We’ve Moved

In an effort to stop bleeding money on this site, we’ve moved back to our good friends over at Kattare Internet.

A few things broke along the way — you might follow a link to a page and get redirected to one of the other main pages of the site.  Also one or two links broke along the way, but those destinations will be going away pretty soon anyway.

Actually most of the move was surprisingly uneventful — which is how we like them!

Live Search Going Away Soon

Hi Gang,

The live MLS search feature of this site will be going away in a short time — basically as soon as I can get a visitor response page coded and test the existing links.  Unfortunately, this site has yet to pay for itself, so we’re needing to cut back on some of the expenses as we wind the site down.  We may also be moving to a different hosting company by and by, but that change should be fairly transparent.

Where did I go?

If anyone’s been following this blog, first of all, let me say, thank you for following this blog.  I didn’t know you were, though if I thought about it I could guess since that’s after all where most of this site’s traffic comes from.

Secondly, let me apologize, to wit:  I’m sorry I haven’t been keeping up much lately.

By way of explanation, first of all I’ve been focusing maybe 75% of my work life (or more) on actually selling real estate, rather than trying to grow my web site reach.  Business has been great out in the Sacramento area, and this site for the Oakland area has so far garnered lots of visitors but failed to produce any revenue from them.

What’s up with that?

Finally, since I’ve been busy with my Sacramento business and this site’s not making any money, I’ve been dedicating any time I do have to my Sacramento blog, and my newly launched El Dorado and Amador County Real Estate Blog.  Gosh, that name’s a little long winded, isn’t it?  Maybe I should have called it Baco-Bits.

No, Baco-Bits isn’t quite right.  Though it’s located in the heart of Republican territory (I’m sorry to say), it’s actually pork free.

So anyway, that’s what’s up with me.  This blog has some pretty strong fundamentals so it stands to make money soon.  (Hint hint, you Oakland area agents.  Come work for me or buy this blog).  But meantime till it gets a sponsor I’m off playing in the near East.

Request for Input

I’ve been thinking of what the direction for this site should be going forward, so I’m interested in constructive input about this.  I’ve been blogging here for several months, and the IDX and other pages of the site are working well.  However, I haven’t yet achieved #1 ranking on all the engines as I’d like to, and Google’s remained pretty elusive.  Somewhere along the line I probably added a tweak too far, and so that can probably be fixed.

Anyway, in the meantime, here’s a site with pretty good traffic, but I haven’t been keeping up with the blogging quite as religiously as I should given my other blogs and site work, and given the potentially vicious cycle of being somewhat disappointed with the site’s results, therefore not putting the time in, therefore etc. and so on.

So, what then?  Guest bloggers?  That would be nice.  That could even include agents in the Oakland area, and we could work out some guidelines and hammer out some ideas for how we might share the benefits.

Or, I could sell the site it or lease it outright, but as I think about this it occurs to me that I might be shooting myself in the foot, since this site is poised to take off.

Any day now.

Any day now.

Real Estate Market - Oakland Condos

August’s condo market in Oakland was something of a numerical mixed bag.  Of course “we all know” (those three little words that signify something coming up that many of us think we know) that the real estate market has cooled significantly from 2004-2005.  And some of the condo numbers support this quite neatly.  The expired to sold ratio, for example, has risen from 3.6% last August to 48.2% this August.  What’s interesting however is that unit volume has remained steady, meaning more units are being offered.  Fifty-six units were sold both this August and last August, with two expiring last August to this August’s twenty-seven.

This August, the median sale price for a Condo in Oakland was $399,000, a 2% increase over last year’s median of $390,950.   At the same time, however, the average sale price dropped 5.5%, from $416,252 last year to $394,669 this year.  Curiously enough, sellers are offering their units at almost exactly the same price this year ($394,732) as they were last year ($394,637), but last year they were getting 5.5% more than list, while this year pretty much they’re getting list price.

The average condo that sold took 37 days to sell in August, as opposed to 24 days last year.

Oakland Real Estate Market, August 2006

Not long ago we were very “bullish” on Oakland’s real estate market.  Based on numbers for Oakland and Berkeley, and especially when we compared these numbers to the Sacramento area, Oakland seemed fairly immune to the slowing we’d seen elsewhere.

Today we reassess that opinion, since the numbers are a mixed bag at best.  Appreciation still looks ok on the face of it, with the median price rising 5.88% from August to August, and the average price risiing 6.88%.  However, at the same time, buyers are getting slightly bigger homes this year than last, so sold price per square foot has actually dropped, albeit by a very slight 0.7%.

The average home sold in Oakland in August for $619,214, or 1% more than the average list of 614,678.  The median sale price was $540,000.  Average days on market were up slightly, from 22 days last year to 30 this year, but expireds were up more significantly, from 65 total last year to 137 this year.  With declining sold unit volume as well (393 units last August versus 263 this August), the expired to sold ratio has shifted from 16.5% last year to 52.1% this year.

Inventory is currently at 4.9 months.

The Enterprise of Blogging

My visible friend, Kris Berg, recently posted an interesting article about how strongly she feels about doing her own blogging, and not doing Walmart style real estate, serving clients directly, and other similar ideas.  I find that article a handy springboard for today’s I ain’t gonna publish MLS statistics no-more no-more (at least till tomorrow) rant:  Johnnie’s love-hate relationship with real estate.

I hope Kris will remain my visible friend once she reads the dastardly revelations in this post.  I’m pretty sure she will.  First of all, if blogging is indeed group therapy, as Kris claims, then I have to be honest, or it won’t work.  At least I think that’s how you’re supposed to do group therapy.

Anyway, with this in mind, I’d like to “share something” that’s been “on my chest”.  “Let go your pain, and gain strength from the sharing…”  “You’re Vulcan???”  Oh wait, that was a movie.
Anyway, here’s my big revelation.  I love doing Walmart style real estate.  Let’s face it, I’m a total mercenary.  I think that getting to be a rainmaker, out here on the Internets (as Monseiur Colbert calls them — I mean “it”) is the best thing you can do.  Then when a home buyer or seller comes in, let a friendly and competent colleague do the work and get 75% of the commission, with a nice tasty 25% referral to Johnnie for typing his fingers to the bone.  I love Walmart.  I want to have Walmart’s babies.

Ich bin ein interloper.

My ex-interloper boss, Dave Liniger, probably has a guy like me in mind when he talks about interlopers and interceptors.  And I do admire what Dave’s trying to do — passing along “free” leads to his agents.

Of course, let’s take this in context — REMAX is a broker like other brokers, and the free leads you get at REMAX cost you your split (or association fee, or what have you), so they’re not really free.  I’m not saying that’s a bad thing.  Dave is a fellow mercenary, and he’s clearly more successful at mercernarying than I am.  I am, after all, a soldier of misfortune.

