Holiday Marketplace Arrives

Holiday Marketplace Arrives

As we embark into the holiday season our markets are poised to slumber. Thereby allowing players within it to recalibrate, recover and recommit with new energy once we break on through to the new year.

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 $561 being paid for a single-family home – nine percent greater than last year at this time, though lower than the preceding eight months, indicating a slippage in property values already echoed by other metrics. The fall in value is iterated by the median price coming back to $796,000 – a nine percent decline from its all-time peak of $872,000.

Within the sub-markets of Sonoma County, the tony touristy town of Sonoma laid claim to the greatest advance year-over-year as it surged ahead 27 percent registering an average sold value for a single-family home at $1035psf – the first time any region within the county has crossed this threshold. This last month found Windsor as a runner-up with values having soared 17 percent more than a year earlier to $538psf.

Still touting double digit gains, Southeast Santa Rosa captured a 13 percent jump to $487psf while our splendid senior community, Oakmont, rallied 10 percent to $431psf. Coming in on those coat tails, Healdsburg caught a nine percent tailwind from a year earlier to settle at $768psf. In a three-way tie - accelerating seven percent - were Sebastopol, Petaluma’s Eastside and Cloverdale reporting closing values at $649psf, $491psf and $388psf, respectively.

With prices propelling upwards of six percent, Northwest Santa Rosa closed the period at $471psf while Cotati and Rohnert Park delivered five percent more than twelve months earlier at $407psf. Staying this side of positive, Petaluma’s Westside edged ahead four percent to $600psf.

Wrapping up October, Southwest Santa Rosa relinquished three percent to close the month at $378psf while the Russian River region gave back 12 percent with sales going out the door at $476psf. In the cellar this month, our glorious Coastal market saw closing prices retreat 15 percent to $694psf.

Some would be shocked to see the metrics above showing positive, this is testament to just how much we have really risen over the last three years even after conceding nine percent from peak pricing levels achieved six months ago. Along with this value concession we have absorbed, the Federal Reserve is identifying that it may take a less aggressive approach to further interest rate increases as new economic data continues to role in favorably to that conscious change of sentiment.

We anticipate a continuance of sparse inventory levels which, by the nature of supply and demand principles, will retard more immense erosion in prices. This is not to say that values will not creep further down before finding their buoyancy levels and rising again, though it does intimate that there is a window of opportunity for buyers as our markets find their balance.