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Real Estate Guides

Pump House at Emerald Ridge

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 [...]

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Sonoma County Housing Trends

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 [...]

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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 [...]

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Sonoma Real Estate Team

Real Estate Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is the right time for me to acknowledge all the great people that I get to work with. Every Sonoma County real estate transaction has an abundance of helping hands.  Some deal with the clients on both sides of the sale. Many more are working as back office professionals assisting with financing, title,  insurance, [...]

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Great Rates Tempt Sonoma Home Buyers

Interest Rates Tempt Savvy Sonoma Buyers

Sonoma County home prices are at historically affordable levels. Nearly half of the households in the county can afford the median priced home. That compares to only 9 percent of buyers from just a few years ago in 2006 and 2007. Combining the California Affordability Index with historically low interest rates creates an environment that [...]

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Sonoma County Home Affordability Index

Advice for Fence-Sitting Buyers in Sonoma County

If your cousin, brother,  or best friend’s dog was warning about the housing bubble in 2006, I would pay a lot of attention to them today. Unfortunately, almost everyone else missed the bubble  in spite of all sorts of warning signs that we were in an unsustainable market. It’s human nature to go with the [...]

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Mortgage Loan Payoff

Mortgage Calculator and Rates

Try both of these handy tools for planning your Sonoma County home purchase. The first is a great tool to see the progress of your payments and figure your monthly costs. The lower tool provides a real time look at mortgage rates and their trend over time. Powered by Home Mortgage Powered by CA Interest [...]

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Sonoma County Home for Sale

Price per Square Foot in Sonoma County

Price per square foot is a useful tool for the real estate industry. Real estate agents use it for  informal appraisals and professional appraisers make use of it for formal valuations. For home buyers it’s one way to compare homes of different sizes but similar construction quality. Contractors and architects use it as a shorthand [...]

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Sonoma Roof on Broadway

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 [...]

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Florence St in Sebastopol

Sebastopol Residential Sales

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 [...]

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