Results tagged “real estate” from The Daily Nugget

Well, not really.  But a state measure is on the ballot that would end rent control as we know it in cities like Berkeley, Oakland and San Francisco.  The measure has renters groups crying foul even though the passing of the measure would not affect current leases.  Renters argue that a lack of rent control would lead to thousands of evictions in the city.

Proponents of the measure say rent control subsidizes units, not people, in that rich tenants get the same benefits as poor tenants.  I for one know a managing director at a large firm that makes about $400k and lives in a rent controlled 4bd/3ba flat in Pacific Heights that says he has no incentive to ever buy a place in the city.  His rent is $2,000 per month, while the market rate is about $8,000 per month.  Keep in mind that this guy could easily afford the higher price without hardship.  That's just nuts to me.

Read the entire Chronicle article to get deeper perspectives on both sides of this issue.  It is a fascinating read that I think fairly represents the differing views.

Foreclosures in the Bay Area are up 300% for the quarter compared to a year ago. The bleeding will likely continue in the months ahead too.  Mortgage defaults, the first step to foreclosure, are also up about 150% for the quarter compared to a year ago.  Granted, things are not that bad in San Francisco county where only 124 homes were foreclosed out of the 6,579 homes foreclosed in the entire nine-county Bay Area region.

Home prices in the Bay Are dropped 13.2% year-over-year, with a median price of $706,880.  The Bay Area is defined as San Francisco, Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Mateo, Santa Clara and Solano counties; it excludes Napa and Sonoma counties.  The interesting thing is that studying recent San Francisco home sales, it seems that prices are flat compared to prices last year.  It would be interesting to see official figures for San Francisco alone.

A slimy ex-CEO in Boca Raton stopped paying his mortgage in 2002 and forced his bank to provide evidence that they owned his bank note. They have not been able to produce the necessary paperwork in foreclosure proceedings and he's still living in his home. Of course, he probably has had to defend himself in court which can't be cheap. But, it's probably less than he would have payed for his $1.5 million mortgage in a year. According to experts, about half of all mortgages in the U.S. may not have the necessary bank note paperwork. Seems like a sneaky way to get out of your personal obligations, but in the U.S. where there's a crook there's a way.

Interesting article about what it means to be middle class in America. It examines why people that make $200,000 a year feel like they are middle class and sometimes even stretched too thin in places like San Francisco. I bet it's the fact that the median home price is $849,000, and the median homes are located in crappy neighborhoods where bullet proof vests are needed. The minimum price of admission for a home in a nice mid-level neighborhood, not in Pacific Heights or Russian Hill or other high-end neighborhood, is around $1.6 million. That's why most San Franciscans feel like poor bastards. If you don't believe, me search the local MLS listings yourself.

San Francisco's liberal views about the homeless are changing. It's probably the smell of urine and human feces that has finally made the people that live in SoMa say "enough is enough." Mayor Newsom's crackdown on quality-of-life crimes is welcome by many, even the most liberal residents of San Francisco. The bottom line is that people paying way north of $600,000 for housing don't want to see people taking a piss right outside their buildings, and murdering homeless people is still illegal.

According to the U.S. Labor Department, the San Francisco-Oakland area had the highest per capita income in the nation in 2006, at about $53,000 per year. I have to think that a household would have to make at least three times that much to afford to live in the city of San Francisco. Clearly the per capita income for homeowners in the city is a lot more than $53,000!

The hilltop property above Hollywood that includes the Magic Castle and the Japanese mansion that houses the Yamashiro Restaurant is up for sale. There is no asking price, but the 10 acre property is sure to fetch a huge price. Part of the property can be developed, but the buyer must preserve the nearly century-old Magic Castle and Yamashiro because they are designated historic landmarks.

Commercial real estate is hot again in San Francisco. Companies with leases expiring in the South Bay are deciding to move their operations to San Francisco to be closer to tech workers, cheaper rents, and the city lifestyle. Yahoo and Microsoft already have offices in San Francisco and Google may soon be joining them. Also other existing SF tech firms are expanding their space.

Due to the increase this will have on commercial real estate lease prices, residential real estate prices may also go up. Perhaps the upward pressure on commercial prices brought about by the influx of Web 2.0 companies will offset the overall slowdown in the residential real estate market. This effect is likely to be stronger near downtown, where the tech companies are located, and not in the outer districts like the Sunset or the Richmond.

The median home price in the U.S. fell 2.2 percent to $220,000 last month. This is the sixth straight month of price declines and the largest year-over-year decline on record. The bottom may be falling out now.

