Where are the DINK couples most populous, and powerful?  According to DINK Life, San Francisco is the best place for dual income, no kids couples, aka DINKs.  Here are the top 3 cities we share honors with.

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Unless you’ve had your head in the sand, you know DINKs flock to San Francisco, a city famed for having more dog-raising families than kid-raising ones. So perfect is this fair city that DINK Life headquarters in San Francisco (they’re even writing a book about the DINK lifestyle).

DINK Money and Real Estate

DINKs are so powerful a demographic they got their own acronym sometime in the 1980s; along with that acronym came a flood of targeted marketing and spending-habit studies. No surprise that with a much freer expendable income than their child-rearing brethren, these American adults spend money differently. That includes how they spend it on real estate.

San Francisco DINKs and Dogs

Here in San Francisco where inventory is tight, we have to expect some overlap between parent homebuyers and DINK homebuyers, especially dog owners. Both groups, as homebuyers, will want yards.

But families with children are fast leaving the city, per the Huffington Post: “According to statistics presented to a special hearing of the Board of Supervisors on Thursday, San Francisco has the lowest percentage of children of any major city in the country. Only 13.4 percent of the city’s approximately 800,000 residents are under the age of 18.”

That leaves the yards wide open for DINK buyers, who might compete for something like this, a 3 bedroom, 2 bath condo on California Street. Note the smallish kitchen, sexy bath, and shared yard– all very DINK- listed at $995K.

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DINK Demands

Today’s  DINK buyers want to be able to walk to as many essential services as possible. Alex Clark, a Realtor® in San Francisco confirms: “DINKs are definitely different than San Francisco families with kids looking to purchase.  Walkability is important, as is access to recreation.  Big on the list is close access to restaurants, and low on the list are designer kitchens…as they tend to cook less. Parking is less and less of a priority, hence the importance of walkability or the increasingly more popular “bike-ability.”

This demand has real force on the industry.  The George Washington University School of Business reports that walkable neighborhoods have now exceeded suburban ones in terms of demand.  Their study found that for each 6% improvement in a neighborhood’s walkability score, rent prices for office and retail space increase 7%, apartment rents increase 6%, and home sale prices go up $133/ft2. So in a sense, DINKs demanding close-in property help keep the price of said property in this city as expensive as it is—and getting more so.

For example, take this tenancy in common. Formerly thought to be a troublesome type of property to sell or buy (due to fractional financing, which this unit requires), this Castro/Duboce area TIC lists at $899K.

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Message to Developers

With no kids and need for less space overall and a strong desire for walk-(or bike)-ability to both work and daily essential services and amenities, DINKs have potential to influence future housing construction. Their priorities—and buying power—encourage small scale homes, closely centered near an already established retail/business area. This preference for a more close-in, clustered style of living has already made its stamp on American real estate. As pointed out in DINK Life’s recent article “DINKs Quickly Becoming the Power Couples of Real Estate,” the performance  of suburban property in this country during the recent recession shows that “as U.S. home values declined from 2008- 2011, areas located far from urban hubs have lost value most dramatically. Areas close-in, however, have either held their value or increased it.”

Confirming this information, The Brookings Institute, in an economic analysis of “walkable” neighborhoods, explains: “This distinction in housing proximity is particularly important since it appears that the United States may be at the beginning of a structural real estate market shift….. a preference for mixed-use, compact, amenity-rich, transit-accessible neighborhoods or walkable places.”

With plenty of all of the above, no wonder San Francisco made the #1 best city for DINKs. Can’t you just see them in this Valencia St. condo, strolling to the bars and restaurants, partying on the roof deck, and generally enjoying child-free fun in the Mission?

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The city is rife with DINK-worthy real estate- that we all must agree. All that’s left to debate is what’s the best neighborhood in which to live the DINK lifestyle. So we leave that to DINK readers to decide– the comment section awaits.

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. Follow Anna on Twitter: @AnnaMarieErwert

Article source: http://blog.sfgate.com/ontheblock/2012/12/06/sf-top-city-for-dink-couples-rich-in-dink-worthy-real-estate/

Where are the DINK couples most populous, and powerful?  According to DINK Life, San Francisco is the best place for dual income, no kids couples, aka DINKs.  Here are the top 3 cities we share honors with.

<!– –>

Unless you’ve had your head in the sand, you know DINKs flock to San Francisco, a city famed for having more dog-raising families than kid-raising ones. So perfect is this fair city that DINK Life headquarters in San Francisco (they’re even writing a book about the DINK lifestyle).

DINK Money and Real Estate

DINKs are so powerful a demographic they got their own acronym sometime in the 1980s; along with that acronym came a flood of targeted marketing and spending-habit studies. No surprise that with a much freer expendable income than their child-rearing brethren, these American adults spend money differently. That includes how they spend it on real estate.

