California to Offer $3,000 Subsidy for Earthquake Retrofitting

If you’re reading this, chances are you’re living near a major earthquake fault. Now if you’re unsure if you live near an active fault, this web site . Temblor, co-founded by Ross Stein from the USGS, is very useful for determining the proximity to, and estimating the damage from, an earthquake near your home.

We don’t have to go into graphic details about what could happen to your home and those who may reside within in the event of a significant earthquake, but here’s a good image from the California Earthquake Authority as to what damage can be done to homes with older unbraced foundations.

Sure one can purchase earthquake insurance, but that only helps to rebuild after the devastation of an earthquake has occurred. What earthquake retrofitting is designed for is to help prevent damage to your home, property or lives during or after an earthquake.

We did a blog post not long ago about the benefits of an automatic gas shut off valve. This article has to do with the program California is offering of up to $3,000 of a subsidy towards retrofitting your home’s foundation to help withstand an earthquake under a program entitled Earthquake Brace and Bolt, or EBB.

Limitations apply, for example Belmont didn’t even make the cut this year for retrofits, while San Carlos, Foster City, San Mateo and Redwood City along with a whole host of other cities nearby did. This is a link to a complete list of towns covered by the program this year. 

Additionally, this is not for homes with a slab foundation, or homes built after 1979, and there are other restrictions such as the height of your home’s cripple wall, so follow this link to get some more details from their short video.

The window for registration is open now and closes fast:

2019 EBB Program ZIP Codes – Registration Period will Open October 9 – November 13, 2018

Drew & Christine Morgan are REALTORS/NOTARY PUBLIC in Belmont, CA. with more than 20 years of experience in helping sellers and buyers in their community. As Diamond recipients, Drew and Christine are ranked in the top 50 RE/MAX agents nationwide and the top 3 in Northern California.  They may be reached at (650) 508.1441 or emailed at info@morganhomes.com.

For all you need to know about Belmont, subscribe to this blog right here. You can also follow us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/Morganhomes and on Twitter @ https://twitter.com/morganhomes

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

 

 

Nothing Remains the Same, Except Change

Nothing remains the same, except change—with each change being slightly different than the one before…

By The Numbers

Now that the waning dog days of summer are upon us, we felt it was time to summarize the second quarter sales for the year. I mean, doesn’t everyone want to know, “How is the Market”? It’s the question posed to us most frequently, and I guess rightly so. After all, for many, ok, I’ll expand that for most people, their Bay Area home is their largest asset—their nest egg. It’s akin to people in other areas of the country, where home prices are more understandable, tracking their 401k’s, stock performance, or their own bank accounts on a daily basis.

When the market takes a nose dive again, and it will, if you’re anywhere near retirement, you had better have a plan “A” now, or you’ll invariably be implementing the alternative, plan “B”, which means you might just get stuck in retirement purgatory waiting for the values to come back so you can cash-out on all of that equity you once had.

This is also the time of year when many of my colleagues come to me in hushed voices wearing ghastly, pasty facial expressions contorted into the most unpleasant sight and reeking of fear, asking me if I noticed that the market is down…that there’s been a shift, and did I notice it, and do I feel the same way. I don’t. I’ve been tracking home sales statistics for my entire career, and it’s normal, heck it’s expected that in the summer the market slows. In typical fashion, agents will post these dire statistics from summer to what amounts to nothing more than fear mongering. Of course the market has slowed down, its summer!

Why? Because people have lives—and they go live them. It’s interesting to observe that the better the economy, the more pronounced how this housing hiatus manifests itself—more money, more market confidence, means you might as well pack up the family and head off for an extended vacation to some romantic or adventures place, like Disneyland. Because let’s face it, once the kids are out of school, parents have to do something to burn off that pent-up energy and it’s certainly not going to be tamed traipsing around open houses every weekend.

Then there’s the inarguable fact that the high bidders for homes in the spring market have already won. They’ve got the home they want, and now they’re leaving the housing hunt rat race in the dust and soaking up all of the equity future buyers will be serving up to them on a silver platter.

So instead of looking back at the spring market and wishing our business was just as brisk and our pipeline as full, we do what one should do and that is to compare and contrast the same period year-over-year to better understand, without hyperbole, pre-conceived notions, or hysteria, what the heck is really going on.

To this we look at the entire market of San Mateo County. It gives us a better more macro view of home trends than say limiting our analyses to a small town like Belmont, however charming it is, but also highly susceptible to wild swings in its small market sample size.

