Real estate investors homework .. Where to buy?

Many of my clients have invested in real estate to balance their investment portfolio, as I have done myself.  To piggy up on my last blog on the subject dating back to July (Investing in real estate), when people contact me with this goal in mind, their first question is: where should I invest?

Indeed, this is the first step: decide what should be your main goal with your real estate investing.  Is it to maximize appreciation, or is it to maximize returns?  Typically, where there is appreciation, the return on investment (ROI) is lower, and vice-versa, where there is a large return, appreciation is lower.  There are so many areas in the US to choose from...  and it would take a long time to go and visit each place of interest, and compare.

The Bay Area has always been expensive, and by the time you have purchased a condominium or a house, you have spent so much money that the return after finding a tenant is going to be around 3% to 4% maximum in the best case.   - Although for those who have bought before 2012, their return has gone up quite a bit due to the extreme increase in rents that we have seen since then: what used to rent for about $1900 about 5 years ago now fetches easily around $2,800, and even $3,000.

In Texas in the area of Dallas-Fort Worth one may buy a 4-bedroom house in a pretty nice neighborhood for say, around $150 to $160K, and the monthly rent is going to be around $1400.  With these kinds of figures, the return jumps to 10 or 11% very easily.

So where should one go?

I came across an interesting web site offering a lot of property management resources: http://www.allpropertymanagement.com/
and they have already done a lot of the research, by tracking a number of different metrics, from rental vacancy rates and home values to regional job growth, for 75 different metro areas in 5 regions of the country. They use that data, along with input from their nationwide network of over 5,000 property managers, to produce their quarterly Rental Ranking report, which measures a city’s attractiveness for real estate investment. 
Here is a link to their "All Property Management Q2 2014 Rental Ranking Report".   According to the data, San Jose is the second-strongest rental investment market in the West Region, and the fifth-best in the nation.

Finding the right place to invest also depends on where you live: sometimes, closer to you is better because you can manage the properties yourself, which can have huge implications for taxes, and also for the maintenance costs.

Once you have found you path, let me know: I can help you purchase the better property, or properties.  Whether it is in my backyard (including San Jose) or not, I can help you personally or I can find you the right agent through my network.  And should you end up in Dallas, I can also recommend a great management company there.

Thanks for reading,
Francis


Silicon Valley real estate specialist
Detailed, local trends etc...
Current mortgage rates

Know your insurance before remodeling.

Property insurance is not a very exciting subject to be sure.  I just read this blog from a local insurance company, Allied Brokers Inc., well known for their involvement in real estate insurance

here in the San Francisco Mid-Peninsula area.

The article covers the insurance issues that can pop up when you have a remodeling project that encounters problems; things are not always covered as you thought they were, and it is a good idea to check up on your insurance coverage with your insurer before starting any remodeling.

Checking also whether your contractor has any insurance, along with his/her sub-contractors if there are any, is essential, and you may also want to add yourself to the Contractor's policy.

More on this important subject in this Allied Brokers Inc. article.

Thanks for reading,
Francis

Silicon Valley real estate specialist
Detailed, local trends etc...
Current mortgage rates

Average prices in the SF Bay local Counties - evolution.

To piggy back on an earlier blog of mine, dating back to January of this year, here is an update to the graphs showing the increase in average prices in both the counties of Santa Clara and San Mateo; the figures include both the houses and the condominiums/townhouses.

As always, one has to be careful with statistics: a few very high priced homes can skew the average to a high number, even though nothing much else has happened in the market place.

A few things to note:
- In general, average prices go down at the end of the year and until January.  Last year was shielded in large part from this phenomenon: prices went down, but not much.  We will see if this year acts more "normal".
- The total number of homes (houses and condos) for sale last year at the end of August was 1,852 in the Cnty of Santa Clara, and it is now 1,778  - a little lower.  Still a lack of inventory ...
- Prices were an average of $715.7K in the County of Santa Clara in Jan of 2013, and they are now $992.5K, a 38.7% increase !
- From the graphs below, it seems that averages move faster up and down in the County of San Mateo than in the County of Santa Clara.  I believe it reflects the fact that a lot more properties went into the averages in SCC than in SM Cnty: 25,705 listings for Santa Clara County, vs 10,619 for San Mateo County.  The more properties you have, and the more the averages are going to be representative of the real market, instead of the specifics of the homes.  To say it simply, if you have a few very high properties, they will have less of an effect on the average of 25,000 sales vs the average of 10,000 sales.

