Real Crab Sushi – Finally at Seiya in San Carlos

I wasn’t on a budget today so prices were not was I was looking for. When it comes to sushi like many things in life, “Good things aren’t cheap and cheap things aren’t good”.

What I was looking for was a place that had real crab sushi–not imitation KRAB. You’d be surprised how many local places use that crap (i.e. Sushi Monster and M E N U in Belmont, Ganko in San Carlos)–the list goes on and on.

Why is real crab for sushi important?

I explained to Kau my aversion to fake crab and he then handed me a piece of some of the sweetest snow crab I have ever eaten. If you’re getting fake crab, you have to wonder what quality of fish a place is buying.

Black Cod at Seiya
Real Sushi Crab

I’ve had to-go from Seiya in San Carlos on Laurel Street before but this was my first experience at the sushi bar. Kau, as I later discovered was his name, is a charming and capable sushi chef/owner.

I was one of only three people eating a late lunch at the sushi bar so it was rather quiet and I had a nice conversation with the Kau who handily dished out some choice custom creations as well as menu favorites.

To start I had a few Zensai [appetizers].

Hamachi Carpaccio was my first choice which he sliced thin and seared, very tasty and fresh if not a little pricey [$16.00] but worth paying extra for the quality.

I tried two Robata skewers–the pork belly [Butabara $5.00] which was not as tender and rich as I would have expected, and the scallops [Hotate $7.00] which seemed sweet with a nice relish atop–a rather good size portion for one skewer.

Kau made me one of my favorite hand rolls–the Morgan Roll–a very Americanized hand roll with salmon skin, eel, cumber, and avocado. Nice crunch from the eel and cucumber, balanced with the creaminess of the avocado [$8.00]

Albacore Tataki [$15.00] was nicely presented and once again the quality of the fish showed through. And the fried garlic really added a nice crunch and woke up this otherwise predictable dish.

But my favorite was when I asked Kau if he had any butter fish–also known as, black cod. It was one of my favorites ever since I had it at Sansei Sushi on Maui. There’s a lot of confusion around “butterfish” as it’s really a Hawaiian preparation rather than an actual fish. In Hawaii, ‘butterfish” is black cod marinated in a rich miso sauce and usually slightly cooked. The claims that it is also sablefish or escolar are wrong and can be actually dangerous. But don’t believe me, Google it…

I asked him to prepare the cod anyway he liked and this is when his talent really shown through. He once again seared it ever so lightly, sliced it thin and added citrus ponzu sauce, truffle oil, and topped it with chopped wasabi leaves, daikon leaves and finally caviar [$21.00].

Thanks Kau, definitely worth a trip.

Housing Price Increases – Is There Any End in Sight?

Looking at the home sales in Belmont during the first quarter, one can see from this spreadsheet that every seller who listed their home received over their asking price. They were only a few exceptions. One was a home that was a short sale which we took out of the mix since those list prices are arbitrary, one was an off-market sale. We discounted any home that had been listed since last year to reflect the more robust 2013 season.

[click on the image for larger print]

Belmont Q1 2013 Home Sales

The percent that sellers are receiving over their asking price is mind boggling. It all has to do with the short supply of homes and the large numbers of buyers trying to take advantage of the historically low interest rates.

Of course that could change. Interest rates could rise making homes more expensive, or with rising prices, more “Equity Sellers” will develop as homes which were under water can now be sold for a profit. More inventory of homes means more competition for sellers as buyers will have more homes to choose from.

Disclaimer:

The information contained in this article is educational and intended for informational purposes only. It does not constitute real estate, tax or legal advice, nor does it substitute for advice specific to your situation. Always consult an appropriate professional familiar with your scenario.

 

Where Did All the Inventory Go? Long Time Passing…

Where did all of the listing go? Where’s the inventory?

That’s a common question today as eager home buyers are wondering if they’ll ever get a house. As we said in an earlier post, it’s not that there aren’t enough homes coming on the market, it’s that they all sell, and so it appears there are no homes to buy.

We’re getting enough questions about the hot housing market that we thought it warranted an attempt to explain what the reasons are for what Mr. Shiller (of Case-Shiller) would likely refer to as “Irrational Exuberance” after a book he authored by the same name.

Before we show you the numbers, which in some cases are absolutely mind boggling, we’ll proffer our explanation.

Our economy and the housing sector are recovering from the longest and most devastating housing downturn since the great depression. Home values plummeted for five years in a row in the end making home ownership more affordable.

As seen in this graph, home affordability peaked in 2009, yet sales were still dismal. Even with reduced home prices and record low interest rates buyers were afraid to take the plunge into home ownership.

There were still several obstacles which buyers had to overcome. Confidence in the economy and confidence in job stability. Even though home affordability peaked in 2009 potential home buyers were worried about the economy and their jobs. To compound the reluctance to move forward there was the deep rooted psychological trauma in the wake of post bubble bursting which was enough to keep most skeptics on the sideline for a few more years.

