20 Years of Wine Country & Horses
In June 2003 I founded my real estate practice after leaving Silicon Valley and moving to my own horse property. A mutual friend introduced me to Betsy Bueno, running a fledgling horse rescue out of her tract home, stringing 11 garden hoses down the block to leased pastureland. She had tried for 2 years to find the true home for her horse rescue.
Just Sold $1,300,000 – 23% Over List Price!
This gorgeous country property on Joy Road was popular the day it hit the market late May. With 20 showings over 6 days we asked for offers by Day 7. With 4 strong offers in hand we accepted one at $1.3 million, well over what the comp sales showed! The seller had a generous rentback to allow for a smooth transition and the sale closed with a minimum of fuss. We were able to take advantage of a very hot market for country properties, which seems to be continuing. However, the market is constantly evolving so it is important your strategy evolves along with it! The successful sale of your home starts with preparation and development of a marketing strategy appropriate to your home and current market conditions. Please reach out by email or phone, we are happy to discuss your unique needs and circumstances! And don't forget to watch our unique drone listing video below! It really showcases this special spot and helped attract potential buyers to see the property! Property Website ...
The Magic of Mustard in the Vineyards
The Magic of Mustard in the Vineyards: Every year, towards the end of winter, many Sonoma County vineyards come alive with a brilliant carpet of mustard beneath the bare grapevine trunks. The first time someone sees the landscape, it's mesmerizing. Mustard is more than just a feast for the eyes, it's a feast for the vines. It thrives just until bud break, when it is turned under to mulch and provides valuable nutrients to the emerging grape plants. To view the mustard, simply pick an area that's deeply populated with wineries and vineyards, and look out your car window. [embed]https://youtu.be/5r5Foh6uga4[/embed]...
Sonoma County Housing Market Breaks Records in 2020!
After the coronavirus pandemic sent Sonoma County homebuying into a tailspin last spring, the local housing market rebounded to have a banner year, posting a record annual median home price and the most houses and condos sold in seven years! As we embark on a new year (we can’t believe it’s already February), let’s take a look at some of the important real estate highlights from 2020 and what experts are forecasting for the spring season. [caption id="attachment_21108" align="aligncenter" width="408"] *Note: The median price for single family homes in Sonoma County is $700,000, slightly higher than $675,000 mentioned in this report which includes condominiums.[/caption] What This Means For Buyers & Sellers: Low inventory, high buyer demand and increasing home prices have resulted in a seller’s market as we enter 2021. Historic low interest rates are drawing more buyers, especially millennials, into the marketplace. Buyers are flocking to Sonoma County from the Bay Area due to changing household needs and work-from-home flexibility. Despite home prices increasing, Sonoma County is still considered an affordable option compared to the Bay Area with a median single family home price of $700,000 vs $1.06 million. What To Expect As We Look Ahead to Spring 2021...
Pardon Our Dust! Meanwhile Sonoma County Country Property Values up 37% since 2015
This website came into existence in summer of 2007 and we saw the end of a market runup and a catastrophic nationwide recession beginning in late 2007.The Sonoma County real estate market hit a low in February 2009 and bounced along the bottom for a few years. Since 2012 we have seen steady appreciation in prices and sometime in the last year the median value of Sonoma County homes exceeded the previous high. Currently the median price is just under $700,000. Country properties never saw the frothy runup that single family homes did in the previous decade but they have been making up for lost time every since. Over the last three years homes sitting on over an acre have increased in value by 37%. The home you used to be able to buy for $935,000 now will cost you a bit under $1,300,000. Why? At only an hour north of the Golden Gate Bridge, our beautiful country properties represent a tremendous value compared to the skyrocketing costs of an SF Bay Area home. And the stress and congestion of Bay Area freeways and urban living make our homes on acreage very appealing. As one of my clients recently told me when we celebrated her two year anniversary of buying her Healdsburg home, "This property helps me maintain my sanity and I am enjoying the peace i find up here even more than I hoped I would!" NOTE: We are in the process of designing a completely new website so pardon our dust while we work on that in the background! [caption id="attachment_2303" align="alignleft" width="300"] Here is a look at the median price of listed and sold properties over 1 acre in Sonoma County since 2015[/caption]...
A Country Property Course for Realtors in Sonoma County
[caption id="attachment_2147" align="alignleft" width="300"] A view across a private horse arena in Blucher Valley Sebastopol[/caption] I have been away from posting for far too long. One of the things that has kept me occupied (besides the day-to-day of working with home buyers and sellers!) is my work this year as Chairperson of the North Bay Association of Realtors (NORBAR) Education and Technology Committee. I have volunteerd on this committee for over five years and find it rewarding to work with my peers to create and promote training for realtors throughout Sonoma, Napa and Mendocino Counties. We have developed new agent training (the practical kind) and many other courses on technology for realtors, etc. One of our most successful series has been the Country Property Series for Realtors. We have been working away on the latest round which will take place over five weeks in June and July. If you are planning to buy or sell country real estate in Sonoma County, you want to make sure you work with a realtor who is very qualified to help guide you through the complexities of a country property transaction. Here are the classes we are teaching. Our faculty consists of experienced realtors and subject area experts. These courses are only available to realtors but I just wanted to give you and idea of the scope of things to consider when buying or selling a country property! This is a list of topics! Week 1: Market Study--sales trends in country property. I will be teaching this with Mike Kelly of Keller Williams. Septic Systems Mike Treinen is teaching this class. He is a licensed septic consultant and used to work for the county of Sonoma in that capacity. He is the guy my clients hire to analyze and inspect their systems, current and proposed. Wells, Springs and Water Quality County Resources (an overview of the Sonoma County Permit Resources and Management Division (aka PRMD) Week 2: Zoning and Permits These two topics alone will take up a whole afternoon of our time and we will only scratch the surface. If you are buying a property you want to be as sure as possible that the zoning matches your planned purposes for residential use, vacation rentals, agriculture, livestock, etc. Week 3: Survey, Grading and Drainage Issues Environmental Issues (toxic waste and endangered species anyone?) Legal Issues (easements, encroachments, boundary disputes, ask me about my current...
Water and Country Property: How many Gallons per Minute does your Well Produce?
As part of our Wine Country and Horse Country Property Series we have been looking at water. One of the most important items to consider when evaluating a country property is how much water does the well produce? How many gallons per minute (GPM)? 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...
What does a Well Test involve in Sonoma County?
As part of my research for the water topic in our Wine Country and Horses Country Property series I googled Nick Brasesco of Ray's Well Testing, who does most of my well inspections for clients. I found this nice video, courtesy of Robert Ramirez, an agent at Century 21 in Petaluma. It is about seven minutes long but it gives a good overview of all the components of evaluating a well for a basic country property pre-purchase inspection. (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. ...
Water and Country Property in Sonoma County
[caption id="attachment_1473" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="70 % of Sonoma County Homes get their water from Private Wells"][/caption] Buying a country property is not like buying a home in a city tract or a subdivision, especially in Sonoma County, where 70 percent of the homes are not hooked in to public water and sewer. Water comes from a well and your sewage is disposed of on site in a septic system. I would never have thought that this liberal arts graduate would have learned so much about well and septic systems, but it is essential knowledge for any realtor who likes to buy and sell country property, as I do. 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...
Planning on Building or Remodelling a Sonoma County home? Check out PRMD
Meet Sonoma County's Permit and Resource Management Department,PRMD, a place you will get to know well if you are buying a home in our wine country. Useful links and tips for researching country property in Sonoma County....