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Top cities to buy bargain fixer-uppers don’t include San Francisco

Mon, 10 Jun 2013 19:09:48 +0000

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San Francisco doesn’t offer the best area for people hoping to buy bargain fixer-upper homes, probably because even fixers sell for a fortune in the Bay Area, and not many properties end up foreclosed or otherwise abandoned to decay much anyway, given the value of property in general. So, even among our few homes for sale needing “TLC,” we don’t find many “bargains.” The properties above show that.

Among the currently MLS listed homes for sale in San Francisco proper, only 16 came up under a parameter search for “fixer-upper,” and zero came up when the term “foreclosure” was also added. RealtyTrac maps SF’s pre-foreclosures (we’ve got 180 shown in purple below), bank owned (we have 185 marked in gold below), and for auction properties (we’ve got 41, marked in red below). This section of the map shows you a portion of the RealtyTrac heat map.

A portion of RealtyTrac’s heat map for distressed property in SF.

Slim pickings, really, in a city with a lot more potential homebuyers than potential homes for sale. The city’s inventory in May was down 24.5% year-over-year.

Best cities for fixer-upper bargains

RealtyTrac, prolific provider of U.S. real estate data with a particular focus on foreclosure-related activity, analyzed national data to find the 15 best markets for buying fixers at discount prices. The figures show the number of foreclosed homes old enough to potentially be candidates for makeovers that are also valued at $100K or less– a sure sign, in more robust markets– of a bargain. Also analyzed here: the average market value of a distressed home as well as the change in the median sales price of such properties in each location year-over-year.

“Low-priced homes are still plentiful in many markets, particularly in the form of foreclosures,” said Daren Blomquist, RealtyTrac vice president. “While these homes may be in need of more work than a typical home and are certainly harder to find now than in previous years, buyers and investors willing to put in a little extra legwork and sweat equity can often find the best deals in their markets on these foreclosure fixer-uppers.”

RealtyTrac analysis found that nationwide , there are more than 51,000 potential foreclosure fixer-uppers: bank-owned homes that were built before 1960 with an estimated market value below $100K.

Meanwhile, back in SF

As usually happens when we compare other parts of the country to San Francisco, our home prices stand out in sharp relief. For less than you’d need for a downpayment on a fixer here, you could buy an entire home outright somewhere else. So if your reason for wanting a fixer-upper is bargain price (though of course, “bargain” is a relative term), you might want to look elsewhere.

Anna Marie Erwert writes from both the renter and new buyer perspective, having (finally) achieved both statuses. She focuses on national real estate trends, specializing in the San Francisco Bay Area and Pacific Northwest, and writes for SFGate and CurbedSF. Follow Anna on Twitter: @AnnaMarieErwert

Article source: http://blog.sfgate.com/ontheblock/2013/06/10/top-cities-to-buy-bargain-fixer-uppers-dont-include-san-francisco/

Many US Cities Becoming Sellers’

Fri, 15 Feb 2013 23:38:30 +0000

EMERYVILLE, CAZipRealty, Inc.(http://www.ziprealty.com),the leading online technology-enabled residential real estatebrokerage company, has released a list of the Top 10 Best Cities for Home Sellers as part of its List Price to Close Price Ratio Report, which is based on MLS data covering 32 U.S. markets. The exclusive study found that the gap between the listing price and closing price of an average home in the United States continues to narrow, with a growing number of sellers able to achieve more than 98% of their homes listing price. In addition, the median days a home spent on the market dropped to 44 nationwide in 2012, a 23% decline from 2011s 57 days.

A limited inventory of homes on the market, combined with the extremely low cost of mortgage financing, has resulted in homes selling above asking price in many western markets, boosting the average listing to closing price ratio, explains Lanny Baker, Chief Executive Officer and President of ZipRealty. The median amount of time that homes are listed on the market before they sell has shortened by more than two weeks since last year, and in some areas we are seeing one-in-five newly listed homes sell in less than seven days. Multiple-bid situations are also increasingly common in the markets we reviewed.

In January 2011, the list to close price ratio in the U.S. reached 97.1%, and increased 40 basis points to 97.5% in 2012. The ratio hit 98.3% nationwide as of December 2012, according to ZipRealty data.

TheTop 10 Best Cities for Home Sellersbased on ZipRealtys List Price to Close Price RatioReport are: San Francisco, San Diego, Sacramento, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Orange County, Denver, Tucson, Portland and Seattle.

