east bay real estate

East Bay Real Estate: 4th Quarter Is The Best Time To Sell Or Buy Bay Area Homes!

Myth: The 4^th quarter in East Bay real estate is the slowest quarter of the year for home sales.

Truth: Out of the past 30 years of selling East Bay homes, the 4^th quarter has been our top home sales quarter more than 50% of those years!

So, we love it when we hear other Realtors saying they are taking time off in the 4^th quarter because real estate sales are so slow.  It obviously has not been our experience over the past 30+ years.  Yes, the inventory of active homes for sale is much lower in the 4^th quarter.  Many Sellers are taking their homes off the market because they don’t want people touring them during the various holidays between November and December, and because their Realtors are supporting the 4^th quarter sales Myth.  And, we realize that the “New Normal” for Bay Area real estate is a factor to be considered. Read more

east bay real estate

East Bay Real Estate: Home Appraisal – Top 7 Actions For You To Take!

Never in my decades of practicing residential real estate have I witnessed home values being 100% determined by appraisers!  They are now the key to having the purchase of a home or the refinancing of a mortgage is successful or not, especially with the conforming loan limits changed as of October 1, 2011. As a consumer you may not fully understand this topic, however as a Seller or a Buyer it will impact how your transaction turns out.

About two years ago, the Feds created an “arms-length” third party entity where appraisers now are parked.  When a mortgage is being applied for, the lender contacts that entity to arrange for the appraiser.  An appraiser is selected from all the large pool of appraisers in that entity to do the job.  The appraiser selected may have no idea about the local market conditions of the property being appraised.  They often times will live or work 50+ miles from the location of the residence.  So, the question is, “How can they possibly do an appropriate report since they have no experience in the local market conditions?”  Often times they don’t, much to the dismay of the Seller/Buyer and Realtor. Read more

east bay real estate

East Bay Real Estate: Home Loan Refinance Crisis – Difficult To Get A Loan!

One of the four economic factors to watch in your local markets is the availability of mortgages for home refinancing.  With interest rates at their lowest levels in 40 years one would imagine that the major lenders would be very busy right now with refinancing home loans.  And, if loans were being made available to all qualified refinance borrowers it would certainly help our nation’s economy.  Well, the truth in the world of refinancing tight mortgage-lending standards and dramatic declines in home prices prevented about 2.3 million U.S. homeowners from refinancing last year, and it will be even higher numbers for 2011. Read more

east bay real estate

East Bay Real Estate: New Home Sales – Key Indicator Of Real Estate’s Health!

New home sales is one of the four key indicators for the health of Bay Area real estate we are watching.  As you have heard many times in the media the past four years, new home sales are now the lowest since record keeping began in 1963!  It is expected there will be only 300,000 new home sales per month in 2011 nationally!  In a healthy robust real estate market that number is in the 500,000+ range.  So, it is an understatement to say the home building industry is in a mess.  Brad Hunter, chief economist for MetroStudy – a housing research firm said it best, “It’s definitely a perilous time to be in the home-building business.” Read more

east bay real estate

East Bay Real Estate: Four Factors To Watch Through 2015!

Yes, we all know our National and Global economies are a mess with few solutions left to easily resolve them.  And, we know that Housing has been the economic engine that has taken us out of past recessions.  And, we all know that the San Francisco Bay Area housing is about as good as it gets compared to the other 19 major markets in our country.  And…we still have at least four years to go to get back to a typical East Bay real estate market. There are four factors to pay close attention to as we crawl out of this recession.  Each of these factors will impact how the next four years turn out for our Bay Area real estate markets. Read more

east bay real estate

East Bay Real Estate: Wine & Equine Event – Wente Winery Supports SonRise Equestrian!

This Friday night, September 16^th, enjoy a fabulous three course dinner from the award winning Wente Restaurant at the “Wine & Equine Event” at Wente Vineyards. There will also be dancing under the stars to the Jack Pollard Band, and a very fun auction.

