This home in Daly City is the best deal we saw this week. It’s a short sale and the bank is willing to let it go for $500,000. It worth more than that, though it does need some fixing up. Last I heard there were four offers being submitted.
Going “Green” is all about image, not substance
It’s pretty exciting this time of year. Don’t you just love coming home to a full answering machine with voice mail messages from your representatives in government? 
I don’t know about you, but I feel pretty darn important when Bill Clinton calls and asks me to vote for his wife; or it’s Arnold Schwarzenegger himself calling to see if I’ll vote to be taxed a little more so he can balance the budget.
This year it’s the year of the postcard. Funny too, since all of the candidates are claiming to be going “green†this year.
Richard Holober’s postcard is not really a postcard at all. It’s an 8.5†x 11†glossy full page ad where he claims to be supported by the Sierra Club. I wonder how many trees the Sierra Club donated to his cause? At least one of his flyers appears to be printed on recycled paper. But the one with a picture of him standing next to a tree he is claiming to protect is absolutely ironic.
Gina Papan must own interest in a paper company for all the mail I’ve received from her lately.
Jerry Hill is another “Sierra Club" sponsored candidate according to a printed flyer I received from him. In fact, several other candidates who aren’t even running appear to have helped Jerry by sending out print flyers for him. Good for him. I like more mail too.
Perhaps they could all take a page from the Internet playbook and start blogging. Barack Obama has been sending me emails almost daily and I’ve yet to get one single piece of paper mail from him.
It’s going to be lonely around here after the election is over—I know I’ll never hear from any of them again.
Belmont’s Best Deal for May 21,2008
We thought this home was the best deal this week. It’s in a great area of the Belmont hills on the west side. Carmelita is known for having a warm micro-climate. For $699,000 this price is hard to beat. It has a larger than normal rear yard which is level–a rare find in the Belmont hills.
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Call us at (650) 508-1441 or email dmorgan@morganhomes.com if you’d like to see this home!
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Belmont’s Beautiful Heat Wave
A week ago I posted a blog complaining about the relentless wind in Belmont over the past several weeks. This week we are enjoying record high temperatures not seen since 1970. Personally, I love the warm temperatures and slight breezes we get that take the edge off the heat.
May 14th we had high clouds which made for a spectacular sunset—I think one of the best I have ever seen in Belmont.
When the Peninsula gets weather like this I can think of no other place I’d rather be living.
Lens: Nikkor 18-200mm GED VR
Date taken: May 14th 2008
Time: 20:24:25
f/4.5 1/8 exposure ISO 200 Handheld 40mm focal length
Nikon D70
Lens: Nikkor 18-200mm GED VR
Date taken: May 14th 2008
Time: 20:19:35
f/5.6 1/20 exposure ISO 200 Handheld 200mm focal length
Belmont is in need of some negativity
If you’ve been thinking like we have, you’re probably wondering when will the weather get a little warmer.
The wind has been relentless this month. Our Davis weather station located at our home in the Hallmark area of Belmont, has been collecting data since we moved to from Barclay Way in 2001. We’ve been broadcasting it live since January 2002 and it receives more hits than any of our other web pages each month.
A recent software upgrade has allowed us to extract data for analysis and this is my first graph. It illustrates the wind at time intervals for the Month of May, 2008—to date.
Notice that there hasn’t been one day so far this month that there hasn’t been any wind between the hours of 12:45 PM to 11:00 PM!
The positive ions wind can create may actually have a negative affect on the body by raising stress levels. Ever wonder why lying near a stream or waterfall feels so relaxing? Moving water creates negative ions which counteract the effects of positive ions created by the wind. Try washing your face with water after a bike ride. We hear it’s not just the coolness of the water that feels so good; it’s the positive ions being cancelled out by negative ones that have a calming effect. Admittedly these articles are not from scientific scholars, but sometimes experiencing something for yourself is all the affirmation one needs.
After awhile, the wind begins to grow a little tiresome and we’re just waiting for a calm mild day—I know a lull before the storm.
San Carlos is in for a thrashing
If the media gets a hold of the median price changes in San Carlos they’ll be sure to spew more aspersions on the local housing market. According to the data reported in the MLS for San Mateo County, San Carlos’s median home price fell from $1,199,000 in March 2008 to $915,000 in April. If true, that would mean a drop in value of over $284,000 or 24% in one month!
But alas, homeowners need not listen to the media reports since they will invariably not account for the fact that the median size home which sold in April was a whopping 395 square feet smaller—accounting for approximately $252,000 in the adjusted median home price.
As always, full statistical data is available on our web page at Morganhomes.com and we frequently discuss housing market trends on the peninsula on our blog page, BeautifulMountainBlog.org
Redwood City—Hit Harder by Housing Woes
Redwood City California may have the best weather as advertised by the city’s slogan “Weather Best by Government Testâ€, but what it offers in weather it lacks for in housing—stability.
Redwood City has long been known for having a more volatile housing market. With a population of 77,000—double that of nearby towns—its housing affordability depends a lot on where in the city one lives.
Three zip codes separate different areas of Redwood City and last month the median selling price ranged from $480,000 in zip code 94063 to $1,045,000 in nearby 94062.
This graph illustrates the month’s supply of home available for sale. While the adjacent town of San Carlos has only 2.9 months of inventory Redwood City has 5.6.*
With a median price of only $885,000 as compared to San Carlos at $1,077,000, it’s easy to see why many people choose to purchase a home in Redwood City, but when the market changes, as it did last year, certain areas get hit hard.