Foreclosures were up 89.2% and rental prices were up 8.2% in the nine-county Bay Area for the third quarter compared to the same period last year. Overall, demand for rentals have risen as people realize that buying a home may not yield the high gains that have been seen in the last few years. It's hard to gauge the San Francisco average rental price because official stats include buildings with 50 units or more, and half of San Francisco's rentals are in buildings with 10 units or less.

Bay Area home prices dropped last month by 0.8 percent in the nine-county region. However, the median home price in San Francisco rose 5.5 percent to $800,000.

According to a Moody's Economy.com report, real estate prices in San Francisco, Marin and San Mateo counties will rise about 3.6 percent a year for the next two years while home values in the East Bay are expected to decline by 6.4 percent. Apparently, there doesn't appear to be much excess supply in the San Francisco market

Economists say that the drop in home sales in the second quarter is a normal response to rising interest rates and that home prices are still rising. Home prices inched up 3.4% in the Bay Area for single-family detached homes, and up 4% for condominiums in San Francisco. The median price for a condo in the San Francisco metro area was $647,200 for the period. I expect that prices will flatten and then maybe even drop 10% before this is all over, but overall we're not worried.

Barry Bonds' 715th home run ball sold today for $220,100 on Ebay. The guy that caught the ball has famously said that he would use the proceeds of the sale as a down payment on a San Francisco home. Nice catch!

As prices keep inching up, many more can't afford to buy a home. This in turn is making the demand for rentals and rents surge upward. Good news for people that already own, bad news for those that didn't get in the market a few years ago.

Go to baseball game, catch ball, sell ball, and buy home. So simple.

Melissa read an article about Americans retiring in Costa Rica and Panama and the trend is increasing. Apparently, there are many factors to consider when choosing a retirement destination. There are considerations for getting your worldly possessions there, affordable housing, the cost of living once you get there, access to health care and travel considerations to see your kids.

The country of Panama offers a few incentives for retirement. The government will issue you a special retirement visa that will allow you to move your stuff to Panama without charging you any import taxes, will not charge you taxes for income earned outside of Panama, and will not charge you property taxes for 20 years. Additionally, the visa will allow you discounts on medical costs, utility bills, mortgages, hotels, public transportation, and airfare. Many people are moving there because of these incentives.

We are always thinking of visiting Paris. This got me thinking, what if we could live one to two hours from Paris in our retirement years, how much would a house there cost? Well as it turns out you can buy some huge chateaus and castles in France for fairly cheap. Also, rural living in France tends to be much cheaper than living in a city like Paris. So check out some of the properties I found:

Castle Between Paris and Reims
4375 sq. ft of living space on 8 acres. 10bd/10ba on 3 stories. The ground floor includes 600 sq. ft. reception hall with 26 ft. high ceilings and views of the park grounds, 635 sq. ft formal dining room with views of the park grounds, and a 400 sq. ft. kitchen, a 600 sq. ft. master suite with a 200 sq. ft. office. The first floor includes a 500 sq. ft. library, and 2 bedrooms with baths that are 300 sq. ft. each. The second floor includes 7 "small" bedrooms with baths. Vaulted cellars. Other structures include guest house, keeper house, orangery, stables, sheepfold, greenhouse, workshop, and garages. 845,000€

In an effort to lure people into more and more debt, lenders are now offering a 50-year mortgage. Even more crazy is the fact that a handful of small lenders have begun offering 50-year adjustable-rate loans to buyers who need to keep payments low in the current economic environment. That's right, a 50-year adjustable. Americans should do themselves a favor and not buy more house than they can afford. That way, they don't have to get a 50-year loan that will cost them millions of dollars in additional interest in the long run. This is crazy. It's a sign that prices are too high and interest rates aren't helping. Burst ahead.

March new homes sales gain is the biggest in 13 years, but prices are still coming down. Don't believe the hype. The media tries to spin the number new home sales, but fundamentally prices are down 7.1% for new homes. We won't know the price trend for existing homes prices for two months due to reporting lag. If prices are down nationally they may go down in highly desirable markets, like San Francisco, soon. If prices don't fall here they may at least go flat. Stay tuned.

A property on Project Entropia, a massively multiplayer online game from Swedish developer MindArk, was sold for $100,000. Yes, it sold for real world dollars. The game is based on a real cash economy and the Project Entropia Dollar (PED) has a fixed exchange rate with the US dollar of 10 to 1. The property, a space resort above the fictional realm of Calypso, features a 1,000-unit apartment complex, a shopping mall, a stadium for sporting events, 10 hunting biodomes, a nightclub, and an amphitheater. Unfortunately, no mental health facility is included--crazy!

