Real Estate and Real Life in the Wine Country

After a soggy Friday it turns out to be a sunny weekend. The perfect weather that we are used to in Sonoma County -aren’t we spoiled rotten and loving every minute of it?

Recently we had some pretty interesting articles in the Pressdemocrat -specifically one on Oct 12th 2007 - about the tremendous amounts of foreclosures… Yes, it’s better not to have any at all but let me put this into perspective:

Although they say foreclosure filings have tripled from last September to this September, we only have 272 Sonoma County homes in default or foreclosure. And they admit some might have been double counted due to multiple loans on the property.

Let’s put it in actual perspective. According to the article, that is one in 711 households, for a total of 193,392 households in Sonoma County. If my math is correct, that is .14% of the properties in Sonoma County… less than ¼ of 1%!!!
Let’s get real about our market and realize that this is a perfect market to buy and also to move up. (I will post more about this the coming weekd)

Of course, unless you are one of the 272 households…

Enjoy the rest of the weekend and should you decide to go home shopping: call us first for a list of excellent opportunities.

Mirjam

(707) 486-2638

 Last week I was on a Cruise with Holland America in Alaska and on our hike in Ketchikan we came by a very interesting little ‘fixer’.

Looking at the amount of moss on the roof it really brought home the amount of rainfall in Ketchikan every year, it’s a rain forest area. That gives a whole different meaning to mold….

This is only one of the reasons why it’s wise to hire a local Realtor when selling or buying. You need someone who is familiar with the area. For a seller, you want to have all the necessary disclosures taken care of and for buyers, you want to know everything that there is to know with regards to the desirability of  the property you are about to buy.

It’s easy to find homes for sale with all the information available, it’s easy to post a home on the internet. It is something else to stay current with local developments regarding the sales process, maybe a local ordinance, a change in required paperwork, a change in the contracts. Chris Iverson, a realtor in Palo Alto wrote an interesting article on the subject.

In Sonoma County, things are constanly changing. A recent change was in Graton, there is a sewer lateral that affects all home owners who are thinking about selling their property. Just so you know…

Have a great day!

Mirjam