Archive for April, 2009
April 30, 2009
It’s that time of year again. A steady stream of Benz’s and Bentley’s will be pouring into 2830 Pacific for the 2009 Decorator’s Showcase. Hitting the market a couple days ago for a cool $12.9 mil, this 7 bedroom, 6 bath Georgian has been dressed to the nines by extraordinarily talented designers and is ready for the sounds of champagne corks popping and martini glasses clinking. Here are some pictures of this amazing Pacific Heights residence, and see you at the party!
Official property website here.
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Posted in Neighborhood Info, News, Pacific Heights, Taking You Inside | Tagged 2830 pacific, amazing homes, decorators showcase 2009, mansion, Pacific Heights, san francisco, san francisco real estate | 5 Comments »
April 30, 2009
An article on Realtor.org ranks the largest metros in the nation that have undergone the most extreme drops in rental rates in Q1 2009. San Francisco tops the list, with a 2.8% decline over the first quarter from Q4 2008. Here is the remainder of the list:
- San Francisco, CA: -2.8 percent
- New York, NY: -2.6 percent
- San Jose, CA: -2.5 percent
- Long Island, NY: -2.3 percent
- Charlotte: NC: -1.3 percent
- Chicago, IL: -1.2 percent
- San Antonio, TX: -0.9 percent
- Cleveland, OH: -0.9 percent
For a separate but related article referencing the metros with the largest rent declines in Q4 2008, click HERE. Salt Lake City tops that list, with a 5.7% decline from the previous quarter.
Renters: Dust off those leases. It's time to negotiate!
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Posted in Countdowns & Rankings, Macro-Level Info, Nerdy RE Analysis, News, Tips | Tagged lists, q1 2009, q4 2008, rent, rental rates, rental trends, san francisco, san francisco real estate | Leave a Comment »
April 30, 2009
What is a pocket listing? A pocket listing is a home that is not being advertised to the general public through the MLS or a listing that will come on the market in the future but right now is still a secret. Many homes in San Francisco sell while off the open market, so pocket listing culture is a big deal. Every week, we’ll be sharing info about pocket listings that we know about. Information on pocket listings is sparse and secretive, so pardon us if we seem short on details for the purposes of our blog. If you are interested in learning more, you can click HERE to contact us. Without further ado, here are this week’s pocket listings:
- Out of our pocket and over to you
To see this week’s pocket listings, continue reading –>
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Posted in Pocket Listings, Tips | Tagged not on mls, Pocket Listings, private listings, san francisco, san francisco real estate | Leave a Comment »
April 29, 2009
Greetings and welcome to another edition of Tuesday Tour Show-stoppers. We saw 34 properties on tour yesterday and have to say there are a lot of overpriced dogs out there! We were perhaps a little more lenient this week about who made our list because the batch of properties we saw was nothing special. Well, except for the Mayor’s penthouse at 1101 Green. This property has some of the most amazing views we’ve ever seen. And despite the commentary on other blogs all week, it was definitely a tastefully decorated bachelor pad. Maybe you just have to see it in person… the photos don’t do it justice.
We’ve grouped our Show-stoppers into two categories (which we’ll likely do from now on). We’ve separated 5-star homes and 4-star homes. And what about the 3′s, 2′s, 1′s, and zeros? Well, being that we work in the business we don’t want to bash anyone’s listings publicly. But we will point out ones we especially enjoyed visiting, ie: the 4′s and 5′s.
Our favorite listing this week was 1101 Green #2001, which is indeed Gavin’s pad. And we’re not picking it because of the prestige factor. We actually really enjoyed this home, the layout, and we’re suckers for amazing views. The top-of-Russian-Hill location is of course primo, and that’s why it’s our fave of the week. If you follow our pocket listings posts you would’ve known it was going to hit the market way back on 3/11/09. Here are our picks of the week:
*Keep in mind we are not judging prices. We are judging what we believe to be nice homes in good locations. We are also not judging potential. We see run down homes all the time that could be a good equity-building opportunity for someone, but unfortunately, these types of homes won’t make our Show-stoppers lists. Click any address for full property details.
If you have no idea what Tuesday Tour Show-Stoppers is all about, click HERE.
5 Stars:
For the 4-star homes, continue reading –>
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Posted in Show-Stoppers, Tips | Tagged amazing properties, bellaire tower, gavin newsom, houses for sale, nice homes for sale, san francisco, san francisco real estate | Leave a Comment »
April 27, 2009
It’s something we’ve often pondered. If you have a fixed mortgage payment over 30 years, that payment becomes more and more like child’s play as the years progress and inflation rises. What once seemed like a fortune when you first purchased your home is diminished over time with rising salaries, consumer prices, and paying back your loan with less valuable dollars than you initially borrowed.