We saw things begin to change in 2011 when we were being inundated with new hires in the tech sector moving from out of state and requesting our assistance in securing a one year rental. It was the first sign that 2012 housing might pick-up—and it did.

In 2012 the “Buy Now” light switch was flipped on and buyers came out in droves to bid on the few home available. Why did so many buyers elect to more forward all at once? Because they all enjoyed the same motivating elements—America was on sale, interest rates were at historic lows, and now with companies hiring again, buyers felt comfortable in their jobs.

So in the wake of the greatest housing downturn in U.S. history, it seems plausible that might be going through a rebound equally as dramatic.

How long can this last? More “Equity Sellers” are being created every day as home prices replenish the equity lost during the downturn. More homes for sale will help the current historically low inventory levels (San Mateo County has less than two months of inventory and Belmont less than one).  But don’t expect prices to drop anytime soon. Even higher interest rates have had little affect on the prices of Peninsula homes.

Now onto the numbers...This is our post about the first quarter Belmont home sales. Here you can see how low inventory levels have created overbids averaging 114% of the seller’s asking price.

The partial title is a tribute to the endless hours my father would play the Kingston Trio’s “Where Have All the Flowers Gone” which harkens to the days of the Vietnam War resistance. If you are old enough to remember that little ditty, I’m sure it’s stuck in your head by now too…

 

Disclaimer:

The information contained in this article is educational and intended for informational purposes only. It does not constitute real estate, tax or legal advice, nor does it substitute for advice specific to your situation. Always consult an appropriate professional familiar with your scenario.

Belmont’s Best Bay Area Deals

This shiny penny home is our best of tour for today, April 16th 2013.

Since we’re privy to what homes are currently in contact for, we know this home is under-priced. Of course that begs the question–are there really any good deals today? Doesn’t seem like it when everything’s being bid up by a fact of of 15%.  Listed for about $990,000, it could easily sell for $1,200,000.

So here’s our pick of the week in Belmont: [Click on the picture for a full scale image.]

Belmont's Best Home deals

Are Home Prices Rising Too Fast?

Are Home Prices Rising Too Fast? [re-blog]

DAILY REAL ESTATE NEWS | MONDAY, APRIL 15, 2013Rising Home Prices

Some housing analysts are concerned that the sudden rise in home prices could make homes more unaffordable again if the price increases outpace income growth, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Average housing costs for home buyers who took out a mortgage were around 22.5 percent of average incomes, according to John Burns Real Estate Consulting. That is down from 38.5 percent in 2006, the peak of the housing bubble. The historical average is about 33 percent.

But with home prices rising in many markets and, in some, rising at a faster pace than income levels, will more people soon be priced out of the market?

Housing analysts say that, for now at least, lower mortgage rates are offsetting the higher prices of homes.

Borrowers have seen their purchasing power rise by around 33 percent over the past four years due to the low interest rates, The Wall Street Journal reports. For example, a borrower can make a $1,000 monthly mortgage payment and qualify for a $222,000 mortgage at today’s low interest rates, compared to 2008 when they’d likely qualify for $165,000 when mortgage rates were around 6.1 percent — nearly double what they are today.

Borrowers are able to withstand home-price increases because of the low rates, not because household incomes are growing, The Wall Street Journal reports. If mortgage rates tick back up to the 6 percent or 8 percent range, homes may look overpriced relative to incomes, according to housing analysts.

Source: “Why Rising Interest Rates Could Eventually Curb Price Gains,” The Wall Street Journal (April 10, 2013)

Read More

Existing Home Sales and Prices Continue to Rise
What’s Really Driving the Rise in Home Prices?

Forget Everything You Thought You Knew About Home Values

It seems there’s even more pent-up demand for housing than there was after the 1989 housing crash. The lower than usual interest rates is undoubtedly a contributing cause for the frenzied activity but what else is creating the stratospheric rise in housing activity?

It’s becoming a common event for a home to have 10-20 offers submitted by enthusiastic buyers. One first time buyer home in San Mateo recently sold with 86 offers! We’ve been in bidding wars ourselves where the winning bid paid over $300,000 more than asking price for a modest San Carlos home.
It’s probably not a leap for you to then believe that the median size home in San Mateo County climbed 29% since last March?
How’d we come up with that 29%? We adjusted it to account for the size of homes selling during the two periods. Had we not done so the raw figures showed a 34% increase.
In March of 2012 the median home in San Mateo country sold for just $689,000 and this March the median home price was $925,000. So did a lot of larger homes sell this year? For sure the upper market is starting to get traction again but the median size home selling in 2013 was only 5% larger. So we roughly estimate that if one can get a 5% large home in 2013 but have to pay 34% more, than prices probably went up by a factor of around 29%.
Looking at the housing picture for San Mateo County for March of 2013 as compare to March of 2012, we see that there were 20% fewer home sales this year as compared to last.
Why the fewer home sales if the market is so hot? Because, simply put, there are fewer homes for buyers to choose from. In 2013 there were 20 percent fewer sales but 29 % fewer new listings-which explains the low inventory.
For buyers wanting to get into a home, it may be now or never as home prices appear to have skyrocketed almost 30% in San Mateo County just in the last year. If interest rates rise, that double whammy may just put home ownership out of the reach for many.