One final note: the inventory of homes for sale in January of 2014 was around 900, about half of what it is now.  So it is a better time to look for a home!  Also, many trades linked to real estate, like property inspection services, termite companies, stagers, report being extremely busy right now (beg. of Sept.).  This could mean that inventory may increase soon...

County of Santa Clara:

County of San Mateo:

 

 

Thank you for reading,

Francis

Silicon Valley real estate specialist
Detailed, local trends etc...
Current mortgage rates

non-profit organization worth noting: Partners for New Generations - now called:
Mentor Tutor Connection.

Bay Area home prices leveling off.

Prices in the Bay Area at large are leveling off.

Not everywhere, and not all in the same manner.  But DataQuick, the La Jolla-based real estate information services firm, said the median sale price for new and existing homes in the region in July stayed at a 3-month plateau at $617,000.  That was down .2 % from June's median price but up 9.8 % from the $562,000 median in July 2013. 

Complete information along the Peninsula can be found in this Coldwell Banker article, with the following remarks with regards to the area close to Los Altos and Palo Alto, and referred to as "Silicon Valley" (always more competitive):


...... Silicon Valley – The market is a bit spotty, according to our Cupertino manager. The demand for

great houses with Cupertino schools is as high as ever, but certain segments seem to have cooled off. It’s August, after all! Our Los Altos manager reports that there is lower inventory currently in most of the local cities, which is basically seasonal. But the stagers are booked out the whole month of September, so that means some new inventory hopefully. Downtown Mountain View houses often sell within one week. The condos are still getting strong activity with multiples either the next week or following. Palo Alto still has low inventory, but if the house is priced too high, it doesn’t sell. The best sections of town still lack inventory and there are buyers lined up for each one. Last week a house in old Palo Alto sold for more than 1M over list ($6,700,000) with multiple offers. Los Altos Hills with Palo Alto schools attract many buyers and multiple offers. North Los Altos is still in huge demand as is most of the city and Mountain View west of El Camino. Sunnyvale is still occasionally seeing a new all-time high. In Los Gatos, inventory is tightening up even more as school heads back into session. San Jose-Almaden agents are not seeing as many multiple offers in Blossom Valley and Santa Teresa but they are in Almaden and Cambrian. One listing in Cambrian had 20 offers. Our San Jose Main office manager said the local market is seeing another drop in inventory, while buyer demand has pulled back as well. Open houses are well attending with some open houses having 40 groups each day on the opening weekends. Multiple offers are still prevalent, but the sheer number of offers has seemed to decrease. All signs indicate that we will have a strong fall. The local Willow Glen listing inventory remains consistent where it has been the last month. Agents are waiting to see if the post Labor Day weekend will bring a surge of new listings for the fall selling season. With tight inventory and strong buyer demand agents there have seen heavy open house traffic. With this increased demand agents starting to see the pre-emptive offers, multiple offers and aggressive offers way over asking price. The market is getting hot again in Willow Glen. ...

thank you for reading!
Francis


Francis
Silicon Valley real estate specialist
Detailed, local trends etc...
Current mortgage rates

non-profit organization worth noting: Partners for New Generations - now called:
Mentor Tutor Connection.

How old are these houses now?

Coming back recently from the old continent, where everything is at least 3 or 4 centuries old, when it is not from the previous millennium, I got curious about the age of properties in the US.  It turns out that:

-  14% of houses are between new and 14 years old,
-  25% are between 15 and 34 years old (33 million homes),
-  30% are between 35 and 54 years old (40 million homes),
-  16% are between 55 and 74 years old (21 million),
-  8% are between 75 and 94 years old (11 million homes),
-  and 7% are over 95 years of age! (9 million homes).

If you are buying an old property, in the latter category, I would definitely consider hiring a property inspector who specializes in older homes. There is an Historic Building Inspectors Association.  The problems in an older home may not be the same at all as in a newer home, and an inspector who is familiar with how homes were built a century ago would be more useful to detect what is still good (or even better than newer materials), and what has become dangerous. (i.e. some electrical set ups, plumbing arrangements, degrading materials, etc...).