Here we see a different story emanating from the lines of a spreadsheet. The market isn’t down, any more than it should be for this time of the year, and in fact it’s quite strong.

The median home price for San Mateo County in Q2 rose $185,000 YOY or 13%, while sellers also enjoyed receiving 3% more over their asking price.

The number of new listings was up 9%, while sales were down 4%, causing the housing inventory to rise an aggregate 19%.


So the sky isn’t falling. The activity in the market is not quite as brisk, but with all that meddling in people’s mortgage tax deductions that’s to be expected. Now, everyone can go back into their happy place imagining that home values will always go up in the Bay Area with the trajectory of a missile launch, until that missile misfires and lands right back from where it took off.

Drew & Christine Morgan are REALTORS/NOTARY PUBLIC in Belmont, CA. with more than 20 years of experience in helping sellers and buyers in their community. As Diamond recipients, Drew and Christine are ranked in the top 50 RE/MAX agents nationwide and the top 3 in Northern California.  They may be reached at (650) 508.1441 or emailed at info@morganhomes.com.

For all you need to know about Belmont, subscribe to this blog right here. You can also follow us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/Morganhomes and on Twitter @ https://twitter.com/morganhomes

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

 

 

 

New Listings in Pricey Bay Area Counties Rose Significantly

The California Association of REALTORS™  has released a recent report on the state of the California’s housing, naming San Mateo County as having the highest median price in the state. They went one to mention the rising number of new listings. Could this mean that sellers are finally thinking the market is near its top? Will housing inventory open up, and water down the tidal wave of multiple offers? It’s probably too soon in the year to tell, but the tide may be changing, as we commented on at the end of 2016.

• C.A.R.’s Unsold Inventory Index, which measures the number of months needed to sell the supply of homes on the market at the current sales rate, rose to 3.7 months in January from 2.6 months in December. The index stood at 4.3 months in January 2016.

• New listings in pricey Bay Area counties, such as Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo, and Santa Clara rose significantly from December, a possible indication of sellers cashing out robust price appreciation experienced over the past few years.

• New statewide active listings continued to decline, dipping 0.3 percent from December and 10.5 percent from January 2016.

• The median number of days it took to sell a single-family home went up from 33 days in December to 37 days in January but was down from 44.2 days in January 2016.

• C.A.R.’s sales-to-list price ratio* was 98.1 of listing prices statewide in January, 98.2 percent in December and 97.8 in January 2016.

• The average price per square foot** for an existing, single-family home statewide was $240 in January, $242 in December, and $228 in January 2016.
• San Francisco County had the highest price per square foot in January at $841/sq. ft., followed by San Mateo ($723/sq. ft.), and Santa Clara ($567/sq. ft.). Counties with the lowest price per square foot in January included Del Norte ($124/sq. ft.), Kings ($125/sq. ft.), and Kern ($127/sq. ft.).

• After mortgage rates surged in the final few weeks of 2016, the 30-year, fixed-mortgage interest rate averaged 4.15 percent in January, down from 4.2 percent in December but was up from 3.87 percent in January 2016, according to Freddie Mac. The five-year, adjustable-rate mortgage interest rates edged up in January to an average of 3.24 percent, from 3.23 percent in December and 2.98 percent in January 2016.

Reprinted with permission form the California Association of REALTORS®

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Drew & Christine Morgan are REALTORS/NOTARY PUBLIC in Belmont, CA. with more than 20 years of experience in helping sellers and buyers in their community. They may be reached at (650) 508.1441 or emailed at info@morganhomes.com.

For all you need to know about Belmont, subscribe to this blog right here. You can also follow us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/Morganhomesand on Twitter @ https://twitter.com/morganhomes

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.

How to Find the Best Schools

This you already know: Parents want to send their kids to good schools. So that’s why they flock to neighborhoods—sometimes paying hundreds of thousands more to live there—that purport to have them. But what does “good school” really mean? Is it really all about the test scores?

Increasingly, educational experts say: not really. These days, many of them hail the importance of other, less tangible goals such as fostering social and emotional intelligence. Others tout the importance of executive function skills: the ability to plan, focus, remember instructions, and multitask. In the Finnish school system, purportedly the best in the world, academics are delayed, homework and testing are minimized, and free play time is valued.

But not so much in the U.S. With the ever-growing emphasis on standardized test scores, including for the new Common Core standards, educators and parents worry that schools are “teaching to the test” instead of teaching what kids need.

