Santa Rosa, California

The price of houses has surged in Santa Rosa since the 2017 fires. More than 245,000 acres were burned in Santa Rosa. A fire like this could have very negative consequences real estate wise for towns. But it didn’t for Santa Rosa. Not only has the housing market rebounded, but the demand for real estate is greater than it was before the fires.

It appears that in the aftermath of the fire and loss of houses - a tight market has become even tighter.

After the fire, Santa Rosa’s housing market inventory decreased. Available inventory declined from 434 to 267 units at the beginning of March 2018. This drop happened immediately before the fire from October 1, 2017.

Listings for empty lots surged up from 69 percent to 231 - 235 percent in March; all within exactly a year’s time. And in the same time period, single-family house listings dropped 16.6 percent.

With these shortages, prices went up. The Santa Rosa median sale price for houses went up 5.5%. This was from $597,250 in 2017 to March 2018, where it was $630,000.  It lowered by $10,000 from October to November, and then it quickly resumed going up.

The commercial market was hardly impacted by the fires. Few properties were destroyed or damaged. The recently strengthened market is the result of ongoing demand and growing economy, and there has been extremely low new construction over the past 12 to 13 years.

The vacancy rate fell from 13.4% in the fourth quarter of 2016 to 11.7% at the end of the fourth quarter of 2017. There are those who anticipate the first-quarter of the year’s vacancies will further decrease, and for this lowering of vacancies to continue throughout the rest of 2018.

In Santa Rosa, California, $60,758 is the median household income.

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