Well, with February almost upon us, I can sense the excitement Bridget feels about a new set of statistics to write about!

Oh my gosh — two months with me and she’s already in danger of being a nerd! I have that effect on people. With some people after just a few minutes they’ll go out and buy a pocket protector or put tape on their glasses.

But Bridget’s pretty safe, because she’s doing a simply wonderful job out in Amador County, and whatever other county she travels to as well.

This has been a terrific month for the company. Two new agents joined us, Vicki Agregado-Babcock, who lives out by me in Cameron Park and Susan Norris, who lives in East Sacramento. This means we now have three strong agents working in three counties (actually four strong agents if you count the verbose broker).

Bridget has sold her listing on Wheeler Loop in Plymouth, and is burning the candle at both ends between listings and sales.

As for me, I’m working with a smaller number of buyers and sellers and trying to get organized enough to keep up with it all. I’m looking into new software and systems for the company, and trying to nail down many of the other happy tasks you’d expect Joe Startup to have. It’s a time of tremendous excitement and growth for me personally, so I’m jazzed about that. I think on some level that enjoying a leadership role on a productive and creative team of people is something I’ve longed for on some level for the past ten years. Of course, I’m sure there will be ups and downs as time goes on, but as for right now I’m thinking you can’t beat my job with an aluminum bat.

Today I changed our site motto and added the following entry into our Real Estate Mottos History.

“January 27, 2007, finally gave in to the underlying urge to blatant self-promotion with ‘Goll danged great agents.’”

I think it has a nice country flair while being charmingly un-self-deprecating.

I was just working on some disclosures in answer to a client’s question and thinking, hey, gee, you really spelled this out nicely, and then I thought about how smart and careful the rest of my team is, and I came up with that.

I’m still not sure if we’re more “Goll danged great” or if we’re really “Gosh Durned Great, Con Sarn It!” This is, after all, Gold Country, so we need to explore the full extent of our 49er prospectorisms.

     I would like to share some news about our famous Amador County and our progress toward helping those whom without programs like, H.O.P.E. would be unable to own a piece of Amador County Real Estate. We resumed our H.O.P.E. meetings this morning at the Amador County Board of Realtors and had a great turnout. Thank-you to all of those who attended, Barbara Nichols  and Gina Grubb from Diablo Funding, Susan Brown and Diana Rethford from Placer Title, Cathy Yochheim from Coldwell Banker, and of course myself, Bridget Felmley-Gay from Elite Properties. H.O.P.E. is also known as Homeownership Opportunity Planning Enterprise, the Amador County Association of Realtors and local lenders and title companies have teamed up to help assist you with the purchase of a home. The funds are donated by local Amador County Realtors,  loan officers, escrow officers, concerned citizens, and federal grants. There are some qualifications, one being the willingness to provide your new home with “sweat equity”. The funds typically help pay for improvements and items like pest work. If you would like more information regarding donations or an application for funds please contact Bridget@BridgetSells.com (877) 735-5657 ext 82 or the Amador County Board of Realtors (209) 223-3874.

      H.O.P.E. is offering a “Workshop” on Saturday March 10th at 10 am at Placer Title in Jackson. The workshop will focus on helping you to get your credit to the point of qualifying to purchase a home. For more information or to sign up for the workshop contact Bridget@BridgetSells.com (877) 735-5657 ext 82.

Watching Bridget start to blog more about Amador County has been a real treat for me, so I thought I’d come in with some Thanksgiving words.

OK, granted, it’s January, but I have my own fiscal year.

So many good things have been happening in a row that I find myself at a loss to keep up. Bridget, who just joined the company a few weeks ago (or should I say hired me as her broker since she had a company already), is already closing her first escrow, is nice and busy with lots of other buyers, and is taking our company’s first listing, seemingly at the same time! Meantime we were recently joined by an Realtor® out in Sacramento, Susan Norris. We’d hardly had time to hold our first company meeting with Susan, and when I got back to the home office in the afternoon I heard from another great agent who I’ve been absolutely pining to work with for many months now, and it looks like that one will be a done deal before the end of the month.

Unbeknonwnst to me, I must have had my Wheaties this morning.

As if that weren’t enough, one of my favorite search engines did an update recently, and our sites got very favorable treatment. Exactly what I mean by that is pretty geeky, so lest I scare you with my taped glasses and pen pocket protector, let me just say this: It’s a good thing for buyers and sellers in the area, because more of them will get to work with the best agents in the business, who (as it’s turning out) are almost all working with me now.

Not bad for an old guy.

God bless us, everyone. Oh wait, that’s Christmas!

Looking at our local Amador MLS, it appears that Amador City and Drytown currently have six beautiful homes active on the market. Amador City is a quiet little town located just south of Highway 16 on Highway 49. This little town includes an abundance of history, great food and shopping.

    Plymouth, currently has eighteen homes active on the market in the local Amador MLS. Plymouth is a slightly larger town than Amador City and Drytown. Amador County holds their annual fair in Plymouth. Plymouth leads the way to our gorgeous Shenandoah Valley, where there are currently a couple vineyard and winery properties available.

Although it may seem that Winter has just begun, Spring will be upon us in no time and with that, the desire to venture out and see something new. Why not visit Amador County, with endless possibilities for recreation and fun. Everything from Skiing at Kirkwood to having too much fun at the Jackson Rancheria. Please find the following events and feel free to contact me should you have any questions. Bridget@BridgetSells.com (don’t forget to ask for a list of available properties!)

• FEB-Full Moon Snowshoe Trek @ Kirkwood
• MAR-Daffodil Hilll
• APR-The Great Sutter Creek Duck Race
• MAY-Annual Ione Homecoming
• JUN-OCT-Amador Farmers Market
• JULY 26-29 AMADOR COUNTY FAIR

It’s been a few days since I published the Sacramento County Year In Review on my Sacramento site, so I thought I’d follow that up with a brief Year in Review for El Dorado County Real Estate.

El Dorado County followed a much different pattern from what we saw in Sacramento. The raw data is below so you can make up your own mind, but let me try to summarize it. I would say that El Dorado’s prices continued to rise, and at a faster rate, throughout 2005, and fell in 2006 at a slower rate, than Sacramento County. Also, the shift in the market from increasing prices to decreasing happened later in the year.

As a result of these differences, the year on year appreciation numbers are positive for most quarters of 2006, and positive overall. It’s only in the third quarter that we start to see the numbers go down, as shown below. I expect we’ll continue to see declines in 2007, though whether those declines will turn out to be “hard” or “soft” I leave to the good pundits at Sacramento Landing (presumably, since we don’t have an El Dorado Landing).

Meanwhile, if you want to see the world through rose colored glasses, tell your friends that the average sale price for home in El Dorado County appreciated 4.2% in 2006, while the median sale price appreciated 5.3%. (Just don’t tell them that unit volume is off 30.6% — that’ll ruin it!)

Here are the numbers. As always, information is based on MLS data and is believed accurate but has not been verified.

For average prices:

For median prices: