Marin County lies just across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco and due south of California's Wine Country.

The area's real estate market is slow, but it remains as diverse as its geographic location.

Fewer homes are selling, rarely does a home sell at or above the asking price, but somehow average prices continue to defy gravity.

In 2007, the region set record price levels and 2008, so far, has continued the trend.

The county-wide home price average was more than $1.35 million in January.

Area native Kelley Eling with Pacific Union Real Estate puts it in perspective.

She says, "It's neighborhood specific."

As is the case in many California markets, entry-level priced markets like Novato, where prices are below $700,000, are tainted with foreclosures, bank-owned properties, properties in undesirable areas and properties in bad shape.

At the low end, owners struggling with ballooning mortgage payments, have little choice but to sell short or succumb to foreclosure.

There are price-bargains to be had, but after purchase fix-up costs make them a hard sell.

On the other hand, homes in high-end enclaves, Tiburon, Sausalito, and other more bayside or coastal regions now account for a greater percentage of sales. That's pushing up the average price.

Eling says the high end is holding up well because, so far, the wealthy are more or less unaffected by tighter lending standards and affordability issues.

She also says wealthy sellers can afford to hold out for their asking price or pull the property off the market.

Caught in the middle are homeowners who can't afford to move up and would have a hard time selling their homes even if they could.

When a priced right listing hits the market in tip-top shape, bidding wars break out -- even in the current topsy-turvy market.

Published: February 25, 2008

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Broderick Perkins parlayed a career in old-school journalism into a contemporary digital news service that really hits home. The award-winning consumer journalist, originally from Wilmington, DE, is founder, publisher and executive editor of the bootstrap DeadlineNews Group, a Silicon Valley-based editorial content and consulting service specializing in residential real estate, consumer news and related editorial consulting services. The DeadlineNews Group includes the website, DeadlineNews.com, offering real estate editorial content and consulting services, and its back shop, the Deadline Newsroom, an open house on news that really hits home. Perkins obtained his formal journalism education from University of Delaware and a journalism boot camp, the Institute of Journalism Education at the University of California-Berkeley. He went on to 20 years of service as a daily newspaper journalist at the Wilmington, DE News Journal and San Jose, CA Mercury News. Perkins covered housing on the San Jose Mercury News reporting team which earned a General News Reporting Pulitzer Prize in 1989 for coverage of the Loma Prieta earthquake. He has also produced real estate, consumer and small business content for the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, RealtyTimes.com, Nolo.com, Better Homes and Gardens, the National Association of Realtors, Homestore/Move and Intuit/Quicken among more than three dozen publications. In addition to managing the DeadlineNews Group, Perkins most recently served as chief editorial consultant for Nolo's Essential Guide To Buying Your First Home, Nolo, and writes real estate television scripts for RealtyTimes.com.