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Thea Miller Comments on Growing Luxury Real Estate Market

Tue, 12 Feb 2013 05:02:05 +0000

SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 11, 2013 /PRNewswire-iReach/ — Business Insider has recently shed light on the “hottest” luxury real estate markets across the United States. San Francisco joins New York, Los Angeles, Miami, and Washington, DC on this collection of growing markets in the luxury real estate industry. Thea Miller , a sales and marketing professional who specializes in luxury properties, comments on the growth of the San Francisco market.

“As the Bay Area‘s housing market continues to heat up once again, it’s catching the attention of the media—and it is shining a spotlight on the rebound that the market is making,” comments Thea Miller . “In a front-page story in the Chronicle, titled ‘Bay Area Home Sales, Prices Surging,’ reporter Carolyn Said explores the extremely strong housing numbers that were released by DataQuick, which is a La Jolla-based information services company. She has examined the catalysts of the housing turnaround. DataQuick, in its monthly report, asserts that the median sale price for Bay Area properties in December rose to $442,750, a stunning 32 percent increase from a year ago and the largest jump in 25 years of record keeping.”

Miller goes on to explain that, according to the article, sales increased year-over-year for the 18th month in a row, ultimately climbing 4.5 percent in just the last month. She cites CaliforniaMoves.com data reporting that San Francisco and Santa Clara County achieved double-digit sales growth year over year with 29.5 percent and 13.1 percent increases, respectively.

“It’s good to see that Bay Area news and other media are on top of this story, but what’s especially gratifying is that they’re getting out the message that we have a severe shortage of homes for sale in the region and sellers are getting good prices for their homes once again,” asserts Miller. “My hope is that homeowners who have been sitting on the sidelines will begin to realize that this market presents a tremendous opportunity for them to get top dollar for their home. Right now, it’s a red-hot seller’s market. But as we know, it won’t always be that way. If traditional patterns apply this year, there will be some added inventory in March and April. This will bring more opportunities for buyers, but it will also incite additional competition between sellers, compared to the way the market stands today.”

Miller encourages any individuals who are contemplating selling a luxury property in the Bay Area to contact a qualified professional to discuss the value of putting their homes on the market while conditions are still in their favor.

ABOUT:

Thea Miller is a luxury property specialist. With over two decades of experience, Thea Miller guides her clients through the market in San Francisco, California. Thea Miller provides a high degree of customer support while paying close attention to detail and providing insight regarding local property values and activities. She is a member of The National Association of Realtors, The San Francisco Association of Realtors, The California Association of Realtors, Who’s Who in Luxury Real Estate, and Top Agent Network, of which she is a verified member.

Media Contact: Jordan Hope Mark-PR.com, (678) 685-8304, mark@mark-pr.com

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Article source: http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/thea-miller-comments-on-growing-luxury-real-estate-market-190648651.html

Home where Black Panther Party founded flipped

Sat, 07 Apr 2012 23:52:24 +0000

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The Associated Press

OAKLAND, Calif. — The Black Panther party preached “power to the people,” but in the San Francisco Bay area’s thriving real estate market, the power is in the property.

In this March 14, 2012 photo, a for sale sign is placed in front of the former home of Black Panther Party co-founder Bobby Seale Oakland, Calif. on Wednesday, March 14, 2012. The house where the Black Panther Party got its start in the late 1960s is now on the market after being sold and remodeled into a trendy showpiece. The bungalow once hosted young revolutionaries Huey Newton and Bobby Seale as they drafted their 10-point party manifesto and unloaded their weapons after their nightly patrols. (AP Photo/Bay Area News Group, Jane Tyska)

Realtors expected to close a deal Friday on the Oakland home where the militant black power group was founded in 1966.

Panther co-founder Bobby Seale’s family sold the house in October for $200,000 to real estate investors who renovated the home with chic maple and quartz upgrades, The Oakland Tribune reported (http://bit.ly/GSQhOX ).

After the improvements, the home was put on the market for $400,000 — almost 40 times what Seale’s parents paid for it in 1960.

Seale said he and Huey Newton drafted the party’s manifesto in the dining room.

“We would come in from patrol at night, unload our weapons at my house, and lay them all out across the long dining room table,” Seale wrote in his 1978 autobiography.

