Tuesday, March 15, 2016

"under water" properties at their lowest level in a long time!

Just read on RisMedia:

One million borrowers regained equity in 2015, bringing the total number of mortgaged residential properties with equity at the end of the 4th quarter of 2015 to approximately 46.3 million, or 91.5 % of all mortgaged properties, according to a new CoreLogic® analysis.  Nationwide, borrower equity increased year-over-year by $682 billion in Q4 2015. 

The total number of mortgaged residential properties with negative equity (“under water”) decreased 19.1 % year over year from what it was at the end of last year.

Interestingly, Miami-Miami Beach-Kendall, Florida, had the highest percentage of mortgaged properties in negative equity (22% of the total).
San Francisco-Redwood City-South San Francisco, CA, had the highest percentage of mortgaged properties in a positive equity position, at 99.3%.    Houston, then Denver followed SF in that category.

Thanks for reading!

Francis


The 2016 French Fair is coming to Palo Alto:
March 19th - Lucie Stern community Center
1305 Middlefield Rd - Palo Alto.
http://www.frenchfair.org/
See you there, for French food, fashion, dance, live music, art, company!

Thursday, March 10, 2016

Try out neighborhood before buying. What a novel idea!


Didn't you ever wish you could try out your neighborhood - before buying your home there? 
What a novel idea!:

Realtor.com’s new partnership with Airbnb, which launched in June 2015, aims to allow just that. 

A buyer thinking about buying in a specific neighborhood can “try out” the area by renting a place for a few days through Airbnb. 
Such recommended accommodation can be found on realtor.com in the same area as the home listing they are viewing.  “Real estate professionals are finding that buyers are more likely to be happier if they are able to try out a neighborhood before choosing to buy” says a Realtor.com spokesperson.
Checking out noise levels, culture, overall vibes gives prospective condo and single-family home owners important information as they make their decision.
Thank you for reading!
Francis
The 2016 French Fair is coming to Palo Alto:
March 19th - Lucie Stern community Center
1305 Middlefield Rd - Palo Alto.
http://www.frenchfair.org/
See you there, for French food, fashion, dance, live music, art, company!

Sunday, February 21, 2016

Fewer first-time buyers...

The share of first-time home buyers declined for the 3rd consecutive year and remained at its lowest point in nearly three decades, according to the NAR (National Association of Realtors®)
The overall strong pace of home sales in 2015 was driven more by repeat buyers with dual incomes, according to NAR's annual survey.

In the past 5 years, this is the share of new buyers among all the buyers of real estate:




To continue on with this survey, this is how buyers responded overall to the question: Why buy now?



"Homes affordable" was not popular...  ;-)
It is refreshing to see "Right time" come up so much in the results - isn't it the best reason to buy?

Thanks for reading!
Francis


Trends: Local prices and graphs.
A worthy local non-profit to remember: Community Services Agency in Mountain View

Saturday, January 23, 2016

Report from the trenches - The Silicon Valley & SF Peninsula real estate activity.

Our latest "report from the trenches", from the Coldwell Banker office managers all along the Peninsula:

SF Peninsula ...  In her decades of experience in this area, our Menlo Park manager has never seen the market so low on inventory – even for this time of year.  Buyers are out in droves yet after last week in the equity markets, they are a bit in a wait and see attitude.  Properties are still moving quickly but there are more buyers than actual ‘bidders’ right now, she says. Anything under $1.4 million is getting a lot of attention and selling quickly. $5-6 million homes are becoming more and more common in Menlo Park. Inventory is seasonally low in Palo Alto, but demand is still there. Amazingly there is still an incredible lack of inventory all over the Peninsula, says our Redwood City manager. Because of this almost all offers are multiple offers. There still are a lot of buyers with sufficient funds to purchase but due to the lack of inventory there is a tremendous amount of frustration. More inventory is hitting the San Mateo area market, our local manager says. Agents have a number of listings inked and ready to come on in the next couple of weeks. The market is “moribund” right now in the country offices, reports our Portola Valley-Woodside manager.  But she says that this area always seems slow to start the new year.

