2012 Has Started with a Splash

510 Bohemian Highway, Freestone, CA

January is half over and I am only on my first blog of the year.  I plan to write weekly but things keep taking my time.  I returned home from Hawaii on January 10 at midnight and was answering text message at 8 AM.  There has hardly been an hour that I have not been scheduled in the last 8 days.  I don’t bring this up because I need to act busy and important.  No – I bring this up because real estate is very busy.

Kitchen of 510 Bohemian Hwy

Statistics of Single Family Homes for the first two weeks of the year in Sonoma County are:

237 New Listings of which 71 are short sales and 52 are bank owned.

314 Properties went into contract of which 143 are short sales and 72 are bank owned.

176 Homes sold with 34 being short sales and 49 being bank owned.

Notice something here?  Short sales are going into contract a lot faster than they are closing.  There are plenty of “regular” or “equity” sales – sales where the sellers have equity in the home and the sale is not due to a distress situation.   If you are looking for a great price on a new home and do not mind the uncertainty of a closing date, a short sale may be the answer to your dreams.

View from the Living Room

This week I listed 510 Bohemian Highway.  The address is officially Sebastopol but most people refer to it as Freestone.  Freestone is a very small town that is home to Wildflower Bakery and Osmosis Day Spa.  It is a wonderful place.

The home at 510 Bohemian Way is situated on 5 acres with a panoramic view of the Freestone Valley.  The land is a gentle down slope that holds a garden full of exotic and fragrant plants.  The house is 3 bedrooms and 2 baths.  The floors are wide planks and the counters are concrete.  This home must be sold in the next three weeks.  While this is a beautiful home much loved by the current owners, it is a distressed property that will soon be foreclosed by the bank holding the note.  My expectation is that the property will sell for around $700,000.  It is a steal at this price.  If you have any interest in living in lovely Freestone, please send me a message or give me a call.

Garden View

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