Only Six Seller's Markets Left, and We're One of Them

The rest of the country just handed buyers the keys, and Sonoma County quietly locked the door. Sellers now outnumber buyers by about 51% nationally, roughly 80% of major metros count as buyer's markets, and only six true seller's markets are left in the entire country. Ours is one of them.

• Nationally sellers outnumber buyers by about 51%, yet six of our seven towns are tighter than they were last summer.

• Airbnb's September 15 switch quietly cuts host payouts about 13%, so reprice before the platform reprices you.

• Two stagers quoted the same empty house and came in roughly $6,300 apart for the same two months.

Pour something cold, claim the patio, and let's get into what actually moved this week.

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Market Insight

While the Country Tilts to Buyers, Sonoma County Tightens

The national housing market is handing buyers the keys. In July, home sellers across the U.S. outnumbered buyers by about 51%, near a record high, and nearly 80% of the country's major metros now count as buyer's markets. Only six seller's markets are left in the nation. Even around the Bay Area the tilt is clear, with San Jose, Oakland, Sacramento, and Los Angeles all leaning toward buyers. Sonoma County did not get the memo.

Here the story is scarcity, not surplus. The county had about 1,151 homes for sale in July, down roughly 14% from a year earlier, and new listings came in flat, so nothing is refilling the shelves. Sales slipped about 8%, yet with supply even thinner the market sped up: absorption, the share of listed homes selling each month, rose to 34% from 32% a year ago, which is a seller's market on the local scale.

Six of the county's seven towns are tighter than last summer:

• Petaluma is the extreme, with inventory down about a third and 80% of listings selling each month, most in about 40 days and at 101% of original asking.

• Windsor and the Russian River communities each shed roughly 16% of their for-sale stock.

• The under-$1M tier, where most buyers actually shop, is down about 17%.

• Healdsburg is the lone exception, carrying about 11% more inventory than a year ago.

Scarcity is not producing a runaway price. The county median eased to $820,000, up about 2.5% on the year but down 3% from June, while price per square foot, the truer read on value, is up a firmer 6%.

Our take. Nationally, buyers can afford to wait; in Sonoma County they still cannot. Less competition and steady demand mean the leverage here sits with sellers heading into fall, even as the headline price cools off its summer peak.

Area Guide

The Windsor Neighborhood Where 10 Homes Sell a Year

Fewer than 10 homes come up for sale here in a normal year. That's the math on Lakewood Hills, the 220-unit gated lakefront community sitting in the middle of Windsor, where our team has closed more than 20 sales over the past several years, more than any other agent. Most buyers driving past have no idea it's there, and the ones who do know are usually waiting years for the right home. We break down the whole neighborhood, the three housing types, and where the value is actually moving.

What you'll find out:

• Why backing onto the lake commands a 20 to 30% premium over an identical off-lake home

• How single-level living has flipped the neighborhood pricing order, with attached homes competing on price per square foot with detached ones

• Why two-story townhouse units have slid from the high $700s to the mid $600s while single-family sales approach $1.5 million

• What the $490 monthly HOA covers, and the one thing it doesn't

Real Estate News

Airbnb's September 15 Switch Quietly Cuts Host Payouts 13%

Airbnb is scrapping the split fee that has funded it for a decade. The old model charged hosts 3% and guests roughly 15%. From September 15, US hosts move to a single 15.5% host-only fee, and guests see no service charge at checkout at all. Cleaner for the traveller. Considerably less clean for the person paying the mortgage.

The math is unforgiving. A $100 night used to net you $97. Under the new structure it nets $84.50, a 12.9% pay cut. To stand still, nightly rates need to rise about 15%.

Airbnb describes the change as payout-neutral. Here is what neutral looks like against typical Sonoma County three-bedroom income, not the trophy properties:

• A Healdsburg three-bedroom at the $96,000 median gross gives up $12,000 a year if rates don't move

• A three-bedroom in Sonoma at the $86,000 median loses about $10,750

• A Russian River cottage at the corridor's $60,000 median loses $7,500, on the county's best gross yield

Demand is not the problem. Nationally, Airbnb grew booked nights at nearly twice Booking.com's rate last quarter, revenue rose 17% to $3.6 billion, and first-time bookers climbed 11%, the fastest pace in four years. Guests are showing up. The cost of reaching them has moved to your side of the ledger.

Our take. This is a calendar item, not a market story. Reprice before September 15, or the platform reprices you.

Market Insight

Two Stagers, Same House, Nearly Double the Price

Last week we sat down with some sellers whose house was completely empty. Empty is the hardest thing to sell. Rooms photograph smaller, video echoes, and buyers have nothing to measure a sofa against. In general there are three options: full, partial, or virtual.

