodeling

Lots and Land Sales Report for Sonoma County

[caption id="attachment_1732" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Residential Lots near the Sonoma Plaza"][/caption]Since home prices declined so significantly since 2007, the market for buildable lots and land in Sonoma County has been very slow for the last few years. That has started to change as new construction is picking up again. Also, in Sonoma County, picky buyers from out of the area with specific home design desires are beginning to build their own custom homes again. Again, while the unit sales are slow for lots and land, sales are picking up. These figures do not include commercial lots, but they do include agricultural lots. The market for plantable vineyard land, and existing vineyards of high quality, is rather strong. Weighing against new construction are ever escalating contruction and building costs, along with city and county regulations. For a post on Sonoma County's Permit and Resources Department (PRMD) click here. In Sonoma County as well we are seeing an increased impact on building concerning endangered or threatened species such as the California tiger salamander, the Pritkin marsh lily and the bank swallow. Again, a caution in that the sample sizes here are so small that it is difficult to draw conclusions from them. I really am including these for reference purposes. Please let me know if you have any questions. Sonoma Lots and Land...

What does a Well Test involve in Sonoma County?

As part of my research for the water topic in our Wine Country and Horses Country Property series I googled Nick Brasesco of Ray's Well Testing, who does most of my well inspections for clients. I found this nice video, courtesy of Robert Ramirez, an agent at Century 21 in Petaluma. It is about seven minutes long but it gives a good overview of all the components of evaluating a well for a basic country property pre-purchase inspection. (Note: prior to the inspection, it would be smart for the buyer to pull the permit history and try to get the well log (the description of the depth of the well and the soils) so that Nick could review that as well. On a recent inspection for a client we found that the new well had not had the permit finalled by the county, and we asked the seller and the well driller to get that sorted out prior to closing the sale. I am so glad my clients and I investigated the permit history at Sonoma County PRMD. Here is a link to a previous post on PRMD. ...

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