In case you haven’t already done so, it’s time co call the local tax assessor and ask for the for, ‘the form.”
the form is of course a very simple document you send in to the county asking they re-evaluate your property’ for tax purposes...
you’ll need the comps for three similar houses in your neighborhood that sold between the first of the year and March 31st...
there’s a line towards the bottom that asks you to estimate what you think your property is worth, put your pride aside and go low...
Property tax revenue likely to stay weak
The steep drop in California home values will lower property tax revenue for years, undermining education and other critical public services, according to speakers at a roundtable discussion on Thursday.
The chief culprit is Proposition 13, the 1978 voter initiative that caps property tax increases at 2 percent a year unless homes trade hands, said the real estate, education and political experts speaking at the City Hall event organized by San Francisco Assessor-Recorder Phil Ting.
As hundreds of thousands of California properties fall into foreclosure and sell at values well off recent peaks, the amount of money funneled into government is declining dramatically, by nearly $400 million last year, according to an estimate by ForeclosureRadar.com. Those losses are likely to persist into the foreseeable future, with repossessions rising and owners forced to hold onto properties longer amid a real estate climate expected to remain chilly for years, the panelists said.
"Our tax roll will be significantly lower than last year," Contra Costa County Assessor Gus Kramer said. "Next year will be even worse, and 2011 will be even worse than that."
Communities are taking an additional hit from owners of depreciating homes who are appealing for temporary reductions in their taxes, as allowed under an amendment to the proposition.
Kris Vosburgh, executive director of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, countered that the proposition his organization championed provides predictability in property taxes, noting this is the first year they've declined since the passage of Prop. 13. He added that the measure protects owners, whose incomes often don't rise as quickly as property values, sometimes threatening their ability to meet the tax obligation and keep their homes.
"It gives security to both the homeowner and government," he said.
Located close by Trulia headquarters, this amazing condo is claimed to be on the ‘crookedest’ street in San Francisco. Boasting 1,434 sqft of space, the condo includes two beds, two baths, deeded walk-out garden, large pantry, dining room and overlooks lush greenery. It’s been recently reduced $10,000 AND they’re having an open house this Sunday!
As so many of you know, the search for a new home can be all consuming... something i’m learning more and more everyday... but i’m also learning that while there might be a decline in housing prices, the best neighborhoods seem to be saying otherwise... no matter where i look , if there’s a decent school district to be had, the price of homes is holding steady...
backing my new found belief is a new piece in the LA Times...
House hunting? It's not a buyer's market everywhere
House hunting? It's not a buyer's market everywhere
The median price in Southern California may have plummeted, but in more desirable neighborhoods, home buyers are still engaging in bidding wars.
By Chip Jacobs
6:15 PM PDT, May 2, 2009
The confident smile Sam Rivero wore as he hunted for his first house had a lot to do with the buzz thumping in his ears. Ever since home values began sinking, pundits have touted the juicy opportunities for aspiring buyers priced out of the market before, and the young business-development executive heard that cue like a sonic boom.
Out he ventured into Mount Washington, Glassell Park, Eagle Rock, Montecito Heights and other desirable middle-class communities northeast of downtown Los Angeles, searching for a bargain in the $400,000 range. Candidates came and went, and Rivero, who is getting married, was upbeat. Considering the pulverized housing values, with the median price of a Southland home today -- $250,000 -- at half of its 2007 level, the properties should come gift-wrapped, right?
As the Glendale resident and his fiancee, a makeup artist for the television show "Entourage," discovered, the supposedly wondrous buyers' market seems more consumer myth than easy pickings.
They bid $50,000 over asking price for a "great" four-bedroom contemporary in Valley Village, only to lose out to one of the 16 other offers tendered, Rivero, 33, said. A North Hollywood house he had been eager to see attracted so many people walking around with sales fliers that he couldn't find parking and drove off from the "vultures" who got there first.
"Every open house I've been to has been a zoo," said Rivero, who has examined 35 properties during the last three months. "If you follow what the [general] media say, you'd think sellers are desperate to sell a house, but when you get there it's totally the opposite."
So what's going on?
Real estate brokers and investors say would-be buyers misunderstand how the drop in housing prices has affected desirable neighborhoods. Just because an abandoned house in a troubled part of San Bernardino County might be going for $200,000, it doesn't mean you can get a nice place in Sherman Oaks for that amount -- or even twice that amount.
House hunters are trying to pounce on deals from sellers they expected to be frantic -- if not curled in the fetal position. What they're finding instead are bidding wars as low interest rates and pent-up demand in traditionally stable or chic areas have kept prices up -- not as high as the market's peak, but not nearly as low as they had hoped.
"The biggest problem," said agent Phyllis Harb, "is that people are overreacting to housing statistics, thinking they can come in and make an offer 20% below price."
As sales figures and home buyers' anecdotes are underscoring, when the residential real estate bubble burst, it set off several distinct sprays that created false hopes and confusion.
Though nearly 20,000 homes in Southern California sold in March, a 52% jump from a year earlier, a sizable number of those transactions occurred in Riverside and San Bernardino counties, where foreclosures exploded. In the region overall, foreclosure sales accounted for 55% of March's deals.
Bank-owned or not, the cheaper properties are dominating the sellers' block in the notoriously expensive L.A. County real estate market. In March, 2,871 homes under $300,000 were sold compared with only 734 a year earlier, according to real estate information firm MDA DataQuick.
At the higher end, just 202 homes priced above $1.2 million changed hands last month, compared with 354 in March 2008.
Houses priced from $400,000 to $800,000 represented less than a quarter of the market in March, down from about 45%, meaning fewer offerings for would-be buyers in that mid-market or pickier sellers, according to DataQuick.
click here for the complete story...
For those of you who haven’t done a vanity Google of late, go ahead a take a minute to do so.... type your name into the Google and see what comes back...
whether you did or didn’t like the results, for the first time every there is something you can do about it...
I know for a lot of agents the idea of coming up number one in the organic Google result is huge, so here’s your chance...
Google now allows you to create your own profile with the information you want people to know about you... there are plenty of blanks to fill in, lots of options to promote yourself as well as get yourself found in a positive light..
In these less than stellar times I have watched agents carry over-priced listings for months... It’s either one of two stories... the seller is upside down or the can’t convince the seller it’s 2009...
So today I would like to offer some fresh ammo to persuade sellers it’s time to lower the price...
Over the years I’ve learned if it’s in print, people are more likely to consider it... The NY Times and Wall Street Journal tend to have the greatest power of persuasion, the Chronicle not so much... Now the folks at Business Week have come out with a story titled... “Want to Sell Your Home? Lower the price.”
Below is a link to the story, but in the story you’ll also find a list of cities with the most discounted homes...
1. Scottsdale, AZ
2. Tampa, FL
3. St. Paul, MN
4. LA
5. Honolulu
6. Columbus,OH
7. San Francisco
8. New York
If you’re an agent with any of the following features, chances are your web site sucks...
As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve designed and consulted on plenty of real estate sites in my day, but my search for a new home has again pointed out the problems with real estate web sites...
If you ask me to register before I can search on your site, there’s no chance... millions of sites including Trulia ask nothing of you... People don’t want to, or need to give up their email address so you can hassle them or build out your mailing list... need proof, check your site's analytics... What's your bounce rate?
No address on your listing... if it’s at the clients request you need to explain to them your wasting not only your time but theirs... If i can’t decide if the house is the neighbor I’m searching for, I'm not going to spend ten minutes tracking the info down...
If you put your cell phone number on your site, expect calls after five... Over the past week I’ve tried reaching agents with listings I was interested in, but on numerous occasions I got voice mail messages that said they didn't return calls after 5pm, or that if they did answer they wanted to know why I was calling after work hours... It’s great to have boundaries, but i image it’s better to have clients...
Zillow Real Estate Market Reports
First Quarter: January-March 2009
U.S. home values continued to slide for the ninth consecutive quarter, declining 14.2 percent from a year ago, and falling 21.8 percent since the market peak in 2006. Additionally, one-fifth (21.9%) of all homeowners in the United States is in negative equity, and one in five homes sold in the past 12 months was a foreclosure.
Zillow Q1 Real Estate Market Reports track 161 metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) throughout the U.S., identifying market trends including, but not limited to: five and 10-year annualized change, negative equity, short sales and foreclosure transactions.
But with summer approaching, San Francisco real estate agents say the housing market is warming up — particularly for homes priced under $1 million — and recent assistance from the federal government has sparked an influx of multiple bids on homes for the first time since the crisis began.
“I have never seen the market in San Francisco as slow as it was last winter,” said Plotkowski, an agent with Zephyr Real Estate. “Fortunately, the last three months have shown enormous changes.”
It’s not a seller’s market, though. The median home price in San Francisco was $617,000 in March, an 18.3 percent drop from the same month last year, according to the California Association of Realtors.
The lower prices, however, along with improved interest rates and new state and federal tax credits for home buyers, among other incentives, are attracting offers, Plotkowski said.
Dale Boutiette, a broker associate with Paragon Real Estate Group, said his agency recently had two city listings that had been on the market for more than 70 days. Now, they’re both in contract and received multiple offers, he said.
Nothing better than a public cat fight between two real estate offices... and honestly I have no idea what started it, nor do I care (there is a previous email mentioned in the Bradley email, but I can't find anyone with a copy)... This is the sort of stuff legends are made of.... For some reason Melissa Bradley is going after Coldwell Banker... In an email reportedly send out by Bradley Real Estate, Ms. Bradley spells out her case why she's cool and Coldwell is... well for lack of a better term... cold
Here is my favorite line from the email (the entire email is below)
Bradley Real Estate's Marin Manager, Melissa Bradley, started her real estate career 25 years ago as an assistant to her Grandmother who was an agent in Marin. Melissa has been licensed for 16 years, and opened her own brokerage 12 years ago. She has personally sold over 500 homes in Marin, San Francisco, Sonoma, and beyond and co-brokered and/or managed thousands of closed transactions.
VS.
Coldwell Banker's Marin Manager Kevin Pastel does not have his broker's license according to the DRE, he is a sales person who was licensed less than 6 years ago and has personally (according to BAREIS MLS) sold l5 homes in Marin, 1 in Santa Rosa and 2 in San Francisco.
Don't get me wrong, Bradley is going for the free pr, seeing how she lists her phone number on the bottom of the letter, and suggests folks call her to follow up...
as they say in the restaurant business... enjoy!
BRADLEY REAL ESTATE
Bradley Real Estate
VS.
Coldwell Banker
In Marin
Our response to their recent email to you.
Bradley Real Estate is a local family owned and operated brokerage, the owners and managers Robert and Melissa Bradley live in San Rafael their 3 children. Melissa Bradley was born and raised in West Marin and the Ross Valley.
VS.
Coldwell Banker is owned by the franchise conglomerate NRT based out of Parsippany,New Jersey.
Bradley Real Estate has opened 4 new offices in a little over a year for a total of 8 offices in Marin.
VS.
Coldwell Banker Closed one of their largest offices in Marin in the last year.
Bradley Real Estate has tripled in number of agents from less than 100 agents to nearly 300 Marin agents in just a few years.
VS.
In that same time period Coldwell Banker has gone from having well over 300 Marin County Agents to now having just over 150 Marin agents. Decreasing it's size by approximately half.
Bradley Real Estate has increased it's Marin Residential Dollar Volume Sold Market Share from 1/1/05 to 5/1/05 vs. 1/ 1/09 to 5/1/09 at an increase of nearly triple the amount of market share.
VS.
In that same time period, Coldwell Banker's Marin Residential Dollar Volume Sold Market Share decreased by 41%.
Bradley Real Estate's Marin Manager, Melissa Bradley, started her real estate career 25 years ago as an assistant to her Grandmother who was an agent in Marin. Melissa has been licensed for 16 years, and opened her own brokerage 12 years ago. She has personally sold over 500 homes in Marin, San Francisco, Sonoma, and beyond and co-brokered and/or managed thousands of closed transactions.
VS.
Coldwell Banker's Marin Manager Kevin Pastel does not have his broker's license according to the DRE, he is a sales person who was licensed less than 6 years ago and has personally (according to BAREIS MLS) sold l5 homes in Marin, 1 in Santa Rosa and 2 in San Francisco.
Bradley Real Estate does not lower agent's splits.
VS.
Most agents that moved from Coldwell Banker to Bradley Real Estate named the fact that their split fluctuated as one of the reasons they decided to move.
Bradley Real Estate provides E & O Insurance and Risk Management Classes at no annual cost to our agents. In fact we have no annual fees of any kind.
VS.
Most agents who moved from Coldwell Banker said they were tired of paying the high yearly fees associated with being affiliated with that brokerage.
Bradley Real Estate has the most comprehensive print and online packages to offer to their listing agents and their clients.
VS.
Most of the approximately 100 agents that now work at Bradley Real Estate that formerly worked at Coldwell Banker named the lack of advertising and marketing support at Coldwell Banker as one of the reasons that they no longer wished to work for that brokerage.
Bradley Real Estate gives buyer leads to it's agents. The better the agent is at converting leads the more leads they get. Bradley Real Estate does not charge a referral fee for buyer leads.
VS.
Most of the nearly 100 agents that formerly worked for Coldwell Banker, that now work for Bradley said they "Never got any leads from Coldwell Banker or got a few but were charged 35% or more referral fee for buyer leads that were generated from their fellow agent's listings through an automated router system." Some of those agents had worked at Coldwell Banker for 10 years or more.
Bradley Real Estate regularly holds classes and they are taught live in person in Marin by Melissa Bradley Marin's top listing agent for houses sold for the last 10 + years.
VS.
Coldwell Banker offers you a "coach" (Kevin Patsel) that has personally sold less homes than most of the agents he manages.
Bradley Real Estate is one of the top 2 companies in Marin for dollar volume and residential homes sold this year in Marin. Also, our top Marin office has sold more residential properties in all counties than any other office in Marin at 97 residential homes sold as of 5/1/09.
VS.
While Coldwell Banker's Contra Costa, San Mateo and San Benito Counties offices (per their graph ad) certainly sell a lot of real estate, the question is "Do Marin agents really care?" according to BARIES MLS as of 5/1/09 their top Marin office, San Rafael has sold 43 residential homes, their Greenbrae Main office has sold 31 residential homes and the Mill Valley office has sold 11 this year. So who really cares how Coldwell Banker is doing in Vacaville and Benicia?
Bradley Real Estate was voted one of the Best Places to Work in the Bay Area in the SF Business Times for the 2nd year in a row by it's agents and employees.
I spent the last three days out of town on a search for a new home... what i learned and what i went through taught me a lot about buying a home... these are tips i can assure you will make anyone a better agent...
(I would like to mention the following suggests do NOT reflect on the agent I'm currently working with who in my mind went above and beyond on countless occasions this Mother’s Day weekend to meet my nutty requests)
1. flyers - the plastic box that hangs on the for sale sign needs to be kept full... i can’t tell you how many times i drove around neighborhoods i liked and found empty boxes... don’t tell me to call the number on the sign... if you aren’t interested enough to keep the flyer box full for your client, what sort of service are you going to be offering me as a potential buyer...?
2. Put the price of the house on the sign... it saves everyone time and effort... if you’re thinking leaving the price off forces potential clients to call, it doesn’t... i never called a single agent... but if i knew the price was at least close to my price, i would have considered calling
3. You’re not tech savvy just because you have a website and a smart phone... you need to be able to text, sms, send short video clips and provide for me links that actually works on a blackberry... not links that require i go back to my laptop (email yourself before you email your clients)
4. Google the address of your listing... if the address that comes up on google maps or mapquest doesn’t match your listings actual location, make an effort to get it correct... google now allows for corrections
5. Know the schools in the neighborhoods where you sell... don’t refer me to a websites, or give me directions to the nearest school... know the school’s test scores, its reputation and at the very least put the names of the schools on a home’s flier.