It is unlikely that you will be in this situation in the Bay Area, but certainly not impossible!

Francis

Silicon Valley real estate specialist
Detailed, local trends etc...
Current mortgage rates
A place worth noting: Our Brother's Home in MountainView

Positive Equity Rises in 2013 - local market place update

A new analysis by CoreLogic shows that 4 million homes returned to positive equity in 2013, bringing the total number of mortgaged residential properties with equity to 42.7 million. 

However, it is important to note that the CoreLogic analysis indicates that nearly 6.5 million homes, or 13.3 percent of all residential properties with a mortgage, were still in negative equity at the end of 2013.

In our local area, the Bay Area of San Francisco, it is difficult sometimes to keep some perspective on the local market, which has been on fire since the beginning of January 2012.  This study by CoreLogic gives perspective at the national level: things have for sure improved enormously, but all is not over from the 2008-2009 crisis.

In the Bay Area, let's note that the inventory of homes (SFR + condos) for sale was about 1,700 after the first week of July, as compared to 1,872 a year ago.  There are fewer homes for sale.  It explains why property values have gone up so much in the past 12 months.  Inventory was at 7,500 in May of 2008!
For the area that includes only Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Mountain View, Palo Alto and Menlo Park, inventory stands right now at:
150 homes total for sale (both houses and condominiums and townhomes, called PUD's), vs
184 last year at the same period.

We still have a very low inventory.

Dealing in the local market place day in and day out, I can however note here that, overall in the County, the activity seems to slow down: I have noticed fewer multiple offers in general, and a slower price increase in many areas. Except for Palo Alto and all areas with the best schools, I can sense that it is a slower activity now, during July.  This slow down can be the normal cycle, which slows down during the summer vacations (see my last graph-blog on the subject), or it could be a more general trend tied to the market in general.  We'll see in September! 

Thanks for reading!

Francis

Silicon Valley real estate

Trends: Local prices and graphs.
A noteworthy local non-profit event:  Coalition on Homelessness, SF

ROI on home improvements?

How much do you recoup from home improvements?

When home improvements offer the most bang for your buck.
Source: CNBC

Remodeling is at its highest level since the spring of 2004, according to the National Association of Home Builders' Remodeling Market Index. One of the reasons is that it has been so difficult to move up or move down: once you sell your property, you are not sure you will be able to buy a replacement very soon.  As a consequence, people remodel their house instead.  How much will you get back from these expenses, when you sell?

In general, home sellers cannot expect to recoup all their remodeling costs when they sell their house. From the upgrades, one can expect the average portion of costs being recouped at 66.1%

This is a question that clients ask me all the time, and one of the best sources of information on the subject is the web site showing the “Cost Vs. Value” report study.  It shows, depending on the area in the US, how much each project statistically gives back at the time of sale.

Those projects that pay off the most are, according to the article from Kelli B. Grant of CNBC:

-       Entry door replacement (steel):  96.6% recouped

-       Minor kitchen remodel:  82.7%  recouped.

-       Window replacement (wood):  79.3%

Why would contractors who “flip” houses make money then, you might ask?  I believe it is because they start from a house that does not show well, and therefore is going to sell at a discount, and they have the cost-efficient means to improve on the house, emphasizing those projects that show off the most for the best value.  Examples of such improvements would be, as I indicate to my clients when preparing for a sale:

-       Light fixtures,

-       Painting,

-       Retiling a shower enclosure,

-       Changing counter tops (but not necessarily all the cabinets, where there is a lot more involved),

-       Floor refinishing,

-       Deep cleaning,

-       Staging.

All these projects have a fairly small, finite cost, while improving immensely the look of the property to be sold.

Moreover, I believe that there are some areas like the Bay Area where buyers are willing to pay top dollars for a remodel that has been done already.  Is it because people here are too busy to undergo or direct a home remodel? Or they do not have the patience?  In any case, it has been my experience that remodeling jobs in this area of the San Francisco Bay returns more money than shown on the statistics of the cost vs value report.

Do you have an input on the subject?  Please let me know.!

Thanks for reading.

