Slim Pickin's for Sonoma Homes

Slim Pickin's for Sonoma Homes.

Our Sonoma broker tour for Thursday, January 20th, is puny---just three new listings in all of Sonoma Valley!   We've got one Sonoma REO listed at under 300K, another single family home priced in the mid-500's, and a new Sonoma home at $1.5 Million that I wrote a post about last week.    Depending on your point of view, the listing shortage is either dismal or delightful.

It is dismal if you are a buyer or a buyer's agent looking for new Sonoma listings---some fresh inventory to get excited about.  I'd like to see some new offerings.  We've got less than 160 homes on the market here right now in all price categories....about 25% of these are distressed properties.

The shortage of non-distressed properties is delightful news if you are a Sonoma seller.  Here's the backstory.  I just love that term as a former reporter.  It's a cool replacement for "background" which sounds so dry and boring.  But I digress....

Sellers should be paying attention and starting to rejoice because here where flowers are blooming and convertible tops are down, in good times and bad, there is basically a never-ending demand for Sonoma real estate.  While people are freezing in the Midwest and buried in snow on the east coast, it's gorgeous here.  It was in the mid-60's today.   The periwinkles are going into garden planters,  winter veggies are growing, great wines are ever-flowing. 

Sonoma homes are an hour from San Francisco, one of the most beautiful, romantic, and interesting cities in the world.  Our breath-taking coastline is also an hour from my Sonoma Plaza office and if my skis were in my car I could wrap up my work day and be in Tahoe or Heavenly Valley in time for dinner and some night-skiing under tonight's full moon.

Here's what I'm saying:  Spring's coming and it's beginning to feel a lot like sellers have their minds made up that this isn't the time to sell because unemployment is still dragging down the economy and government budgets are whacked out.  In Sonoma those things don't matter all that much.  And that's evident because we are seeing a gradual uptick in buyer activity.  Slim Pickin's for Sonoma buyers could mean a good deal for Sonoma sellers if they step up this Spring.

Buying or selling?  Contact me soon---time's a wasting'.