MikeBolen.com

$308,823 paid per room before renovations. While this figure is high to be sure it doesn’t represent the high water mark of $375,000 paid per room last year on another downtown Napa property. Darcy Tunt purchased the Inn for $5,250,000, Tunt immediately began renovations with a plan to host contemporary and luxurious surroundings in a clean, minimal style.

Downtown Napa’s newest luxury inn, the White House Inn and Spa prepares their debut, after a huge restoration, businesswoman Darcy Tunt owner of the 1801 1st B&B has purchased one of Napa’s oldest B&B’s the elegant 1886 Queen Anne Victorian on Brown Street, formerly known as the Blue Violet Mansion bed and breakfast. The owner plans to reopen the historic inn this summer as the White House Inn and Spa. 

Now is the time to invest in Napa Valley real estate. If you are seeking a hotel, multifamily, office or retail real estate investment or even a ultra luxury home priced over $4,000,000 you should meet with my team and I for a private consultation. My office is located on 1st and Main on the busiest corner in Napa Valley. Here at the RE/MAX Napa Valley office RE/MAX Cornerstone my team specializes in off market hard to find investment real estate. Contact me, Mike Bolen at Mike@MikeBolen.com or 707-254-9999.

Prices for existing single-family homes in the Bay Area are

down in all counties except San Francisco the past year.

Prices are still up in most counties the past four years

and in all nine counties the past eight years.

 County        Price $ March 2008 1-year 4-year % 8-year %

Alameda       501,000        -20.7     6.6      67.0

Contra Costa  409,000        -33      -2.6      66.9

Marin         862,500        -10.6     15.0     56.5

Napa          457,250        -20.5    -4.7      77.6

Santa Clara   684,500        -9.3     21.3      48.8

San Francisco 826,500         0.4     27.2      94.0

San Mateo     760,000        -5.7     16.9      52.0

Solano        330,000        -24.8     0.0      91.9

Sonoma        425,000        -22.4    -2.0      59.8

Bay Area      549,000        -20.4     9.8      59.6

Notice Napa is the third lowest priced county in the bay area

while arguably maintaining the broadest appeal to those outside

the area. Now is the time to invest in Napa Valley real estate.

If you are seeking a hotel, multifamily, office or retail

real estate investment or even a ultra luxury home priced

over $4,000,000 you should meet with my team and I for a

private consultation. My office is located on 1st and Main

on the busiest corner in Napa Valley. Here at the RE/MAX

Napa Valley office RE/MAX Cornerstone my team specializes

in off market hard to find investment real estate. Contact

me Mike Bolen at Mike@MikeBolen.com or 707-254-9999.

Saturday night Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes, Kate Beckinsale, Victoria Beckham, Seal and Katie Holmes celebrated Posh’s birthday in Napa Valley doing some wine tasting and dining at the French Laundry restaurant. The A-List quick vacation excursion received barely any press. Why? Because the drive from L.A. to Napa is 5-7 hours depending on traffic. To far for the paparazzi.

How does this relate to commercial real estate? Napa is in. Napa is ultra chic, expensive, majestic and just far enough from L.A. to not be on the daily Perez Hilton celeb radar. $100’s of millions are being spent on new development in Napa including a reworked riverfront yes with ocean access a new Ritz Carlton and many hotel projects either being built are in planning.

Now is the time to invest. If you are seeking a hotel, multifamily, office or retail real estate investment or even a ultra luxury home priced over $4,000,000 you should meet with my team and I for a private consultation. We know Napa better than any firm in the bay area. My office is located on 1st and Main on the busiest corner in Napa Valley. Here at the RE/MAX Napa Valley office RE/MAX Cornerstone my team specializes in off market hard to find investment real estate. Contact me Mike Bolen at Mike@MikeBolen.com or 707-254-9999.    

Toyed with the idea of buying commercial and or investment real estate here in Napa? The current market has put buyers in the driver’s seat. According to the National Association of Realtors vacation home sales declined 31% in 2007 and investment sales declined 18% in 2007. These two categories of buyers represent 48% of all transactions.