Now where the heck was I?  Oh yes, I love Walmart.  I got a lead, you got a car, let’s make some money!  I want to grow up to be Walmart.  I want to have Walmart’s babies.

One problem with my Walmart business model is that it relies at least in part on a third party eight hundred pound gorilla, who for any given web venture may or may not decide I’m worthy of some banana.

But hey, no job is perfect.  But in what other job could you have as much fun as I’m having now, doing what I’m doing now, dressed as I am, with the commute I didn’t have?

I may have discovered my calling.

Some navigation changes

I’ve just made a few changes to the site navigation to make things easier for users, and to try to get more of the important stuff up front where it belongs. The general real estate articles have been pushed further in to the site, but they’re now available through this single index, rather than cluttering up three links from the home page. Meantime I’ve also created a modest list of Oakland Area Links for your viewing pleasure. This is not everything and the kitchen sink — just a few favorites.

On Not Giving Up

Well, I’ve been blogging about Oakland and surrounding areas for some time now.  It’d be nice to see a few more requests for information or the like come through.

It’s interesting to see how much the Internet real estate landscape has changed even in the past few years.  When I started my first site for the Sacramento area, there weren’t that many Realtors® competing on the Internet — perhaps less than 50%.  Now some 70% of my colleagues have a web site of some sort.  Of course, that makes my job tougher, because my dirtly little secret (to the extent I have one) is that I want you to call off of this site.

Oh, he’s running a business!  Well, sometimes I think so, anyway.  In Sacramento I am.

Anywho, I’m sure that as I continue to write things will turn around, it’s just a question of when.  I don’t think it’s possible to have fifty gazillion pages indexed and not be on the top of all the search engine results.  Like Kirk building his cannon to fire at the Gorn, “If he has the time, Doctor…if he has the time.”

Sorry — just a bit of a whiney interlude.

Oakland Real Estate Market, July 2006

July’s numbers in Oakland have slowed significantly from last year, but there still appears to be strong demand for those homes that buyers consider attractively priced.  Even though unit volume sold in July was down 29% from last year (based on 347 units sold through the MLS in July of 2005 versus 247 in July of 2006), the average home that sold in Okland in July still fetched 2% more than the asking price.  (Last year, homes fetched 7% more than asking, on average).

The average home that sold in Oakland in July sold for $436 per square foot, up about 1% from last year.  The average home listed for $620,729, and the average selling price was $631,257, a 2.6% gain from last year.   The median sale price of $533,000, similarly, was up 2.5% from last year.

Expired listings have about trippled from last year’s figure of 40 total expireds in July to 125 this July, bringing the expired to sold ratio up from 11.5% last year to 50.6% this year.  Inventory currently stands at 1246 units, or 5 months worth.

Blogathon Interuptus

Unfortunately I had to bail on the hunger blogathon, because in mid-verbose I had the privilege of being asked to serve on the development team for the good folks at People Finders.

So far that’s going really well, but it means I have to cut the blogging down to a more manageable level. But please don’t be discouraged from supporting the blogathon — those of you who pledged some amount per post should please make out a check for that amount times 35 to America’s Second Harvest — click the link to find out how to give.

And on Post 34 I Rested

Whew!

This has been a wild couple of weeks — definitely worthwhile setting a content goal.  One of the immediate fringe benefits is that it appears I may have finally busted out of big G’s sandbox after almost a year in there.  I’m starting to appear on the first page for Oakland Real Estate Blog and first place for Blogathon for Hunger.  “Oakland Real Estate” is still down there on page 9 or so — not so good.

At the same time, I’ve been putting off a Yahoo submission for far too long, and now I feel like I have to go back and polish up the community pages before doing that.  That’s no doubt a somewhat short-of-terminal case of perfectionism in action.  They’re probably fine as is, but I’d like to have a couple more paragraphs of community info per page.

More Alameda County Pages

Post 30 in our “Where’s My Sponsors?” Blogathon for Hunger is this little informational tidbit to let you know about new pages for Alameda (the City, not the County — Post 31), Pleasanton (Post 32) and Hayward (Post 33).

Market Data Published to Community Info Pages

I’ve revised the Community Info Pages for Contra Costa County to include links to the market updates for a given community. For example, if you navigate to the Concord page, you’ll see the links to the Concord market updates we’ve done since the site started in August.  (Actually I think the way I’ve set this up it’ll show only abuot the last five posts by default, but that ought to do for now).

There are a couple of notable exceptions like Pleasant Hill, but we’ll try to get something published for those soon.  At the same time, we’ll be adding newer pages for Alameda County as well and reworking the links to the Alameda County Community Pages.

This is Post 29 in our Blogathon for Hunger.

Contra Costa County Community Info Pages

On Father’s Day I put together “posts” 17 through 27 in our Hunger Blogathon, in the form of the Community Info pages for Contra Costa County.

OK, granted there’s a little sleight of hand here, insofar as I want to further develop these pages going forward, so some of them are pretty primitive at this point.  Meantime, there should be anoher ten or so such pages coming out that will round out our Community pages for Alameda County.  But until we bake those half baked pages some more and add their Alameda County equivalents, this is Post 28 in our Hunger Marathon.

Stay tuned.

Oakland CA Home Staging

Having your home show well is one of the pillars of a successful sale. We often refer to the P.A.C.E. model for remembering the four elements that are crucial to getting your home to sell successfully — Price, Agent, Condition, Exposure. Professional stagers bring to bear the tools and techniques to ensure that Condition looks and feels awesome when that buyer comes to view your home.

Some Oakland area stagers include Charlotte Lingley’s Fremont based firm, Renewed Home Interiors. Not many area stagers maintain their own web sites for us to point to, but Charlotte’s site has some nice Before and After Photos to give you an idea of what’s achievable.

Another Oakland area home staging web site is Bethany St. Claire’s Organize and Design. Bethany’s in the same general area, with her firm in Newark, and her site also sports a good selection of Before and After Photos.

More Site Updates

We’ve added links to the recent blog articles to the home page, as well as a new banner for a Free East Bay Home Value Estimate.  I’ve noticed on some of my other sites that we get significantly more buyer requests than requests from sellers to learn more, so perhaps part of that equation is a question of what we’re offering on the home page.  Yes, folks, we do take listings, too.

Anyway, hopefully none of that is too glaring.  We’ll have some more market updates here soon.

Site Changes

I’ve just finished a minor site redesign — I hope everyone likes it. I had the search page right on the front page for awhile, but as much as that seemed like a great idea when I did it, I didn’t notice that it improved the search volume that much. So I switched out the home page to be a more traditional “Welcome” sort of a page, and moved the search to a secondary tab.

Of course, with about four links on the home page into the search and two links from anywhere else, you should have no trouble finding it. But just in case. SEARCH HERE. There, hopefully that’s subtle enough.

Contra Costa County Real Estate Inventory

The table below shows current inventory numbers for residential housing in Contra Costa County, based on the unit volume from March’s sales.

Preapproval and Prequalification

Consumers often confuse prequalification and preapproval, and with good reason. Depending on who you talk to, these terms may or may not be the same!

The majority of Realtors® maintain that of course there is a difference. These folks will tell you something like the following about what the the difference is. On the one hand, prequalification is just a guestimate as to whether you’re qualified for a loan made by a mortgage broker or perhaps a Realtor®, if your Realtor® is one of the few who learned how to do it. There may or may not be a credit check involved at this stage of the game.

A preapproval, on the other hand, is supposed to be based on a review of your credit report and submission of your loan application — often called a Uniform Residential Loan Application or Fannie Mae Form 1003. Most importantly, preapproval is based on review by an underwriter and the underwriter’s statement that you’re approved for the loan. Those who maintain that prequalification is different than preapproval will tell you that preapproval is as good as cash.

In the other camp are those few who point out that the only difference between the terms is that preapproval sounds a bit better. Either way, preapproval is as much “before the approval” as it’s name suggests. (The gentleman who called my attention to this argument had this to say: “PRE-approval — get it?”) They say that what you really need as a seller or other party interested in taking the buyer’s word for it is “approval with conditions”, along with an enumeration of what the conditions are. Where the fun begins is that first of all, there may be conditions on the buyer that have not yet been removed: “Buyer to provide tax returns for the last two years”. Is that still a condition or not? Is the buyer’s loan package complete yet, or has he received same day “automated underwriting” approval without some of the docs that will make the loan go through — or fail to?

Moreover, the “same as cash” business breaks down when we realize that underwriters don’t only put conditions on the buyer.  They also have conditions on the property, such as an appraisal report. This often creates a real difference between a preapproved buyer and a cash buyer is their ability to move on distressed or “as is” properties, especially on non-conventional loans or loans with a high loan to value ratio. Even on conventional loans with the the pest report omitted from consideration in the purchase agreement and purchase being done “as is”, the appraiser might still note extensive pest damage to the property on his report, and the astute underwriter will often be unlikely to let that go.

Does this mean that you as a buyer should shy away from getting preapproved, because it “really doesn’t mean anything?” No, not at all. First, preapproval means you’ve still gone through the loan application and credit report, so really it does mean that you have more information than you get if you simply say to your Realtor® “here’s my income and debt — break out your calculator!” Equally as importantly, most Realtors® and consumers cling to the notion that a preapproval is practically “as good as cash”. This may be little more than a pervasive myth, but even if it is, as a buyer, shouldn’t you take advantage of it?

Testing the Upgrade

Well, here we are on a different server, running Wordpress 2.0. Let’s see how it goes.

So far the combined upgrade and migration went pretty well, with only the occasional hiccup. For example, since http://www.oakland-homes-for-sale.com is pointing to the “wrong” server (from the new server’s perspective), I had to hard-code where the blog lives for awhile. Other than that, here we are typing away, so presumably all is well.

Moving to Pair Networks

We’re in the process of moving to Pair Networks.

At the same time, we’ll also be upgrading to Wordpress 2.0.

Both these moves should be completely transparent from your point of view, and we hope that once the move has happened the site will be much more responsive than it is now. Our current host simply has too much database slowness to support what we’re trying to do.  I.e., write a web site that works.

To wit, not stink.

13 Deadly Home Pricing Mistakes, Part 3 of 3

This is the last installment of our three part series on pricing mistakes to avoid.  Read Part 2 or Part 1.
11. Not thinking like a buyer.

Here’s another “strange but trueâ€? story. I recently had a gentleman from Missouri call me to sell his home in Missouri. Now this fellow knew I was from California — he didn’t just get lost on the Internet. His reasoning in calling me was that since homes are more expensive out here than in Missouri, I could get him the inflated price he wanted because it would look good to someone in California.

So much for the Show Me State! This is an extreme case, but this fellow had an utter inability to think like a buyer. No buyer for a home in Missouri in his right mind would compare homes from California to homes in Missouri — a buyer for a home in Missouri would compare the house they’re buying to other available homes in Missouri.

When I suggested that to him, he responded with “Well, I know what my home is worth to me.� I took the high road and didn’t say “Well, go sell it to yourself, then.� What I said instead was, “If a buyer agrees with you, it’ll sell.� I try to be polite.

12. Pricing High and Thinking an Interested Buyer Can “Make Me An Offer�

The problem with pricing your home over market and hoping an interested buyer will see it and make you an offer is that the wrong buyers will be looking at your home. Let’s say for instance that your home is worth $450,000. You price it at $500,000, but you’re really expecting a $450,000 offer — you just don’t want to “leave any money on the table.â€?

The problem is that now, the folks with $450,000 to spend are off looking at other homes, not yours. Even when we were in a “sellers’ marketâ€?, I never once heard a buyer say, “Show me the homes $50,000 more than my price range so in case we find something overpriced — then we can negotiate.â€? And especially with the five to nine months of inventory that we’re seeing in our market today, buyers have plenty of homes to look at in the price range they’re really in.

Meantime, if your $450,000 home is priced at $500,000, the buyers in that price range are seeing your home just fine. However, they’re now comparing it to homes that are really worth the extra $50,000, so they’re in a better location, or newer, bigger, etc.

The best analogy for this comes from fishing. Any good fisherman knows that your hook needs to rest where the fish you’re hoping to catch are. You don’t fish on the bottom for trout, and you don’t fish on the top for catfish. Price is your hook. You should set it where it needs to be.

13. Pricing High and Thinking “We Can Always Drop It Later�

While it is true that it’s better to lower the price on a listing than raise it (since price history stays in the MLS), it’s also true that most listings get the most attention and showings in the first few weeks of being entered in MLS. If your home is priced too high, you may miss this window of opportunity. Moreover, the longer your home is in the MLS, the more “shop-worn� it becomes. Buyers tend to wonder what’s wrong with it if it’s been on the market a longer time than average.

To be honest, when sellers were more in control, we didn’t think this strategy was half bad, because sometimes sellers got their higher price. In today’s high inventory market, however, we strongly recommend listing at — or even a point or two below — the value given by the comparable sales.

