Wine Country And Horses

My wonderful client Jill is an excellent horsewoman. She and I met riding on Fred MacMurray’s beautiful Twin Valleys ranch on the border of Healdsburg and Forestville. It is only fitting that her wonderful classic Healdsburg bungalow be the subject for an innovative open house this Sunday from 1-4 PM. Jill get’s what were doing so she was very excited to allow Trulia and me to set up a live webcast on Trulia’s blog for the first open house at her home at 414 Piper Street. Only concern she had that it would be like the Truman Show.

We thought this home and its fantastic close to the Healdsburg plaza location would appeal to the type of people who would be watching the Trulia blog who may be frequent visitors to Sonoma County and appreciate the finer things that a community such as Healdsburg has to offer. While Healdsburg is about 80 minutes north of the Golden Gate Bridge, it is a very sophisticated community with country charm. Since the early 80′s when I used to visit good friends Joan and Larry Franceshchina, I fell in love with the wine country of Sonoma and eventually made a home here.

Since 414 Piper Street would make a great weekend getaway or fantastic tele-commute location I thought it would be a great fit for the folks on Trulia to see and appreciate.

So tune in Sunday from 1 to 4 pm or thereabouts. Maybe you will fall in love with 414 Piper Street, Healdsburg.

FYI, this property has an excellent walk score of 83, meaning many amenities and services are available with a block or three or four. Just park your car and enjoy.

You may ask where I’ve been as I have not posted regularly in the last couple of weeks. I have been on the run as many of my clients decided that once 4th of July had passed it was time to get going on new listings or to pick up their efforts for purchasing new homes. A very typically busy couple of weeks in an untypical real estate year. Despite the depressing news in the media, people still have legitimate reasons and motivations to buy and sell, and fully half of the market in Sonoma County has nothing to do with distressed properties. That half of the transactions last month DID have to do with distressed properties (bank-owned properties or short sales) is an amazing statistic, however, one we have discussed previously.

Two other factors (let’s call them the T factors) which have taken away from Blog post time however, have been Trulia and Twitter, hence the new links on my sidebar to the left. Trulia is a wonderful (“truly delightful real estate search” they say) combination of the social networking aspects of Facebook or LinkedIn and the search aspects of a Google.

Who networks on Trulia? Buyers and Sellers of real estate and all kinds of real estate professionals. I spent a few weeks in odd moments on Trulia fleshing out my profile and reviewing and answering multiple questions on Sonoma County communities or various real estate topics. It has been interesting to figure out the rules of the community (since I am not 20 years old and have only participated in LinkedIn and Plaxo in the past).

I’ve also enjoyed pitching in advice and comments on various communities in Sonoma County from Petaluma to Healdsburg, and networking with other agents locally and elsewhere. I’ve even managed to connect with a few buyers and sellers in the process, so there is a business justification for my efforts.

At the same time, everyone was talking about Twitter. I saw all these strange short posts on Kevin Boer’s 3 Oceans Real Estate site and could not make any sense of them. Seemed like a feature in search of a solution. UNTIL I joined in and got a Twitter Account of my very own.

Then the fun began–it takes a little bit to get Twitter, Kevin is convinced that the closer you are to age 20 the faster you get it. (the famous Twitter Age Co-Efficient, or TWAC). That may be true, but then I like to think I am the exception (long past 20) that proves the rule. Anyway the beauty of Twitter is that is a very non-linear web of group instant-messaging, hyper-linking of cool ideas amongst friends and friends of friends (and the whole Twitter world can be seen on one massive Twitter timeline. No post can be over 140 characters, which if you have read this far, you might be happy to know!

It makes for a fun break to sample the group chatter, but also has been a vehicle for serious communications. The first word of the massive earthquake in China came through tweets, as Twitter posts are known.

So I have been forced to be restrained and limit myself to shorter, more frequent posts, which you can see on the sidebar to the left. With Twitter I plan to post more frequent market updates, property reviews and timely short bits of information.

And a very interesting joint venture emerged from all this Twittering on Trulia and blogging about Inman connect. Wait till my next post!