This home at 3800 Washington St. in the Presidio Heights neighborhood of San Francisco is on the market for $21 million. It has eight bedrooms, seven bathrooms and 17,895 square feet. Prices for homes above $1 million grew by 11 percent during the past year.

Blanca Torres
Reporter- San Francisco Business Times

Email
 | Twitter
 | Google+
 | LinkedIn

The Bay Area’s housing market continues heating up, but for how long?

Home values in the Bay Area rose by 27.8 percent during the past year to an average of $628,200 in July, according to Zillow, a real estate information site. Zillow calculates home value appreciation for all homes, not just homes that have sold or are on the market.

Click on the image for a slideshow of Bay Area homes that are on the market or have risen significantly in value.

San Francisco ranked third nationwide for home value appreciation after Sacramento with 33.1 percent growth to $274,600 and Las Vegas with 30.8 percent growth to $151,600.

Nationwide, home values crept up by 6 percent during the past year to an average $161,600 — about 25 percent of San Francisco’s average (kind of makes you want to move doesn’t it?).

“The U.S. housing market recovery has proven it is on very sound footing,” said Zillow Chief Economist Dr. Stan Humphries. “We have entered a new phase in the recovery when we can begin to turn away from ugly recent history and turn toward what the housing market of the future will look like and how it will act.”

The housing market has improved significantly, but I’m not sure the Bay Area’s performance will continue to rise at the rapid pace we’ve seen in the past couple of years.

Also, the market here is increasingly shifting toward the high-end and away from first-time and entry-level buyers.

First Republic Bank reported today that luxury home prices in the Bay Area jumped 10.9 percent during the second quarter of this year compared with 2012 to an average of $2.9 million — the highest since the fourth quarter of 2008 and approaching the all-time highs of 2007.

Blanca Torres covers East Bay real estate for the San Francisco Business Times.

Article source: http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/real-estate/2013/08/bay-area-home-values-up-28-percent.html

Talk about getting some bang for your buck. This 1873 classical Greek revival home is priced at $899,900 and measures 11,544 square feet, roughly three times the Painted Lady’s space.

This historic home located in York, Pennsylvania has hosted presidents, cabinet members and even military generals within its spacious walls. It has 10 bedrooms, six bathrooms and nine fireplaces.

The 1.85 acre estate comes with a carriage house that’s been converted into a four-car garage. The house also includes an elevator, a barn and 10 chandeliers.

But does bigger always mean the better value?

“Better value without a question, metrics say is York,” she said. “But you really have to go with what’s going to appreciate most in the next five years and if you ask me, there’s no question it’s Painted Lady. Painted Lady is in a top suburb of Chicago, it’s an exciting place to live, right near Chicago. And that’s going to get the buyers.”

Article source: http://www.cnbc.com/id/100662286

<!– –>

Marshawn Lynch. (Ted S. Warren/AP Photo)

Talk about a Beast Pad!

Seahawks running back Marshawn Lynch has purchased a $3.6 million mansion in Richmond, Calif., a few miles north along the San Francisco Bay from his hometown of Oakland. According to Zillow, a real estate company, the 7,000-square-foot home sits on 134 feet of waterfront, sports five bedrooms and has 5.5 bathrooms.

The mansion also has a 58-foot-long boat dock, an elevator, a wine cellar and a home theater, according to Zillow. Not surprisingly, there are amazing views of the bay through the home’s huge windows.

We can only assume that Lynch will convert the wine cellar into a giant Skittles dispensary, that he will show “Matt’s Chance” on a continuous loop in the theater, and that he will remove the lift so he can simply run up the walls of his elevator shaft.

Check out photos of Lynch’s new digs in the gallery above. Looks like there are plenty of places he could set up his collection of mouth grills. And he could certainly fit this poster of his famous Beastquake run somewhere.

Now, just for the heck of it:

Visit seattlepi.com for more Seattle news. Contact sports editor Nick Eaton at nickeaton@seattlepi.com or @njeaton.

Article source: http://blog.seattlepi.com/football/2012/10/24/photos-marshawn-lynch-buys-3-6-million-bay-area-mansion/

What’s the best part about selling real estate in San Francisco? It’s so interesting to see what people have done inside their homes.

Funniest anecdote from life as a broker During busy open house events, as much as I try to keep the home as perfect as it can be, someone always seems to get away with leaving surprises in the bathrooms for the Realtor to clean up.

What’s the most rewarding part? Handing over keys to a buyer and helping sellers cash out of properties. Happy clients.

People in your industry are always so good looking. What are some of your secret grooming tips? Try it all until you find your groove.

Danielle Lazier of SFHotlist and Zephyr Real Estate

Best advice for buyers/renters? I focus on sales so I’ll speak to the home buyers… Don’t try to time the market. In every market, it is both a good time and a bad time to buy a home. It depends on your individual situation. We’re lucky in SF. Demand is high and supply is low. If you have “stable-enough” employment, money for a down payment, and can imagine being here for 3-5+ years, buy the best home you can afford (and will be happy living in) and let the San Francisco market do the rest.

Have you always been in the real estate industry or did you have a different career before entering brokerdom? I spent the first couple of years after college figuring out what I wanted to do so there were jobs, classes and lots of soul-searching but another career, no. Real estate is my calling.

What’s the hardest thing about (what) you do? Being (and staying) a top broker and doing right by your clients is not easy. You have to give it your all and you sometimes sacrifice your personal life to be there for your clients and yet, many people don’t know all of what we do. We must be a real estate agent, counselor, therapist, financial advisor, knowledgeable tour guide and we’re only paid for being an agent.

What’s the most rewarding part? It sounds hokey, but I love to see my clients happy in their home. Experience shows that when you are living in the “right” home, many other things in life begin to fall into place?.love, promotions, babies, life experiences and so forth. It feels really good to know that I helped someone move forward in the direction of their goals and dreams.

Our polls require javascript — if you’re viewing this in an RSS reader, click through to view in your javascript-enabled web browser.

Article source: http://sf.curbed.com/archives/2012/08/20/real_estate_hotties_ken_fox_vs_danielle_lazier.php

Now we know how Tony Bennett knew he left his heart in San Francisco – he could spot it across the bay from his fancy pants home in Belvedere. Designed by Bay Area favorite Warren Callister, the 9,500 square foot beauty is on the market for a cool $27,500,000. For your pocket change, you’re rewarded with views of the bay — all of it — from bridge to bridge and everything in between and beyond. You can be joined by hoards of your favorite people, who can relax in your 5 bedrooms or freshen up in your 7 bathrooms (4 full and 3 half, but who is counting?). There’s also a separate 1-bed, 1-bath “guest quarters” for your friends prone to walking to the refrigerator naked in the middle of the night. Problem solved: give them their own apartment. We are still trying to determine if Tony has water access, because what is the point of being on the water if you can’t get a little WaveRunner on, right? Have a garden party on one of the 3 “lawn areas” and invite us over when you do, pretty please.
· 101 Belvedere Ave [Trulia]
· With Views Stunning Enough to Capture Your Heart, Tony Bennett Lists San Francisco Home [Trulia Luxe Living]

Article source: http://sf.curbed.com/archives/2011/08/03/tonys_tony_fancy_estate_on_the_market.php