Homescopes

I stepped away from the office to admire the sun streaming through a
very large Japanese maple in the back yard. It is brilliant red orange
sorrounde by the lemon yellow leaves of two adjacent mulberry trees.
This was shot with my iPhone.

Posted via email from pambuda’s posterous

I stepped away from the office to admire the sun streaming through a
very large Japanese maple in the back yard. It is brilliant red orange
sorrounded by the lemon yellow leaves of two adjacent mulberry trees.
This was shot with my iPhone.

Posted via email from pambuda’s posterous

I stepped away from the office to admire the sun streaming through a very large Japanese maple in the back yard. It is brilliant red orange sorrounde by the lemon yellow leaves of two adjacent mulberry trees. This was shot with my iPhone.

Sent from my iPhone

Posted via email from pambuda’s posterous

I am offering a break from all the market stat and technology posts. This video has great views of some Sonoma county back roads. Did you know you could do 2 rides a week for a year and not do the same ride twice? Courtesy of the Press Democrat, the Santa Rosa Cycling Club and today’s spring like weather!

Posted via email from pambuda’s posterous

This story from Inman News was published a day after my previous post about the national real estate market–and reinforces the point I was making about the differences in our market and its phase in the recovery process.California resale inventory shrinking | Real Estate and Technology News for Agents, Brokers and Investors | Inman News

Inventories of existing single-family homes in California are dwindling, reaching just four months of supply as the sales pace picked up from September to October, the California Association of Realtors reported.

Home sales historically trail off during the fall and winter months, CAR said, but affordable home prices, low mortgage rates, and the extension and expansion of the federal homebuyer tax credit are expected to drive home sales through the end of the year and into early 2010.

Existing single-family detached homes sold at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 562,400 in October, up 5.9 percent from September and 1 percent from a year ago, the group said.

The months supply of inventory fell from 4.2 months in September and 6.1 months a year ago. A 6-month supply of inventory is about what analysts consider an even balance between supply and demand.

It took a median of 34.1 days on market to sell a home in California in October 2009, compared with 45.5 days for the same period a year ago. At $297,500, median home price was essentially unchanged from September, but down 3.2 percent from a year ago.

Although the $890 increase in median price from September to October amounted to 0.3 percent, it was the eighth consecutive monthly gain. CAR Chief Economist Leslie Appleton-Young cited that trend, along with continued strength in sales, as “signs that California has hit and passed the bottom of this real estate cycle.”

For the first-time since July 2007, she said, sales of homes priced $1 million or more rose in year-to-year comparisons, and the number of distressed sales as a share of total sales has shown considerable improvement since the beginning of the year.

In Sonoma County and much of the Bay Area of Northern California, inventory supply is hovering around 2 to 3 months, reflecting the strong regional differences in the California markets. The Bay area and North Bay are limited geographic areas bounded by mountains, hills, the Bay and Pacific Ocean. In the central valley of California new home construction booms simply expanded communities into flat, seemingly limitless former farmland. Those areas from Stockton and Sacramento south and east of the Bay Area in Antioch and Brentwood, were much harder hit by the foreclosure wave.

8 of the 10 cities in the state with the highest growth in median price are in the Bay Area, probably reflecting the recent increase in sales of million dollar plus properties. (Bay Area towns are bolded.)

Cities with the greatest median home price increases were Palo Alto (49.1 percent), Atascadero (33.3 percent), Cupertino (24.2 percent), San Rafael (24 percent), Emeryville (22.2 percent), Livermore (20.5 percent), Culver City (19.4 percent), Pleasant Hill (17 percent), La Habra (16.2 percent), and Novato (15.4 percent).

STATS FOR LAST 7 DAYS

new listing 1, price reduced 1, sale pending 0, sold 0

new listing             1929 Mount St, $849,900, 3 br 3 ba, 1,876 sf

price reduced      1878 Adams St, $1,063,000, 4 br 3 ba, 2,715 sf

new pending

new sold               

median prices, average days on market

current listings for sale    18   med price $910,000;  avg days on market 157

current sale pendings         3   med price $595,000; avg days on market 181

sold in last 6 months           7   med price $675,500; avg days on market 206

STATS FOR LAST 7 DAYS

new listing 4, price reduced 0, sale pending 0, sold 1

 new listing         1149 Hudson Ave, $750,000, 2 br 1 ba, 1,021 sf

                               1137 Hudson Ave, $785,000, 2 br 1 ba, 1,260 sf

                               1837 Madrona St, $1,300,000 1 br 2 ba, 1,400 sf

                               450 Crystal Springs Rd, $1,400,000 3 br 3 ba, 2,521 sf

price reduced

new pending     

new sold              1842 Partridge Ct, $850,000, 3 br 3 ba, 2,061 sf

median prices, average days on market

current listings for sale    96   med price $1,495,000;  avg days on market 175

current sale pendings          9   med price  $595,000; avg days on market 142

sold in last 6 months         34    med price  $862,500; avg days on market 139

I enjoyed this photo essay by Maira Kalman in the New York Times today. Sonoma County is home to many adherents of local, sustainably produced food. Worth a browse to see her photos of a journey to Northern California and back to New York-from fast to Slow Food, with tales of locally, sustainably produced food and the Edible Schoolyard movement. Worth a look–enjoy! and Happy Thanksgiving!

A thanksgiving turkey in all his glory

As I head off to Thanksgiving dinner in Sebastopol, I want to say how much I appreciate all of you who visit this blog, and of course I want to thank all my clients for entrusting me with the important business of selling or buying your homes, as well as your referrals to your friends and family. I am privileged to work with some wondeful people–thank you so much!