Sonoma County housing market stable despite fire, PG&E outages

Nov. 29--October was chaotic for many Sonoma County residents, a month plagued by repeated power shut-offs, destructive wildfire, evacuation orders, school cancellations, widespread anxiety and frustration.

But amid all the upheaval, Walt Chavoor managed to both sell a home in Windsor and buy another in Santa Rosa's Bennett Valley. In fact, Chavoor, 69, entered escrow on his Santa Rosa home less than a week before the Kincade fire forced the largest mass evacuation in county history.

The fire forced Chavoor and his real estate agent, David Rendino, to reschedule the home appraisal and inspection. Meanwhile, insurance companies had put a moratorium on underwriting policies during that period and Chavoor wasn't able to get a insurance policy on the Santa Rosa home until the day before escrow closed in mid-November.

While Chavoor credits his perseverance in the purchase to an optimistic outlook, his agent, Rendino, said he believes the larger factor at work in the housing market is low interest rates, which have injected stability even during rough periods like October.

"Low interest rates are giving us a more stable market despite the natural disaster," said Rendino, co-owner of Re/Max Marketplace in Cotati with his wife, Erika Rendino.

Rendino said that two years ago, local residents thought the Tubbs fire was a freak catastrophe, a once-in-a-lifetime disaster. The Camp fire that destroyed Paradise last year and the Kincade fire this fall have imposed a more clear-eyed understanding of Northern California's wildfire risks.

"Nobody is saying it's freak accident anymore," he said. "People are thinking it's predictable."

But Rendino said the local housing market has demonstrated a great deal of resiliency even as local residents adjust to the long summer and fall of disruptive power shut-offs and wildfires.

The housing market is adjusting to the disruption and chugging along all the same, Rendino and other local real estate experts say.

The median single-family home price in October was $660,000, a little more than 1% higher than in September and 1.54% higher than October of last year, according to The Press Democrat's latest monthly housing report compiled by Rick Laws of Compass real estate brokerage in Santa Rosa.

Meanwhile, there were 403 ?single-family homes sold last month compared to 410 in September and 431 last October. To date this year, 3,718 homes have sold in the county -- only about 3% less than in 2018, a year that saw a buying frenzy during the first half of the year as a result of the loss of more than 5,300 ?Sonoma County homes after the 2017 fires.

"There's a reason so many people want to live here," Laws said. "I'm not really feeling like everyone is ready to throw in the towel."

The overall housing market has slowed slightly, particularly among higher-end homes, Laws said.

While he has heard some residents say they've had enough of fires and power shut-offs, the market does not reflect any exodus. Some buyers are expressing more interest in homes that are in parts of the county that are less likely to be affected by blackouts or fires, but people are still purchasing homes in rural communities that are in high-risk fire zones.

"There are people that are buying right now, today, in Fountaingrove and Mark West," said Laws, adding that not everyone is looking for a home near the Highway 101 corridor.

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