A report from the Press Democrat in California. "Sonoma County home sales rebounded in October, boosted by a spate of price reductions that pushed the median price to its lowest level of the year. The median price of $649,500 has fallen from its June peak of $700,000 and now is nearly unchanged from a year ago. 'The serious sellers reduced their prices,' said Jeff Hill, an agent with Bertolone Realty in Santa Rosa."

"For example, Hill listed a home on Terra Linda Drive in Santa Rosa where the seller recently reduced the asking price to $695,000 and the property this week went into escrow. Rick Laws of Pacific Union cited a 'push back on price' by buyers as the most likely reason sales had hit an 11-year low in September.

"'There’s still a lot of buyers who want to buy, but they just don’t want to overpay,' he said. Working with the local multiple listing service, Laws found that sellers had cut prices on roughly a third of the houses on the market in October. That amounted to nearly 540 properties."

"Initially, many sellers seemed slow to adjust to the shifting market, agents said. Instead, they kept thinking buyers would keep paying the escalating prices they did in the months after the fires. 'You’ve got people right now trying to get re-acclimated to the new reality of the Sonoma County real estate market,' said Adam Menconi of Prosper Real Estate."

"At the end of October, there were 1,040 single- family homes for sale. That was over 400 more than a year ago and the most homes in the county available for the month in seven years."

"'It seems like we’re selling about the same number of units, but with a lot more inventory,' said Brian Connell, the managing broker at the Santa Rosa Mission Office of Coldwell Banker. As a result of the extra home inventory, 'we’re seeing price reductions where we maybe wouldn’t have seen them six months ago.'"