Several factors create a buying opportunity in Napa right now:

1. Interest rates are extremely low on investment and commercial mortgages
2. Napa has one of the lowest unemployment rates in California at 4.7% this helps keep real estate investments leased up
3. There were only 38 transactions in Napa for February buyers are driving the market
4. The median Napa home price has declined $97,000
5. The apartment vacancy rate in Napa is a stunningly low 2.6%
6. Some properties can implement a value added strategy that will create positive cash flow
7. Ranked by Fortune magazine as one of the best places to live and launch a business http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fsb/bestplaces/2008/top100/index.html
8. Hotel construction is booming http://www.napavalleyregister.com/articles/2008/01/23/news/local/doc47969fdd26057309339053.txt

Intero Commercial Real Estate has some interesting real estate investment opportunities right now. Some of our most interesting offerings are “off market”. Contact me anytime at Mike@MikeBolen.com or 707-254-9999 for a list of available properties both on and off the open market.

The Napa Valley property occupied by Del Dotto Vineyards and several non-wine-industry tenants is on the market for $34 million.

The 12-acre Napa property is leased to Del Dotto and several other tenants.  A 50-unit hotel could be built on the site with appropriate regulatory approvals. Making this property one of the most high profile commercial real estate offerings in Napa Valley.

Del Dotto, a small family-owned vineyard and winery known for its high-end wines and aficionado-friendly barrel-tasting tours of the manmade wine caves at its 1055 Atlas Peak Road site, has constructed an estimated $10 million new winery and caves in St. Helena. It plans to consolidate operations there when its lease runs out at the Atlas Peak Road property. A Del Dotto employee said the lease there still has more than a year to run.

Winery owner Dave Del Dotto and other family members were unavailable for comment.

A recent article on Appellationamerica.com said Del Dotto produces about 8,000 cases annually, but expects to expand that total to about 12,000 cases.

The Atlas Peak Road site, adjacent to the Silverado Country Club and Resort, includes a historic ivy-covered winery (known as the Hedgeside Distillery Building), wine-storage caves excavated more than a century ago, five acres of vineyards, a tasting room, an art gallery building, a 3,500-square-foot estate home built in the 1800s and several other structures.

For additional information on this property please contact Ken Dunbar 707-365-9070 or Armando Lincoln 707-299-9779

If a slow growth initiative passes in June, at least three developers with projects on the outskirts of American Canyon and Napa will likely gain in the long run.

Proponents of the Responsible Growth Initiative say they want to curb residential growth in the unincorporated part of the county, particularly the proposed 3,200 townhomes at the former Napa Pipe property. But with more strict controls on county growth, the measure would create more pressure for large residential developments within the two largest cities in Napa County, Napa and American Canyon.

Based on a review of current development and zoning proposals, it appears three properties would become the likeliest to help satisfy state and regional requirements for market-rate and affordable housing.

• One, the 110-acre Ghisletta property near Foster Road in south Napa, is tentatively zoned to have as many as 1,000 dwellings, plus a 31-acre corporate park. The property is within the city of Napa’s Rural-Urban Limit line, but has not been annexed to the city. City leaders and the property owners are seeking to get the property annexed this year.

• Another, the 70-acre Edward Biggs property on the east side of Newell Drive in American Canyon, is slated by its Solano County owner for residential development. Lot lines on this property, part of which was previously owned by the Ghisletta family and others, were redrawn in 2007 so that it could better accommodate single-family homes. The land is just outside the city of American Canyon. The city is currently reconsidering the boundaries of its Rural-Urban Limit line.

• The third, the McGrath development, is just east of American Canyon’s city limit. About 500 homes and 150,000 square feet of commercial space are proposed for this 100-acre property. It is the site of a former cement factory, now owned by the Jaeger family.

The initiative would almost certainly spell the doom of the 152-acre 3,200-home Napa Pipe proposal. In addition to the likelihood that such a large project would exceed the county’s annual growth cap, a provision in the Responsible Growth Initiative calls for strict enforcement of a 35-foot height limit on buildings, far shorter than the seven-story townhomes proposed for Napa Pipe.

As a result, the measure would benefit other developers who plan fewer homes, or who might see their properties brought within the cities of Napa or American Canyon — where county growth restrictions don’t apply.

James Marshall, the Napa attorney who is the spokesman for the Responsible Growth Initiative, said he had no intention of making developers’ lives easier.

“I don’t know any of those people,” he said. “I know nothing about it, I obviously could not have had that in my mind when I started this initiative. There’s no doubt it will have an impact on property owners. There’s going to be some people who don’t benefit from this initiative and some people that benefit in some peculiar way. But what I’m looking at is the benefit of all Napa County residents.”

Source: Napa Valley Register