Silicon Valley – New inventory is slow to hit the Cupertino area market. The few new open houses our local agents held had 200-300 visitors in some cases. There are currently 25 homes for sale in Los Gatos, down 40% from the same time last year, reports our Los Gatos manager. The San Jose Almaden market has been more of the same with lower inventory than previous years, although it has increased since December.  Buyers aren’t waiting to write up offers.  Most of the listings are going into contract during the first weekend of open houses.  A 1,330 square foot SFR in Santa Clara (with Cupertino HS) that had a list price of $895,000 received 46 offers and sold for $1,330,000.  With the New Year underway the post-holiday local Willow Glen market is busy although it is still experiencing extremely low listing inventory. The year started with only 23 active listings and dropped to 21 in week two. Open houses are jammed, and multiple offers well over list price are the norm. Agents all have a bounty of buyers they are trying to get into something.

My personal experience has been a difficult market for buyers, even towards the end of the year, when buyers typically are given a break. The transactions I have had in the past two months have been tough, and buyers could not ask for much... 
Such is the market!

Thank you for reading,
Francis
Trends: Local prices and graphs.
A worthy local non-profit to remember: Community Services Agency in Mountain View

Thursday, December 31, 2015

Median Sales Price - Santa Clara Cnty - did not let up.

Piggy-backing on my September blog looking at the monthly median prices in the County of Santa Clara, I'd like to share what happened next.

At the time, I was speculating that prices may let up a bit, as is usually the case at the end of any given year.  Buyers looking during the last few months of the year could expect a break and have less competition.

My experience from the trenches, reflected in the updated graph below, is that there were a little fewer offerors on homes for sale, but prices certainly did not go down. The competition remained quite strong.  Overall prices stayed at the same level, at the minimum, and I mostly saw an increase in home values, especially in the entry-level category.

Often seen in the past 3 months were:
- Houses offered at a certain price, and if it did not sell for way over, their asking price changed upward,
- offers being shopped around, in some cases what felt like excessively,
- lower cash offers sometimes selected over higher offers needing a loan - (can make sense of course...),
- some of the latter cash contracts being cancelled  right before close of escrow - setting the clock back to zero on the sales process, and triggering plenty of legal questions marks for all.

Be sure to work with an experienced professional if you are thinking of selling, or buying a place in this tense environment.  It is sometimes hard to make sense of it and to navigate a prudent, legally safe line.
Thank you for reading,

Francis

Current mortgage rates

A worthy local non-profit to remember: Community Services Agency in Mountain View.

Thursday, December 17, 2015

Offshore Buyers Continue to Invest in Bay Area Real Estate

From our Coldwell Banker desk:  
2015 was another very strong year for foreign investment in U.S. real estate, especially here in the Bay Area and particularly from Asian buyers. 

The dollar volume of all foreign investment in the U.S. reached $104 billion for the 12 months ended March 2015, up 13 percent from the same period a year ago, according to the National Association of REALTORS®. More than half of that investment went to California and three other states – Florida, Arizona and Texas.

No one knows for sure exactly how much foreign investment there is in the Bay Area housing market, but anecdotal evidence from our agents and managers in the field tell me it is substantial. And it's probably not surprising, considering the fact that the Bay Area has long been one of the most sought after housing markets for Chinese investors and other offshore buyers.

International investors are attracted by the strength of our local economy, particularly the tech sector in Silicon Valley. They also favor the stability of the U.S. political and financial systems, our strong schools and world-class universities like Stanford and Cal, solid appreciation on homes in the Bay Area, and the relatively affordable prices - yes "affordable" - compared to many other major cities around the world.

If you have any doubt about just how fast Chinese and other Asian investment is growing in the U.S., consider a recent NAR study that found Chinese buyers were the number one international investors in U.S. real estate over the past year with $28.6 billion in sales volume, nearly three times the number two country, Canada. As recently as six years ago, Canadian investment in the U.S. market was more than double China's, which also ranked behind India and the U.K. and was at the same level as Mexico.



