Wine Country And Horses

Good friend and photographer Robbin Satterlee was able to capture a range of photos from the Sonoma County Wine and Horse country outside Santa Rosa, with dramatic views of snow covered Mt. Saint Helena in Napa and towards the mountainous Geysers of Lake County to the north. Vineyards, horses and snow covered mountains. Not bad. The snow has melted now as warmer rains have come in but enjoy. We have these snowstorms at the higher elevations (1500 to 2000 feet) a couple of times each winter.

Snow on hilltops

Given the short month, the holiday season and oh yes, the economic meltdown in the news, real estate sales are holding steady as viewed at the end of November, 2008 in Sonoma County California. I will have more detailed information by price points later in the month but here is a quick tidbit of post-Thanksgiving real estate stats. The number of units sold will increase with the final report since there is a several day lag on sales closed at the end of each month while the reporting catches up. This information is provided by Rick Laws, my broker at Coldwell Banker Santa Rosa, and is based upon sales reported via the MLS here by Brokermetrics.

                                     Nov 07         Nov 08          #Units Change          Percent Change

Under Contract          206              455                   249                     120.9 %

Sold                               242             320                   78                        32.2 %

New Listings                474              370                 -104                    -21.9 %

First thing that jumps out is that there were 120.9 % MORE brave souls who wrote offers on properties in this wild short month of November versus last year at this time.  The number of closed sales is up at least 32 % year to year as well.   The number of new listings has declined nearly 22 % versus last November, as many people hunker down.  This makes for some interesting trend lines year over year, as well as expected seasonal declines in units sold as we head into the winter months.   Anecdotally, the buyers are split about evenly between investors and first-time home buyers.  Units sold are dominated by the low-end of our market, under $400,000. 

Since the one point drop in mortgage rates just before Thanksgiving really was not much of a factor in November’s sales, it will be interesting to see how that boosts (or not) our  real estate sales for Sonoma County in December.   Stay tuned.