The surrounding streets that armed party members once patrolled in the name of black empowerment are quickly gentrifying, with longtime residents like Seale departing for less expensive suburbs.

Seale, now 75, has worked as a draftsman and a carpenter. He made improvements on the house and wanted to do more, but his sister persuaded him to sell.

The house’s dramatically increased selling price was part of “the same crap that got this financial debacle started in the first place,” he said.

But Seale didn’t hold the cutthroat realities of buying and selling homes in the Bay Area against the new residents.

“People move. Humans move. Power to the people, whether they’re black, white, blue, whatever,” he said.

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Information from: The Oakland Tribune, http://www.oaklandtribune.com

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March 23, 2012 05:21 PM EDT

Article source: http://www.ajc.com/news/nation-world/home-where-black-panther-1396570.html

Bay Area housing trends continue: Sales are up, prices are down

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 05:47:03 +0000

December real estate activity in the Bay Area mirrored the rest of the year’s activity — sales slowly gained while prices dropped.

Home sales increased 4.4 percent from December of 2010, market researcher DataQuick reported Wednesday, marking the sixth consecutive month Bay Area home sales rose on a year-over-year basis. In the same period, the median price declined 6.3 percent, falling to $351,500.

The loss of value in Bay Area homes has been a developing trend since the mortgage crisis struck in 2007. From the beginning of that year to the end of 2011, the loss in home value in five Bay Area counties was $387 billion, a 33 percent decline. That figure — calculated by DataQuick for the Bay Area News Group based on the average price per square foot paid for housing — is necessarily an estimate, because it’s based on the value of houses sold, and the types of homes sold in both periods.

Contra Costa County was hit the hardest, followed by Alameda, Santa Clara, San Mateo and San Francisco, in that order. There was a wide variation within counties, with some areas hit harder than others.

DataQuick president John Walsh said the pattern reflects the drive to find bargains in the distressed Bay Area housing market, for which DataQuick examines 10 counties in the region.

“Many of the deals that did make their way through the system were in the distressed arena — foreclosures and short sales. Much of it was deeply discounted cash

purchases, disproportionately at the lower end of the price scale,” Walsh said in the San Diego-based company’s news release.

Sales of homes that had been foreclosed upon within the previous 12 months accounted for 28.6 percent of homes resold in the Bay Area in December, DataQuick reported, though that metric decreased from 30.1 percent in December 2010. Short sales — which is when a house sells for less than the remainder of what was owed on the property — were about 21 percent of Bay Area homes resold in December, up from 18.1 percent a year earlier.

The biggest Bay Area decrease in median price for new and resale homes and condos for the month of December was in San Mateo County, where the median price dived from $560,000 in December 2010 to $500,000 in the same month last year, a decline of 10.7 percent. Sales declined on the Peninsula as well, dropping 2.3 percent from the same month in the previous year.

Santa Clara County also experienced a drop in sales from the year before, falling 2.1 percent from 1,646 homes sold in December 2010 to 1,616 sold last month. Alameda and Contra Costa counties were more in line with the overall Bay Area trend: Alameda County experienced a 4.5 percent increase in sales, hitting 1,584 homes sold, and a 5.5 percent decrease in median price, to $328,000; Contra Costa County’s home sales rose 3.1 percent year-over-year, to 1,534, with the median price dropping 2.3 percent to $259,000.

Extreme examples of the trend occurred in the North Bay, with Sonoma and Marin counties experiencing double-digit growth in year-over-year home sales and large dips in median price at the same time. Sonoma County’s home sales increased 17 percent to 538, while the median price fell 9.8 percent to $279,500; 280 homes were sold in Marin County in December, a 23.9 percent increase from the same month in 2010, while the median price declined 13.6 percent in the same period to $517,818.

While the volatility of prices has caused stress among realtors, experts say it is the perfect time to buy a home — if you can qualify for a loan in the tough credit market.

“We’re going to see prices stabilize,” Ken Rosen, chairman at the Fisher Center for Real Estate and Urban Economics at UC Berkeley, said late last year. “It’s already happening in pockets like Silicon Valley and San Francisco. If you want to buy a house, it’s probably the best time in California in 30 years.”

Staff writer Pete Carey contributed to this report. Contact Jeremy C. Owens at 408-920-5876; follow him at Twitter.com/mercbizbreak.

Article source: http://www.mercurynews.com/top-stories/ci_19766802