So how can you really figure out what that is? As with all things parenting, you have to decide for yourself what’s best for your family. Here are some tips on how to figure that out.

Determine what kind of learner your child is.

No matter what kids are required to learn, there are different ways to get them there.

Kids often have strikingly different learning styles. Some are visual, and fare better when things are illustrated rather than spoken; some learn better in groups; some are better able to focus if they’re alone. And some simply learn best by doing. And while no school caters entirely to one kind of learner, you may be able to find a school whose approach works better for your kid. Talk to the principal and teachers about how they accommodate different learning styles.

Find out if the school has the basics

Traditional barometers such as class size, student-to-teacher ratio and, yeah, test scores do matter—to some extent.

“They’re the best predictors of a school or district’s academic foundation,” says Bill Jackson, founder and CEO of GreatSchools, a nonprofit organization that provides nationwide school ratings. And schools need that foundation so they have something on which to build and to set goals.

Joyce Szuflita, an educational coach and founder of NYC School Help in New York City, has another view.

“If I were stuck on a desert island and could only ask for one piece of data while considering a school for my child, I’d want to know the percentage of kids who are chronically absent,” she says, arguing that a high attendance rate indicates a positive school culture in which the staff, students, and parents are all committed to success.

Look beyond academic development

In addition to solid academics, experts increasingly tout the importance of a holistic education, which cultivates students’ moral, emotional, physical, and psychological aptitudes.

Schools with programs that teach empathy, self-motivation, and adaptability—or emotional intelligence—equip students with the life skills proven to foster success. Having a high IQ might demonstrate mastery of a body of knowledge, but a high EQ (emotional quotient) indicates that a student can be flexible and understanding, synthesize information and successfully interact with all kinds of people, which might be better predictors of future success than high grades or scores.

Seek creative learning opportunities

Forget rote memorization; the academic and intellectual skills needed to thrive in tomorrow’s multinational, dynamic workforce aren’t the same as those that led to success before the millennium.

“Expansive ideas and creative thinking will become even more essential in the future,” says Dr. Shimi Kang, author of the forthcoming book “The Self-Motivated Kid: How to Raise Happy, Healthy Children Who Know What They Want and Go After It (Without Being Told).” Consequently, she contends that a “good” school today is one that helps foster 21st-century skills such as creativity, collaboration, communication, and critical thinking.

These might be schools with highly developed music programs, team sports, extracurricular clubs with broad focus (environmental protection, community service, even juggling or a “Harry Potter”-themed Wizards & Muggles club)—any activity that develops diligence, creativity, and quick thinking.

Consider lower-ranked or up-and-coming schools

Szuflita suggests resisting the urge to follow the crowds to the “best” schools in town, which could have problems with overcrowding and waitlists, despite their virtues. Instead, track the progress of previously overlooked schools, ones that may have a new principal, an increasingly active PTA, and/or an attendance rate that has steadily risen, even if the school itself doesn’t have the most stellar reputation or highest rankings.

Research (free) alternatives to public schools.

Themed charter schools (which receive public funding but operate outside of their regional public school districts) or magnet schools (public schools with specialized courses or curricula that draw students from across school districts or zones) infuse their offerings and activities with a specific emphasis.

At Expeditionary Learning schools (nationwide), for instance, students study a single topic from many angles. Heavy emphasis is placed on the importance of nature, reflection, and service, and classes can involve Outward Bound–style excursions.

The tuition-free Muskegon Montessori Academy for Environmental Change in Norton Shores, MI, drives home the importance of clean water by having students care for the local river.

Schools that take the multiple intelligences view recognize that intellect comes in many forms (e.g., word smart, people smart, numbers smart) and teach to individuals’ strengths.

Check out the ‘vibe’—it really means something.

This may seem obvious, but we can’t stress it enough: Go see the schools for yourself, and visit as many as possible. (By the way, did you know you can search for homes by school district on our app?) You might discover what you thought was important isn’t really at all. And test scores and state rankings don’t convey the important yet difficult-to-quantify vibe of a place.

“Actually experiencing a school is the best way to inspect the vitality of the work, the energy of the teachers, and the rapport between the staff and students,” says Szuflita.

One tip: Arrive early to the visit, so you can evaluate the school when no one is looking.

Ask yourself what ‘good’ means to you.

What do you want from your school? Racial and economic diversity? Sports and arts programs? A campus? Leadership/internship opportunities? Is your No. 1 criterion a neighborhood school that you can invest and create community in, even if it means sacrificing a few things like class size or an emphasis on the arts?

