Sonoma County Average Residential Sales Price
Rohnert Park and Cotati share a distinction in the Sonoma County housing market. They feature the highest ratio of REO transactions to open markets and short sales of any other region in the county. They also feature prices that appear to be highly impacted by the prevalence of REO transactions. This chart shows various cities and their sales values for REO, short sale, and open market transactions.
Rohnert Park Sales Volume by Sales Condition
I thought the Rohnert Park sales prices looked lower than they should, so I ran another chart that divided the Rohnert Park sales into the separate condominium and single family home categories. This chart shows the sales volume of each residential type as well as whether it’s an REO, a short sale, or an open market sale. These numbers make it clear that the volume of Rohnert Park condo sales is a big contributor to the apparently low average price relative to the rest of Sonoma County. In addition the fact that REO sales accounted for a plurality of single family home sales in March and April has to put a damper on efforts by homeowners to market their “not-underwater” homes.
Rohnert Park Average Sales Price by House Type and Sales Condition
To see if the impact of the REO volume made a difference in price, I ran a companion chart to the one above showing average pricing with the same breakdown by month, residence type, and sales condition. This chart shows an average price for single family homes that floats around the $300,000 level for all sales conditions. Unlike most of the other cities in Sonoma County, there is very little difference in price in Rohnert Park depending on whether it’s an open market sale, a bank owned property, or a short sale. We see big differences between condos and homes, of course, but market pricing in both categories is being driven by the lowest common denominator, the REO property.