Sonoma County last year recorded the lowest number of million-dollar home sales in eight years, though many high-end purchases still remain under the radar in Wine Country.
Buyers purchased 129 homes priced at $1 million or more in Sonoma County last year, down 40 percent from 2008, according to a new report by MDA DataQuick, a San Diego real estate research firm. It marked the fourth straight decline since 2005, when 719 million-dollar homes were sold.
So what does a million dollars buy? Statewide, the typical home sold in the million-plus market was 2,646 square feet, with 4 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms.
About four in five million-dollar homes sold for between $1 million and $2 million, said Andrew LePage, an analyst with MDA DataQuick.
What that means is that in the middle of the last decade, an inflationary real estate market briefly pushed the value of those properties above the $1 million milestone. But, LePage said, home prices then slid and in many cases the property values “fell right back down” below the magic mark.
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– Robert Digitale