Wine Country And Horses

After feeding the horses, and then dressing up, I am headed out with a group of friends and clients (many times one and the same!) to tonight’s Equus Awards, Sonoma County’s Academy Awards for the horse community here! It is the annual benefit for the Sonoma County Horse Council, and its only fundraiser of the year.

WineCountryandHorses (this blog) has put together a table of ten and we are looking forward to perusing the silent auction items. I have advised everyone to bring their checkbooks, and friend and tablemate Christine DeLoach of Hook and Ladder Winery has also graciously donated several cases of Hook and Ladder Third Alarm Chardonnay to the Council for this evening’s festivities. I think a few bottles of red may find their way in tonight as well!

I guess Rush (below) will have to eat dinner at home with Giles and Missy while we party!

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.

Sunday afternoon, March 9, I will be hosting an open house at a lovely country home on just under 2 acres in South Sebastopol.   It would be suitable for horses or 4H, orchards and possibly vineyard.

The 4BR/2 BA home sits on a knoll at the end of a private country lane, equidistant between 101 and the quaint town of Sebastopol, a vibrant community with everything from world class dining, excellent schools, a Whole Foods Market, weekly farmers markets and a small community theater and cinema.    With the sunshining you will be able to appreciate the fabulous 360 degree views, including Mt. St. Helena.

  Please come see me tomorrow, March 9 at 5611 Hessel Avenue in Sebastopol, Ca 95472 from 1 pm to 4pm.   If you click on this link it will take you to the interactive Press Democrat open homes guide.  Type in your criteria such as the town of Sebastopol, price range, etc. and you will get a map of the homes open this weekend, along with directions and a route guide.  The home I am hosted  is listed by my good friend Izetta Feeny, and is extremely well-priced at $725,000.  See you there!

 5611 Hessel Avenue, Sebastopol  Open House this Sunday 3/9 from 1 to 4 pm

Just got a call from an agent today about an up and coming interesting new country property listing in a very close in Sebastopol location but a nearly 2 acre parcel on a country lane, so it sounds like the best of both worlds. A country feel, room for horses or grapes, privacy…..yet walk to Ragle Park, or walk to town with Michelin rated restaurants like K and L Bistro. It should be on in a few weeks but will be a short sale, so will need a patient buyer. Let me know if you would like any more information about this or any other upcoming properties.

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 specific”. 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. “

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.

We went for a drive yesterday after breakfast (OK, I know, a Realtor’s busmen holiday consists of driving around and looking at property!).   We took all back roads from the house in the Olivet area outside Santa Rosa, crossed over Wohler Road to Westside Road, stopped in Healdsburg for coffee, then back to West Dry Creek Road, Lambert Bridge Road to Dry Creek Road, Lytton Springs Road to Chalk Hill Road (to preview a new country property there) and back all the way down the east side on Chalk Hill to Faught Road in Windsor.   I will try to duplicate the drive on Google Maps, but you can email me if you want the specifics, but we covered the better parts of the Russian River, Dry Creek and Alexander Valleys and got to ogle lots of gorgeous Sonoma County country property on a glorious early spring day.

The mustard, daffodils and acacia trees were at the peak of their yellow blooms, leading us to wonder what it is about the first flowers of spring that so many of them are so YELLOW!