The “Wine & Equine Event” is the biggest fundraiser of the year for Sonrise Equestrian Foundation, a non-profit 501(C)(3) community program. They need your help to make this event a success and to continue to provide these children with help and hope through the Sonrise community. Click on this link for ticket information. This important annual event provides about half of their yearly operating budget and enables SonRise Equestrian to put children with social, emotional and physical handicaps together with gentle therapy horses at no cost to the families. Their participants learn that they can overcome fears, build relationships, and ultimately discover their full potential. Read more

east bay real estate

East Bay Real Estate: 4-Topics For Buyers/Sellers To Consider After The S&P Downgrade To AA+

There is no denying the financial mess that S&P has caused by downgrading our Nation’s economy to AA+.  And, there is no way to sugar coat what is happening with the sell-off of the Dow Jones Industrials today, dropping over 5% of its value to 10,800 – the lowest the Dow has been since 2008.  The question is, “What does this mean for Buyers and Sellers in the East Bay real estate markets?”

The driver today for both Buyers and Sellers is consumer confidence, which is dropping as fast as the Stock Market.  However, once consumers are able to determine that this week’s financial events are an emotional reaction to the S&P’s lower rating of the U.S as opposed to any risks of having our Nation default on its debt.  There is still good news for Buyers and Sellers of East Bay homes. Read more

east bay real estate

East Bay Real Estate: Top-3 Bay Area Housing Markets!

For this discussion, Location, Location, Location is the key factor with the Top 3 performing regions of Bay Area housing.  Jobs are also still a critical factor, however with the Bay Area tech sector leading the way we are right at the center of the most vibrant part of our State’s economic recovery.  The Top 3 Bay Area housing markets are the Orinda to Danville corridor, Palo Alto, and the San Francisco neighborhoods of Pacific Heights and the Marina District. For example, there were 338 homes sold in the Orinda to Danille corridor the first eight months over $900,000 with an average price of $1.23 million.  In 2011 during this same time frame there were 302 homes sold in this same corridor over $900,000 with an average price of $1.28 million.  The higher end luxury homes are coming back slowly but surely. Read more

east bay real estate

East Bay Real Estate: The New Normal – Five Key Factors!

As we move into the second half of 2011 there are Five Factors that we are tracking that we refer to as “The New Normal”;  Unemployment; Qualifying For A Mortgage;  Short Sales and REO’s;  Renting A Home; and, Savings and Debt Reduction.  Here are some thoughts to consider on each of them as we identify trends in East Bay Real Estate.

Unemployment: In simple terms, economic growth = labor force growth x growth in productivity. As the Baby Boomers retire and the U.S. population’s growth rate slows to a crawl employment will continue to stagnate. And, dramatic increases in productivity could take up the slack,  however that may be too much to ask of a generation whose education, for the first time in American history, ranked in the bottom third of developed nations. And who, for the first time, went to college in lower proportions than their parents.  So, corporate America is delivering stunning results without creating the needed 255,000 new monthly jobs for the next two years to get us back to an unemployment rate of 8%.  We are currently at 9.2%.  However, the number that needs to be considered most important is the Under-Employed = 16.2% – 8.6 million people who would like to be fully employed.  Jobs, Jobs, Jobs are what will take care of our housing crisis. Read more

east bay real estate

East Bay Real Estate: Luxury Home Sellers – Selecting A Realtor?

Each year the Institute for Luxury Home Marketing completes a survey as to the most important factors for luxury home sellers in selecting a Realtor to represent them in the sale of their home.  This luxury group represents the top 10% price point in all real estate markets across the country.  So, for example, in the Tri-Valley region of the East Bay the “luxury home” price point starts at $1.25 million.  The demographics of the luxury seller is generally not concerned about the job market, because they are typically an top executive or owner of a business.  Family pressures are not why they are typically selling their homes.  It is usually quality of life moves.  And, when they are making their home purchases they are not concerned about the mortgage market’s upcoming changes that will cause many home buyers to have at least a 20% down payment. Read more

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