Next time new neighbors appear mysteriously, they might have snagged a pocket listing in the neighborhood.
Continue readingHome Prices Head Up in Belmont – Belmont Home Sales – June 2011
Where are Belmont home values today?
That’s the million dollar question which is on the mind of many homebuyers; Will home values continue their five year slide or have we neared the bottom?
The Pitfalls of Over Pricing A Home
If you’ve missed this spot it’s not too late. Making a price reduction quickly can thwart the dreaded doomed house syndrome tip the scales your way and bring a fresh batch of buyers to the bargaining table.
Continue readingLight at the end of the Tunnel?
Light at the end of the tunnel?
The Standard & Poor's/Experian consumer default composite index fell to 2.43% in March from 2.54% in February. All the major sectors, such as bank cards, auto loans, and first and second mortgages, reported declines. As for U.S. housing, sales of existing homes increased 3.7% in March following a significant decline of 8.9% February.
Shiny Penny Tour Day – Our Best Homes of the Week
Shiny Penny Tour Wrap
Our Tuesday tour day produced a few shiny pennies this week. In fact, two made our list for Best Deal of the Week.
The first is a short sale on Lyon in Belmont. It’s listed for only $759,000 and to be in the west-side hills location for that price is a good buy. Of course the banks still need to sign off on the offered price but if you can hang around for awhile you may be able to get that home. FYI—most lots on Monroe and Lyon are only 4,000 square feet rather than the usually 5,000.
Here are some details:
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Beds, Baths: |
4, 2|1 |
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SqFt: |
1980 (Assessor) |
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Lot Size: |
4,000 sq ft (Assessor) |
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Yr Built: |
1962 (Assessor) |
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Age: |
49 years |
Our next home is a favorite of mine on Eaton in San Carlos. It’s sold before, in fact my old manager used to own it. I love the feeling—it’s like you are in your own private resort with a pool and palm trees. The rear landscaping is great and it backs up to the creek for even more privacy.
Don’t be fooled by the two bedroom listing. This home was a three bedroom with one room being converted to a den.
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Beds, Baths: |
2, 1|0 |
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SqFt: |
1620 (Assessor) |
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Lot Size: |
8,476 sq ft (Assessor) |
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Yr Built: |
1948 (Assessor) |
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Age: |
63 years |
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Parcel #: |
051-294-050 |
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Zone: |
R100 |
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Tract: |
White Oaks |
Don't forget. If you would like to see one of our Best of Tour homes give us a call at (650) 508-1441
Best Home Deals March 22, 2011
We’re excited to announce three “Best of Tour†homes from our Broker’s tour on Tuesday.
These homes represent homes we think offer a good value and should get snapped up quickly.
BELMONT
There were two in Belmont we thought we’re an excellent value. The first one was at 3484 Lodge but since it already has three offers since Sunday’s open house we may as well skip that one. It was listed at $799,000 which is an ex excellent value for the West side.
The second Belmont home at 2223 Thurm listed by Better Homes and Gardens M. Smith. It’s located right on the border of San Mateo on a pastoral 13,000 square foot lot. The four bedroom three and one-half bath home is nicely appointed and at 2,714 square feet it’s a very good value too.
SAN CARLOS
We liked 132 Arundel. Looks like a nice move-in condition home with three bedrooms, two baths with 1, 390 square feet of living space on a nice sized 8,500 square foot lot. Listed by RE/MAX D. Roberts
1362 Geneva in the White Oaks is a three bedroom three bath home of 1,860 square feet on a tad bit small 4,040 square foot lot but this home looks great and should fly off the shelf. Listed by Coldwell Banker R. Jabeen
As always, if you want us to look specifically for the best of tour home for you drop us an email or connect with us and let us know what you’re looking for. We’ll be your eyes and ears on the peninsula.
How to Pay Less Property Tax By Carrying Your Tax Base
If you’ve thought of moving but are frightened at the prospect of your property taxes increasing we have a few propositions for you—60, 90 and 110. You may already be aware of these but we have some new information which might make them more attractive.