If traditional academics and high test scores really are the most important things, you’re lucky: Those are the easiest things to find.

Today, finding a good school means you grown-ups have to do serious homework, figuring out the best fit for your family and zeroing in on schools that are equipping students with the skills and experiences that will lead to a broader definition of success.

Anything else no longer makes the grade.

Contributed by Audrey Brashich
Audrey D. Brashich writes regularly about trending pop culture issues for The Washington Post, Yahoo Parenting and other national news outlets. She is also the author of All Made Up: A Girl’s Guide to Seeing Through Celebrity Hype and Celebrating Real Beauty.

Do You Plan on Spending More This Year Than Last?

You all were so accurate at predicting the school bond poll results we thought we’d send out another one to see if this year retailers will get in the black.

We’ve been out shopping for Thanksgiving and are seeing a lot of activity in the stores. That caused us to wonder if people feel confident enough about the economy, and have the wherewithal, to spend more than last year on entertaining or gifts.

Let us know what you think and maybe you’ll even get an indication if that special gift you’re after will be on sale the day after Christmas, or fly off the shelves weeks before.

New 3.8% “Real Estate Sales Tax” gets a lot of play

You may have already heard through an errant email or co-worker that hidden in the health care bill was a provision for adding a 3.8% sales tax on the sale of your home.

We’ve even been forwarded emails with the story contained in a newspaper article. So is there any truth to it? Well, sort of.

The much ballyhooed 3.8% tax in the health care bill which takes effect in 2013 is actually a Medicare tax on investment income—not a real estate tax per se. That alone might not make you feel any better but read on.

According to factcheck.org , which did extensive research, there are very limited circumstances in which this tax would be levied.

As it would apply to real estate, first your income would need to be over $200,000 a year ($250,000 for married couples filing jointly).

 Now if you’re selling your principle residence, the first $250,000 of gain for single tax filers and $500,000 for those who file jointly would be exempt from taxation—as it currently stands for capital gain taxation.

The 3.8% tax would, as we understand it, apply only to the portion which might exceed this threshold. It’s also important to note that this tax is on the gain, not the sale price. So if you were to sell a home you and your spouse bought for $500,000 several years later (you need to have lived in the home two of the past five years) for $800,000, you would have a gain of $300,000. This is of course is further diminished by any capital improvements you made to the property and selling costs but to keep it simple we’ll use the higher figure of $300,000. Based on this you would still owe no capital gain tax nor would you owe the new Medicare Tax even if your income was over the $250,000 threshold because your gain was only $300,000—less than the allowable first $500,000 which is forgiven.

So several things need to happen before you would be subject to the tax:

  • Your income must exceed the thresholds mentioned above.
  • Your gain on the sale of your home must exceed the allowable forgiven limits.

Note that this capital gain exclusion is for your principle residence only so high wage earners who sell their investment properties would be subject to this new tax on that gain—assuming they had gain to tax.

As far as we can tell the viral nature of this email succeeded in part because it resonates with what many readers feared about the health care bill—that it would be caulk full of special interest groups’ and hidden agendas. Further exacerbating this was that many email authors added their own spin by including miscalculated and outrageous examples of how the tax would be applied. Their agenda was then further picked up by those who wish to freighted people into voting the way they would want by saying, as the email I received said, “People have the right to know the truth because an election is coming in November!”

I couldn’t agree more and we hope this explanation is closer to that truth.

Now for the inevitable 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.

Why Are Interest Rates So Low and What Does it Mean to Me?

Unasked2 copy Whether you are thinking of buying or already own a home the current historically low interest rates may help you save thousands of dollars.

Rates in the last week have averaged the lowest point since records were first kept over 30 years ago. Refinancing today may help you save hundreds of dollars in monthly interest payments but even more important are the long term savings.

Rates are low right now because the financial crisis in Europe is driving the appetite for U.S. bonds which in turn raises the price and lowers the yield (interest) payment. And since mortgage rates roughly track the 10 Year Treasury Bond you can see where rates are headed and why. Rates are the lowest they’ve been–period.

If you think about the past 30 year trend of interest rates, which have averaged around 9%, it’s easy to guesstimate that the odds are good rates will be higher in the future rather than lower. What does that mean to you? If you are considering a purchase it means that there are two ways to look at it: if you buy a home at today’s rates either your monthly payment will be substantially lower or you can buy a considerably larger home for the same amount of money. In fact a payment on a $1,000,000 home ($800,000 loan) would be around $4,234 per month as opposed to $6,437 at the average historic 9% rate. But that doesn’t even begin to tell the whole story.

