Sonoma County Blog — Sonoma County Real Estate and Living

Searching Sonoma County Real Estate

The internet has changed everything about how buyers find houses. The old MLS guild mentality* still exists in some places, but northern California is online in a big way. Most Sonoma County listings are on realtor.com, zillow.com, trulia.com, and a host of other syndicating sites. Craigslist is a dominating force all over the country, but […]

Prices, bubbles, and timing

My housing trends post from a year ago was so spot-on that I didn’t want to write anything else about the market. It just couldn’t have been as prescient. Still, a year is a long time to spend helping people buy and sell property without writing about it. If you missed out on the 15% […]

Sonoma Housing Demand Pushes Prices Higher

Full price isn’t high enough. It’s strange to write those words after six months of free-falling home values in 2008 and four years of bumping along a fitful bottom since then. What we are seeing both nationally and locally is that owner occupants and investors have returned to the market in large numbers. We are […]

Blu Homes Land in Sonoma County

Blu Homes is a pioneer of sustainable, high quality prefab homes. From their manufacturing facility in Vallejo they truck home modules to building sites where a crane loads the sections onto site-built foundations. Contractors then finish the homes in a much shortened time compared to traditional construction. It’s a process that combines the speed and […]

Alexander Valley Real Estate

Alexander Valley runs from the border with Mendocino County in the north to the south east side of Healdsburg. It contains over 40 wineries and several hundred vineyards with nearly 12,500 acres planted. The vineyards are planted on both sides of the Russian River and extend into the hills on the east side of the […]

Luxury Homes in Sonoma County

Sonoma County continues to be a favorite destination of smart buyers willing to pay a premium price for the wine country lifestyle. Many are successful and financially prudent (missed the bubble) Bay Area residents looking for second homes that will turn into their primary residence when they retire. Other highly-qualified buyers are looking for an […]

Sonoma Real Estate – Inventory Shortage

Buyers and sellers who haven’t been paying attention to Sonoma County real estate are surprised when they are told there’s a shortage of homes on the market. There has been some national and state news coverage of declining real estate inventory, but until you start looking for a home, the shortage is not slapping you […]

Blu Homes in Healdsburg

Blu Homes in Healdsburg. It’s a match made in heaven. Blu Homes are a great example of smart, green construction and Healdsburg in the heart of Sonoma County’s wine country is a fantastic place to live…and eat. Sunset’s 2012 Idea House has been attracting large numbers of visitors every weekend during August. Sunset is keeping […]

Hot Real Estate in Sonoma County

Nobody wants to buy at the top of the market. On the other hand, trying to practice market timing in real estate has proven to be almost impossible. Prices nationally are drifting slightly lower, but some markets have already started to strengthen and prices may be rising. If you aren’t keeping track of what’s going […]

The Great Equilibrium

Sonoma County 2011 real estate stats show another boring year of price stability. For anxious buyers and sellers of Sonoma County real estate, the news of a flat marketplace is probably the most reassuring thing they could hear. They’re not going to get rich on price appreciation like everyone thought they would in the hot […]

Sonoma County Percolation Test and Groundwater Determination

Perc Explained

Country property has a vocabulary all its own. One often confusing term is “perc” or “perc test”. Perc is real estate jargon for “percolation”, a perfectly good word for the ability of soil to absorb moisture. Still, the word percolation manages to baffle people more accustomed to coffee percolation than septic systems. Since percolation is […]

← Previous Entries