Most homeowner’s are keenly aware that buying a new home means having their property tax base increased to 1% of the purchase price. For those of you who have owned a home for many years this alone can make a move financially impossible; for many, it means they couldn’t afford to buy the home they already own.
A BRIEF HISTORY
Proposition 60 enacted into law in 1986 allowed for the one-time transfer of your current home’s tax base to a replacement property of equal or lesser value after the age of 55 of either spouse, providing that the replacement property was located within the same county.
Proposition 90 passed by the legislature in 1989 allowed counties to voluntarily extend the transfer into their county to all 58 California Counties.
Proposition 110 passed in 1996 extends this relief to permanently disabled people, whether 55 or not.
The problem for most people wishing to benefit from this tax base transfer is they are limited to moving within the county in which they currently reside, or moving to one of only a handful of reciprocal counties (Alameda, Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego, Ventura, San Mateo, and Santa Clara).
Fortunately, another very desirable county in the Sierra foothills was added to the list—El Dorado. Their legislature passed a resolution into law on December 10th 2009 taking effect February 15th of 2010 allowing anyone in the 58 California counties to transfer their tax base to El Dorado County.
There are rules you must follow or your transfer will be denied so before you consider a move you will want to read several of the helpful publications which exist, and/or consult with your tax or legal advisor. The State Board of Equalization offers some easy to understand “Question and Answer” publications as well as a pdf containing many test case scenarios.
If you’ve been holding back on making a move to retain your home’s current tax base it’s nice to know you now have some great options. And if you’re not familiar with this Gold Rush era county, you owe it to yourself to check it out.
There are many cities within El Dorado County which offer a great quality with life. Located around Folsom Lake with its endless water activities, El Dorado County extends all of the way to South Lake Tahoe. The many towns in between including Placerville, offer affordable housing options—from award winning retirement communities to cities catering to the first time buyer and neighborhoods that rival homes the Peninsula has to offer—including Hillsborough—all at a fraction of what it costs to live in the Bay Area.
Visit the on-line version of this newsletter at MorganHomes.com and use the underlined links in this article to read more. If you are not comfortable with the internet, simply give us a call and we’ll mail you out some more information.
Disclaimer:
Drew & Christine Morgan are REALTORS/NOTARY PUBLIC in Belmont, CA. with more than 20 years experience in helping sellers and buyers in their community. They may be reached at (650) 508.1441.
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.
Can San Mateo Survive a Tidal Wave?
San Mateo County Market Snapshot–Are We Treading Water?
Those of you who follow our market updates know we put our hometown, Belmont, under a market microscope every month to get a glimpse as to where the market appears to be headed.
Of course that really is living in a Petri dish when it comes to the real estate market as a whole.
Real estate is very local—what goes on in even one part of a city could be entirely different from another. That said eventually positive market trends trickle down and negative ones up.
As evidence of this phenomenon one can go back and look at our charts from 2007 when Palo Alto was still doing famously yet Daly City may as well have slid into the ocean (many homeowners probably wish it had).
Today we visit the numbers—year over year—for San Mateo County as a whole, hoping to see some trends that will give us an inkling as to where consumer sentiment is, as reflected in sales, median price, etc.
SALES
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New Listings |
Current Inventory |
Closed Sales |
Average DOM |
Average Sales Price |
Median Sales Price |
% LP Rec'd |
Total $ Vol |
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2011 545 |
1400 |
233 |
74 |
786,509 |
587,500 |
96.48 |
182,470,145 |
|
2010 484 |
1156 |
229 |
82 |
840,235 |
650,000 |
97.17 |
192,413,866 |
|
2009 530 |
1452 |
163 |
74 |
683,900 |
553,750 |
97.20 |
110,791,806 |
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It’s easy to see that the ripples of consumer uncertainty could easily capsize the boat of recovery if the tides of low interest rates come in too fast.
Sales are certainly better than the low of 2009 and remain steady as they did in our Belmont example. But as in the Belmont report the median price showed a decline in home values since last January. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, especially if you are a potential home buyer and it doesn’t mean values are still dropping, just that they did drop year over year.
Interest rates are going up, and have done so rapidly in the last few months—around ¾ of a point. That hurts the ability for people to qualify for a home and with less demand there’s a potential for prices to decrease further.