13 Deadly Home Pricing Mistakes, Part 2 of 3

Read Part I

5. Adding in the cost of improvements they’ve made.

The difficulty with adding in improvements is two-fold. First, you almost always don’t get all your money back dollar for dollar. A pool is a well-known case — you might have spent $50,000, but an appraiser may only allow $10,000 or $15,000 in adjustment. Secondly, sellers often add repairs and upgrades they’ve made back into the price after looking at the comparables. But think about it for a minute. If other owners lived in their homes for ten or twenty years, don’t you think some of them also made repairs and upgrades? So if those are already factored in to those comparables and “added-inâ€? in advance, adding them in a second time will give you the wrong answer.

6. Failing to schedule periodic price reviews with their agent.

Although we think you should do everything you can to list at market value (not list high and drop it later — see point 13), sometimes adjustments are necessary. Maybe you’re getting no showings, or very few, and very little interest. Or maybe other homes have come on the market at prices lower than yours, offering more competition.

7. Letting an agent “buy the listing�.

Buying the listing refers to the practice of telling a seller you can sell their home for more than it’s worth, in order to get the listing, thereby getting a yard sign with the listing agent’s name on it now and a seller who’s already under contract to negotiate the price with later. It’s unethical, it’s wrong, and it happens every day of the week.

8. Adding commissions or other closing costs into the cost of the home.

Costs of sale do not increase the value of the home, and should not be added on to the market price. The other sellers whose comparables you’re looking at already have those costs factored in. Costs of sale help you get the home sold at the price it’s worth.

True, you can save some of those costs by selling yourself as a For Sale By Owner. However, many sellers find that without the exposure of the MLS and thousands of salespeople who could potentially bring in a buyer, they have to adjust the price downward to make up for the reduced exposure, often so much that it obliterates any savings and then some. You win an ethical battle over paying commissions, but that victory may cost money.

9. Focusing on an older appraisal

Appraisals are estimates of value as of a given date. Markets change, and especially now, when we’re in a period of rapid change, you need to have a current market analysis or appraisal done. A full appraisal is a great tool, but it has a terrible shelf life.

10. Focusing on commission instead of the bottom line.

We recently saw the most extreme case we’ve seen yet of “penny wise and pound foolish�, not from a For-Sale-by-Owner, but in the MLS.

We came across a home listed for about $730,000. We didn’t get into the full “compsâ€?, but based on cost per square foot for the area from the month before, this home was more than $400,000 under market value! When we looked at the photos — it was vacant and immaculate, and looked like it would show really well. It should have sold at that price in a heartbeat.

Yet it had been on the market almost 90 days and was probably (when we reviewed it) on the verge of expiring. Why was it expiring when clearly this was a great “deal� by almost anyone’s definition?

Well, we can’t be sure of all the reasons, but we did notice that the commission offered to the agent bringing in the buyer was 2% (instead of the usual 2.5% to 3%). So all the hungry buyers agents were no doubt off showing their buyers the homes that weren’t such good bargains, because they could make more money on those.

So to save about $10,000 the seller’s price was more than $400,000 low!

Some people will cut their own throats if they feel like they got a good enough price on the knife. We recommend the following alternative approach: Fair market price on the home. Fair market price on the commission. Seller gets big check. Agents and brokers helping out get smaller checks. Job gets done, handshakes and smiling faces all around.

13 Deadly Home Pricing Mistakes, Part 1 of 3

We recently wrote an article as part of a booklet we put together for sellers whose listings have expired. We’re publishing this article on price as a three part series here:

13 Deadly Pricing Mistakes That Sellers Make

Pricing your home correctly is the most important thing you can do as a seller to get your home sold. Exposure is your agent’s job — pricing your home right is yours. Sure, your agent can help with an objective comparative market analysis, but agents and brokers don’t set the listing price of homes, sellers do. Therefore, you owe it to yourself to learn all you can, and price your home correctly so you can make the move you want.

If you met a man on the street who told you he could sell your five-dollar bill for six dollars if you “let him hold onto it for you�, you’d think he was a con man and call the police. Yet every day of the week, we see sellers signing long-term listing agreements, letting an agent hold onto their biggest asset for 90 days or 180 days or 365 days because the agent told them he could sell their $500,000 home for $600,000.

The tips below may help you avoid some of the common pricing mistakes that sellers sometimes make when setting the price on their home.

1. Pricing their home based on what they need to pay off the loan or put down on the next home.

Unfortunately, buyers don’t really care what you owe on your home. Sometimes they’ll ask what you owe, but if they do you can be sure they’re thinking about lowering the price, not raising it. Buyers care about the value of your home compared to other homes they’ve seen in their price range. Naturally, you should decide if the market value minus your loans and costs leave enough equity for what you’re trying to accomplish, but if it doesn’t, the market value of your home doesn’t change.

2. Picking out comparables that aren’t really comparable.

Sellers often tell us about the home that sold down the street for much more, but then it turns out that that home is newer, much larger, etc. Instead, what Realtors® and appraisers do is select comparables that are within a fairly precise range of square footage, age, location, and other characteristics, and then make adjustments based on the slight differences in other homes to the home we’re looking at.

The mistake of picking the wrong comps sometimes is made along with — and sometimes instead of — the next mistake.

3. Focusing on the highest comparable, and ignoring the averages.

When we look at comparable sales, there will often be several prices grouped near the middle, and one or two prices that are too high or low. You might see (in thousands): 389, 409, 410, 410, 411, 429. Sellers naturally want 429 to be the right answer — and if the home is exceptional, maybe it is. More likely the right answer is in the middle where the numbers clump together (at the middle of the “bell curveâ€?). This is especially true in our market today, when even the smallest mistake on the high side can cause your listing to expire.

4. Relying on incomplete data and active comparables.

Down the street a home is listed for $450,000 that should be listed for $420,000, but you use $450,000 as a comparable. Or the home sells, and the owner says, “We were pretty happy�, and you take that to mean they got $450,000, when in reality it might have meant they were happy to be taking $415,000 after six months on the market! Remember, appraisers and Realtors® use actual, published data from sold comparables. (By the way, Realtors® also take active and pending properties into account, but an underwriter reviewing an appraisal wants to know mostly about sold comparables. Shy too far from these and your home may not appraise, and your buyer won’t get their loan.)

Oakland Real Estate, 2004-2005 Residential Sales

For some time I’ve been writing about the strength of the Bay Area real estate market. Most of the research I’ve done has shown me that the slowdown here has been very mild indeed compared to other markets.

Still, residential home sales in Oakland in 2005 were off slightly compared to their 2004 heyday. I thought it would be interesting to graph the market change from 2004 to 2005 on a month to month basis. What I saw in my own business in Sacramento is that we were going gangbusters up until about August. Then from August through the rest of the year it was like we went from a boomtown to a ghost town. (For awhile there I expected to see some tumbleweeds rolling by — but things picked up nicely in January).