Francis

Silicon Valley real estate

Trends: Local prices and graphs.
A noteworthy local non-profit event:  Coalition on Homelessness, SF

Investing in real estate.

Investing in real estate -

I recently read an article from NewsGeni.us that I found quite interesting, dealing with real estate investing.

Without repeating the whole article here I thought I would comment on some of their points:

Their advice is:

Focus on promising areas - the clientele in the SF Bay Area has been well served by believing in the local area in the past 30 and 40 years. 5 years ago though a lot of people got scared and some sold, or did not buy when they could have.  For those who bought when no one believed in it, I say “bravo”!  However the Bay Area is just one choice, mostly based on price appreciation, not return.  Indeed until very recently, the return on investment was not great - purchase price very high, rental fairly low. 

I personally chose another route: an area with very little appreciation, but with traditionally good return .  With the help of an investor mentor (thank you Louis!), my family invested in real estate in Texas.  There, the gross return was more like 10 to 11% per year, as opposed to ~3% in the Bay Area at the time.  The area was promising because of the job market, which had been very consistent, and strong.  Since it continued to be strong, the rental market stayed strong.

Never spend more than you can afford - unless you buy cash, mortgages start to add up when you purchase rental properties.  You have to count on a few set-backs, like damage due to weather, vacancies, repairs tied to finding new tenants, etc…  if you do not have reserves, it can start becoming a stretch.  Plan on a certain amount of unknowns, and I would say, plan generally on costs being higher than they should be.  (like insurance costs….).

All of the advice is well taken in this article called “When is the right time for investing in property?” .   I would add another item: choose a good management company (if you are going to invest away from where you live, or if you do not plan on managing yourself).  This is essential to staying out of trouble, so-to-speak.  That company should be used to missed payments and how to deal with them, and they should be well organized and standardized in their procedures.  Getting referrals or testimonials is very important in my opinion.

If you are thinking about investing in real estate, share your thoughts with me - I’d love to help you out with what I learned so far on the matter.

Thanks for reading,

Francis

Silicon Valley real estate

Trends: Local prices and graphs.
A noteworthy local non-profit event:  Coalition on Homelessness, SF

Emergency savings - Affordability challenges

One in Three adult Americans has no emergency savings.

According to this April 2014 article from HousingWire by Trey Garrison the housing industry will likely be impacted by the results of a new survey from NeighborWorks America, which serve as a stark reminder of affordability challenges. The survey found that almost 70 million working age Americans – about one-third – have no emergency savings. This highlights a primary problem facing potential homebuyers, as one in three homes are deemed unaffordable to the average buyer, and mortgage originations are reportedly at a 14-year low.

• Only 25 percent of American have enough saved to cover 30 days of living expenses.
• About one in five have enough savings to cover three months – about the average time of unemployment for many Americans – while 28 percent expect their emergency funds to cover a year.
• Approximately 29 percent of adult Americans have no emergency savings in place—whether to pay for the repair of a car that’s required to get to work, or fix a major household necessity such as a roof or furnace.
• Retirement and buying a home are the top savings goals at 28 percent and 13 percent, respectively.
• Just 5 percent of consumers say that they are currently saving to create a buffer in case of a financial emergency.
• 52 percent of people earning less than $40,000 said that they had no reserve.
  
  

Even though this is a nationwide study, California is not immune to the phenomenon obviously, and affordability concerns are certainly increased in areas of high prices like the Bay Area. I believe it is important to reflect on it.

 

Thank you for reading,

Francis

 

Silicon Valley real estate

Trends: Local prices and graphs.
A noteworthy local non-profit event:  Coalition on Homelessness, SF

Home sellers - Multiple offers.

Wondering how home sellers handled multiple offers in California, in 2013?

I thought this was a good piece of information:

Thank you for reading,
Francis

Silicon Valley real estate specialist
Detailed, local trends etc...
Current mortgage rates

Moving in with parents - more common for the middle-aged.

Due to the effects of the sluggish economy, older people are quietly moving in with their parents at twice the rate of their younger counterparts. The number of Californians aged 50 to 64 who live in their parents' homes swelled 67.6 percent to about 194,000, according to the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research and the Insight Center for Community Economic Development.
Readthe article from the LA times   From Walter Hamilton (April 2014).

