Sonoma County Real Estate Market Report April 2014
We had a slight uptick in the number of new listings for Single Family Residences during April 2014, compared to April 2013. But there are still more buyers out there than available homes, creating a supply and demand situation that has continued to worsen in Sonoma County over the past two years.
Even with the new listing uptick, the supply of inventory stood at 1.7 months during April. What this means is if no more listings were introduced to the market, ALL homes would be sold within 51 days. It also means that Sonoma County is in what is called a seller’s market, a balanced market would have 5 to 6 months of inventory, not less than 2!
Because of the lack of inventory, median home values have risen 8% in the past year alone. This is good news for sellers, not so much for buyers. We are experiencing multiple offers on well cared for properties. These properties are being snapped up very quickly, the average days on market (DOM) has dropped from 79 days to 74. This is a good gauge for sellers to know how long it might take for their home to sell.
Now let’s take a look at Condominiums …
For some reason, condos get left out of most Sonoma County real estate market reports, including the market report in our local newspaper. That has never made sense to us, the condo market is alive and well in Sonoma County and is a wonderful choice for buyers who enjoy a low maintenance lifestyle!
As you can see from the chart below, the inventory of condos for sale has been affected as well. The number of new listings has dropped again this month (-7%), but not as bad as last month (-11%). The steady drop in new listings has left us with less than a months supply of inventory! Again, supply and demand has had it’s effect on condo values in Sonoma County, showing an increase of value of 21% over the past 12 months.
* Note: Months supply of inventory is calculated by taking the number of available units on the very last day of the month, divided by the number of units that went under contract during that same month.
That’s it for the Sonoma County Real Estate Market Report April 2014!
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