Home prices on pace to set new record in Healdsburg

When it comes to real estate, it’s all about location.

The familiar adage held true in 2015 in Sonoma County, where home sales and prices varied widely from city to city, according to The Press Democrat’s monthly housing report, compiled by Pacific Union International Vice President Rick Laws.

In Healdsburg, for example, rising home prices are on track this year to shatter records, even besting peaks in the years before the market crashed.

To date this year, the median price for a single-family home in Healdsburg has climbed 25 percent from the same period in 2014, according to housing report. The city’s median price for the first 11 months of the year is $840,000, easily on pace to surpass the past peak of $719,000 set in 2005.

“Healdsburg is the darling of the county, without a doubt,” Laws said. Some, he said, are calling the town “the new Carmel.”

Among other highlights from the monthly housing report:

East Petaluma single-family home sales have jumped 19 percent to date this year, compared to the same period in 2014.

Sebastopol home sales fell 21 percent in the same period.

Cloverdale’s median sales price has climbed 21 percent to date this year to $440,000, compared to a year earlier.

Among the report’s 15 cities and neighborhoods, only Healdsburg looks certain to surpass its former market peak for annual sales, though two other cities might follow suit. With December sales still to be factored in, Sonoma to date has equaled its 2005 annual median peak of $690,000, and west Petaluma is currently about 1 percent below its peak of $676,000 from that same year.

For comparison, the county’s annual median to date this year is $530,000, about 11 percent lower than the annual median record of $595,000 set in 2005.

Home prices peaked that year before a long painful slide began in late 2007. The county market hit its low point for annual median sales in 2011 at $325,000, before rebounding in 2012.

For Healdsburg, the lowest annual median price came in 2009 at $488,265.

Homes at that price are much harder to find these days in the city. “We have a hard time being able to sell anything under $600,000,” said Diana Blakeley, owner broker of Wine Country Real Estate in Windsor.

Like Healdsburg, she noted, Cloverdale also had a substantial rise in the median price this year. But the appreciation seems to have had an effect on the market.

“That’s one reason sales are down,” Blakeley said. Cloverdale’s sales to date this year have declined 9 percent from a year earlier.

Sales also declined in and near Sebastopol, according to the report. Buyers have purchased 210 single-family homes there to date this year, compared to 267 for the same period in 2014.

Stephen Liebling, manager of the Coldwell Banker office in Sebastopol, doubted the decline had been that sharp. He suggested it may be that the city and surrounding area had an increase in the number of sales that were completed but purposely not reported to the region’s multiple listing service.

“We had quite a few off-market sales,” Liebling said, using the name for such private transactions.

Laws, however, said it seemed unlikely that off-market sales would account for the decline in sales.

In Petaluma, the neighborhoods on the city’s east side did see an increase in sales, said Timo Rivetti, a broker associate with Keller Williams.

“It’s attracting more first-time buyers,” he said of the east side.

The buyers include workers who are commuting to Marin County or San Francisco. Such buyers, he said, are making “the northern Marin push” to Petaluma after checking out nearby cities like Novato.

You can reach Staff Writer Robert Digitale at 521-5285 or robert.digitale@pressdemocrat.com.