What surprised them wasn't the choice. It was the spread between bids. We had two live quotes in the same week from two different stagers for the same 2,200 sq ft home, both including exterior areas:

• Stager A: $3.00 per sq ft per month, all-inclusive. That's $6,600 a month, or $13,200 for two months

• Stager B: $6,100 for the first six weeks, then $1,220 a month. Call it roughly $6,900 for the same two months

• Same footprint, same scope, a gap of about $6,300

The gap widens the longer you sit. Past the initial period, Stager A lands near $3,960 a month after their 40% discount. Stager B charges $1,220. Three times the carrying cost if your listing takes four months instead of two.

Neither quote is wrong. Stager A's fee is genuinely all-inclusive and their inventory is excellent. But if you take the first bid you're handed, you'll never know what the second one would have said.

Partial staging is the middle lane, and Stager B quoted $4,400 against $6,100 for the full house. A 2025 national survey of buyers supports the logic: they rank the living room (37%) and primary bedroom (34%) as the rooms that matter, while guest bedrooms come in at 7%.

Virtual staging is cheapest and the one we're most cautious about. The tools are good, but a buyer who drives up from Marin and walks into a bare room feels misled. Worst of all is the AI-generated pool. You'd be amazed how many buyers don't spot it. If you want to show potential, commission a real rendering and hand it to them while they're standing in the yard.

If the home is already furnished, soft staging is the cheap win: move two thirds of the contents out, keep the main furniture, and add neutral throws, oversized art, mirrors, faux trees and table lamps for a few hundred dollars.

Two practical notes. The staging contract is between the seller and the stager, not the agent. And on a $1.5 million sale, even the higher quote is under 1% of the price, against a national picture where 49% of listing agents report staging shortens time on market. Worth the bet, after you've seen two bids.

Real Estate News

The Biggest Wealth Transfer in History Runs Through Wine Country

A historic handoff of money is underway, and a surprising share of it is parked in Bay Area homes. Boomers are set to pass down about $124 trillion nationally through 2048, and an estimated $10 trillion to $20 trillion of that will come from Californians alone. Here it rarely looks like a cash windfall. It looks like a house.

The reason is decades of appreciation. California households headed by someone 60 or older carry a median net worth around $632,000, nearly double the $352,000 national median, and most of it is illiquid home equity. Bay Area owners over 60 hold roughly $850 billion in combined home value, with a median home worth about $900,000 against $650,000 statewide and $407,000 nationally.

For families in our market the practical questions are already landing: whether to keep an inherited home, rent it out, or sell, and how Proposition 19's reassessment changes the math and pushes many heirs toward a sale. This is the quiet engine behind a lot of Sonoma County estate listings, and it is the kind of decision that is far easier to get right with someone who has run the numbers before.

Lifestyle News

Two New Cookbooks, and Wine Country Dinners Under $60

Charlie Palmer is having a year. In July, his Appellation Healdsburg, open only since September 2025, was voted the No. 1 resort in the continental United States in a national readers' poll. Now he has a book out.

Wineland, written with a Healdsburg journalist and photographed locally, profiles 20 Wine Country culinary figures across Sonoma, Napa, and Marin counties, with more than 125 photographs and the recipes to go with them. Palmer, a James Beard winner who left New York for Healdsburg 25 years ago, frames Wine Country less as a place than a working philosophy. It's available at local bookstores and charliepalmer.com.

The second book is the one locals will probably keep on the counter. Farm + Market: Healdsburg is Liza Gershman's 20th cookbook, built entirely around the Healdsburg Farmers Market, which has run since 1978. Farmers, ranchers, makers, and home cooks, seasonal recipes, and a slice of proceeds going back to the market itself. Find it at healdsburgbook.com.

Want the Palmer experience without the Palmer price tag:

• Folia at Appellation runs Neighbor Night North every Wednesday, three courses, $55 a head

• Dry Creek Kitchen serves its Sonoma Neighbor Menu every Thursday, three courses built on northern Sonoma County growers

Two nights a week, the food that made Healdsburg famous costs about what a bottle of Dry Creek zin does.

Lifestyle News

Silicon Valley Wants to Watch You Poop. Buyers Just Want a Bidet

A startup just raised $10 million to clip an AI camera inside your toilet, and after all that computing power, the app's health advice is reportedly to eat more fiber and drink more water. Revolutionary stuff. This is the smart-home boom's strangest frontier: "toilet tech" that scans what you leave behind and charts it in an app like a Fitbit for your insides.

Here is the split screen worth noticing:

• The gadgets chasing headlines: clip-on poop cameras from around $399 plus a monthly membership, and high-end Japanese models near $3,280 built into the bowl, with a US launch targeted for early 2027.

• The thing quietly outselling all of it: the humble bidet seat. The US bidet market hit roughly $2.94 billion in 2023 and is growing about 6% a year, on track for $5.87 billion by 2033 (national data).

• What we actually see on the ground: more Japanese-style washlets and European bidet seats turning up in Sonoma County remodels and higher-end listings. That is our own observation, not hard local data, but the trend line is real.

