Entry Level Sonoma County Real Estate Market Hopping!
Please click on the image above to see one that is actually readable! The trend we first noted in February is continuing in Sonoma County Real Estate Sales, led by our entry level market of homes under $500,000. Not only is the number of new CLOSED sales up to the highest point in over two years, the number of newly opened escrows (UNDER CONTRACT above) is increasing even more rapidly, on pace to close next month. Many of these homes are bank-owned (REO's) or short sales and the buyers consist of investors and first time buyers or folks who are down-sizing. The number of newly opened escrows in this category is up 274% over last year at this time. While buyers think they can offer considerably lower than asking, that is not necessarily true. I just opened escrow for a client in this price range and we were able to get a great property that had been on the market for some time (not a foreclosure) and ridden the price trend down. The perils of overpricing in this case benefited my buyer who is in contract to purchase this home for 33% less than the original asking price, and 15% under the most recent price. But the REO's are now priced to sell for the most part and attracting multiple offers. One of the best deals I saw in Montgomery Village last week at under $320,000 had four offers within a few days of coming on the market and still the bank had not selected which cherry offer to pick. But even if this property sells for slightly over asking, it is a great solid home (in need of much TLC) on a prime street and lot with surrounding homes that will love to see this one fixed up! Perhaps the big thud we heard in Sonoma County last winter was the sound of the market hitting bottom. We shall see. More stats and opinions to come on other segments of the Sonoma County Real Estate market this week....
Sebastopol and Sonoma County Real Estate Market Update
Since I have been looking at the foreclosure market in Sonoma County, I decided to switch gears back to country property and take a look again at the health of that market. Tomorrow, May 18th, I am holding open a 2.6 acre country property with a spectacular view setting, usable for horses, gardening, grapes or getting away from it all. So I decided to look at the Sebastopol market trends for properties in a similar price range, $600,000 to $1.1 million dollars to see how prices and inventory are doing now, and over the last year. Some of my previous posts have covered this topic in the past. Here is a chart of Market Trends for the $600K to $1M price range for real estate in Sebastopol for the last year. The median price through April has risen from $735 to $765. With such a small sample size this number can fluctuate widely but the really startling number is the amount of listing inventory, which has declined from 93 last May to 63 now. Have the sellers been scared away? The number of accepted listings versus sales inventory is also a good indicator that this upward trend could continue. Perhaps it is because the foreclosure and short sales are in short supply in Sebastopol. That is why all real estate is local, and buyers and sellers alike can benefit by looking at market trends for their particular area. I heard a good reference the other day which stated that looking at national or statewide real estate trends to figure out what is going on in your market is like trying to predict your local weather by referencing a national average temperature of 57 degrees. Kind of hard to do. If you have questions on this data or would like to slice it a different way, please email or call me, or visit tomorrow at 2210 Pleasant Hill Road. ...
Drilling down to look at the foreclosure market in Sonoma County
Sonoma County Foreclosure Active Listings by Area Of the 404 active foreclosure listings in Sonoma County today, here is a snapshot overview. For a more detailed look, and information on specific properties available on your own private web portal, please contact me directly and I will email you a report. Of the 404 properties available today, the average number of days they have been on the market is 63 days. Buyers on top of their game are jumping on the best properties in the best locations (surprise, surprise) and many are subject to multiple offers, but generally under asking price. Banks are sometimes offering concessions such as credits to closing costs for certain repairs, but it really depends on the property and the competitive landscape. Of these properties, the minimum price is $101, 200. The maximum price is $1,249,000. The median price is $309, 975, well below the median sales price for the county. Click the link above to get to a Google Doc which breaks the foreclosure market down by area within Sonoma County. Cotati/Rohnert Park, parts of Santa Rosa, Windsor and East Petaluma are the most effected whereas communities such as Sebastopol and Healdsburg have very few foreclosure properties on the market. Also, the price points tend to be the lower ones with the median price at just over $300,000. Sunday April 27th Update: Just popping by to update yesterday's post with a link to today's article on the hardest hit parts of Sonoma County by Michael Coit of the Press Democrat. I guess we are on the same wavelength today. Foreclosure hot spots Three of every five mortgage defaults last quarter occurred in three sections of Sonoma County By MICHAEL COIT THE PRESS DEMOCRAT ...