Inflation Rates of Nations Around the World (click to enlarge)
It’s an interesting theory, and we read an article that talks about inflation-hedging investments. You can click HERE to view the article, which was published by USA Today (John Waggoner). If you don’t have time, here is a snippet from the part that discusses real estate: Read the rest of this entry ?
Posted in Home Buying, Home Selling, News, Tips | Tagged deflation, hedge, inflation, News, preparation for inflation, san francisco, san francisco real estate | Leave a Comment »
April 27, 2009
Well, our dream has now evaporated. We wrote about 3041 Laguna the other day on our Tuesday Tour Showstoppers post and the new listing is now under contract. The 5 bedroom, 4.5 bath home located just steps from Union and a stone’s throw from Chestnut, is that much closer to becoming a reality for some lucky buyer out there. We’ve embedded a slide show of the home in this post, but must warn you, the photos do not do this place justice. The pictures make it look like some cheap IKEA pad, but we assure you, this home has all the right stuff. Congrats to whoever snatched it up and to the agents for making swift work of that one. It just goes to show, San Francisco’s most desirable properties continue to get the attention they deserve. As for us — we’ll just have to wait until next time it hits the market.
3041 Laguna
Continue reading to see the slide show.
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Posted in Cow Hollow, Neighborhood Info, Public Listings, Snatched Up, Tips | Tagged 3041 laguna, dream home, quick sale, san francisco, san francisco real estate | Leave a Comment »
April 27, 2009
Days on Market (DOM) is the amount of time it takes a particular property to sell. The clock starts the moment the property hits the market and ends the moment it goes into “pending” status. Days on Market is a funny metric in our MLS system. We’ve discussed its shortcomings in previous posts and although we’d like to see some changes made to how it is measured, we still take a look at the trends on a regular basis.
We tracked DOM through April 26, 2009 (yesterday) and arrived at median and average figures. Next, we lined up this year’s performance thus far with the performance of years past. We isolated the time period from January 1 through April 26 during each year so we could have an apples to apples comparison.
Are homes taking longer to sell in 2009? Or is the market heating up? DOM should give us some insight into the current trend. When markets are hot, DOM is low because it takes less time to sell a property. When markets get cold, DOM creeps up. Let’s take a look at what’s going on here in San Francisco:
DOM Trends for Single Family Homes (click to enlarge)
This chart shows us DOM trends over the past 15 years. Clearly, 2009 has not shown any signs of heating up as compared to years past. Matter of fact, it has posted much weaker numbers than just a year ago. So where is the opportunistic info in this? Our take is that when sellers spend more time on the market, as they are now, they get a little nervous and are more willing to negotiate. This of course is a general statement – each home presents a unique set of circumstances. But the numbers here are glaringly obvious.
How about the same trend for Condominiums? Read the rest of this entry ?
Posted in Macro-Level Info, Nerdy RE Analysis | Tagged 2009, analysis, days on market, dom, opportunities, real estate trends, san francisco, san francisco real estate | Leave a Comment »
April 25, 2009
District 7, home to some of the priciest real estate in the City, currently has 10 single family homes priced under $2 million out of 47 total available properties.
Over the Marina - photo by Corbis
District 7 includes the Marina, Cow Hollow, Pacific Heights, and Presidio Heights. The five least expensive single family homes on the open market in District 7 can be found here (in no particular order): Read the rest of this entry ?
Posted in Countdowns & Rankings, Cow Hollow, Marina, Neighborhood Info, Pacific Heights, Presidio Heights | Tagged Cow Hollow, district 7, least expensive homes for sale, luxury market, Marina, Pacific Heights, Presidio Heights, san francisco, san francisco real estate | Leave a Comment »
April 23, 2009
Don’t cha just looove lists? We do. Here are a couple of real estate lists we found interesting as of late.
Continued Price Drops Most Likely in these Top 10 Cities:
- Orlando, FL
- Miami, FL
- Jacksonville, FL
- Tampa, FL
- Los Angeles, CA
- Phoenix, AZ
- Las Vegas, NV
- Oakland, CA
- San Diego, CA
- New York, NY
Source: Forbes
The Top 10 Cities with the Highest Foreclosure Rates:
- Las Vegas, NV
- Merced, CA
- Cape Coral-Fort Myers, FL
- Stockton, CA
- Riverside, CA
- Modesto, CA
- Bakersfield, CA
- Vallejo-Fairfield, CA
- Phoenix, AZ
- Port St. Lucie, FL
Source: Associated Press
Which cities make both lists? That would be Phoenix, AZ and Las Vegas, NV. Ouch. For more countdown and ranking articles, click HERE.
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Posted in Countdowns & Rankings, News | Tagged associated press, falling prices, forbes, foreclosures, san francisco, san francisco real estate, top 10 lists | 2 Comments »
April 23, 2009
This story comes to us from Atlanta, GA. It illustrates a little tip to those of you looking to get into a real estate investment or purchase a home. Here’s the advice: Your builder does not care about you.