Expect an announcement this week that McGuire Real Estate will purchase Vision Real Estate in Marin...
Employees of McGuire should get the news later today and a formal announcement is expected on Wednesday... stay tuned for details
I'm not sure what changed since yesterday, but it appears suddenly the world agrees the real estate skid is about over....
The CEO of online broker ZipRealty, Pat Lashinksy told ABC News "We're hitting some trends that show that we may be approaching a bottom, or we may be at a bottom right now." Another nameless expert on CBS Radio said it appears homes prices are stabilizing with smaller and smaller month over month declines....
But the best headline of the day belongs to ABC News...
There is a growing belief among financial experts that the recession is over.
Barry Knapp, a strategist at Barclays Capital, wrote recently that the economy appears "to be in the sweet spot of a recovery" and that the recession may have ended last month, according to Bloomberg News.
Liz Ann Sonders, chief investment strategist at Charles Schwab, said on "Good Morning America" today that she agrees with that conclusion.
"It isn't any brilliant prescience on mine or anybody else's part," Sonders said. "There's certain indicators we can look at to set the turn, and I think we have seen that turn."
Sonders warned that unemployment is a lagging indicator and, historically, employment figures don't begin to recover until six months after the end of a recession. That means that this time around, unemployment likely won't peak until the end of this year.
But, she added, there are already positive signs on the employment front. Layoffs are slowing, and unemployment claims are starting to edge lower.
Meanwhile, there is also good news in housing: At least one real estate insider is actually using the words like "normalizing" and "housing market" in the same sentence.
"We're hitting some trends that show that we may be approaching a bottom, or we may be at a bottom right now," said Pat Lashinksy, the CEO of online broker ZipRealty.
A leading indicator of how the housing market is faring is inventory, the number of homes on the market. When the number of homes for sale goes down, prices rise and the market improves.
Lashinksy said that that's what's happening now. New data from ZipRealty shows that buyers are moving into the housing market at levels not seen in two years.
"Inventory levels are actually declining, and median home prices of homes available for sale have actually gone up," Lashinksy said.
This is part 2 of 2... Several posts below is part 1...
I spent the last three days out of town on a search for a new home... what i learned and what i went through taught me a lot about buying a home... these are tips i can assure you will make anyone a better agent...
6. Cute phone numbers like 415-555-SOLD , 415- 27-AGENT or 415-1TP-AGENT are utterly useless to me... if you’ve ever taken the time to look at a Blackberry, you'll notice there are no letters on the keys
7. The most worthless numbers in real estate are average and median home price... explain to a client what you’ll get for the average price...My Realtor did this and it helped immensely because the average price didn’t matter... average is Latin for disappointing
8. When you give your clients the mls listings, give them all the details... i want more than a photo, price and beds/baths... Our agent did this and I was glad...i want to know days on market, the schools and taxes at the very least.... print for me all the information about the listing
9. Check your own websites on a blackberry/iphone... I can’t tell you how many times i tried Googling a listing I was standing next to only to be brought to an agent’s site that didn’t work on my phone... but don’t feel bad, even Zillow, a company that built its reputation on being the online real estate go-to site failed on mobile. When i tried searching on Zillow on my phone I received the following message... “home search may not wok on mobile devices.”
10. Post as many honest photos as you can... countless times i came across great looking homes on the mls that were so far from reality... i wondered how the photo was taken... one house, a total dump, was photographed from such an angle that the scrub brush, phone lines and surrounding apartment buildings we completely removed from the photo... nice work by the photographer, but i would have rather known upfront what i was getting into...
American homeowners have a solid understanding of what has happened to the values of their own homes over the past year. A majority (60 percent) believe their own home lost value during the past 12 months, according to the Zillow Q1 Homeowner Confidence Survey(1). In reality, 80 percent of homes across the country lost value during the past 12 months, according to Zillow's first quarter Real Estate Market Reports.
Additionally, 18 percent believe their own home gained value in the past 12 months, and 22 percent believe its value remained the same. That resulted in a Zillow Home Value Misperception Index(2) of five - the lowest it has been since Zillow introduced the index in the second quarter of 2008 - and down from 10 in the fourth quarter of 2008. A Misperception Index of zero would mean homeowners perceptions' were in line with actual values.
More accurate perceptions of the past gave way to hope for the future. Most homeowners - 74 percent - believe their home will not decline in value in the coming six months, effectively calling a bottom to their own home's housing slide. Specifically, one in four homeowners (27 percent) think their home's value will increase in the next six months, while nearly half (47 percent) believe their home's value will remain the same. Homeowners were similarly optimistic when it came to predicting home values in their local markets. About two-thirds of homeowners believe home values in their local markets will increase (26 percent) or stay the same (37 percent) over the next six months. Thirty-seven percent believe home values will decrease.
As for selling activity, it's clear a significant number of potential sellers are holding back due to the current market. When asked about future plans to sell, 31 percent of homeowners said they would be at least "somewhat likely" to put their homes on the market in the next 12 months if they saw signs of a real estate market turnaround(3).