Thanks for reading - Do you like my blogs? Share them!
Francis

Silicon Valley real estate
Smart local statistics

All cash buyers... some perspective

It is quite well known that a lot of residential purchases in the US are now made without a loan, all cash.
But what is the real story, in fact? 

Overall, all-cash purchases accounted for 42.1 percent of all U.S. residential sales in December, according to a new report from RealtyTrac, a company that collects and analyzes housing data.   Several factors are at play here, including the fact that institutional investors, more numerous, have bought up many homes with cash, and that many average buyers have remained constrained by unusually tight lending standards.

A few facts, from the January article of “PlanetMoney” (shared in a blog from NPR):

• All-cash purchases accounted for 42.1 percent of all U.S. residential sales in December, up from a revised 38.1 percent in November, and up from 18.0 percent in December 2012.
• States where all-cash sales accounted for more than 50 percent of all residential sales in December included Florida (62.5 percent), Wisconsin (59.8 percent), Alabama (55.7 percent), South Carolina (51.3 percent), and Georgia (51.3 percent).  - so, it's not only California... 
• For all of 2013, 29.1 percent of U.S. residential sales were all-cash purchases, but the percentage
  
  trended substantially higher in the second half of the year. The 29.1 percent in 2013 was up from 19.4 percent in 2012 and 20.6 percent in 2011.
• Institutional investor purchases accounted for 7.9 percent of all U.S. residential sales in December, up from 7.2 percent the previous month and up from 7.8 percent in December 2012.
• For all of 2013, institutional investor purchases accounted for 7.3 percent of all U.S. residential property purchases, up from 5.8 percent in 2012 and 5.1 percent in 2011.

Thanks for reading!

Francis
Silicon Valley real estate
Local market: Smart graphs

Local real estate - some perspective.

Here is a simple summary of what real estate did lately, and in the past few years, in the Counties of the Bay Area of San Francisco.  Coming directly from the MLS (Multiple Listing Service):

Francis Rolland

Silicon Valley real estate specialist
Detailed, local trends etc...
Current mortgage rates
A place worth noting: Our Brother's Home in MountainView

Five advantages to owning a home...

To piggy-back on my last blog, I thought this blog post from Redfin  from April 21, 2014 was interesting.  It says it very well.

Five advantages to owning a home:

Your home is your castle, but there are also many financial advantages of owning a home. Here are five ways that owning can be better than renting.

1. As a Hedge Against Inflation
Your rent will go up on a regular basis, while your payment on a 30-year fixed mortgage will always remain the same.

Let’s say your monthly rent is $1,800. Assuming inflation (your rent increase) is 3 percent, in five years your monthly rent will be $2,026. By then, you will have paid about $115,000 of your landlord’s mortgage.

2. To Build Your Personal Wealth
Stop paying your landlord’s mortgage. When you own your home, your mortgage amount is going down and your property value is going up.

No other investment, asset or debt is as misunderstood as a home. A home can be a wonderful and lucrative investment, but like any investment, it needs to be regularly reviewed, maintained and, when appropriate, sold. Even if your home is paid off, you still pay costs for repairs and upkeep, taxes and insurance. But like any investment, if you own it long term, take care of it and sell when the market is right, you stand to make a great gain.

3. Tax Savings (Federal and State)
Under Section 163 of the IRS code, interest on loans used to acquire, construct or improve real estate is deductible on up to a $1,000,000 mortgage.

Interest on loans tied to real estate for any reason is deductible on up to a $100,000 mortgage. For example, interest on the first $100,000 of a home equity line of credit (HELOC) is tax deductible.

Let’s say you make $100,000 per year and rent a home for $1,800 per month. You would have to pay taxes on your entire income of $100,000 when you are renting that home. If you purchase a home with a monthly payment of $1,800, you only have to pay taxes on $78,400 of your annual income because the interest you paid on your mortgage can be used as a tax deduction.

4. Asset Diversification
Unlike with a 401(k) or IRA, when you invest in a home you can live in it while the investment grows.

Owning a home over an extended period of time is usually more lucrative than renting. With good planning and execution, you can learn to minimize the cost of homeownership and maximize the ability to create real wealth. Many small business owners have a home office and can use the home office as a tax deduction while they are earning income. Other homeowners will rent out a bedroom and use the rent to pay down their mortgage and gain equity faster.