The chart of Oakland residential unit sales is below, and shows that in Oakland, the decline in sales took place earlier, but was less severe. The lines converge around May-June. From that point on, 2005 results did not keep pace with 2004, but December’s sales closed up from last year. The average change for the whole year was that residential unit sales (as reported in the East Bay MLS), were down 6.8% — more of a slowing race car than a bursting you-know-what. I refuse to use the word for those round soap things. I’m tired of it. Maybe prices will drop — don’t know. I do know that writing about round soap things has become to 2005 what CB radios were to 1977.

Breaker 1-9. Remember that?

Comments are back

I’ve installed Bad Behavior and Spam Karma, two excellent plugins that have done a great job of cutting out our comment spam on another blog I write. Thanks to John at Uneasy Rhetoric for that tip. So if you’re a spammer, do you worst… If you’re a real human with something to say, by all means, don’t let that comment you have inside you wilt without ever seeing the light of day. Post it!

Oakland Real Estate Site is now #1 (Sort Kinda)

It’s not too often that you hear someone say, “You know, I really like Bill Gates.” But we in the webmaster community may finally have found something to admire about him, MSN search. Of all the search engines, MSN seems to be the first one to reward you if you put up some good content. In contrast, Google’s well known “sandbox effect” means you can wait a year after putting up a site before Google ranks you well.

Google doesn’t even hold hands on the first date, let alone kiss.

So we’d thank the MSN algorithm, if we could, for bestowing on us, at least temporarily, the #1 Organic Position for “Oakland Real Estate”.

Of course, such rankings are notoriously fickle, so click today! And next time you see Bill Gates, tell him I said I think he’s doing a fine job.

Good Home Renovation Site

One of the things that often comes up in the course of a sale is the issue of whether or not to remodel or renovate. What we usually advise buyers is that they’ll get most of their money back on kitchen or bathroom fix-ups and modnernization, but that, for the most part, repairs and deferred maintenance are the most important thing to focus on, with major remodels left to the buyers. It’s not that you won’t get more for a remodeled home — you just won’t get (on average) as much as you spent remodeling.

On the other hand, if your neighborhood and size of home suit you, then remodeling might be the way to go anyway. If you feel a remodel might be in your future, you’ll want to explore your options.

A handy remodeling site with a few nice home renovation articles is Canada’s Home Renovation Guide. This site also has a links to service providers in select cities including — relevant to our purposes — just across the Bay in San Francisco.

Let them eat cake

In case you were thinking the real estate content was too densely packed here, my friend Bill has gotten into the cake decorating game.

I just like quoting something Marie Antoinette only apocryphally said.

I can’t believe I spelled apocryphally right on the first shot. I’m ready for my spelling bee.

Bayosphere

I was just looking over some of my blog roll links, and one that I added recently points to one of my new favorite blog roll enries — Bayosphere.

Not only are there some great articles there, but I’m also enjoying working my way down their blogroll.

For awhile I wasn’t doing a very good job of finding Bay area blogs, but now that we have Bayosphere up I can always search by ever-widening blogroll.

There must be a name for that.

White Christmas

Flash animation works great if only you’ve the right doo wop White Christmas song.

Investing / Moving to Sacramento County?

Wendy Lovatt-Dougherty, my colleague on the Real Estate Plus Team, just listed this fabulous 4-bedroom, 3-bath home in Sacramento right near Elk Grove.

Features:

• $520,000 buys you approximately 2,995 feet of fabulous living space, built in 2003.
• There is a full bath and a bedroom downstairs. Perfect for an older family member or guest room or ???
• Huge 23′ x 21′ bonus room for an entertainment center, pool table, and all your stuff!
• Beautifully landscaped back yard.

To learn more about this house, you can check out the following pages:

• Full listing details
• Additional photos
• Schedule a showing

Berkeley Community Profile Page Added

I’ve added a new community profile page, this time for Berkeley.

Let that Clifford the Big Red Dog interlude serve future generations as an awesome reminder of the dangers of trying to do serious web development after midnight.

Real Estate Broker - Part 2

This is the part where I pass the exam and get to say that I am pleased to announce that I have passed my broker’s exam, and am now licensed as a broker in the state of California.

Do I look any different?

Well, anyway, I’m happy to be able to add that to my credentials, and look forward to continuing to serve your real estate needs.

Meantime, any day now we’ll get back to grinding through some market data.

Real Estate Broker

Broker? How could I get any broker?

So goes the only traditional real estate broker joke I know, published in connection with my news that I took my California’s State real estate broker license exam yesterday. I haven’t heard that I’ve passed yet, so mind you, in the meantime, I’m still a real estate salesperson, employed as an agent of REMAX Gold.

The difference, by the way, is one burried in a bit of obscurity, but the bottom line is that a broker can go off and work on their own, whereas someone with a salesperson’s license can’t. You might think of a salesperson as a sort of “apprentice”, but that’s a bit inaccurate inasmuch as some very successful salespeople are highly experienced and skilled, yet never become brokers.

Sometimes folks will say they’re working with a real estate broker, when they mean they’re working with an agent (salesperson) employed by the broker. It’s even more confusing in the mortgage realm, because most of your “mortgage brokers” are actually people with salesperson’s licenses, working for a broker. But no-one ever calls a mortgage salesperson a mortgage salesperson.

Now just in case you’re not confused yet, so far the designation “salesperson” and “broker” are state licensing designations. Now a Realtor®, on the other hand, isn’t a different type of license, it signifies someone who belongs to the National Association of Realtors®. This is an organization with the absolutely brilliant business model of charging its members to say they subscribe to a code of ethics.

One of my team mates on the Real Estate PLUS Team likes to quote a study she saw once, in which Realtors® showed up only a rung or two above used car dealers in terms of how much the public trusts us. So that’s why I think the whole Realtor® trademark and the business of charging real estate agents to subscribe to a code of ethics is a brilliant business model. One might say that a main part of NAR’s business value proposition is their role as a reputation laundering organization.

I like to think I was ethical before I took the mandated Realtor® ethics training and signed the oath. Still, if having oaths and so forth makes some of my colleagues feel better about themselves or makes our clients feel better about us, that’s fine, I suppose.

Musings on Our Oakland Site

Musings? My gosh, I’ve grown up to be my mother, Peggy Hill.

Make your Cubicle a Youbicle.

Well, here it is the end of the long weekend, but it’s mostly been a working weekend for me, getting our link partner directory going. This is always a mixed blessing, mostly just a lot of repetitive, low yield work, but you meet some nice people, like Lek in Thailand, who owns the Phuket Landbusters site.

Hello in Thai goes like this: Sawasdee Kha Khun.

The broker exam is coming up at the end of this week, so I won’t be able to do much more linkbuilding, or zen and the art of cut and paste. I’ll have to study my easements in gross and my bailments. But there are a few posts on deck for your reading pleasure in the meantime.

