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Cloverdale Fixer

Cloverdale is suffering from the housing bubble collapse, but that doesn’t mean the town is dead. It just means that bargains are available for buyers who would like to be in Healdsburg, but have been priced out of the market. There’s plenty of charm in Cloverdale, the wine tastes just as great, and the money you save can add up fast.

315 N. Cloverdale Blvd Stairs — Beautiful Stair Details

A case in point is an REO fixer property that has been off the market for six months while the bank was working on a fix for the failing garage. Well, the bank determined the proper fix is “let the buyer do it”, and the property is being listed again by my patient fellow agent Carole Sauers.

This 1903 gem is just blocks from Cloverdale downtown. It sits on almost a quarter acre lot with fruit trees and plenty of sunshine. There’s a terrific front porch that wraps around one side and there are many period details that buyers will want to keep. There is a basement and a sound foundation. My thought would be to lift the house a foot or two and create some great space underneath, but everyone will have their own ideas about what to do. No matter what you plan, the raw material of a great lot, great location, and classic fixer make for a bargain at only $185,000.

The house is surrounded by mixed use buildings, but the city of Cloverdale wants this to be simply residential. You can write the great American novel here, but you can’t meet your accounting or legal clients.

You’ll either need cash or a rehab loan to make this sale work. The upside on the property is probably in the $300K range today after repairs, but ten or fifteen years from now a downtown Cloverdale property is going to be very hard to find. I’ll call this one my Sonoma County Deal for the Labor Day weekend.

Sonoma Country Property Fuels Dreams

Country living has a vivid place in the American imagination. You might be toiling in a cubicle today, but in your heart you are already planting the deep, rich beds of asparagus that you’ll be eating in your retirement. While you answer the next call stacked up in the queue, you can just feel the sunlight on your face as you and your significant other sip wine on the rustic porch overlooking the small vineyard…next to your chickens and olives and roses and beautifully manicured raised beds.

Sonoma County Chickens — Necessary ingreditent for country dreaming

I know that dream. I love that dream. I sell that dream.

I’m the guy who knows how deep to dig the asparagus bed, how to prime your well pump, and which septic guy to call when you need help. I’m the one who can help you find that small dream property that pops into your head whenever work gets a little too boring or urban life starts to wear on you. That’s when you need your Sonoma County real estate agent (me) to send you a few new listings to start dreaming about.

If you’re looking for an old apple orchard or a new vineyard in west Sonoma County, this link to homes with one to five acres in Sebastopol might keep you dreaming for weeks. If you want a Sonoma country property a little closer to the famed Sonoma square, try homes with one to five acres in Sonoma. If you’re ready for the foodie-inspired wine country lifestyle, go for broke and check out some one to five acre Healdsburg properties or the larger Healdsburg homes with six to twenty acres. Healdsburg has fewer small parcels than Sonoma and Sebastopol, but if you’re looking for a place to park your IPO proceeds, Healdsburg has beautiful properties available.

For the architecturally inclined dreamers, starting with bare land (or bare plus roads plus water plus septic plus fences plus high speed internet) might be the way to go. Foreclosed land in the north bay didn’t exist six years ago, but today there are dozens of REO “lots and land” properties for sale in Marin, Sonoma, Napa, Mendocino, and Lake county. Sometimes the prices aren’t as low as buyers might expect from the bank owned status, but a savvy agent can help you get the best price for the land you want.

As the song says, “don’t stop thinking about tomorrow.”. There’s room in everyone’s head for a small place in the country. The lucky and hard working alike have a chance to move it from their head into the real world. When you’re ready to get serious about finding and buying your country place, please get in touch. In the meantime, those links are there for dreamers. Even real estate agents have country property fantasies…

Update:

I would be remiss not to mention the fantastic blog about an urban transplant moving to Sonoma County for chickens… She doesn’t have big acreage, but she’s got chickens, a great garden, bees, and wonderful stories about all of it.

The Two Rocks of Two Rock

We often speak place names without thinking about what they mean. For instance, there are four Grand Views in Sonoma County, one each in Sebastopol, Healdsburg, Petaluma, and Camp Meeker. Some of these live up to their name with truly grand views. Others, not so much. There are oak place names all over Sonoma County. We have Oak St and Oak Ln, Oak Hollow, Oak Brook, Oak Vista, Oak Crest, etc. At some point, all those places probably did have oaks. Today, maybe or may not.

One place name that is quite unique is Two Rock. The native Americans on their treks to the coast used this formation of two rocks as a landmark for centuries. Early Spanish settlers called them Dos Piedras, or Two Rocks. The plural was lost in later translations to English, so this famous landmark is now simply Two Rock.

