12/16/09

Coming Soon & the tale of 1 Cow Hollow block?

Is Cow Hollow hot enough that only a "coming soon" for-sale sign is enough to sell the home? The tale of a few similar homes on 1 Cow Hollow block.

In the below video I was just walking by and noticed a "Coming Soon" sign - and in my video was trying to remember past prices.... so a few quick facts to correct what I recalled on the fly in the video:

3055 Laguna - a single family home in Cow Hollow, was asking $829,000 and just sold on 11/22 for $929,000. Apparently with 5 offers.

I then refer to a home across the street that sold for "about a million". Well, in 2003 it sold for $850,000 but then in 2007 it sold for $1,389,000. Whoa! For some reason I thought it went for $1.1 or so.



Then to the home in question, 3020 Laguna with it's "Coming Soon" sign. The agent told me over the phone that he had it on his website, but I don't see it there (www.mariomarianirealtor.com). He said it was listed for $1.3 million or some really high number, but that everyone assumed it would probably sell somewhere in the $900,000's.

Well - in this video - I do a walk through - and yes, $900's is it's maximum value.


Finally, I refer to 3041 Laguna as a multi-unit building but it was just a much larger single family home with multiple levels. Check out the before and after photos here:

BEFORE
Sold for $1.1 million in Nov 2005 (915 SqFt on a 2173 SqFt lot)



AFTER
A "private" sale (just outlawed by the San Francisco Association of Realtors). But just visit propertyshark or zillow and you'll find public tax record info. But suffice to say, when it was asking $3.75 million you know it sold for over $3 million.




So - what to do with the home in question? 3020 Laguna. Try to create a $3 million home ala 3041 Laguna, or some how pull off a $500,000 increase with next to now work? Ahh right, that's yesteryear's market. Stay tuned, and we'll report on what happens to "Coming Soon" which is STILL not on the San Francisco MLS.

Over promising & under delivering - a bad real estate recipe

Over promising and under delivering is a bad recipe in any facet of life, and one I wish we could ban in real estate here in San Francisco.

This TIC on Laguna Street in the Marina is currently listed with a photo of the Living room with windows facing Moscone Rec Park. I had seen all 4 TIC units in this building when it first came on the market so I knew the only two I liked at all were the front units with views of the Park.


In the view I state that I thought they all sold for around $700,000. Well, the other three sold in the mid to high $700's. Meanwhile, I guess that the one on the market is the front one BECAUSE of the MLS photo showing the front unit, and guess that today's value is around $550,000, or at least lower than it's new $599k asking price.

Then I show up on Tuesday's "Broker's Tour" and you can hear the annoyance in my voice that in fact the photo was misleading and #1 is the rear unit with views of the small yard and the neighboring building.

So my value guess now? Closer to $525k. A long drop from $699k.

12/15/09

Mayor's Office of Housing: down payment assistance

Get down payment assistance from San Francisco's Mayor's Office of Housing. This is for REO's and Short sales only, along with income restrictions, and quite a few other restrictions. But if you qualify, you can get help with up to $60,000 in down payment. Read up on "DALP" here.

There's also a long list of lenders who are "participating lenders" and I know two of them, Christine Rocca at BofA and Gordon Friedman at Guarantee Mortgage. So if you think you might qualify, give one of them a call for more details.

12/14/09

Interesting take on San Francisco's real estate market from my firm

My firm, Pacific Union, has a much more interesting take on San Francisco's real estate market that the two articles in my earlier post.

Discussing the "rate of demand" vs home supply for San Francisco single family homes.

Supply - or homes available for sale in San Francisco have only increased by 0.1% per year since 1998 from just shy of 63,000 homes to just above 63,000. "Rate of demand" is the percentage of all single family homes that sell in a given year. San Francisco's average rate of demand has been 4.7%. At that pace it would take 21.3 years for the entire inventory of homes to change hands.

When demand is above average prices tend to climb, when below, they tend to drop. More details and Pacific Union's take on the 2010 San Francisco market can be found here, and the chart is below:

Two bullish articles on Real Estate & the economy

Business Week and the New York Times each have very bullish articles on both housing and the economy.

From Business Week:
http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyle/content/dec2009/bw2009127_753974.htm
The author tries to make the case that interest rate is more important than purchase price - that each 1/4 point is worth roughly $12,000 so if rates go from today's 5% to, lets say 8% in a year or two, he claims that's worth nearly $144,000 in value. In other words, if prices decline due to interest rates going up, you've got that built in.

Meanwhile, from the NYT article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/13/your-money/13fund.html?_r=1
They keep referring to the stock market rally from March lows as a "bull market" and how the "second phase" of the bull market might look.

Ahh, but the counter arguments are pretty obvious - no? And barely mentioned. Purchase price is paramount if you need to sell within 5 years. If you can hold for 30, then yes, lock in what will likely end up being the last time we ever see 5% interest rates. But the shorter your time line, the more advantageous it is to wait for even lower prices if you expect that to happen.

As for the NYT's "bull market". There are many economists who think the market must test the March lows before it can really become a bull market. And that could play out over the next 2 to 4 years, not the next 2 to 4 months. I'd be cautious messing around in the stock market since it's up so much higher than it's lows. Where can it really go now without earnings? And right now companies are not earning.