Article source: http://www.globest.com/news/12_540/sanfrancisco/other/Many-US-Cities-Becoming-Sellers-Real-Estate-Markets-According-to-ZipRealty-330074.html

In 2012, the Bay Area Was No. 1 (and 3 and 9)

Sat, 22 Dec 2012 06:05:46 +0000

The New York Times cited the Fox Theater when it included Oakland on its list of 45 place to go in 2012. Photo by Pete Hottelet/Flickr.

We’re No. 1! And No. 3! Also No. 9!

As one of the biggest metropolitan regions in the country, the Bay Area routinely appears on lists created by government officials, PR firms and others. The lists claim to measure everything from human misery to the housing market, and they’re shilled in press releases that come through our inboxes at KQED News almost every day. Often, they rank our region pretty high.

But are those lists accurate? You be the judge. Let’s take a look back at who ranked the Bay Area and its cities on their 2012 lists, and then leave a comment at the bottom of this post letting us know what you think and what lists we missed.

The year started with a pleasant surprise for a struggling Bay Area city, as in January the New York Times ranked Oakland No. 5 on its list of the 45 places to go in 2012. Oakland was the top American city on the list.

“New restaurants and bars beckon amid the grit,” the Times wrote. “Tensions have cooled since violence erupted at the recent Occupy Oakland protests, but the city’s revitalized night-life scene has continued to smolder.”

In September, Bloomberg Businessweek put San Francisco at No. 1 on its list of America’s Best Cities.

Though numbering fewer than a million people, this coastal city packs in so much—from world-class restaurants and museums to community fairs and music festivals, a large educated class, and an improving economy—that many proud San Franciscans will tell you that its finish at the top of Businessweek.com’s 2012 best cities ranking is well-earned.

Of course, lots of people would want to learn more about America’s Best City. So it makes sense that San Francisco would be the most-Googled city of 2012. And if you search Google you’ll probably learn that San Francisco has an active LGBT community and a diverse dining scene, which makes sense, considering that Travel and Leisure ranked it as both the No. 1 gay-friendly city and the top city for ethnic food. It was No. 2 when it came to diversity, cafes and tech-friendliness, according to Travel and Leisure, which also ranked it No. 3 for hipsters. (No. 3, Travel and Leisure? Did you walk around the Mission this year?)

In addition, this year San Francisco ranked No. 3 on The Daily Beast’s list of America’s greenest cities, while the research firm Clean Edge ranked it No. 2 for green tech activities.

No. 1 on that list was San Jose, which also topped Career Builder’s list of cities with the most job growth between 2010-2012 (San Francisco was No. 9.) And if you’re flying to San Jose to interview for a new job, you can be reasonably confident you’ll arrive on time, according to the federal Bureau of Transportation. The agency said Mineta San Jose Airport was No. 1 for on-time performance in California. (SFO was at the bottom of the list.)

Of course, that job will need to be high-paying if you hope to buy a home. This month the National Association of Home Builders said San Jose had the eighth-least affordable market for home buyers in the country. San Jose also had the nation’s fifth-highest increase in home prices between the third quarters of 2011 and 2012, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency. The picture is even bleaker in San Francisco, which the NAHB ranked as the second-least affordable market.

And even if you can afford to buy a home in the Bay Area, you’ll need to take extra care when driving to meet with your real estate agent. San Francisco drivers are among the country’s worst, according to Allstate.

But if anyone can solve a city’s problems, it’s Bay Area residents. After all, the Bay Area is the fifth-smartest municipal region in the country, according to the online cognitive training company Lumosity. Maybe it’s something in the air; the air purifier manufacturer Kaz put the Bay Area at No. 15 on its list of regions with the cleanest air in the U.S. And it’s a little easier for Bay Area residents to help keep that air clean by driving electric cars. That’s because the region ranked No. 4 when it comes to electric vehicle charging stations per person on a list compiled by Xatori, a startup that builds software for connected cars.

So the Bay Area had a lot to be proud of in 2012. And local residents weren’t afraid to talk about what makes the region great, according to the dating site WhatsYourPrice.com.

WhatsYourPrice.com surveyed 2,000 members from San Francisco to reveal whether the city landed on the “naughty” or “nice” list this year. 31% percent of San Francisco admitted to being guilty of “Pride” more than 5 times a week.

That earned San Francisco the No. 9 spot on the site’s most sinful cities list.

Article source: http://blogs.kqed.org/newsfix/2012/12/21/what-made-the-bay-area-no-1-in-2012/