You can now buy the rocks…

It’s not every day that you get a chance to buy a historically interesting site with a history dating back to centuries of native American travel. You can always buy a house on an “oak” street or with a “grand view”, but Two Rock is unique.

The Two Rock property for sale consists of 23 acres overall with one unfinished house, a mobile home, a greenhouse, and some barns. I’d call it a fixer, for sure. According to what I have learned, the repairs on the house have been done with permits, but it’s not complete yet, and there is no certificate of occupancy. That can make financing ~~impossible~~ hard, so the ideal buyers for this property will have acquisition cash available.

Other Listings on Two Rock Road

Sonoma Residential Prices

Knowing residential pricing trends makes you a smarter buyer. Period. Whether you’re chasing an REO investment or competing against multiple offers for your personal dream house, you need to know what other people are doing. Real estate brokers and agents are very good at protecting the confidentiality of their current offers, so the only way to get a sense of the market is to look at recent history.

Sonoma residential discount by sale condition — Sonoma Residential Discounts by Sales Condition

This chart for the city of Sonoma shows the results of the first six months of 2011 broken down by whether the property is an REO, short sale, or open market sale (indicated by NONE). The scale on the left shows what percent of the listing price was paid by the successful buyers. Any column taller than the 1.0 mark indicates buyers are paying more than asking price.

What we see is a very strong performance by REO properties during the first half of the year. In June the average price for a sold REO property was nearly 4% over the listed price. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to understand that buyers are waking up to the fact that prices are probably about as low as they are going to get. Unexpected shocks to the economy may change that, but we have seen pretty stable pricing for several years.

Sonoma Average Home Sales Price 2006-2011

This chart tracks home sale prices for the last five years. You can see the dramatic decline that reached bottom in February of 2009. Since then prices have been more or less stable with the normal fluctuation you will see in a market with limited sales and the occasional mansions or luxury estates tossed in to skew the average.

In addition to the excellent performance of REO properties in Sonoma during the first half of 2011, open market sales and short sales have also done reasonably well. They are being discounted from the asking price, but the modest discounts are in the range of around 4% to 5%. When you are planning to make an offer on any property in Sonoma County, knowing the recent history of pricing discounts will help you make an intelligent offer.

If you are interested in an analysis of another area or a specific property, please talk to your agent. If you don’t have an agent, I’m happy to offer my services.

Sebastopol Residential Sales

Sebastopol home sale volume - 6 month intervals — Sebastopol Home Sales 2006 through June 2011

Sebastopol recorded 24 residential sales in June which helped bring the first half of 2011 to a close with 102 homes sold. That matches nearly exactly the figures from the first half of 2010, but without the First Time Home Buyers Tax Credit that drove many buyers into the market in 2010 in search of tax credits. This year we also have a more challenging lending environment with tough qualifying standards and higher down payments required more frequently.

Sebastopol residential sales by REO, short sale and open market sales — Sebastopol Monthly Sales by Sales Condition

The mix of REO, short sale and open market sales (shown as NONE in the charts) varied significantly from month to month so far this year, but the samples size is too small to draw any useful significance. It’s enough to note that Sebastopol home sales include mainly open market and REO sales with a decent proportion of short sales thrown into the mix.

One of the anomalies of Sebastopol that has persisted for years is a slower reaction to the housing bubble bursting than the rest of the County. Most other cities in Sonoma County showed significant valuation declines until early 2009 and have maintained a reasonably stable price plateau since then. Sebastopol, on the other hand, maintained bubble-level pricing somewhat longer and has continued to search for a market bottom.

To illustrate this, please look at the Sonoma 2006-2011 chart and find the first month that the average price dropped below $600,000 and then find the same price drop in the Sebastopol chart. (For non-chart-followers, it was August of 2008 for Sonoma and not until March of 2009 for Sebastopol. Prices in Sonoma fell all the way under the $400,000 barrier for several months in that early 2009 time frame, but have since recovered and haven’t tested the $400,000 floor again since then.

Sebastopol Average Home Sales Price 2006-2011

Sebastopol, on the other hand, continued to have price declines after spring 2009 and has had several months in the first half of this year with the lowest numbers in the five years of the chart’s time frame. I have a few ideas why Sebastopol remained strong early, but is currently a softer market than Sonoma, but I don’t think anyone has a definitive answer.

In any case, Sebastopol home sales closed out the first six months of the year in strong fashion. I expect this desirable town will continue to have a strong real estate market. Great schools, charming country properties, and a pleasing climate all add to the charm of Sebastopol and make it a must-visit town for prospective Sonoma County home buyers.

Cloverdale Fixer

Sonoma Country Property Fuels Dreams

The Two Rocks of Two Rock

Sonoma Residential Prices

Sebastopol Residential Sales

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