How do we know? Let’s take an example from this Atlanta story. Why Atlanta? Well, we don’t want to smear anyone in SF on a public message board, but 2,500 miles away in the A-T-L… we’re blowing the whistle. Off the public board, however, we advise our clients how things shake out here locally.
Anyhoo, there is a company that built a high rise condo building in Midtown Atlanta in 2004. Units sold like hotcakes at the time. The sales center opened and it was like an old west land grab over the ~380 units. The building, named “Spire”, caters to a young, professional, and hip crowd addicted to city living, incredible views, and night life that never ends. Owners happily moved and settled in. The builder had acquired a nice batch of customers.
Spire was a hot commodity in '04.
Fast forward to 2007. The same builder went directly across the street and built Read the rest of this entry ?
Posted in Appraisal 101, Home Buying, Home Selling, Tips | Tagged atlanta, builder discounts, condos, inventory, over development, price gouging, san francisco, san francisco real estate, spire midtown, viewpoint midtown | 1 Comment »
April 23, 2009
It’s official. This past Monday some banks started honoring the new old $729,750 jumbo limit. If you’re in the market or looking to refi, you now have a good chance of your bank having rolled this out… so give ‘em a ring.
And can we say we called it? Last year when we wrote about the limit going away, we said “till next time!” We had a feeling it would come back. It feels good to be right.
Ok dude, it's cool but it's not THAT cool.
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Posted in News | Tagged 729750, conforming jumbo limit, loan limits, real estate, san francisco real estate | Leave a Comment »
April 23, 2009
What is a pocket listing? A pocket listing is a home that is not being advertised to the general public through the MLS or a listing that will come on the market in the future but right now is still a secret. Many homes in San Francisco sell while off the open market, so pocket listing culture is a big deal. Every week, we’ll be sharing info about pocket listings that we know about. Information on pocket listings is sparse and secretive, so pardon us if we seem short on details for the purposes of our blog. If you are interested in learning more, you can click HERE to contact us. Without further ado, here are this week’s pocket listings:
- Out of our pocket and over to you
To see this week’s pocket listings, continue reading –>
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Posted in Pocket Listings, Tips | Tagged not on mls, Pocket Listings, private listings, quiet listings, san francisco, san francisco real estate | Leave a Comment »
April 21, 2009
We toured a bunch of properties today while trying not to melt in the 80+ degree heat. Thankfully we came away with 14 properties that made the day worthwhile and, consequently, make our Tuesday Tour Show-Stoppers list.
Our favorite listing this week? That would be 3041 Laguna in Cow Hollow. This newly-built home has been fit with modern finishes, 5 decks, soaring ceilings, and a functional– not to mention– stylish layout. The au pare suite on the lower level is the icing on the cake for this remarkable residence. A stone’s throw from Union and Chestnut, it’s homes like these that make our jobs tougher than they already are. We left 3041 Laguna wishing we were able to just pick up and move in. Wouldn’t that be nice! List price is $3,750,000, and with it comes 5 bedrooms, 4.5 baths, around 3,520 square feet, and two car parking. It has been on the market for just 4 days.
I know what I'm wishing for on my next birthday.
If you have no idea what the Tuesday Tour is, click HERE.
To see the Showstoppers, continue reading:
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Posted in Public Listings, Show-Stoppers, Tips | Tagged good real estate, homes for sale, nice homes, nice properties, san francisco, san francisco real estate, Show-Stoppers | Leave a Comment »
April 20, 2009
Tsss… tssss – what’s that? The sound of burgers on a grill? Not quite. It’s the sound of 15 properties in District 5 that sizzled last month. We looked at all closed sales from 3/15/09 to 4/15/09 in the district and isolated the ones that went under contract the fastest and ended up closing. Here are some bullets before we publish the list:
- There were 41 sales in the district from 3/15/09 to 4/15/09. This includes single family homes, condos, TICs, stock co-ops, and lofts.
- 15 of those closed sales went into contract in 20 days or less, making our sizzler list.
- That means out of all the sales in the past month, 37% were smoking hot. That’s pretty impressive. And we’re not cheerleading the market – numbers are numbers.
tssss tssssssss
The purpose of this info is to understand why certain properties sell like hot cakes while others languish. That’s why we’ve created a report that shows a property photo along with detailed descriptions for our sizzlers. Click HERE to see the report. And full disclosure — the report is embedded on our website, so if you’d prefer not to see our mugs, don’t click the link.
For similar articles, click HERE.
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Posted in Micro-Level Info, Nerdy RE Analysis, Snatched Up, Tips | Tagged district 5, fast sales, hot properties, quick sales, san francisco, san francisco real estate | Leave a Comment »
