Sonoma County
Real Estate

If you're looking into buying Sonoma County real estate, this overview of the local areas should be of interest.

The highest concentration of Sonoma County residents are located along the Highway 101 corridor between Petaluma and Santa Rosa, the county's largest city. The most residential units are also found here, ranging from classic Victorians to modern developments. Other than those fairly suburban areas, the rest of the county is rural, made up of not only vineyards, but also small towns, fruit orchards, farms and ranches.

The town of Sonoma is central to the Sonoma Valley and Sonoma Carneros wine regions. Up the Valley of the Moon, as it's otherwise called, there are several smaller communities.

Sebastopol is unique in that its homes sit on huge lots out in the countryside. Prices are high accordingly. Apple orchards, farms and ranches are plentiful amongst the rolling green hills.

Petaluma and Sonoma have higher prices than Santa Rosa and points north due to the shorter commute to San Francisco. Petaluma has lots of Victorian era homes near the old part of town.

If you really want to be in the thick of wine country, the Russian River Valley, the Alexander Valley and the Dry Creek Valley all converge at Healdsburg, a lovely little town built around a square like Sonoma.

Further north, the town of Windsor has had an explosion of development and so most of the homes are newer there.

Though Santa Rosa has gone through explosive growth in the past 10 years, many of the towns in Sonoma County now have growth restrictions, which were instituted by local voters. These include Cotati, Cloverdale, Healdsburg, Petaluma, Santa Rosa, Sebastopol and Windsor.

To find out what's currently for sale in the Sonoma County real estate market, check out the Santa Rosa Press-Democrat newspaper's weekend edition for the real estate section. You can also find free real estate listings with photos in the free magazine racks found at wine country grocery stores and drugstores.

Sonoma Valley Chamber of Commerce
Healdsburg Chamber of Commerce