Well, Happy Thanksgiving Everybody

I hope you have a wonderful one with your loved ones. It’s so nice this year to have had the time to put this site up and do work that I really love, and it’s gratifying to see other sites done earlier work out for my team. I’m out of here after queuing up just another market report or two — I don’t want you to run out of things to read over the weekend.

Site Updates

I’ve fixed the navigation problems I was talking about yesterday — you should find that load times are a little better now.

We still have a few little cleanup chores, but we’re mostly back to minor maintenance at this point.

That was quite a binge of site updating I just went through in the last couple of days. Of course, those of you who just got here today would’t know, but practically every page is moved around, we’ve now have two navigation systems going lest we get lost, we have a new subdomain pointing to our listings server over at IHomefinder to help in our web analytics efforts, the home page is completely different, and we’re now using 20% more electricity in our IP packets.

OK, ok, I made up the thing about the electricity. Sheesh.

The Move is Complete

We’ve finished our move. Everything should be up and running fine. One thing I’m not really happy with yet however is the load time on the header image that contains the horizontal tabs. I’ll probably rework this soon — some of these pages are fat enough without having to cache four or five big header JPGs with Herbie and Shirley in them.

We’re Moving (But Not Far)

Our blog page is going to be moving, but not too far. All the blog related goodies are moving from http://www.oakland-homes.for-sale.com/ to http://www.oakland-homes-for-sale.com/blog/. We thought that before we had everyone and their brother linking to our incredibly compelling content (I’m sure there’s some here), now would be a good time to make the switch.

We’ll try to have both URLs active while we make the switch, and the /blog/ URL is already working for content, but the feed is still located in the old place. (We’ll fix up the links to the feed at right when the feed is moved.)

The home page will have a real estate search page, virtually identical to this real estate search page.

We’ll have more news as we roll out the changes. Please submit any bugs through the contact form, thanks!

Home Warranty Problems

In my earlier post on home warranty company complaints, I discussed the disappointing performance of one unnamed company. In that scenario, the company coverage didn’t cover a problem that fell through the cracks of the inspections that the buyers had ordered. The performance of the company in that instance was disappointing, but nevertheless within the coverage of the policy.

A few weeks after that encounter, one of my teammates and I had an even worse experience. This time, the home warranty company simply refused to pay a claim. In this case there was an in-window evaporative cooler that was working when the buyer purchased the home. When the buyer’s agent (my teammate) went with the buyer on the final walkthrough inspection, it was a very hot day, and the evaporative cooler — the home’s only air conditioning system — was keeping the home comfortable. Within a few weeks of closing escrow, however, the cooler malfunctioned. However, the home warranty company refused to pay the claim, citing the service man’s opinion that the cooler was in such bad shape that it could not have been working when the buyer took possession.

So here we have an appliance that was covered by the policy. (Incidentally, generally in-window units aren’t covered, but in this case my teammate had purchased that add-on coverage for the buyer). The appliance was not called out as non-functional by the seller in their Transfer Disclosure Statement, and an agent for the buyer noted that the unit was working as of the final walkthrough. Still this home warranty company refused to pay.

It turns out that at least one other author (besides me) has called home warranty companies to account. Bob Bruss remarked that home warranty companies are “notorious” for avoiding payments, and even outlined the steps to take before suing them.

Home warranty companies are notorious for trying to evade paying for repairs, which should be covered by their expensive policies. Phone the warranty company again and insist on talking with a supervisor to politely insist your air conditioner be promptly repaired.

If you continue to get stonewalled, send a demand letter to the home warranty company demanding repairs within five business days. Explain if your air conditioner is not promptly repaired, you will be forced to have it repaired at your expense and then sue the warranty company in your local Small Claims Court. Be sure to send a copy of your letter to the realty agent who sold you that policy because he or she might be able to exert pressure on the warranty company.

I’m definitely going to steer clear of home warranties as closing gifts for buyers — because so often, the gift turns out to be worthless. As for advising buyers about getting a home warranty if they want one, I’ll probably start advising buyers that I can’t recommend a home warranty company because in my experience their policies run the gamut from insufficient at best to downright fraudulent.

It’s sad that perceived liability in this case has paved the way for flim-flam artists to flourish.

Home Warranty Complaints

Yesterday I was asked by my sales manager to remove a post I’d written that was critical of a specific home warranty company who — as it happens — is also the company who carries my broker’s E&O insurance. I’m not sure if that’s why we’re supposed to be reticent about them on a public level or not.

I’m politically naive at best.

So rather than talk about that home warranty company specifically, let me just recount my last two experiences with home warranty companies in general. We’ll discuss one today and one in a future post — these stories relate to two different companies. In both cases my partner and I (as agents for the buyers) paid for the warranties for our buyers, in an effort to give our buyers a nice closing gift and some peace of mind.

Now keep in mind, contrary to what some authors maintain, we don’t get kickbacks or referral fees for home warranty business, no matter who buys the warranty. Such kickbacks are prohibited by federal law (specifically, the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act, or RESPA). Nor do we even get a wholesale price on the darned things, so when our buyers aren’t covered, we get to watch a warranty we paid retail money for not work.

What fun.

The first experience, from a few months back: During escrow, the seller paid for the pest report, the buyer paid for whole house inspection, buyers agent (as we said) paid for the home warranty. The pest inspector either misses some dry rot caused by a leak in a pipe, or it’s not visible on inspection — which is what he maintains because the whole house inspector misses it as well. The rot was found several weeks after close of escrow buy a painter hired by the buyer.

Now, the buyer can take the matter to the State Strucutural Control Board to contest the pest report, and we tell the buyer this. How about the home warranty company? Any help here? Well, yes and no — they’ll pay to have the leak repaired, but not the (more expensive) cost of incidental damage, the dry rot. So as it turned out, the buyer paid to have the dry rot repaired, at $700 from our most inexpensive remediator, because the buyer felt that going to the pest control board would be too inconvenient (judgement call on their part). The home warranty company paid roughly $200.00 to remediate the leak.

Not the end of the world, but not really satisfactory. Of course, what we’d like as agents is for there not to be a huge legal crack for this problem to fall into. Sure, homes aren’t perfect and need maintenance, and not all issues will show up on inspection no matter how many inspections you order. And these buyers were really wonderful people and happy with the vendors we provided to get the issue taken care of. But still the buyers are out of pocket $700 on a home they paid $700,000+ for, and the warranty we bought didn’t cover them. Yuck.

Did the Home Warranty do what they said they’d do here? Yes, they did, though I had to ride herd on them more than I would have liked to send the service guy out, I would chalk that up to general communication slip-ups rather than stonewalling to avoid the claim.

We’ll take a look at a more egregious home warranty company complaint in a future post.