"The perception of American homeowners is finally catching up to reality, which is that 80 percent of all homes in the country lost value during this past year," said Dr. Stan Humphries, Zillow's vice president of data and analytics. "While homeowners are now more realistic when looking backward, they are still pretty starry-eyed when looking forward with three out of four homeowners believing that their own homes' prices will increase or be flat over the next six months. Unfortunately, there are few markets we expect to perform this well."
Humphries continued, "Also interesting is the information we have for the first time this quarter on the levels of 'shadow inventory' - homes that people would like to sell but that aren't currently on the market, and thus aren't captured in the official number of homes on the market. With almost a third of homeowners poised to jump into the market at the first sign of stabilization, this could create a steady stream of new inventory adding to already record-high inventory levels, thus keeping downward pressure on home prices."
(NOTE: Column percentages may not total 100 percent due to rounding)
Western Homeowners' Perceptions Catch Up With Reality
With a Misperception Index of two - down from 13 in the fourth quarter - the perception of homeowners in the West was closest to reality, along with that of homeowners in the Midwest. Northeastern homeowners' perception of their own homes' values were the farthest from reality, with a Misperception Index of 11, up from 3 in the fourth quarter.
Two years after the start of the real estate market implosion, new data indicates the bottom of the market is clearing and more expensive properties are coming available. Report shows increases in asking prices in 22 of 26 major metro markets around the country.
The Altos 10-City Composite Price Index increase by 2.2% during April and 3.3% during the most recent three month period. Prices of properties listed for sale rose in 22 of 26 major markets and were down in four markets according to the Real-Time Housing Market Report, jointly published by Altos Research, the premier source for real-time real estate statistics.
Listing prices rose at the fastest rate in the California markets with San Jose up 3.7%, Los Angeles up 3.2% and San Diego up 2.8% in April. Prices in 18 markets are now showing three months of sequential listing price increases. Asking prices fell at the fastest rate during April in Las Vegas followed by Salt Lake City - down 3.8% and 2.6% respectively.
"Broadly rising asking prices in this difficult economic environment demonstrate the powerful effect of seasonality in the housing industry," said Stephen Bedikian, partner and research director for Real IQ. "We expect to see continued strength during the next few months of the spring selling season fueled by historically low mortgage rates. We won't be able to call a bottoming of the market until we see stability continue into the seasonally weak fall and winter months."
Inventory levels decreased in a majority of major markets with inventory falling in 15 of 26 markets. Across the 10-City Composite Index markets, inventory fell by 1.5% in April and was effectively unchanged during the most recent three-month period. Inventory grew by the largest amount in Boston up 6.3% followed by Austin up 4.9%. Inventory fell by the largest amount in Phoenix and San Francisco where it contracted by 11.0% and 7.1% respectively.
"A decline in inventory levels is atypical for this time of the year," said Michael Simonsen co-founder and chief executive officer of Altos Research. "The important question is whether inventory growth will remain restrained or whether pent-up supply will come on to the market in succeeding months. There is no surer way to snuff out a recovery in housing prices than a flood of inventory that overwhelms demand."
During April all markets except Portland, San Francisco and Salt Lake City had a median days-on-market of 100 or more. By far, the market with the slowest rate of inventory turnover was again Miami, now at a median of 246 days-on-market or more than eight months. Miami has experienced the slowest market turnover in every month since September 2007. Portland experienced the fastest rate of inventory turnover at a median of 82 days-on-market, followed by San Francisco at 96 days.
· C.A.R. First-time Buyer Housing Affordability Index stood at 69 percent in the first quarter of 2009 compared with 46 percent (revised) in the first quarter of 2008
· The median price of an entry-level home in California was $213,040 in the first quarter of 2009
· The estimated monthly payment including taxes and insurance was $1,270 in the first quarter of 2009
· The minimum household income needed to purchase an entry-level home in California in the first quarter of 2009 was $38,090
C.A.R. reports entry-level housing affordability reached 69 percent in the first quarter of 2009
The percentage of households that could afford to buy an entry-level home in California stood at 69 percent in the first quarter of 2009, compared with 46 percent (revised) for the same period a year ago, according to a report released today by the CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® (C.A.R.).
C.A.R.’s First Time Buyer Housing Affordability Index (FTB-HAI) measures the percentage of households that can afford to purchase an entry-level home in California. C.A.R. also reports first-time buyer indexes for regions and select counties within the state. The Index is the most fundamental measure of housing well-being for first-time buyers in the state.
The minimum household income needed to purchase an entry-level home at $213,040 in California in the first quarter of 2009 was $38,090, based on an adjustable interest rate of 4.96 percent and assuming a 10 percent down payment. First-time buyers typically purchase a home equal to 85 percent of the prevailing median price. The monthly payment including taxes and insurance was $1,270 for the first quarter of 2009.
At $38,090, the minimum qualifying income was 41 percent lower than a year earlier when households needed $65,030 to qualify for a loan on an entry-level home. Recent decreases in home prices and mortgage rates have brought affordability into better alignment with the income level of a typical California household, where the median household income is $61,030.
The First-Time Buyer Housing Affordability Index also rose 7 percentage points in the first quarter of this year compared with the fourth quarter of 2008, due to a 14.1 percent decrease in the entry-level median home price.
At 83 percent, the High Desert region was the most affordable area in the state. The San Luis Obispo County region was the least affordable in the state at 49 percent, followed by the Orange County region at 56 percent.
