The Sonoma Real Estate Buzz
The real estate market has warmed up significantly in the last months. These increasing numbers are people who want to take advantage of the good rates and deals out there. The $8000 First Time Home Buyer Credit and the historical low mortgage rates are certainly helped the market in 2009.
Besides there is a growing belief that the market has reached or at the least is very close to its bottom.
From January 1 to December 31, 2009, 415 Sonoma Valley homes sold at a median price of $395,000 and an average price of about $569,000. They were an average of 116 days on the market. The lowest priced house sold for $83,000 and the highest price was $6,476,025.
The total dollar volume was $ 236,395,360. The sold listings prices achieved 95% of their asking price. Compared to 2008 the number of sales is up: 378 houses sold in 2008 with a total volume $283,757,653. The average price was $750,000 and the median price was $505,000.
Good signs:
Overall, the Sonoma Valley market seems to be reaching a stage of “good health”. Please contact me for additional information and copies of the complete statistical reports.
How short sales manipulate the statistics:
As of December 29th, there were 1,343 homes are actively for sale in Sonoma County, 936 are in escrow. Sonoma Valley has 179 homes active on the market and 64 homes in escrow, 37 of them are short sales. (Not all of those will actually close escrow as the fall-out rate is still high by historical standards.)
The numbers in Sonoma County are astonishing and need some explanation. 1,492 active versus 936 in escrow looks like almost a sellers market again.
Well, that is not exactly true. From these 936 houses in escrow, 615 are short sales and short sales have a closing time of an average of 159 days.
The other 321 houses in escrow are already 100 days on the market. In the old days the days on the market was as short as 30 days. With up to a six time longer escrow period, there is a serious problem to say it is a sellers market.
Some thoughts on REO's - Bank Owned Properties.
It seems that everybody thinks this is a path to wealth. Since it is definitely not wrong, it is not the only truth either.
REO's are often in deferred maintenance since these homes are empty for a while, sometimes up to a year. And before they were vacant, people lived there who couldn't make the payments on the mortgage, and they probably saved on maintenance too, like not taking care of the pool or the once so beautiful garden. Since it also takes up to a year before an owner gets kicked out of the property, we're ending up with two years or more deferred maintenance.
This reflects on the property. Sometimes the house needs some paint and TLC, sometimes the deferred maintenance has left deeper wounds to the property.
On the other hand, the market is down, and this has reached almost every single seller in the country. The houses which are coming on the market are from sellers who really want to sell and often buy somewhere else. These sellers did the math and know they getting less for the property than expected two years ago, but they are also paying much less for their new home. And these homes are often in much better condition.
The numbers of REO on the market are actually surprising:
In Marin we have 33 Bank Owned Properties active on the market, compared to the 1,089 active residential houses overall. From these 33 REOs 22 are listed in San Rafael and Novato.
Sonoma County has a significantly higher number: 132 active REOs. 56 of these are located in Santa Rosa and only 10 in Sonoma Valley. Overall Sonoma County has 1,492 active listings.
Barbara Greenhill
Broker Assoc.
Realtor
Frank Howard Allen
The Winecountrygroup
415-497-2806
Brought To You By Barbara Greenhill
Towns and Neighborhoods:
Sonoma Valley
Fine Living:
Sonoma Home Watch :
Would you like a free subscription to our HOMEWatch newsletter?
It gives you updates by mail of all the new properties that come on the market in the area and price range you're interested in - with addresses and MLS numbers so you can drive by or search for them on our website.
Just send me a reply with what price range and area you're most interested in or just click here to get your updates started right away...
This page was last updated: December 29, 2009
Sign up for my Email Newsletter