East Bay MLS Search Tools

Well, I finally have some search tools up. Actually they’ve been up for several days, but I’m finally got around to mentioning them — I just needed one slow news day.

We’re using our good friends at IHomefinder to provide search services, since their search works so well on other sites, such as Sacramento-Home.com.

Some of the features of the IHomefinder IDX system that you can use include:

• Email Updates
  Custom updates based on search criteria you enter. Please note however that if you’re not able to find the fields you want to search on in our IHomefinder system, you can always let us know what you need by calling us or using our Custom Search form, and we can start you up on email updates direct from our MLS.
• Basic and Advanced Search Features
  Advanced Search of course offers several fields not availble in Basic Search, such as whether the home has a pool, number of stories, etc.
• Property Organizer
  The property organizer allows you to save property listings so you can get back to them later, and lets you manager your search criteria and email update service through a single location.

We hope that you’ll enjoy the ability to get in there and run your own searches as so many of our other clients have in the past, but remember, if you get stuck or need further research, that’s what we’re here for. Feel free to contact us if you need additional help.

Escape to Sacramento County

Tired of the Bay Area’s high home prices? Why not move where your dollar buys more!

This super clean, 3 bedroom 2.5 bath 1872 square foot home will list for only $459,000 when it comes on the market in a few days. This is a Mediterranean style home built in 2003, and features a large kitchen, open family room with a romantic but convenient gas fireplace, and a formal dining room.

For a personal showing or for more information, call the Real Estate PLUS Team at (877) 735-5657.

Oakland Crime Data

The City of Oakland publishes crime watch data on the City’s web site. You should start by reading the disclaimer and go from there. You can check by type of crime, by date range, and specific neighborhoods.

For some background on the application, see this SFGate Article.

Jenn Shreve’s Salon article poses the critical question, “What good is a site that lets Oakland, Calif., residents check on neighborhood crime stats if the people in those neighborhoods aren’t online?” Shreve goes on to interview Barry Kriberg, president of the National Council on Crime Prevention: “Rather than help neighborhood groups attack crime problems, Kriberg says the site will probably prove most useful to people deciding where (and where not) to buy homes or to insurers looking for an excuse to raise rates.”

Well, my own take on this is that I never met an insurer who needed an excuse to raise rates. As for folks being able to do research before buying a home, I see that as pretty much a good thing. One of the issues I’ve found in the other market I write about, Sacramento, is that often we get many folks from out of town finding the most inexpensive houses in inventory, and sure enough, those homes are located in the most crime-ridden neighborhoods. Of course, that’s a mistake that any beginner to the area can make, but the more people get interested in a neighborhood, the more issues like quiet and safety become important to find out about.

When Herbie Met Shirley

Well, we’ve got a new look for the oughts. Gosh, I really don’t like how this century is working out. Remember the 90s? The 80s? The nifty 50s? The roaring 20s? Eetc.? What do you call the zeros? The oughts? And what about the teens — do you call them the teens before 2013? Where the heck will 2011 fit into anything?

Anyway, to comfort us in our time of calendar induced sorrow, we now have an o.k. image bar (see above). I think Nortnern Virginia Real Estate has a nicer one. Perhaps I’m being overcritical.

Herbie and Shirley are the working names for the happy stock photo couple, but feel free to suggest better ones.

Greenspan Continues Warning Against Risky Mortgages

Today’s article in the Sacramento Bee is a bit unclear as to when Greenspan “turned up the volume” on his remarks, but does a fairly good job of summarizing some of the most notoriously “risky” mortgage products out there (e. g., interest only loans and option arms), and what some companies are starting to do about it.

Department of Justice Has Too Much Time On Their Hands

I was just reading the news about the DOJ ammending their suit against NAR, and I can’t help but think that the DOJ has too much time on its hands.

“In its amended complaint, DOJ says provisions in the new ILD policy that give brokers the ability to unilaterally withhold their listings from display on competitors’ Web sites, known as a blanket opt-out, violates antitrust laws. It also finds fault with what it says is an unwarranted exception that allows brokers who have opted out to display their listings on public sites like REALTOR.com.”

I honestly don’t get this one. First, as a hypothetical matter, brokers who don’t display their listings in the Internet are at a serious disadvantage, it seems to me, since their sellers will scream bloody murder. As a practical matter, I don’t know of any brokers who are in fact opting out of including listings on the Internet.

I’d always understood that exception to be a sort of bow to the traditional “exclusive right to advertise” that brokers maintained, while still allowing the data to be made available on the Internet.

Finally, by what weird logic is allowing a relatively small company (a local brokerage) the option of not advertising a client’s listing a violation of the anti-trust laws? It seems to me it’s far more of a restraint of trade issue to mandate that a broker’s listing should appear somewhere. If a client doesn’t want their home listed on the Internet, and they want to list with a broker that opts out of participating, how exactly does that represent some sort of monopoly?

Competitive pressure is naturally sufficient to force 90% plus of all brokers listings to the Internet, so how is allowing that less then 10% (probably less than one percent) of listings to escape anti-competitive? It’s like saying that some small software firm is guilty of anti-competitive behavior for not working with Microsoft. Isn’t Microsoft the majority player here?

To say that allowing brokers to opt out of participation in the Internet is anti-competitive with respect to Internet brokers is ludicrous. I do almost all of my business on the Internet, and the brokers whose listings get sold, and me, and the buyers who find homes, and the sellers whose homes are sold — all of us benefit. But I still think it’s just as stupid to tell a traditional broker he has to participate on the Internet as it would be to tell a guy like me I have to go door knocking for listings.

If you’re going to force traditional brokers to participate on the Internet, where do you stop? Do you force them to run classified ads? Do you force them to use red white and blue on their fliers? Where’s the precedent for compelling a business’s participation in a particular communication medium?

I’m not normally one for conspiracy theories, but I do wonder who stands to gain from this law suit and how they’ve gotten Justice to play along. Or perhaps one need look no farther than human stupidity for the answer.

Mortgage Blog

Alex Stenback’s Behind the Mortgage blog not only deals with Mortages, but has a lot of links into sites and listings in Minnesota. Also a lot of just plain old fine writing. This one’s worth a look.

Just claiming my feedster blog

OK, you ready, set….

No Need to Click Here - I’m just claiming my feed at Feedster

Fremont’s Mission Peak

There’s a nice shot of Mission Peak on Alison Chaiken’s Mission Peak hiking page.

Alison is shown here enjoying her tanks.

East Bay Blog

Can the East Bay support two great blogs (this one and another one)? Why sure. Proof of that is in the Beast Blog, because East Bay is pig latin for Beast.

In addition to unravelling such intracacies of the language, the Beast Blog will let you in on what’s happening in arts and culture in various neighborhoods.

