Sonoma County Home Sales Report May 2012

Besides redwoods, some of the commentators on the app have suggested the riders stop at the numerous Russian River Wineries they are passing, but as far as I know they are saving that for later!

I’l have some video later but this picture of some of my neighbors will have to do for now!

Watching the Amgen Tour of California Stage 1 in West Sonoma County May 13, 2012

For more info on the race and stage one, go here. A map of the Sonoma County race route is here.

People often ask me when we are writing an offer if they have to specify in advance all the inspections they want to have. In California, absolutely not. You may not be able to anticipate up front all of the necessary inspections so you are not limited in any way. You can have your astrologist out to the property if you want!

A good country property realtor can help you to avoid investing time or money on an obviously unsuitable property for your needs, but the only way you will know the whole truth about a property will be to investigate it thoroughly. I have a range of professional experts in various fields that I can recommend to my clients to choose from to hire, and we arrange most appointments as a service to our clients.

As part of our Wine Country and Horses Country Property series we will be looking at many common areas to investigate Some properties may merit more extensive inspections. For example a few years back my clients decided it would be smart to have a geologist evaluate the 2.5 acre site they had in escrow. Why? There was a massive rock hillside just to the back of the house. The geologist crawled all over the property, assured them that the hillside was relatively stable, and pointed out a massive bolder up the hill over their pool that probably needed staking! Now they have a lovely, wonderful weekend getaway place that I love to visit for dinners and parties.

At the very minimum, these are the basic inspections for a country property:

1. Well and Water Quality $400-$500.
2. Septic System $300-$700 if the tank needs pumping
3. Termite Inspections (aka Structural Pest Inspection) $250-$400 depending on the size and number of structures.
4. Professional Home Inspection (Contractor’s Inspection) $400-$500 or more if more dwellings.
5. Permit History Free but requires the buyers’ time to go to Sonoma County PRMD with their agent to pull the permits. As agents we are not allowed to pull permits due to liability concerns, but we can accompany you and show you the ropes.

Oftentimes other aspects will come to light in the initial investigation that will lead to investigation by other specialists: geologists, plumbers, arborists and very importantly, surveyors. Fence lines often do not accurately represent boundary lines and I have heard of cases where parts of entire structures were actually built across a property line on to a neighbor’s property. Not a fun thing to deal with! The only way to accurately know what the corners are for a property is to hire a surveyor. Sometimes sellers can identify corner markers but the survey is the most reliable way to get accurate information. Surveys can cost thousands of dollars but a mislocated garage or vineyard can be very expensive to undo!

Sonoma County’s minimum requirement is currently ONE gallon per minute to build a single-family dwelling. Typically when a well is evaluated as part of the pre-purchase inspection, the tap is opened and run for a minimum of two hours to draw down the well and see how quickly it replenishes. When you think about it, one gallon per minute of water is actually a lot of water but I would be very hesitant to recommend a purchase of a property with this level of production unless you also had storage to accumulate some of that water for drawing down later for irrigation and home use. I know of one property in Sebatopol on acreage that only had a 1 GPM well. The builder decided to rent it out to a family of five for a year to prove that it was viable. Still, they had drought tolerant, minimal landscaping and it was a push. It is really not practical to to any extensive irrigation at this level, let along think about vineyards, orchards or livestock.

A property with 2-5 GPM will likely need to have storage as well. As you go over 10 GPM (my property is blessed with 27 GPM) then the storage requirements drop. It can literally vary from hill to hill so it is important that your realtor have some familiarity with water issues in the area you are considering before you seriously pursue a particular property. When it comes to evaluating the water system on a property you are in escrow on, then the experts come in to do their full-blown testing. That can run about $400 or $500 dollars or more depending on the extent of the exam. For example, when you evaluate water quality for a potential vineyard, the water testing is more extensive and more expensive.

In water scarce areas, Sonoma County has more extensive flow testing and requires it be done at the end of the dry season. The time of the year can impact the flow rate, and at the end of the dry season a well flow test will give you a more adequate picture of the toughest conditions your well will face. This is a link to the county’s requirements for water scarce areas.

You can find out the groundwater area your prospective country property is located in my post about groundwater classification here.

(Note: prior to the inspection, it would be smart for the buyer to pull the permit history and try to get the well log (the description of the depth of the well and the soils) so that Nick could review that as well. On a recent inspection for a client we found that the new well had not had the permit finalled by the county, and we asked the seller and the well driller to get that sorted out prior to closing the sale. I am so glad my clients and I investigated the permit history at Sonoma County PRMD. Here is a link to a previous post on PRMD.

In Sebastopol you can go from one street to the next, one ridge to the next, and go from a reasonable Zone 2 to a Zone 3 area. Much of the Santa Rosa plain is water rich Zone 1. Take a look at the map below.

Sonoma County Water Zones range from 1 (Rich) to 4 (Scarce)

70 % of Sonoma County Homes get their water from Private Wells

The nature of your well and septic systems and the specific country location you are interested in will impact the scope of what you can do with your property, either from a building and development standard or in terms of livestock and agriculture.

The vast majority of country properties here in Sonoma County get their water from wells, although I have sold a few properties which had no well but extensive, well producing springs. I have seen some cool spring houses and catch systems for spring water and oddly they can be a few hundred yards away from properties that barely produce any water from their wells. This is really common for example, along Westside Road that stretches from Forestville through Healdsburg.

When you buy a home on well water in Sonoma County you need to know about a few different topics:

What is the Groundwater Classification Area for the property?
How many Gallons per Minute (GPM) does the well yield?
What is the condition of the well pump and related equipment and storage, if any?
How is the Water quality?

Now don’t let this list scare you. Most of these items are treatable, except lack of water of course. If you write an offer on a country property, your realtor will be able to arrange to have qualified professionals inspect the water systems. The cost of the inspections are typically the buyer’s responsibility. I think sellers should provide as many of these inspections up front as they can, these inspections especially IF THERE IS ANY QUESTION or concern or doubt about water scarcity or quality in a given location.

An experienced country property realtor can also give you a heads up if any of the properties you might be considering could have water “challenges” for your use. If you are an avid gardener or farmer for example you probably want to stay away from water scarce areas and pursue more appropriate properties for you!

We’ll explore these different points in greater detail in other posts, as part of our Wine Country and Horses Country Property Series.

The chart below shows the rate of newly opened escrows has been steadily climbing since late last year, and is hitting heights not seen in a number of years.  Now granted, not all of these will close, but many of them will, and they are a good leading indicator of market trends.  Also the reason inventory is at a many year low, only 1.4 months of homes available at the current rate of sales.  That number is down 63% from two years ago!  Also, the reason I have not been (she said sheepishly) blogging so much. My wonderful clients and I are responsible for a bunch of the numbers on the graph below.

Click to Enlarge: A graph showing the rate of newly opened escrows in Sonoma County Home