6/24 Summer Farmer's Market Thursday nights in Livermore
I love farmer's markets, especially the Saturday morning one in Pleasanton. Livermore's alway felt too small for me. But this year the Thursday night Farmer's Market in Livermore is bursting with energy and lots of great food. So come on out to downtown Livermore on Thursdays 4 pm - 6 or 7 pm I think, 4th Street, and enjoy the festivities.

6/22 First Time Buyers: How to have a Successful Home Buying Experience

1. Have a gameplan - do not simply see an open house add in the paper and suddenly decide to buy a home
2. Find a good realtor or lender early; you'll need to talk to a lender before shopping for homes. If you choose a good real estate agent to work with (hint: you're in the right place!), he can help you get a great lender
3. Prioritize what's important to you - chances are you'll have to make some compromises on your first home, so decide with your family what's most important to you and what's 'icing on the cake'
4. Take your time - it's an emotional thing, but remember, if you don't get the first home you make an offer on, it's okay - there will be others!
5. Take advantage of all incentives now offered. Many cities have special additional incentives, over and above the $8000 federal tax credit offered in 2009 and the $10,000 credit offered on new homes in California.
6. Think long term - most buyers who got into trouble the past few years thought of their homes as investments that would only go up in value. Now that we know that's not true, a home for most of us is first and foremost a place to live. Don't overextend, don't focus too much on how much/little it will be worth in x years, just buy what you can afford.

6/20

Here's a blog I wrote on the Redfin site yesterday.

1. All real estate is local.  Never  was that more true than now.  In my hometown, Livermore, there’s a lot of demand for entry level homes, little demand for median homes, and almost nonexistent demand for executive homes.  So even within my town, the real estate market totally depends on your particular market segment.  If you’re buying a home for $350K, you’ve got a lot of competition.  If your buying a home for $750K, you are the BMOC calling all the shots.

 

1. Trust is earned, and that’s a good thing.  Do you trust your doctor?  It used to be we believed everything our doctor told us, now most of us have learned to question things more.  That’s a good thing, whether it’s your physical health or your finances and real estate.  I welcome my clients questioning everything about my business.  It makes me sharper.  If I can’t give you a strong argument why I’m worth the money I’m earning on the sale of your home, then I don’t deserve your business. 

 

1. Treat us with respect, not contempt.  I treat every client with the same level of respect, whether they are looking for a $100K condo or a multi-million dollar home.  Why?  Because that’s how I was raised.   I’m sorry if your last realtor was a snake, just as I’m sorry if your last boyfriend cheated on you, but don’t assume we’re all the same.   You can be skeptical of everything I say and still treat me with respect. 

 

1.  Take responsibility.  I’m hearing lots of people blaming the banks, blaming the realtors, blaming everyone but themselves.  If you paid too much for a home or if you got screwed on your loan, it’s because you choose to do so.  Read the paperwork, do the research, do not blindly follow anyone’s opinion.  It’s your money, so you make the decisions and accept the consequences.

 

1. Stay humble.  You might think you’ve got the real estate market all figured out, that it will crumble by exactly 23.8% over the next 7.6 months and will not recover for 59 years and have reams of empirical data to prove it, but acknowledge that you might be wrong.  Just because you’ve been right so far does not mean you are clairvoyant.

 

MARKET SNAPSHOT			Single Family Homes
Date:  6/19/09
AREA		Actives	SOLD (30 days)	Avg Sold Price	Median Sold Price
Livermore		188	74	$512,000	$453,500
Pleasanton		225	56	$839,500	$700,000
Dublin		38	34	$603,700	$605,500
San Ramon		164	68	$731,700	$690,000
TOTAL		615	232

 

6/15
The New Stimulus package increases the Tax credit to first time homebuyers from$7,500 to $8,000 ( or  up to 10% of the purchase price, the lower of the two)) for homes purchased before Dec. 1st, 2009.  Also the credit is an actual credit instead of being paid back over 15 years. You will still have to pay this credit back if you sell the property within 3 years of purchasing. There are some income restrictions with the credit being phased out if your income is over $150,000 for married couples and $75,000 for singles.