Our take. The camera watching your gut is a venture-capital bet on 2035. The heated bidet seat is the upgrade guests notice this weekend, for a few hundred bucks, with no membership and no algorithm nagging you about your water intake. We know which one we would install before a listing.

New Listings

Every Room Is Finished. The Backyard Is Deliberately Not.

2016 Eagle Ct, Santa Rosa | 4 Bed, 3 Bath | 2,690 sq ft | 0.39 acre | $1,675,000

Some homes ask you to compromise. This one hands you a set of blueprints and a shrug. It is brand new for 2026, all on one level, at the end of a quiet Fountaingrove court, and roughly a third of an acre out back is sitting there completely uncommitted. Pool people, put in a pool. Gardeners, plant the thing. Anyone with a teenager and a basketball habit, you know what to do.

Inside, the ceilings go to ten feet and the doors go to eight, which is a combination that does something to a room you have to stand in to understand. The great room vaults, then opens onto a deck that looks over all that undecided acreage. The kitchen runs commercial-style appliances, including a 36-inch range and a built-in refrigerator large enough to make Thanksgiving a non-event.

What actually sets it apart:

• Owned solar, not leased, the panels come with the house

• Single-level living with no stairs anywhere, and a primary suite set apart from the other three bedrooms

• Four parking spaces, two of them in an attached garage

• HOA dues of $75 a month, which is close to a rounding error

This is the kind of blank-canvas backyard that does not last. Book a private showing and get the deck to yourself.

New Listings

On the Market This Week

1650 Jonive Rd, Sebastopol | $2,885,000
A large home in the redwoods in coveted west county, apple-and-vine country.

7616 Hwy 128, Healdsburg | $2,575,000
The perfect Wine Country home for entertaining, with a pool and every outdoor living amenity imaginable.

10936 Eastside Rd, Healdsburg | $2,350,000
Ten minutes from Healdsburg and vacation rentable.

3229 W Dry Creek Rd, Healdsburg | $1,995,000
Modern luxury meets peaceful Wine Country living on six private acres.

2016 Eagle Ct, Santa Rosa | $1,675,000
New 2026 single-story with owned solar, ten-foot ceilings, and a third of an acre of blank canvas.

16530 Laughlin Rd, Guerneville | $1,495,000
A rare Guerneville property with a pool overlooking a vineyard.

516 Grove St, Healdsburg | $1,475,000
Walkable Healdsburg under $1.5M, close to the plaza, the perfect pied-a-terre.

2563 Mill Creek Rd, Healdsburg | $1,400,000
Mill Creek Road seclusion west of Healdsburg, and a great vacation rental.

5762 Owls Nest Dr, Santa Rosa | $1,325,000
A spacious Northwest Santa Rosa home with a large lot, privacy, and endless potential.

14183 Chalk Hill Rd, Healdsburg | $1,295,000
A creek-fronted, remodeled retreat on a private oak-shaded lot offering rare seclusion and water frontage.

132 Dartmouth Way, Windsor | $899,900
Move-in ready and beautifully remodeled, a four-bedroom, three-bath home in a quiet Windsor neighborhood.

15621 Riverside Dr, Guerneville | $899,000
A river-front property complete with your own dock, ready to enjoy the summer. Reduced from over $1m.

3020 Spring Creek Dr, Santa Rosa | $749,000
Single-level three-bedroom on a rare, flat 9,100 sq ft lot backing onto the creek in coveted Montgomery Village.

180 Johnson St, Windsor | $525,000
The rare sub-$600k entry point in Windsor, the county's tightest, fastest-moving price band.

Local News

What's Happening This Week

Broadway Under the Stars: Mamma Mia!

Where: Transcendence Theatre, open-air amphitheater at Jack London State Historic Park, Glen Ellen.

When: Select nights, Friday August 21 through Sunday August 23 (and August 27 to 30), 7 p.m., gates and picnicking from 5 p.m. Ticketed.

Why You Should Go: The global smash Mamma Mia! lands in Sonoma Valley for the first time, staged among the vineyards at sunset. Bring a picnic and a bottle, and get there early for golden hour.

Kosta Browne Golden Hour

Where: Kosta Browne at The Barlow, Sebastopol.

When: Friday, August 21, 2026, 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. From $17.

Why You Should Go: A relaxed Friday happy hour in the courtyard, small-lot wine and live music as the light goes gold. The nicest way to start a Wine Country weekend.

Santa Rosa Wednesday Night Market

Where: Downtown Santa Rosa, Fourth Street (Santa Rosa, CA).

When: Wednesday, August 26, 2026, 5 to 8:30 p.m. Free.

Why You Should Go: Local food, craft beer and wine, farm-fresh produce, and live music take over downtown. One of the last of the season and the easiest weeknight out in the county seat.

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David & Jonathan here – the guys who write about real estate but really just want to talk about our favorite taco trucks. Hit us up about anything Sonoma County (or beyond). Whether you're buying, selling, or just want to know which wineries actually welcome dogs – we've got you covered.