It’s somewhat akin to buying a home on a busy street. When it’s a strong sellers market with competing offers for every home, selling a home on a busy street isn’t so difficult. Yet when it was a buyer’s market those homes are often the last to sell and they sell for disproportionately less than their cul-de-sac counterparts.
*The month’s supply of housing is the inventory divided by the homes selling per month. All data was retrieved from the San Mateo County MLS Prolisting.
As always you can see monthly updated graphs on our web page at MorganHomes.com
Bay Area Population Growth Helps Bouy Housing Demand
Anyone who owned a home in the Bay Area back in 1989 must remember the subsequent downturn in the market. That downturn was caused by a loss of Bay Area jobs. Home values fell as jobless homeowners sought to liquidate their mortgage overhead. Companies offered out-of-state relocations packages and early retirement to employees while many others opted to voluntarily move out of state. The latest Bay Area job report indicates that for now at least we are safe from that negative market force called unemployment. The nine Bay Area county population grew 1.4% last year and new arrivals helped buoy the housing market—if not more in the rental sector than homeownership. "It’s evidence that the Bay Area is doing better economically than the rest of the state," said Mary Heim, head of the demographics research unit at the state Department of Finance, which released the new population numbers. This link http://www.sfgate.com/webdb/population/ allows you to see any city’s population growth and it’s definitely worth checking out. Whenever there is a market sell-off due to dire circumstances, such as we are experiencing now in the foreclosure arenas, prices drop. Why? Simply put in order to be the next sale you must have the lowest price and/or be the best home on the market. The housing market today is not unlike that of 1990 in that in many areas folks are forced to sell their homes and prices are dropping. But the Peninsula of the Bay Area has been fairing far better. First, there are far fewer foreclosures on the Peninsula and thus virtually no downward pressure on pricing from that market force. There’s market skepticism and a general reluctance on the part of many to enter the market; and we all know the new tighter lending practices have make it difficult to impossible for many to buy a home if they wanted to. But jobs are not one of the issues facing the Peninsula right now. If the unemployment rate rises dramatically or more simply put, if people start to leave the Bay Area (voluntarily or not)—where more people are leaving than are arriving—it could all change. Clearly a prolonged recession could have just such an impact and tip the precariously balanced local housing market in favor of a drastic sell-off. See our homepage at MorganHomes.com for monthly updated local market graphs and our blog page at Beautifulmountainblog.org for detailed market analysis and commentary.
Crosswalk etiquette, a lesson for Belmont
Is crosswalk etiquette dead or did it ever exist?
This is our city, Belmont California; and this is our office, Carlmont Associates. Here we are smack dab in the middle of Belmont on the corner of Ralston Ave. and Villa–obviously a big enough intersection to get Google’s attention.
The cross walk you see here is the topic of today’s rant. You see the city installed an illuminated cross walk—you know the ones with the flashing yellow lights imbedded into the street—to assist pedestrians in crossing the road. Well not really to help them get across, but to help them get there more safely by making it easier for them to be noticed.
Clearly in order to get to my office I play the role of both a driver and pedestrian. First, in defense of the drivers, it’s really hard to see people when you are staring into the sunset. Spin this interactive camera around and you’ll see what we mean. It’s much easier to see the lights flashing in the road than to see a pedestrian standing off to one side—especially when they are often obscured by opposing traffic.
Don’t get me wrong–I think these lights are a great idea. Especially since my night vision isn’t what it used to be. But pedestrians take advantage of the "It’s the Law" rule that one must stop for them in a crosswalk. When I’m the pedestrian (which I often am getting to and from our office), before I leap out into the crosswalk and stop traffic like Moses parting the Red Sea, as a common courtesy, I stop to see if the light at the corner of Ralston and Alameda is red or green. If it’s green, I’ll wait patiently and let the cars make the green light and only when it turns yellow will I press the power button to halt all traffic in deference to my presence. Do I have to do this? Of course not. The law is on the side of the pedestrian. Is it the courteous thing to do—of course.
Visit our web page at MorganHomes.com for detailed housing market analysis and I promise, no rants.
And just one more reason real estate sales are down…
After reading Kenneth Harney’s article titled “Tight credit hitting specialized areas of 
mortgage market†in the May 3, 2008 Real Estate section of the San Francisco Chronicle, it struck me how far we have to go to return to a more normal housing market. Mr. Harney discusses the multitude of new restrictions on home mortgages which all have one glaring similarity—they make it harder for borrowers to get a loan.
Some of the new loan restrictions affecting home buyers are:
· No more zero down financing
· No more stated income for non self- employed people
· No refinancing a property that had a cash-out refinance within the last six months
Some of the new loan guidelines for investors will also hurt the housing industry. A few of these are:
· No investor shall be eligible for loans on more than four properties in total—the prior limit was ten.
This will clearly have a detrimental effect as housing seen from an investment perspective will be effectively limited to four properties—looks like REIT’s will be getting a second life when the housing market does pick up.
What’s entirely possible is that the market may never see another feverish housing boom–the likes of which swept the country in the last decade. Home affordability is still near an historical low, lending standards have never been tighter—the huge confluence of dual income qualification for loans and higher home values is off the table as that market effect has been played out already (we did an article on that months ago called the dual income trap).
Visit our Real Estate web page for monthly updated Bay Area home sale trends MorganHomes.com
Disclaimer: This information is for entertainment purposes only and includes no legal, accounting or real estate advice nor is this intended to be specific to your situation-consult a specialist for your specific situation.