Also good news in that  loan limits for Conforming Jumbo loans have been increased from $625,000 to $729,750. This will help lower interest rates for those purchasing in the $800,000 to $900,000 price ranges putting 10 or 20% down.

MARKET SNAPSHOT			Single Family Homes
Date:  6/12/2009
AREA		Actives	SOLD (30 days)	Avg Sold Price	Median Sold Price
Livermore		192	72	$514,389	$467,500
Pleasanton		228	40	$851,269	$707,500
Dublin		45	25	$593,028	$597,500
San Ramon		157	89	$682,195	$679,444
TOTAL		622	212	$648,431	$620,000

6/11 The Next Wave of Foreclosures in Livermore and Tracy

If you read the papers, you know that there's a lot of talk about foreclosure rates dropping lately. Well, that is in part a result of the 90 day moratorium on foreclosures, and in part due to other factors. What is disconcerting, however, is that there is a trending up of foreclosures due to unemployment. Over the hill in Tracy, where unemployment has been well into double figures, that's sure to increase foreclosures throughout the rest of 2009. In Livermore and the rest of the Tri Valley, it really depends on jobs. It appears that job losses are slowing down, but no one knows when jobs will increase. When that happens, the economy (and the real estate market) will stabilize.

6/9 Is the Recession a Good Thing?

The real estate recessions mirrors the general overall recession right now. But while the news focuses on all the heartache and struggles, there is a flip side - if you have a job right now, the recession can be a good thing. How? Fewer people have money to buy things, so prices come down, whether the item be a house, a car, or general items like clothing. Food seems to be an exception. For real estate investors, the recession is definitely a good thing - for the first time in years they are finding bay area properties with positive cash flows, most on the outskirts of the bay area, like Livermore, Concord, and Antioch/Pittsburgh/Brentwood.

The recession is brutal for many of us, and there's no minimizing the hurt many have suffered. But if you do have a job (and your spouse/significant other still has theirs), in some ways you're gaining on everyone.

6/6/09 Short Sale Basics

Love 'em or hate 'em, short sales are here to stay, at least for the next few years. A short sale describes the situation where a potential home seller owes more money on his (or her) home than he can make on the sale of the home. The bank or banks (if there's more than 1 mortgage on a home, there might be more than 1 lender) can agree to accept less than the full balance of the loan. Why would they do such a thing? Because the option for the bank in many cases is foreclosure, and foreclosure is expensive for the bank.

If you own your home and want to sell it, but fear it will not sell for enough to cover the mortgage and selling expenses (realtor commissions is the main one), the first thing to do is to talk to your bank. DO NOT TALK TO A REALTOR ABOUT LISTING YOUR HOME WITHOUT TALKING TO THE BANK FIRST.

What you want to know from the bank is, can they help you stay in the home (if that's what you want)? If they aren't receptive to working with you via a loan modification or other way, find out if they'll agree to a short sale. If it's your primary residence (as opposed to investment property), they may be open to it. Make sure to get something from them in writing forgiving you of the possible tax penalties involved.

Then, and only then, call a realtor. To have a chance of completing a successful short sale, you need an open mind, an experienced short sale realtor, and a receptive bank. List the home at a very aggressive price - you're not going to get any money out of the sale anyway, so you need to give buyers an incentive to consider your short sale property, and the best way to do that is offer it at a rock bottom price.

 

No Love for Realtors?

6/4 What I Love about Livermore

When I moved here with my family in 1989 (wow, has it been that long?!!), I wasn't sure I'd like it here. We were living in Menlo Park at the time, and we moved here because it was affordable. At first, we really missed Menlo Park/Palo Alto. But over the past 20 years I've learned to love Livermore. What specifically?

First, there's still the small town feel of the community. We have three boys who have gone through Livermore schools (actually, our oldest, Erik, is currently at UC Davis). Livermore's grown in the past twenty years, but we've set roots here and it feels good.

Second, the location is very central. We go to Lake Tahoe frequently, and San Francisco occasionally. We can get up to Marin or down to the peninsula in less than an hour. I love to bicycle, although I don't do it as much as I used to. And while there are more cars on rural roads now than there used to be, it's still easy to go on a long, awesome ride just out my front door.