But as we cautioned ourselves, we are comparing 2010–a year of government sponsored tax rebates to 2011 without. Let's see if our minnow of a recovery can weather the storm without a life raft.
Thanks for checking back in with us.
*Data San Mateo County MLS.
Disclaimer: This information is for entertainment purposes only and includes no legal, accounting or real estate advice nor is this response in tended to be specific to your situation-consult a specialist for your specific situation.
Best Home of the Week – 1-18-2011
Whenever a holiday falls on a Monday, many homes are not toured on our usual Tuesday tour day. Simply put they miss the tour sheet since the deadline is moved to the Friday preceding the holiday, instead of the usual Monday deadline.
So there weren’t a lot of homes to choose from but we did find this home in Redwood Shores which stood apart from the rest for the value it offers.
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Interested in this home? Why not give us a call. We here to answer any questions you have and help you on your way to home ownership. (650) 508-1441 |
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Sales of Existing Homes Double in Belmont for December 2010.
For Belmont homeowners there appears to be some stability creeping into the market. Home sales were brisk this December—double what they were in 2009. Those of you who may remember the home buyer tax credit was due to end in November last year which pulled a lot of buyers from December sales into November—all across the country. Not so much in Belmont since the qualifying purchase price had to be less than $800,000. Nevertheless we went back to compare previous December sales and they normally fall in the area of 12 for the month of December. One has to go back to 2005 when the housing market was red hot to see sales figures this high.
These first two graphs illustrate the housing activity in Belmont for the Month of December 2010 and the year end averages for the entire year.
If we run we run down the usual list of market indicators, across the board there are some positive signs for homeowners.
*Highlighted homes were sold by Drew & Christine Morgan. Click on the graph for a full-sized image.
DOM
The time it took for a seller in Belmont to get a contract on their home was at 58, up only slightly from last year’s 50 and is pretty well mitigated with the doubling of sales.
PERCENT RECEIVED
Belmont sellers received 98.1% of their asking price in December 2010 as compared to 97.22 in December of 2009.
Half of the homes in December 2010 underwent price reductions for on average $58,000 before they sold. Last year 42% of sellers reduced their price by on average $69,000.
Of the 24 sales this last December two sold at the seller’s asking price, 16 sold for less than asking (by on average ($33,488), and six homes sold over the seller’s asking price by on average $17,183.
Homes which sold over asking did so on average in 26 days while homes which sold for less took more than 65 days to sell.*
MEDIAN SALE PRICE
If you’ve followed this blog for any length of time you’ve heard us talk about how deceiving the median price can be in any small sample size. Once again the median home price is a bit misleading as it has the median home price in Belmont in December of 2010 at $912,500. That’s $102,750 (12.7%) more than last year’s $809,750.
So the answer lies somewhere in the numbers but ferreting out a more accurate sense of value is difficult. The size homes which sold in 2009 were on average 277 square feet smaller than the homes which sold in December of 2010, which accounts for most of the perceived median price increase. It just so happens that the size home you could get this year was also around 13% larger than last year—effectively whipping out any gain.
Using the year-end totals helps even out some of the distortion inherent in median price figures as the graph above demonstrates. If you take an average of each month’s median home price in Belmont for 2009, the average median home price was $847,604 and for 2010 it was $908,159—an increase of 7.1%. The average size of the home which sold in the two periods also increased from 1730 in 2009 to 2000 in 2020, a 15.6% increase. So was there any home appreciation in Belmont in 2010? Probably not. It appeared that in the first quarter of 2010 homes might increase in value but as quarters two and three came to a close (immediately following the conclusion of the homebuyer incentive programs) it was clear that would not be the case. The fourth quarter managed to salvage some of the losses in the two previous quarters as you shall probably hear soon n the media.
If you are considering selling your home this year be sure and contact us for a valuation of your home. We are experts in selling peninsula properties and our record of selling every home we list for sale is unparalleled in our industry.
Note: We throw out homes we know were re-listed or underwent huge price reductions only to sell for slightly higher than their greatly reduced price.
Disclaimer: The information contained in this newsletter 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.