 

 

The information contained in this article is educational and
intended for informational purposes only. It does not constitute
real estate, tax or legal advice, nor does it substitute for
advice specific to your situation. Always consult an appropriate
professional familiar with your scenario.

 

Best Crisp Chicken Wings Every Time!

It’s baseball season again and with the weather getting warmer at our house that means cooking some chicken wings wingsfor game time.

When it comes to chicken wings, we’re both pretty picky. But we’ll share with you our soon not to be secret for making crisp tender chicken wings every time.

Of course start with fresh chicken wings and try and get the whole wings as these will retain more internal moisture than already cut wings. We usually will prepare five whole wings at a time if it’s just the two of us.

My favorite part are the “flats” or the “clothes pins” and Christine prefers the drumettes and since she can’t eat as much I get some of each and nothing goes to waste at our house.

The trick to getting any fried food crisp is to start with a dry product.

After cutting the wings along the joint take a paper towel and squeeze each wing dry and then transfer to a bowl. We do this one wings at a time and go through several paper towels.

Next we make a mixture of ½ TBSP of garlic salt with 1 TBSP of baking powder—not soda. Sprinkle this mixture over the wings in the bowls and toss so they are evenly covered. Now let them stand for an hour or two at least—overnight is fine too.

Heat the cooking oil (we use peanut or canola) to 375. We’ll cook ½ of the wings at a time in the basket. Overcrowding any fried food will mean that all of the steam escaping is steaming your food not frying it crisp.

I’ll set the timer for four minutes and then pull out the wings, allow the oil to drip off and transfer these to a clean bowl with a paper towel in it. Once the fryer has recovered to the desired temperature cook the next batch and so forth until all batches are done.

You can let these rest for as long as you want really because the next step is to fry them once again at the same temperature but this time for only three minutes. We can afford to double the number of wings we cook in the basket the second time around since most of the moisture is already gone from the first frying. In this batch we’ll add some sliced chunks of jalapeno & Fresno peppers for added color, texture and flavor. Dip these in baking soda too and they’ll be crisp as well.

After these are done we served them with many different sauces but always on the side. Unless you are going to inhale all 12 wings in a minute or two they will begin to get soggy right away. Allowing your guests to dip their wings in whatever sauces you have allows for variety of tasty creations and a crisper wing.

Can you bake these rather than deep fry? Of course, they won’t get quiet as crisp but the same principle of removing the moisturize—that’s where the secret ingredient comes in—baking powder.

Bon appetite!

Belmont Home Prices & Sales for March 2013 – Can it Get Any Hotter?

Once again Belmont home sales were strong. Now that we are comparing a bull year in 2013  to 2012, another bull year, the increases seem a bit watered down since in both years thus far home sales have been strong.

Belmont Home Prices March 2013

SALES

At 22 home sales in Belmont this March, we tied last year’s impressive increase of 29% over 2011 with 22 sales once again.

DAYS ON MARKET

The time it took to sell a home in Belmont went from 38 days last March to only 29 this year—just one more affirmation of the incredibly hot market.

PERCENT RECEIVED

Sellers enjoyed another boost in the percent of their asking price they received. In March of 2011 sellers received 99.5% of asking which jumped to 101.6% in 2012 before being eclipsed by this year’s impressive 108.3%. Sellers that are worried about what they pay their agent should think less about negotiating a ½ % discount in commission and more about hiring the best agent with the best results. My parents called that “Penny wise and pound foolish”.

PRICE REDUCTIONS

Two sellers had to lower their initial asking price to entice a buyer as compared to last year when three sellers lowered their asking price. Once again, compared to 2011 when almost 1/3rd of seller reduced their asking price, this is another high water mark.

MEDIAN PRICE

The median home price in Belmont last March was $899,000 and for the second month in a row it has eclipsed the $1 million dollar mark coming in at $1,044,000 for March—though the median size home also went up from 1,763 square feet in 2012 to 1,830 in 2013. So while the size of homes selling this year are 3.8% larger, they are selling for 16% more—suggesting an overall increase of around 12% year over year. Sounds about right for what we are seeing.