5. Forced Savings
Monthly mortgage payments lower your mortgage, essentially creating a forced savings account.

In five years with a $1,800 monthly mortgage payment, you will have paid $29,331 of the principal on your mortgage. That would be money in your pocket if you choose to sell. For this example we use a $345,000 mortgage loan amount at a 4.75 percent interest rate, 4.881 percent APR and use a standard amortization table to come up with the principal pay down.

To: view the original article.  

Thank you for reading!  Francis

Silicon Valley real estate specialist
Detailed, local trends etc...
Current mortgage rates
A place worth noting: Our Brother's Home in MountainView

Some advice to home buyers.

Some advice to home buyers:

 
There is plenty of advice around, available to new homebuyers, - no shortage of good words, must-do's, encouragements, explanations and training, etc...  I do not mean to be comprehensive in this blog, but I just wanted to say a few things coming to mind, in light of what is going on out there: the current local market, fast-going environment, competitive to the extreme, sometimes ruthless.


Taking a bit of perspective, I just wanted to throw some ideas out there and remind of some basic main ideas:

• Home buying doesn’t begin with home searching; it begins with a mortgage pre-approval.  Often, first-time home buyers fear getting pre-approved because they’re
  
  afraid the lender may tell them they do not qualify for a mortgage or they qualify for a loan smaller than expected.  However, by getting preapproved, buyers will make a financial decision rather than an emotion one.  Also, knowing that they can qualify for a certain loan (depending on the terms of the loan), they will feel more confident in their endeavor, as they will be sure of what they can really buy (in $), as they are looking at homes.
• Home buyers need to think of a house as a long-term commitment.  If a buyer may have to switch jobs in a year or two and may have to move for the job, they should think twice about buying a house.  Ideally, buyers should picture themselves living in the house for five to seven years.
• Should a buyer have to move after a few years, following the above train of thoughts, they may want to think in terms of an investment for the long term: a "retirement account" - they could rent out the property.  Just saying it is a possibility for people thinking "long term".  (see this article from the LA Times)
• Some first-time buyers make the mistake of spending all of their savings on the down
  
  payment and closing costs, and sometimes borrow on their 401K.  However, it is not good to be left with no savings at all for home repairs and other unexpected expenses.  It could make more sense to get in the market with a smaller property, i.e. a condominium/townhouse, and move up 3 to 5 years later.

 

• Should there be a lot of competition for the chosen house, give it your very best. 1/ there will be no regrets should it not pan out, 2/ chances are that in a year or two, you will not remember exactly the price you paid, 3/ there is a cost in searching for too long a time, both psychological and monetary; or I should say there is "savings" in just getting it done earlier rather than later: interest rates can go up, prices can go up, and moving into your new home is much better than looking for it week after week.

 

As always, thank you so much for reading, and if you like what you read, let your friends know!

 

Francis

Silicon Valley real estate specialist
Detailed, local trends etc...
Current mortgage rates

Offers over asking price in California.

To keep in perspective:

How many houses sell for over their asking price throughout California, over time?  This may answer your questions on this matter:

 

Thanks for reading!

Francis

 

Silicon Valley real estate specialist
Detailed, local trends etc...
Current mortgage rates
A place worth noting: Our Brother's Home in MountainView

America's Rental Housing

America's Rental Housing.

It is no secret that finding a place to call home in the Bay Area has become a problem, both as a purchase and as a rental.  Rents have gone up very significantly in the past 3 to 4 years, with a steep acceleration as early as mid 2012.  The front page of the San Jose Mercury News today 4/16/14 talks about it and prints: " Region's average asking rent is now $2,043 after three years of double-digit annual growth".

But this is not limited at all to our area. Nationwide, there is a similar problem, as studied and explained in the Rental Housing Report of the Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies (Dec. of 2013). In many ways, the situation has to give us pause.

• Half of US renters pay more than 30% of their income on rent,
• 19% of  all renters 10 years ago were paying more than ½ their income on rent; they represent 27% now.
• 31 % of Americans were renting in 2004, they are 35% in 2012.
• Between 2000 and 2013, median rents nationally (adjusted for inflation) increased by 6%, while the median income of renters dropped by 13%. 
• The shortfall in the number of units affordable to extremely low-income renters in the U.S. (those earning no more than 30 percent of the area median) more than doubled from 1.9 million in 2001 to 4.9 million in 2011.

Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies Article.
If you want a copy of the SJ Merc. article let me know.

Francis
Silicon Valley real estate specialist
Detailed, local trends etc...
Current mortgage rates

non-profit organization worth noting: Partners for New Generations.

Privacy trees...

I recently sold a house for which a row of privacy trees was quite important, as a brand new development of apartments is slated to be built on the back side of the lot.

This “privacy screen” turned out to be quite useful in this case, as it will continue to grow and provide a clear separation between the new buyers’ home and the large complex in the back.

What kind of trees can you use to build such a protection, both from sight and from noise?  I thought that this page from the “fast-growing-trees.com” web site was quite informative, as well as their blog.

Do you have any local suggestions for any specific trees that work well here in the Bay Area?

Thanks for reading,

Francis

Silicon Valley real estate specialist
Detailed, local trends etc...
Current mortgage rates

Refinancers to Save More than $21 Billion in Interest

Refinancers to Save More than $21 Billion in Interest
Borrowers who refinanced in 2013 will save on net approximately $21 billion in interest over the next 12 months, according to Freddie Mac’s fourth quarter 2013 quarterly refinance analysis.

Of borrowers who refinanced during the fourth quarter of 2013, 39 percent shortened their loan term, up 2 percent from the previous quarter and the highest since 1992. Borrowers who kept the same term as the loan that they had paid off represented 56 percent, and only 5 percent chose to lengthen their loan term.

The net dollars of home equity converted to cash as part of a refinance remained low compared with historical

volumes. In the fourth quarter, an estimated $6.5 billion in net home equity was cashed out during a refinance of conventional prime-credit home mortgages. The peak in cash-out refinance volume was $84 billion during the second quarter of 2006. Adjusted for inflation, annual cash-out volumes during 2010 through 2013 have been the smallest since 1997.

The average interest rate reduction in the fourth quarter was about 1.5 percentage points -- a savings of about 25 percent.  More info on this page of the Freddie Mac website.

On another note, about 2 in 5 borrowers shorten their loan terms when they refinanced last year, and over 95% of refinancing borrowers chose a fixed-rate loan.

Thanks for reading; if you like it, let your friends know!
Francis

Silicon Valley real estate specialist
Detailed, local trends etc...
Current mortgage rates

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161 S. San Antonio Rd
Los Altos

New to the Silicon Valley? This blog's for you!

FUN FACTS

- Silicon Valley has the nation’s second highest concentration of wealthy people, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
- Money Magazine named Cupertino one of the nation’s best places to live in 2012.
- Forbes ranked San Jose No. 6 on its 2011 list of “America’s Safest Cities”.
- The name “Silicon Valley” originally referred to the region’s large number of silicon chip innovators and manufacturers, but eventually applied to all of the tech companies in the area.
- The “mouse” was invented in Silicon Valley in 1963.

See more at: The CaliforniaHome Blog

Francis
Silicon Valley real estate specialist
Detailed, local trends etc...
Current mortgage rates

Best countries to grow old...

I have found this fascinating article about what places are best, and worst for older people, and wanted to share it here on this real estate forum.  After all, a lot of people are looking into where to go to as they enter their "golden years", and this includes going to other countries in some

instances.  I think it can definitely trigger some more research down the line for some of us; many people purchase, or consider purchasing a secondary residence abroad to spend at least some of their retirement years in a different place.
In the US, about 13.3% is over age 65.

No denying older people are increasing in numbers throughout the world, although not in a uniform way at all.  A lot of the research is done here by an organization called HelpAge International which developed the Global AgeWatch Index, a series of reports available on this web site:  Global AgeWatch Index, for those who are interested in looking into the details.

Coming back to the article in question, from Shan Li at the LA times:
... and the winner is.....:

Sweden. 

Feel free to browse through the other pictures and Countries, showing the 2nd etc... best places to grow old, and the worst places to grow old.  Sobering article...  it can give us all a powerful reason to reflect...
Thanks for reading,
Francis

Silicon Valley real estate specialist
Detailed, local trends etc...
Current mortgage rates