Buyers Competing Once Again

Buyers Competing Once Again

Sonoma County’s volume of home sales hit their slowest pace in over 30 years in 2023. Reeling from the effects of higher interest rates for sure, though the primary culprit was ultimately the lack of willing sellers bringing new inventory to the marketplace.

According to the most recent data collected by BAREIS MLS, a current overview of Sonoma County shows an average sold price per-square-foot (psf) of $649 being paid for a single-family home – 18 percent greater than last year at this time as well as being a new all-time high – corroborating the improvements in property value echoed by the average sales price closing at a historical high of $1,245,000 as January came to completion.

Within the 15 different sub-markets of Sonoma County, sales of single-family homes in Healdsburg along with the tony town of Sonoma – which includes the hamlets of Kenwood and Glen Ellen - vastly outperformed the balance of our markets from just a year earlier with a 44 percent surge to $1,142psf and a 38 percent jump to $1,195psf, respectively. Sebastopol chimed in with an 18 percent rise to $600psf while the coalesced markets of Cotati and Rohnert Park rallied 15 percent to close the January at $440psf. Oakmont’s transactions for the period jumped 12 percent from just a year earlier as values crossed the finish line at $438psf while Petaluma’s Westside pulled through with an 11 percent move to $609psf.

A nudge removed, our well-loved and rugged Coastal region saw prices leap eight percent to $789psf narrowly outpacing Southeast Santa Rosa where values ascended seven percent to $422psf. Staying just this side of positive, Petaluma’s Eastside along with Cloverdale pulled in three percent moves to wrap up January at $531psf and $409psf, respectively.

Shedding one percent from a year earlier, Northeast Santa Rosa average sales prices were at $462psf while Southwest Santa Rosa encountered a two percent decline to $432psf. Giving up five percent, Windsor deals got done at $485psf while Northwest Santa Rosa witnessed property exchanges at $424psf – a 10 percent departure. It seems January’s impressive rainfall has abated activity in the Russian River region where new homeowners were acquiring properties at $390psf - 22 percent below last year at this time. 

As we see the early signs of Spring start to show, the hopeful expectation of buyers is that we will have more homes to harvest this year. Where those will come from is yet to be exposed, though buyers are chomping at the bit to execute deals as interest rates move in a more favorable direction. Coming off a historically low year of new offerings, we are being told by economists to expect more sellers in 2024…we will see. If not, buyers will find themselves once again competing for the limited offerings that do appear.