How Many Foreclosure Properties are for sale in Sonoma County?
Currently there are 404 active listings on the MLS for Sonoma County that are bank-owned foreclosed properties, also known as REO's. Many real estate investors and first time home buyers are seeking out real estate bargains here due to the large number available. Investors had fled the county for a number of years due to rapid appreciation but the proliferation of bargain priced bank-owned (REO) properties and short sales have attracted them back. As a realtor, I often am asked by clients where the best deals are, and sometimes they are surprised that not every type of property is a potential bargain, nor are they equally dispersed throughout Sonoma county. As colleague Marian Bennett on the San Mateo coastal front says in her blog: Bottom line: There are foreclosure properties out there, and probably more coming through the remainder of ‘08. Buying such a property requires research, patience, ready cash…and a bit of a stomach! Support of your team may be helpful to some and crucial for others (be it contractor, accountant, real estate professional, loan consultant, or parents). If you’re interested in starting your own online research, I just got this tip from Kevin Boer about foreclosureradar.com. I’ll be tracking it along with where I currently have an account, Realtytrac, to look for San Mateo County trends. My Realtytrac research has shown their properties to be pretty out of date so I may try to find another one to use as a comparison to foreclosureradar. If you know of another good one, make a comment to share with everyone. By the way, colleague Sam Benson at Real Estate 680 in Contra Costa county is opining on the same subject....
Rising Real Estate Sales Trend continues in Sonoma County
Buyers are out in force searching out bargains in Sonoma County real estate with the number of open escrows (ratified sales contracts for home purchases which have not yet closed) reaching the highest level in over two years. This appears to solidify a trend first noted in this blog in early February. The newly ratified purchase contracts will not close till 30 to 45 days after ratification on average and some will no doubt not close, but indications continue to be positive for the state of this spring's market for real estate sales in Sonoma County. Many of these sales have been in the under $500,000 market, where first time buyers and investors are feasting on the large inventory of bank-owned or REO properties where some terrific bargains can be found. For a list of bank-owned properties, please email me. Meanwhile, the following chart shows the sales trends for both new escrows and closed sales for the last two years of real estate sales in Sonoma County....
Inventory, Inventory: Who's got the Country property inventory?
Help! There is not enough country property for sale in Sonoma County. I have buyers and very little to show them at the moment. Sebastopol, Healdsburg and the Valley of the Moon in particular are very low on new country real estate for sale. A really lovely piece of land with two legal units in an estate setting between Graton and Forestville just went into escrow with multiple offers. A charming farmhouse with two studio buildings and a small horse setup privately situated just 5 minutes outside of Sebastopol is in contract with multiple offers. An all cash buyer, rumor has it, plopped down nearly 2 million in cash (pending inspections) for a GORGEOUS 20 acre piece with a classic coastal home and large studio building within a week of entering the market. I think sellers are hunkering down due to the negativity in the press and uncertainty and fear in the economy. But well-priced, well marketed and properly prepared homes in Sonoma County, particularly country property, will sell quickly. There are a lot of buyers out there who have gotten off the (classic 3 rail wood board) fence who are looking for new homes or weekend getaways. If you have a country property in Sonoma County that you want to sell, please contact me for a free market analysis!...
Is Daylight Savings time bringing out the buyers?