Not everyone stays in their home for Fhfb_contract_rate30 years but this offers up a substantial savings in interest payments. Most people aren’t aware of the long term costs of home ownership so you’ll be interested to note that at today’s rate your total interest payments over 30 years would total $725,000 and at the historical 9% rate it would be as high as $1,517,000–over double the interest payment for the same home. What could you do with an extra $793,000?

Perhaps rates will never be as high as they were back in the late 70’s and early 80’s but rates have still averaged 6.7% over the last 15 years during a time of historically low rates.

Case-shiller MSANow combine this with the recent decrease in home values and it’s hard to argue that waiting to buy a home will significantly benefit you.

Case-Shiller study finds Bay Area Home Prices up 11.9% in February 2010

 Case-Shiller released their report on repeat sales pairs for the 20 major MSA’s (Metropolitan Statistical Areas) across the country.Arrow ride San Francisco faired rather well, climbing 11.9% over last year in February. Phoenix lost another 1.64% but faired far better than Tampa Bay, which sank another 6% over last year.

No doubt many of these areas saw sales figures buoyed by the Federal Tax stimulus plan that rebates first time home buyers up to $8,000 and resale buyers up to $6,500. Additionally, the shifting of the majority of sales from lower priced homes to a more even mix has helped raise the median price point substantially.

Mid Peninsula Housing Trends–2009

What happened in 2009 and what might be in store for 2010?

THE PAST2010 Key

The median price in San Mateo County ended the year at $678,750 which is a dramatic drop from 2008’s year-end median price of $795,000. It continued to drop precipitously throughout the beginning of 2009, though it appears that January of 2009 was its lowest level when the median price reached $553,750—the median price has not been that low since 2000.

It wasn’t until April of 2009 that the median price reached the $600,000’s and the last four month have seen small but steady increases culminating in December’s median price of $750,000. But don’t read too much into these increases. Much of the median price increase is a result of larger homes selling do to the low interest rates and higher conforming limits.

Belmont and much of the mid-peninsula were less affected by the declines. The median price in Belmont dropped from $920,000 in 2008 to $833,725 in 2009 (9.4%). There are several factors which contributed to mid-peninsula cities faring better in declining markets.

THE BACK STORY

Beginning around 2001, many first time buyers entered the market with very little cash and qualified for adjustable teaser rate loans at an artificially low interest rate. Zero down financing meant that that if prices were to drop, they’d be in a negative equity position, making it impossible to refinance out of their adjustable loan. When the banks allowed people to qualify for a loan based at the artificially low teaser rate, when rates adjusted many could no longer make the minimum payment. Without the ability to refinance into a new loan, they were forced into foreclosure.

There are far fewer entry level homes in many of the mid-peninsula communities (Redwood City excepted). Therefore, these cities were spared the bulk of the foreclosures and resulting price declines. Furthermore, many people in these communities have ample equity from previous home sales and were able to refinance, or sit on the sidelines and avoid a distress sale.

THE FUTURE

We won’t pretend to have a crystal ball, so we’re not going out on a limb to try and predict the future. The real estate landscape has changed dramatically in the last several years and how it will shake out is anyone’s guess. But what we imagine could be a probability is that in 2010 will see much more of the same. We expect the record number of foreclosures which have been temporarily withheld from the market to be released and continue to put downward pressure on prices—especially in areas which have yet to be affected. Interest rates are sure to climb above their historical low levels making the cost of home ownership rise. This could easily offset any momentum which could otherwise spur normal home sales. Investors will continue to snap up good deals on distressed properties causing the number of sales to increase, but the median price to decrease, or stay flat. In fact, we wouldn’t be surprised to see a period of flat home prices for many years before any appreciable increase. People will first have to return to the job market before they will consider buying a home. Frustratingly, home sales have a huge effect on creating jobs so it’s easy to see why the government wants so desperately to have people buy a home (and extended the $8,000 tax credit). Once more people are being hired than fired consumer confidence will begin to slowly return. Folks will invariably reenter the housing market but at a less frenetic pace. Lasting memories of the “Great Recession” will haunt many homebuyers; and with higher interest rates and the days of easy money gone, it will be harder for prices to climb at rates seen in the first decade of the new millennium.

Don’t forget you can always check out the stats for a city near you on our web page.