Most of all, though, it's the people we've met here. Life long friends, whether through our boys schools, or Little League, or other endeavors. My wife has become addicted to yoga, and Livermore's Cosmic Dog Yoga Studio rocks, so I'm told. I'm not a yoga guy, but I like that Livermore has it to offer.

 

6/2 How Not to Sell Your Home in 60 Days.

1. Price it too high
2. Don’t worry about curb appeal
3. Make realtors give a lot of notice before showing your home
4. Don’t allow a lockbox on the property
5. Don’t clean up
6. Hide known defects

Conversely, if you want to sell your home quickly, recognize that it needs to be THE BEST value in its class. Here's the irony - if you price it a bit lower than you'd like, you may end up getting more interest in the home and walk away with more money for it. Homes that are selling in less than 2 weeks are doing so with multiple offers, many over asking price. Homes that are offered at inflated prices linger, and only sell after repeated price drops.

 

 

5/31 Is real estate seasonal? If so, does that explain the recent uptick? Do we foresee another boom? Our answers, in order: Yes, somewhat, No.

We recently read the blog from another Livermore realtor who claimed that the signs are all there for an impending real estate boom similar to what happened in the early 2000s. Wow, that realtor must be a cockeyed optimist. Here's our view...

First, no matter what anyone (realtor, lender, friend, etc) tells you, predicting the housing market is extremely difficult, if not impossible. You can go on blogs and read all about the doom and gloom for the next X (fill in the blank) years, but these self called experts no more know what will happen than stock analysts predict the stock market. When the real estate market had a strong increase around 2002, lots of experts said to hold off buying a home because the bubble was about to burst. Instead, home prices shot up in the Tri Valley by another 50%+ over the next few years. So if you held off buying in 2002, you lost out on a great opportunity; if you bought in 2006 thinking your home would be a great investment, chances are you regret the purchase.

Statistics are important, but it's important to keep them in perspective. You could find statistics to support almost any premise about today's real estate market - it just depends on which statistics you use. If you're looking at homes in Pleasanton, Livermore, Dublin, and San Ramon, it's clearly a much better time to buy (and worse to sell) than a few years earlier. Does that mean that the market will not drop further and/or is ripe for another boom? No. Single detached homes are a good long term investment and tax hedge, and can be an important part of an investment portfolio.

Our advise: Buy when it makes sense for you, not because a realtor says another boom is just around the corner.

 

5/26 What's happening in the market right now? In the past month, Livermore's seen 59 single detached home sales (median price $400,000). Pleasanton has only had 30 sales, but at a median price of $689,000. Dublin has had 28 sales, with a median price of $606,000, and San Ramon has had 49 sales (median price $685,000). Who's buying? Investors and first time buyers. Foreclosures and short sales are popular, and contrary to what some realtors will tell you, short sales are starting to close more frequently. Foreclosures and short sales do have inherent risks. I fear many buyers are ignoring these risks.

In the case of foreclosures, the banks require the buyers to sign an addendum that largely supercedes the California Asssociation of Realtors contract the original offer is written on. What this means is, if you buy a property and find out after you close escrow that there are significant defects, there is a good chance you have little recourse.

We're not suggesting you don't look at foreclosures, just remember that there's a reason appraisers will take 5% off a foreclosure that is the same floor plan as a nonforeclosure next door.

 

5/18 Can you trust your real estate agent? Recent studies show that for a very large percentage of the population, the answer is a resounding 'NO!' I understand this, especially now. Recently we've seen local 'pillars of society' turn out to be con men, so how can you trust a realtor, who's livelihood depends on consumers believing him/her? It's a question I wrestle with daily. My 'solution' is to lay all the cards on the table, full transparency. And yet, that still seems inadequate. Any ideas?

5/7 In Livermore today there are 265 actives (homes for sale) and 86 solds in the last month. The lower price points are king. Homes under $300K are selling in an average of about 1 month, while executive homes over $700K are stagnant - only 7 sales and 90 current listings.