Located close by Trulia headquarters, this amazing condo is claimed to be on the ‘crookedest’ street in San Francisco. Boasting 1,434 sqft of space, the condo includes two beds, two baths, deeded walk-out garden, large pantry, dining room and overlooks lush greenery. It’s been recently reduced $10,000 AND they’re having an open house this Sunday!
The other day I sat in on one of the meetings where one office tries to convince another office their futures would be brighter if they switched offices... It was the usual pitch, with the exception of one detail... The folks doing the pitch were talking about their position as the luxury real estate firm...
I thought that was an odd position to take since as Ron Parks pointed out in the Vision Report on this site that was the only end of the market not doing well... Not to mention several agents who have made a lifetime of calling themselves luxury agents were now regrading the decision seeing how they were holding a boatload of multi million dollar listing that weren’t selling, or as one agent said, “will never sell.”
And in case you didn’t see it this weekend, the Chronicle reported the same issue...
More high-end properties sitting on the market
So the question is, are you changing why way you position yourself and your listings?
After 14 months on the market and about a $1.2 million price cut, a large, newly built home in the Oakland hills is on the verge of selling, assuming the bank allows it to trade for less than what's due on the loan.
The approximately $950,000 "short sale" is a prominent example of something brokers don't like to talk about, at least not brokers who represent owners: High-end properties are increasingly coming under the sort of pressure once reserved for moderate homes. In fact, as slowing price declines fuel hope that the real estate bottom is near, other signs suggest the worst is on its way for the region's upscale market.
"The high end, they're hurting more, actually, and you can bargain more," said Pinky Sohal, a Realtor with Legacy Real Estate & Associates, who is representing the purchaser of 1055 Amito Drive in Oakland, a hedge fund manager whom she declined to name. "They're begging for buyers to come in."
The seller's agent didn't respond to inquires.
So far, prices for top-end properties aren't declining more or faster than the market as a whole, based on ZIP code information provided by San Diego research firm MDA DataQuick. But strains are becoming evident on that end of the price spectrum.
In the Bay Area, the months of unsold inventory of existing single-family homes priced above $1 million reached 14 months in March, more than double where it stood a year ago, according to the California Association of Realtors. The statistic estimates the time it would take to sell all the homes on the market based on the current rate of transactions.
In contrast, inventory of homes priced below $500,000 fell to just 2.6 months, a nearly 80 percent decline. The same general trends were seen on the state level as well.
Bay Area home sales beat the year-ago mark for the sixth straight month in February as the winter market sizzled in many foreclosure-heavy inland areas offering the deepest discounts. The median price dipped below $300,000 for the first time since late 1999, pushed lower by an abundance of inland distressed sales and a dearth of coastal high-end activity, a real estate information service reported.
A total of 5,032 new and resale houses and condos closed escrow in the nine-county Bay Area last month. That was essentially unchanged from 5,050 in January but up 26.1 percent from 3,989 in February 2008, according to MDA DataQuick of San Diego.
Last month’s sales were the fifth-lowest for a February since 1988, when DataQuick’s statistics begin, and 22 percent below the average 6,410 for the month. February sales have ranged from a low of 3,989 in 2008 to a high of 8,901 in 2002.
Only 321 newly constructed homes sold last month, down 55 percent from 713 a year ago, the lowest on record for a February, and the second-lowest for any month back to 1988. Many builders have had a difficult time competing with falling resale prices – especially foreclosures.
The allure of such discounted foreclosures helped lift sales of existing single-family houses to record levels for a February in Vallejo, Brentwood, Antioch, Pittsburg and Oakley.
The use of government-insured, FHA loans – a common choice among first-time buyers – represented a record 24.9 percent of all Bay Area purchase loans last month.
Conversely, use of so-called jumbo loans to finance high-end property remained at abnormally low levels. Before the credit crunch hit in August 2007, jumbo loans, then defined as over $417,000, represented 62 percent of Bay Area purchase loans, compared with just 17.5 percent last month.
The difficulties potential high-end buyers have had in obtaining jumbo loans helps explain why sales of existing single-family houses fell to record-low or near-record-low levels for a February in some higher-end communities. They included Orinda, Walnut Creek, San Rafael, San Francisco, Burlingame, San Mateo, Los Gatos, and Los Altos.
“A lot of Bay Area activity is basically on hold, waiting for the jumbo mortgage spigot to reopen. That could start to happen during the second quarter, although slowly. Yesterday’s move by the Federal Reserve to buy more mortgage securities could be a turning point,” said John Walsh, MDA DataQuick president.
Across the nine-county region, the median price paid for all new and resale houses and condos combined fell to $295,000 last month. That was down 1.7 percent from $300,000 in January and down a record 46.2 percent from $548,000 a year ago.
The February median stood at its lowest since it was $299,000 in December 1999 and was 55.6 percent below the peak median of $665,000 reached in June and July of 2007.
The median price – the point where half of the homes sold for more and half for less – has fallen on a year-over-year basis for 15 consecutive months. Its near free-fall in recent months overstates the decline in the value of the typical Bay Area home. The median’s plunge also reflects the sluggishness of high-end sales, which are now under-represented in the statistics; a shift toward more sales occurring in the less-expensive inland markets; and buyers’ preference for discounted foreclosures.
Last month 52 percent of all homes that resold in the Bay Area had been foreclosed on at some point in the prior 12 months, up from a revised 51.9 percent in January and 22.3 percent a year ago.