Oakland A’s Blog

The title says it all. Play Ball!

Oakland Museum

Opening Saturday, the Oakland Museum of California’ Baseball As America should be a fun stop for you A’s fans, as well as for guys like me who are sportswardly challenged.

I hope they play Meatloaf’s “Paradise by the Dashboard Lights”, the song that brought it all together.

The Real Estate Blog Squad

Well, we’ve known for some time that a group of Realtor®-bloggers are getting together to Blog the San Francisco National Association of Realtors® convention.

I’m in a catch 22 situation with respect to that one — as Realtors® go I’m high on the geek food chain.* So hanging out with a bunch of Real Estate Bloggers might be a good thing for a geek — but what kind of geek goes and hangs out with people?

Well, those at Star Trek conventions, to be sure.

And this one has all the makings of good geek fun, too — including the notice that we’ll be participating in a “historic event”.

Sure, a bunch of used house salespeople with keyboards attending a trade show, that’s sure to be mentioned in Howard Zinn’s next book.

Well, it might be a good chance to do link begging for the blog roll. Link begging probably works better in person.

I think the event would be more historic if we blogged in Klingon…

*Counterpoint: I suspect a real programmer might argue that I’m nowhere on any respectable geek food chain, having left programming for Real Estate.

California Housing Affordability — The Bad News Slows

From the Report by the California Association of Realtors:

“The percentage of households in California able to afford a median-priced home stood at 16 percent in July, a 3 percentage-point decrease compared with the same period a year ago when the Index was at 19 percent, according to a report released today by the California Association of REALTORS® (C.A.R.). The July Housing Affordability Index (HAI) was unchanged from June, when it also stood at 16 percent.”

As you could have guessed, Bay Area Housing Affordability fares even worse than the California average, with Alameda County at 11% and Contra Costa County at 10%. Sacramento’s fares somewhat “better”, though I remember when those numbers stood at something like 50% for Sacramento — now they’re down to an abysmal 20%.

September 11 Rememberance

Just thought I’d take a moment to remember that awful day and how the nation came together for a time, then was split apart by the event being used as an excuse for a war with people who had nothing whatever to do with it. Now New Orleans seems to show we have become a nation of bickering.

Where are the listings? If I’m not part of the solution, I’m part of the precipitate.

Finally — TV News that’s Worth Watching

Well, it’s not often that TV news gets things right, but once in awhile, as if by accident…

Thanks to my old friend Len for sending the photo.

Katrina Donations

Well, this isn’t perhaps as timely as it should have been, but this link may still do some good.

Improving Your Credit Score Article

I’ve written a new article for the finance section on how to Improve Your Credit Score. Some other excellent resources along the same lines are the credit education pages of MyFico.com and the Fannie Mae Foundation’s Home Buying Guides.

Inman Real Estate News Pet Peeve

These Inman News links have gotten under my skin. Naturally there’s nothing wrong with being the nation’s leading independent real estate news service content provider, and Inman publishes quite a bit of good information free to all comers.

Likewise, of course, there’s nothing wrong with charging a fee of $149.95 per year for premium content, and if you want to pay that to Inman or feel you need the information, that’s fine, too.

What I do object to — as a matter of style, let’s say, or maybe just politeness — are real estate blog authors who link to an article on such a premium, paid service. It’s one thing if you’ve linked to an article that requires registration to read — that’s one level of annoyance, I suppose, but I’m used to seeing the Washington Post and the New York Times asking me for my password as I read other peoples’ blogs. But to me there’s something especially annoying in a link to an article that’s going to cost me one hundred and fifty bucks to read.

I wonder if the authors of such blogs want you to know that they’re members of “Real Estate’s Most Influential Club”, as Inman’s ad copy would have it. More likely they’re just not really paying attention, I suspsect.

Google Maps

I love Google Maps. If you haven’t checked these out yet, you should — they’re enough to make you sell your Mapquest stock and get religion all over again. Well, a picture may or be not worth a thousand words, but please click on the “Map” “Satellite” and “Hybrid” buttons of this Map of Oakland and you’re sure to get a feel for why this is so cool.

Elk Grove Site Launched

Well, this doesn’t fit into my real estate blog thread or anything, but we recently launched a new site, hot on the heels of this one. It’s http://www.elk-grove-home.com. Elk Grove has attracted a great deal of attention in recent years, with lots of folks moving to the area. Recent arrivals to Elk Grove include some hardy bay area souls who are attracted by the location (Southwest of Sacramento, making it more “commutable” than other areas near Sacramento) and the affordable housing. (The median home price for single family homes in July of 2005 was $435,000.)

Visit early, visit often.

Fixed Loan Prequal Page

I’ve implemented some fixes — both cosmetic and otherwise — to the Loan Prequalification Page. After all, it wouldn’t do to go having an aesthetic crisis while one is getting one’s finances in order.

Home “Ownership”

I’ve just been browsing through a study released by the Public Policy Institute of California, discussing the high prices of California homes and the ways that Californians are overextending themselves to buy homes — the study found for example that 20% of California home buyers spend more than half their income to purchase a home.

The study also found specific numbers documenting something that I’ve known for some time given my business in the Sacramento area — that large numbers of bay area buyers are moving to the Central Valley where homes are more affordable.

One thing occurred to me as I was reading the article, and that is the rise in interest only loans. I’ve never liked those things very much, though I know many lenders argue that the only way many Californians will achieve home ownership is through such a device. Here’s a thought — few of us own our homes the way those in our parents and grandparents generation did, when mortgage burning parties were a common and much-awaited event, but many of us at least own more and more of our home each year with the bank owning less and less.

But how can an interest only loan be said to confer any sort of ownership at all, really? The trustee on the loan holds bare legal title, and on an interest only loan there’s simply no way the trustor (i.e., the borrower), is ever going to take title.

So let’s see, on an interest only loan we have a situation where someone else owns your home, and you’re not owning more and more of it as time goes by, and there’s no way (unless you reconfigure the situation), that you ever will own more and more of the home as time goes by.

Here’s a different name for this: renting.

Of course, the difference is that we live in California, so we have a built-in equity producer in our California real estate, right? I’ve seen some authors argue that prices won’t go down again, and who knows, they may even be right over the next several years at least.

Still, I do like those amortization tables. There’s something comforting to me about the debt diminishing to zero. Pay no attention to that interest-only line of credit…

7 Broker Courses of Eight

Well, I’m happy to report that I’ve just finished # 7 of the eight courses required for the Real Estate Broker’s exam. On to number eight.

Testing some more

Just testing some more.

Oakland Real Estate Rocks

Or it will once we get it properly configured.

Welcome to Oakland Real Estate

This is a first test in the root directory, so it would seem.