San Francisco DINKs and Dogs

Here in San Francisco where inventory is tight, we have to expect some overlap between parent homebuyers and DINK homebuyers, especially dog owners. Both groups, as homebuyers, will want yards.

But families with children are fast leaving the city, per the Huffington Post: “According to statistics presented to a special hearing of the Board of Supervisors on Thursday, San Francisco has the lowest percentage of children of any major city in the country. Only 13.4 percent of the city’s approximately 800,000 residents are under the age of 18.”

That leaves the yards wide open for DINK buyers, who might compete for something like this, a 3 bedroom, 2 bath condo on California Street. Note the smallish kitchen, sexy bath, and shared yard– all very DINK- listed at $995K.

<!– –>

DINK Demands

Today’s  DINK buyers want to be able to walk to as many essential services as possible. Alex Clark, a Realtor® in San Francisco confirms: “DINKs are definitely different than San Francisco families with kids looking to purchase.  Walkability is important, as is access to recreation.  Big on the list is close access to restaurants, and low on the list are designer kitchens…as they tend to cook less. Parking is less and less of a priority, hence the importance of walkability or the increasingly more popular “bike-ability.”

This demand has real force on the industry.  The George Washington University School of Business reports that walkable neighborhoods have now exceeded suburban ones in terms of demand.  Their study found that for each 6% improvement in a neighborhood’s walkability score, rent prices for office and retail space increase 7%, apartment rents increase 6%, and home sale prices go up $133/ft2. So in a sense, DINKs demanding close-in property help keep the price of said property in this city as expensive as it is—and getting more so.

For example, take this tenancy in common. Formerly thought to be a troublesome type of property to sell or buy (due to fractional financing, which this unit requires), this Castro/Duboce area TIC lists at $899K.

<!– –>

Message to Developers

With no kids and need for less space overall and a strong desire for walk-(or bike)-ability to both work and daily essential services and amenities, DINKs have potential to influence future housing construction. Their priorities—and buying power—encourage small scale homes, closely centered near an already established retail/business area. This preference for a more close-in, clustered style of living has already made its stamp on American real estate. As pointed out in DINK Life’s recent article “DINKs Quickly Becoming the Power Couples of Real Estate,” the performance  of suburban property in this country during the recent recession shows that “as U.S. home values declined from 2008- 2011, areas located far from urban hubs have lost value most dramatically. Areas close-in, however, have either held their value or increased it.”

Confirming this information, The Brookings Institute, in an economic analysis of “walkable” neighborhoods, explains: “This distinction in housing proximity is particularly important since it appears that the United States may be at the beginning of a structural real estate market shift….. a preference for mixed-use, compact, amenity-rich, transit-accessible neighborhoods or walkable places.”

With plenty of all of the above, no wonder San Francisco made the #1 best city for DINKs. Can’t you just see them in this Valencia St. condo, strolling to the bars and restaurants, partying on the roof deck, and generally enjoying child-free fun in the Mission?

<!– –>

The city is rife with DINK-worthy real estate- that we all must agree. All that’s left to debate is what’s the best neighborhood in which to live the DINK lifestyle. So we leave that to DINK readers to decide– the comment section awaits.

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. Follow Anna on Twitter: @AnnaMarieErwert

Article source: http://blog.sfgate.com/ontheblock/2012/12/06/sf-top-city-for-dink-couples-rich-in-dink-worthy-real-estate/

With these additions, Transwestern assumes a dominant market presence in the East Bay, and becomes well positioned to grow across the San Francisco Bay area, expanding its property management, agency leasing, tenant advisory, investment services and investment management capabilities.

Based on recent leasing volume of its new producers in Walnut Creek, Transwestern immediately secures a place among the top four commercial real estate service firms in the East Bay. Transwestern’s new additions bring with them approximately 3.5 million square feet of office, retail and industrial listings. They arrive on the heels of the dramatic growth of Transwestern’s Bay Area property management portfolio, which has surged from 1.9 million square feet to 8.8 million square feet since January 2011.

“Our East Bay expansion has been carefully planned and is part of our multi-leveled approach to serving the entire region, one that Transwestern already knows quite well,” said George Garfield, president of Transwestern’s West Region. “We’ve had transactional and property management operations in the Bay Area for more than a decade, though this new expansion provides us with both a broader and deeper capability. With the renewed strength of the tech, social media and industrial sector, our expanded team is well positioned to provide an even more complete range of services to fast-growing businesses and to our institutional clients in the Bay area.”