At the county level, foreclosure resales last month ranged from 12.1 percent of resales in San Francisco to 69.5 percent in Solano County. In the other seven counties, foreclosure resales were as follows: Alameda, 46.2 percent; Contra Costa, 65.1 percent; Marin, 18.9 percent; Napa, 63.1 percent; Santa Clara, 42.9 percent; San Mateo, 31.3 percent; and Sonoma, 57.1 percent.
San Diego-based MDA DataQuick is a division of MDA Lending Solutions, a subsidiary of Vancouver-based MacDonald Dettwiler and Associates. MDA DataQuick monitors real estate activity nationwide and provides information to consumers, educational institutions, public agencies, lending institutions, title companies and industry analysts. Because of late data availability, sales in late February were estimated in Alameda and San Mateo counties.
The typical monthly mortgage payment that Bay Area buyers committed themselves to paying was $1,286 last month, down from $1,297 the previous month, and down from $2,606 a year ago. Adjusted for inflation, current payments are 50.2 percent below typical payments in the spring of 1989, the peak of the prior real estate cycle. They are 63.2 percent below the current cycle's peak in July 2007.
Indicators of market distress continue to move in different directions. Foreclosure activity has waned recently but remains near record levels, while financing with adjustable-rate mortgages is near the all-time low, as is financing with multiple mortgages. Down payment sizes and flipping rates are stable. Non-owner occupied buying activity is above-average in some markets, MDA DataQuick reported.
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I’ve been told by folks in the know the Pacific Union office in Greenbrae, source of so much gossip these past months, is shutting down...
Yes, the 60 day notice has been give to the office, time to look elsewhere for a place to call home... Plenty of other PacUnion offices in town with open desks I’m sure...
But like death and taxes, when your real estate office closes, Melissa Bradley will call with an offer of work... Plenty of agents in town thank you for the opportunity...
I Spent a good part of this week talking with agents trying to get a sense of where they feel the City’s real estate market it headed... Here’s what I heard...
1.The best neighborhoods are still selling well.. Noe Valley, Pac Heights and Lower Haight
2.Plenty of pent up demand by folks who have been waiting years to buy... Agents tell me the waiters are finally getting the sense the market has hit bottom...
3.Described to me as, “the never buys.” Couples who always say they’re waiting for the perfect moment to buy remain on the fence... It appears there are just people who like to talk about buying a home, but will never buy, ever...
4.Mortgages are still an issue... Agents tell me clients with no money problems and perfectly good credit are getting turned down for no reason
5.Plenty of sellers are refusing to drop prices on clearly overpriced homes leaving others to believe the market is still slow... One agent thought if you could get all the over priced homes off the market, you would be surprised to see how fast the well priced homes are selling
And finally my personal predication...
I’m conceived couples with kids about to enter school are going to spring into action in the coming months... Most of these potential buyers realize they can no longer afford 25k for private school, have been saving for for a house for years and see a huge opportunity in Marin with falling prices... It was just 18 months ago the standard Marin home was $1.2, now it’s 900k... Come Fall there won’t be a kid in the City...
Practically located in the heart of downtown SF – right along Folsom street. If you don’t have anything big planned this weekend or if you’re shopping in the Downtown area, you have to check out this gorgeous top-floor corner end unit loft. It’s a definite must-see. Located between two parks, it’s a true bachelor pad with two beds, three baths and 1,578 sqft for entertaining! The huge windows offer great views and the gourmet kitchen will bring out the chef-side of you. There’s also a patio, perfect for sunny weekend brunches. Come have a look this weekend and imagine what it would be like to live in such a modern luxury.
Things are getting better... Today's S&P Case-Shiller report has Bay Area home prices down 30.1 percent for a the past twelve months, and down 2.2 percent for March... Which is an improvement over the previous month where home prices were down 3.3 percent... things are coming around... agents tell me everyday that the good neighborhoods are still selling and I'm personally convinced it's these sorts of numbers that are going to be folks waiting for the market to hit bottom to finally get out and buy... I think it's safe to say the bottom is a month away... When the June numbers come in, I'm betting it's going to show the first signs of raising home prices...
Home Prices Continue Downward March
U.S. home prices continued their multiyear tumble in March, according to the S&P Case-Shiller home-price indexes, as the downdraft shows no near-term signs of abating.
Meanwhile, U.S. consumer confidence improved sharply in May, especially in expectations for the economy six months from now, a report released Tuesday said.
For the first quarter, the S&P/Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index posted a 19.1% drop from a year earlier, the biggest quarterly decline for the reading's 21-year history. S&P Case-Shiller releases 10-city and 20-city indexes every month, but also releases a broader national index every quarter.
Separately, the monthly numbers showed 15 of 20 major metropolitan areas posted price declines of more than 10% from a year earlier, with the Sun Belt continuing to be hit hardest. Nationally, home prices are at levels similar to the fourth quarter of 2002.
Nothing I love more than finding random marketing material from the local Realtor in my mailbox...
Last night I found an invitation to a “Special Sneak Peak (sic) Open House For Your (town here) Neighbors!”
The note was full of errors... Everything from punctuation to grammar.
I’m going to say it now, I’m not the best speller either, but I like to think the good folks at Frank Howard Allen would have some double check for these sorts of things...
My favorite error is in the opening paragraph where the agent mentions the house will be “coming on the market very soon.”
