Can You Afford to Live Here? A Look at Sonoma’s Hot Housing Market

Inside a crowded auditorium in southwest Santa Rosa, Greg Basurto heard his name called and stepped up to a raffle drum filled with hundreds of numbered cards. The stakes were high. In all likelihood, his selection would determine whether he and his wife, Stephanie, could finally afford to set down roots in Sonoma County, or if they would have to pick up and move their young family away from their hometown of Healdsburg.

It was October 2019, and the couple was living with relatives on the west side of town after being priced out of an apartment in Rohnert Park years earlier. Greg was working in the warehouse at the Russian River Brewing Company, while Stephanie was enrolled at Santa Rosa Junior College and held down a job at O’Reilly Auto Parts.

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