I just got off a phone call with fellow Realtor Donna Nordby of Diversified Lending and Real Estate. We were comparing notes about our busy weeks when she told me that she showed 22 homes in the $300,000 to $350,000 range last week to some clients. Most if not all were REO (bank-owned) properties that had been through foreclosure. Fully FIFTY percent of them had already received anywhere from 10 to 15 OFFERS each. She literally put the listing agents' office on speaker phone so that her clients could hear the news with her as they called one property after another and got the same news. The nice properties in nice locations were the ones with multiple offers. The rougher ones in less desirable locations comprised the fifty percent without offers.    At one property (not her listing), she had opened it up to show clients and three potential buyers walked in the door and asked her if they could see it. Meanwhile I had a full house yesterday with a record amount of traffic at the country property I was hosting. Had some great talks with a steady stream of buyers and the consensus was that now was the time to buy. Late last year the thinking was more a wait and see attitude.  I have a feeling we are going to have a warm and lively spring....
Finding great real estate deals requires a laser beam approach
I enjoy looking at market statistics for the Sonoma County real estate market. As a realtor and full time professional in the market, I look to statistics to confirm or enlighten me vis a vis my own perceptions. I also know the damage that can result from a broad brush focus on statistics. Witness the overall drop in Santa Rosa real estate values year over year of over 15%. (according to Zillow) Not only Zillow but lenders use this sort of data to tar any Santa Rosa home, when the truth is the hardest hit have been the large tracts of entry level inventory that Sonoma County communities such as Santa Rosa, Petaluma, Rohnert Park/Cotati and Windsor have. These communities have the highest preponderance of entry level single-family tract homes which were hardest hit by the sub-prime crisis. All of these communities have some wonderful country properties, vineyard properties and horse farms which will be negatively impacted from a lender's eye in terms of valuation, relative to equivalent properties in Sebastopol, Healdsburg, Kenwood, Glen Ellen and Sonoma. They could be equally or more scenic, have oodles of wine country juice but are harder hit from a statistical eye. That is why the laser beam approach is best when you are actively in the market for real estate, or are planning to sell a property for that matter. As my colleague in coastal San Mateo county, Marian Bennett said recently, "Coastside real estate is very “location specificâ€. Trends can be information but they are not the whole picture if you are ACTIVELY in the market. In our office alone, 2 homes sold within hours of being listed last week. Part of that may be heading into the spring buying time and/or the seller had the golden triangle (my phrase) of Location, Price, and Presentation. "...
Highest level ratified Sonoma County real estate sales since autumn 2006
Last month I posted an encouraging word about increased January 2008 real estate sales  activity in Sonoma county. My fellow realtors and I are all noticing a pickup in buyer activity since December. "People are realizing that their are some "smoking" deals out there and getting down off the fence. I think 2008 will be the year of the buyer." said my broker at Coldwell Banker, Rick Laws , on a brief phone call today. He had just emailed us the first look at February real estate sales data for Sonoma County homes and condominiums and the data verify the gut feel possessed by many of us who as realtors are active in the market on a daily basis.  I am glad because I was feeling a bit like Pollyanna after my last post, given the gloom and doom in the media. The media spin generally lags street level reality by weeks or months, which is why timing the real estate market or any market for that matter, is so difficult to do.  Anyway, newly opened escrows (ratified contracts) are up over 65% this month from last to 363 units. January saw the largest number of ratifieds of any month since last July 2007, but get this, February's sales are up to a level not seen since AUTUMN of 2006! Given seasonal factors, that is a pretty encouraging sign. January ratifieds were 220 units and December was at 171. If you are interested in learning about some of the great real estate buys in Sonoma County, whether for single family homes, country property, horse property or investment purposes, please feel free to email me or call.  I will post more in depth data for February when it becomes available in another week or so....
Mid-range Sonoma County property sales AND inventory trend down
Unlike the entry level where inventory keeps growing, and sales are also up sharply this last January, properties priced from $500,000 to $750,000, what is our lower mid-range, are showing declining sales, but also declining inventory at nearly the same rate.  Buyers at this price range are entering jumbo loan territory, and sellers who don't have to absolutely sell may be taking themselves out of the market. ...