Garfield added, “The exciting new additions in Walnut Creek are key components of a larger strategy to cement a dominant market share in the San Francisco Bay area and Los Angeles. Additional expansion is contemplated in each of the new East Bay offices as well as in downtown San Francisco, San Jose and Palo Alto.”

The new East Bay brokerage team is led by former Grubb Ellis Managing Director Edward F. Del Beccaro, who has over 33 years of experience in the San Francisco Bay Area in the fields of development, property management, leasing, sales and investments. Throughout his career he has leased more than 2 million square feet of office properties. As managing director of Grubb Ellis’ Walnut Creek East Bay office, as well as its Oakland office, Del Beccaro was responsible for managing a full-service real estate team, including office, retail, industrial and medical leasing and sales, land investment, construction and project management.

A boom in social media and Web-focused companies has helped make the San Francisco area the healthiest office market in the country over the past year. According to Dina Simoni, Transwestern’s research manager for the Bay Area, the region’s office market has experienced 8.9 percent rent growth over the past year. Simoni noted that rents currently average $29.88 per square foot in the Bay Area compared to the fourth quarter of 2000, just before the burst of the tech bubble, when rents were about $50 per square foot.

“The Bay Area recovery and expansion is underway,” said Simoni. “Demand in the office market led to a net absorption of close to 2 million square feet per quarter in 2011 and this continued into 2012. The second quarter of 2012 is shaping up to be another blockbuster. All of the uptick in demand and leasing activity is reminiscent of 2005 and before that in the late 1990s when the tech boom occurred.”

With a full support staff of six, as well as Senior Portfolio Manager Dennis Henry, joining Transwestern in its new Walnut Creek office are the following brokers:

Edward F. Del Beccaro, Managing Director Tom Caple, Vice President Sonny O’Drobinak, Vice President Scott Ellis, Senior Vice President Bob Maderious, Senior Vice President Matt Hurd, Senior Associate Terry Vani, Vice President Trigger Reital, Vice President John Sechser, Senior Vice President Colby Mikulich, Associate

Transwestern’s growth in the Bay Area is part of a national and global growth initiative, having opened offices in New York City and St. Louis in the past year, as well as establishing an international alliance with BNP Paribas Real Estate. Now with 31 offices across the U.S., Transwestern oversees a leasing and property management portfolio of 258 million square feet nationally.

About Transwestern  Transwestern is a privately-held operating company specializing in commercial real estate services, investment and development.  The firm’s fully integrated approach delivers value to owners, investors and users of commercial real estate through innovation, penetrating market intelligence and legendary service delivered by teams of local experts.  Transwestern has product specialties in office, industrial, retail, multifamily and healthcare and is an industry leader in sustainability solutions and in market research through its affiliate, Delta Associates. 

Transwestern’s East San Francisco Bay offices are at 1990 North California Blvd Suite 830 Walnut Creek, CA 94596

925.357.2000 925.357.2001 f Please visit www.transwestern.net or follow us on Twitter at @Transwestern.

SOURCE Transwestern

Article source: http://www.sacbee.com/2012/05/15/4492490/transwestern-announces-major-expansion.html

JK Dineen
Reporter – San Francisco Business Times

Email
 | Twitter: @jkdineen

Canadian commercial real estate services company Avison Young 
 

Avison Young
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is opening a San Francisco office and has poached veteran Cornish Carey Commercial Newmark Knight Frank 
 

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broker Nick Slonek to head it up.

The newest American office marks Avison Young’s 12th location outside of Canada, the company’s third California office, and the next step in the firm’s aggressive growth and expansion strategy, according to CEO Mark Rose.

Slonek will be principal and managing director for Northern California. The Avison Young office will be on the fifth floor at 601 California Street. Slonek said that he is in advanced talks with a group of brokers likely to make the move to Avison Young.

“It’s an experienced group that we are going to have here — there are going to be a lot of transactions by the end of the year under the Avison Young umbrella,” said Slonek.

Over the past three years, Avison Young has grown from 11 to, now, 29 offices in 26 markets and from 300 to more than 900 real estate professionals across Canada and the U.S.

“The hiring of Nick Slonek is in line with our strategic plan to expand our commercial real estate services with high-quality leaders across the nation,” said Rose. “The San Francisco Bay Area — and the entirety of the Western U.S. region — is a vast and expanding real estate market and a focal point for many of our investor and occupier clients.”

Webb said that Avison Young is using its “highly profitable platform and its pristine balance sheet” to recruit other senior brokers and executives to fill the company’s service delivery needs in San Francisco and the Western region, and that plans for the company include further acquisitions to grow the Avison Young brand internationally.

J.K. Dineen covers real estate for the San Francisco Business Times.

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Article source: http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/real-estate/2012/04/avison-young-opens-san-francisco.html