Although the volume of sales has slowed, in the nine Bay Area counties the median home price continues to climb. Last month the median price for a home rose to $651,000, which is a 19 percent increase in the the median home price this time last year. Still, I'd like to quote the most poignant paragraph in the story:

If the market dynamics are changing, they may not be reflected in DataQuick’s monthly reports, which are based on filings with county recorders’ offices and include sales initiated 30 to 60 days prior.

The 4 percent slowdown is not a good sign, particularly if the data is from one to two months ago. As more people are inclined to sell due to the high prices, the supply will increase past the tipping point and prices are bound to fall, regardless as to the spin the realtors would have you believe. The party may be coming to an end--stay tuned.

The median Bay Area single-family home price has increased 20% from last year's prices. That's pretty impressive considering that the beginning of the year is usually the slowest time for home sales. In San Francisco the median is $713,000, a 23% increase over last year's prices.

According to realtors, there are a lot of foreign buyers seeking to buy homes in the Bay Area, particularly from Singapore and London. In London, the average home price in coveted Kensington and Chelsea neighborhoods is £717,174 ($1,351,945 in today's exchange rate). With the exchange rates being what they are it is no wonder that British buyers are seeking to buy homes here.

What does this all mean? This means that our home has appreciated at least 20% in the last year and maybe closer to 23%, San Francisco's appreciation rate. Damn, I feel like a Lotto winner. Kickass!

After the dot-com bust there was a mass exodus of people leaving the Bay Area, many of them from the city and county of San Francisco. This caused a shortage of apartments to turn into a surplus of apartments, and with the laws of supply and demand the rents dropped dramatically even though real estate prices remained flat and then increased dramatically in the last two years. Bay Area home prices, including San Francisco, at are a two decade high. San Francisco county's median home price in June was $695,000!

A new article shows that rents are slowly creeping back up, with the average one-bedroom in San Francisco renting at $1,786 per month in the last quarter. This is bad news for renters, but good news for property owners. With rents going back up perhaps rents will be able to cover the stratospheric mortgages in this area sometime soon. This may allow some home owners to rent their homes and purchase additional property. Well, one can hope anyway.

So, our offer has been accepted and we're in escrow right now for our new place! Here's the general location: 2 1/2 blocks from the Sony Metreon and Yerba Buena Park, 3 1/2 blocks from the SFMOMA, 6 1/2 blocks from Union Square, 6 blocks from PacBell Park, 2 blocks from the brand new Whole Foods market at Harrison and Fourth Streets, and best of all, it's 5 1/2 blocks from my firm's new offices at 55 Second Street.

It is a 1200 sq. ft., 1Bd/1.5Ba two-level loft with stainless steel kitchen appliances, washer/dryer, hardwood over concrete floors, fireplace, 20-foot ceilings with skylights, and a common roof deck with amazing city views.

Here are some pictures of the place--we're very excited!

Well, Melissa and I finally decided to get into the San Francisco real estate market. We've decided to buy a loft in the South of Market district, somewhere near the Metreon. I'll tell you, there's nothing more stressful than trying to find a house, or in our case, a condo. We're putting in our first offer later today, so wish us luck and keep your fingers crossed.

Well, still no news regarding the offer on the condo we want. We are supposed to hear by end of business tomorrow. I started to think back at the first time I saw the city of San Francisco, and I realized that I first saw it on film--a 1984 romantic comedy titled Electric Dreams (Windows Media Trailer, 5MB). It's a cheesy movie, but I loved it when I was 12. Come to think of it, the movie inspired me to buy a home computer, an Atari 1200XL. Ah, the 80s were fun. Anyway, I'm rambling. Bottom line--no news until Thursday afternoon.

Yeah, you guessed it, home. Unfortunately, Bay Area home prices are still going up and have reached a record high of $419k. That's crazy! Damn, I thought that shortly after the dot-com bubble burst that the prices would drop immediately. Here we are, three years later, and the prices are still rising!

Despite the economy being in the toilet and the Dow closing at it's lowest point since October of last year, housing prices continue to increase. The Bay Area's average home price is $416k according to the latest report in the Chronicle. Geez, will we ever be able to buy a house?

Melissa and I returned to San Francisco after spending four days in Chicago. We were really impressed with the city, particularly the housing prices, since 2-Bedroom luxury condos downtown start around $200k. much cheaper than San Francisco. If we were willing to put up with a little snow it wouldn't be a bad place to be. Anyway, I'll post photos from the trip as soon as I get a chance, most likely tomorrow.