Yet on the bottom of the flier it says it will be on the market May 31st.. A lot must have transpired between the first paragraph and the last...
I could personally find 8 errors... Let me know what you find...
So what’s the point of this post? I direct you to Sunday’s New York Times....
The Poet of Property, a story that goes into great detail about hiring professional to do your real estate writing... Enjoy
The Poet of Property
By ERIC KONIGSBERG
THE language of real estate advertising copy in New York is beyond parody: how can you make fun of something that already reads like a satire of itself? Are there really thousands of buildings that can fairly call themselves “one of the most desired co-ops on the Upper East Side”?
Has almost every broker in town really produced “nearly $1 billion in sales throughout his illustrious career working at one of Manhattan’s premier residential brokerage firms and specializing in the sales of some of Manhattan’s most prestigious and highly coveted addresses”?
Still, who among us can resist a good real-estate ad? And who hasn’t had a laugh reading a clumsy attempt to make the uninhabitable sound irresistible? The very plasticity of the form may be why the writers of so many listings fail.
It’s as if the less adroit in the business had reasoned that all hyperbole sounds the same, so why not just take a nap and let your computer write the thing?
There exists, however, a significant portion of New York real estate professionals who hold that while it is easy to write in shelter-speak, it is difficult to do it well. They can’t say exactly what makes a successful ad — but they know it when they see it. And for a lot of those people, Valerie Haboush is the hired gun they depend on to write theirs.
Ms. Haboush, 46, calls herself a “freelance marketing communications writer” — O.K., so the poetry gods were out of magic dust the day she had to think up her job description — and for somebody who works in a competitive field built on exclusives, she is a believer in the “love all, serve all” school of business.
It's not the Western Addition - it's NoPa. It's not the Financial District - it's the Barbary Coast. The gritty Hells Angels enclave known as Dogpatch? Now one of America's hottest ZIP codes, according to the current edition of Men's Journal magazine.
San Franciscans love to microbrand their neighborhoods, and at last count Wikipedia listed 109 places to live in the city by the bay.
The continual turnover in names, boundaries and reputations is enough to make an old timer's head spin.
"A confusing and inconsistent mess," according to a 1977 attempt to list 144 distinct neighborhoods in California Living, the magazine of the San Francisco Sunday Examiner and Chronicle.
Stepping into the fray, the San Francisco Association of Realtors is coming out with a new neighborhood map this summer - replacing stale names with hip ones, adding enclaves and changing boundaries to try to answer one of San Francisco's most complicated questions:
So, where do you live?
The real estate map, last updated in 2005, is serious business - homes for sale through the Multiple Listing Service are automatically assigned to districts on the map, a factor buyers and real estate appraisers use to help size up a home.
"We worked for four years on this, and we didn't allow changes like 'TenderNob' for the Tenderloin just to change home values - the changes had to reflect a true change and feel of the fabric of a neighborhood," said Matthew Borland, a Zephyr real estate agent who is leading the map redesign.
On the map
Some of the new monikers have bubbled up from popular culture, others have the whiff of real estate marketing euphemism, and some are a return to names that stuck despite trendsetters' efforts to change them.
A section of the South of Market (SoMa) area becomes a new neighborhood called Yerba Buena - a nod to the flourishing arts district of modern high-rises sprouting among the Museum of Modern Art and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.
Cole Valley will finally make the map, taking a bite out of Parnassus Heights territory. Dolores Heights and South Beach get bigger.
The area around Bayview Park and Candlestick Park becomes Candlestick Point.
"San Franciscans have a culture of individuality. It attracts people who don't want to fit into a mold, so constantly reinventing their neighborhoods is part of that," said Joy Liu, a San Francisco real estate agent for Coldwell Banker.
The Financial District has been renamed Barbary Coast to harken the Gold Rush-era hangout for prostitutes, whiskey and poker.
"We thought it was a fun name that brings the area back to its roots. 'Financial District' says office buildings and doesn't convey much of a residential identity," Borland said.
For Donald Drummond, who opened the Drummond & Associates law firm in the Financial District in 1971, "Barbary Coast" doesn't roll off the tongue.
For as long as i can remember California was going to fall in the ocean and San Quentin prison would be turned into a neighborhood of multimillion dollar homes... It was earlier this month that Arnold said he was willing to sell of state's assets to close the growing deficit, causing real estate agents all over the Bay Area to dream of subdividing San Quentin to make room for new homes... Let me say for the record, this will NEVER happen. If for some strange reason did, it would take 25 years to find new homes for the current residents, conduct enviormental impact studies, host hearing over the best use of the land and clear the property... it might even turn out the best use for the land would be to turn it into a park.. so for now enjoy the dream...
SAN FRANCISCO -- California's median price for existing homes rose 1.4% in April from March, marking the second consecutive monthly increase in housing prices and prompting some industry officials to declare that the state's long swoon in housing values could be at or near the bottom.
California's housing market is being closely watched as a barometer of the economy -- it is the nation's largest. Prices soared during the boom, but the collapse of housing prices has pummeled homeowners and helped send foreclosures skyrocketing. Any sign of recovery would be taken as a sign that the market is bottoming.
[Cali Homes]
It was the first back-to-back increase in the state's housing prices in two years, following an increase in the median price of homes in March from February. The median price of $256,700 for single-family homes in April is up from a median price of $253,040 in March, according to estimates by the California Association of Realtors.