In recent years, Coldwell Banker has deployed a very targeted marketing program to reach Asian consumers in a variety of media outlets, both print and digital. We are reaching out to buyers and marketing properties on many of the biggest Asian websites and publications. In addition, our strong international network of offices and agents – the most of any U.S. brokerage – has helped us attract more offshore buyers. Given the interest in the Bay Area housing market from Asian investors and others overseas, I don't see that trend changing anytime soon.

Thank you for reading!
Francis

Current mortgage rates

A worthy local non-profit to remember: Community Services Agency in Mountain View.

Wednesday, November 18, 2015

Neighbor's tree problems, etc...

What happens when a neighbor’s tree wreaks havoc on your property?
What can you do when a neighbor’s tree shades your solar panels?
What do you do if a neighbor’s large tree leans dangerously over your roof, and home?

Of course everybody loves trees and the local jurisdictions protect trees past a certain size.  So even offending trees can be protected…  You cannot do whatever you want with trees, whether they are on your property or on the neighbor’s property.  It turns out that the answers to those questions are not always straightforward or obvious.

A long time ago, in 1886, a legal case established the rule with regards to encroaching trees: tree branches overhanging on your side from a neighbor’s property were something that you could cut, right above your property line.  This was extended several years later to include the roots (because of the damage they could do on your side).  However, several other cases happening later on made it clear that you cannot do that indiscriminately: you cannot kill or otherwise endanger a neighbor’s tree.  Also, any cutting better be well on your side of the fence, lest you’d be accused of trespassing … hum… one can see that it is a good idea to get a legal opinion on the matter, should you have such a problem. 

In some cases it seems that past legal disputes have made it clear that it goes down in a certain way: in the instance of solar panels, often times the one who wins is the one who was there first: the solar panels, or the trees.  Also, when a neighbor’s tree branches invade your property, it is fairly accepted that you can cut off whatever is in your yard; -but be careful: you cannot endanger the neighbor’s tree in the process.  If a neighbor’s tree dumps tons of leaves on your property, what do you do? Do you have a recourse?  Yes, in certain cases where you can prove that it is a nuisance to you.  - however, proving a nuisance is not always so easy.

There are several ways such disputes can be approached, and hopefully resolved.
One of them is to find a mediator, and this service is often offered by the City in which you live, in cooperation with such non-profit organizations as Project Sentinel which deal with dispute resolutions.  As an example, in Mountain View, one would find such a resource through their City mediation page.

Also, here is an interesting blog on tree problems, by Simon Offord, from a local Real Estate Law Office (Peter N. Brewer); this article reviews various situations in careful terms, and they also have other blogs on neighbor issues which I found most interesting.

Bottom line, it is better to review the whole situation carefully before acting too fast when it comes to neighbors’ relations.

Thank you for reading,

 
Francis

Silicon Valley real estate specialist
Detailed, local trends etc...
Current mortgage rates
A worthy local non-profit to remember: Community Services Agency in Mountain View.


Thursday, November 5, 2015

Bay Area: A (long) Perspective On Prices.

Bay Area, Santa Clara County, California State, and the US:
A long perpective on prices, since 1968.

A picture is worth a thousand words... This graph that I have updated for several years now shows the evolution of the median price of a single family residence at the County level, the 9-County region of the Bay Area, and compares them with the median price at the California level, and at the US level.
 
It shows that really, only the great Crisis of 2008- 2009 had a significant impact on prices over a whole year period.  The earthquake of 1989 definitely stopped prices from going up (along with an economic slow-down), starting a long drawn-out period of time when prices were essentially flat.  The dot-com bubble collapse in 2000 and 2001, coupled with 9/11 also had a significant impact on the curve.  After 2 or 3 years, prices started to go up again at all levels, but more acutely in the Bay Area and in California.

Pls click on graph for a full size picture.

Thank you for reading!
Francis

Silicon Valley real estate specialist
Detailed, local trends etc...
Current mortgage rates
A worthy local non-profit organization: Community Services Agency in Mountain View.