MONTHS OF INVENTORY

This statistic is used represent the “Month’s of Inventory” in a given period. Essentially the time it would take to sell the entire existing inventory of homes at the current rate of monthly sales. In Belmont, that number has been dwindling each month until it reached .6 (less 18 days of inventory). That number alone might not have much meaning unless you understand that the housing inventory as whole in the US stands at 18 months—not 18 days.

Is it because there are more sales, or a declining inventory due to fewer new listings—or both?

With buyers and agents complaining about the lack of inventory, and with the lack of inventory playing a large role in the multiple offers we’re seeing, we decided we’d add a new graph to our statistics page that tracks the number of new listings and sales each month in select cities.

 

The information contained in this article is educational and intended for informational purposes only. It does not constitute real estate, tax or legal advice, nor does it substitute for advice specific to your situation. Always consult an appropriate professional familiar with your scenario.

Drew & Christine Morgan did not necessarily participate in these sales.

DRE License Numbers 01124318 & 01174047

Drew & Christine Morgan, REALTORS | Notary Public

 

Interest Rates Predicted to be 10% by Year’s End

That could easily have been a headline ripped from the pages in major newspapers back in August of 1994 when rates were only 6%–yet by year’s end the prediction nearly came true as a mere four months later they would rise to almost 10%!

Are you old enough to remember what normal mortgage interest rates were like?

Interest Rates DropAccording to Bankrate.com, mortgage interest rates have been attractive for such a long stretch of time that many homebuyers and homeowners might not realize that rates haven’t always been this low. Mortgage interest rates in the 4-percent range were unheard of until 2010, and rates in the 5-percent range were unknown prior to 2003, according to Bankrate.com surveys through the years and a chart of monthly average mortgage interest rates tracked by the Federal Reserve since 1971.

Prior to 2003, higher mortgage interest rates were the norm. In the early 1970s, rates hovered in the 7-percent range and spiked up above 9 percent in late 1975, late 1976 and most of 1978. At the end of the decade and throughout the 1980s, mortgage interest rates rarely dipped lower than 10 percent.

In the early 1980s, mortgage interest rates brushed the stratospheric highs of 18 percent and even 19 percent. Imagine trying to get a home loan with an interest rate of 18 percent. At that rate, the mortgage interest deduction would be a very lucrative income tax perk, but the monthly payment on a loan would be far more painful than a typicalmortgage payment today.

During the 1990s, mortgage interest rates ranged from around 7 percent to roughly 9 percent for many years. It was only in 2000 that rates began to fall to earth. They held at less than 9 percent in 2000, less than 8 percent in 2001 and less than 7 percent in 2003.


Reproduced with the permission of Mortgage-X.com

If you’ve been putting off refinancing your home or buying a new one, don’t get lulled into inaction with the thought that these new low rates are here to stay.

The information
contained in this article is educational and intended for informational
purposes only. It does not constitute real estate, tax or legal advice, nor
does it substitute for advice specific to your situation. Always consult an
appropriate professional familiar with your scenario.

 

Drew & Christine
Morgan did not necessarily participate in these sales.

DRE License Numbers
01124318 & 01174047

Drew & Christine
Morgan, REALTORS | Notary Public

 

 

Saving More For A Down Payment–is it Wise?

Is it Wise to Save More For Your Down Payment?

Are you a first-time buyer wondering how you’ll ever have
enough of a down payment to buy your first home?

Do you wonder how much down payment you need for a home? Did
you know that if you’re buying a home and using FHA financing your down payment
could be as little as 3.5?. Ten percent down loans are also making a comeback
and are quite common once again.

But should you wait and save more for your down payment so
you can be 20% down? In our current market, that might not be such a great
idea.

Home values have been increasing rapidly in the last year.
An area in Belmont known as Sterling Downs offers many first time buyers
affordable living options. But the values there have been rising with the rest
of the tide.

This graph illustrates the price trend in the last year in
Sterling Downs, Belmont. We used homes which closed escrow since January of
last year that were three bedrooms and between 900 and 1,100 square feet so
that the sale prices weren’t affected by the size of homes selling.

Clearly it would be near impossible to keep up with the increase
in the selling prices simply by saving more money each month from your paycheck. We estimate
that in 2012 to date the average Sterling Downs home increased $75,000 or just over
$5,000 per month.

If you have been waiting to buy a home and need some advice
on some of the varying financing options which are available, feel free to contact us and
we’ll refer you to one of the great mortgage brokers who can answer all of your
questions.

 


Mortgage-rates27-300x300
The information
contained in this article is educational and intended for informational
purposes only. It does not constitute real estate, tax or legal advice, nor
does it substitute for advice specific to your situation. Always consult an
appropriate professional familiar with your scenario.

 

DRE License Numbers
01124318 & 01174047

Drew & Christine
Morgan, REALTORS | Notary Public

All data was retrieved
from MLS Listings, Inc. The Multiple Listing Service for San Mateo County.