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Bay Area Home Sales, Home Prices Climbing

Sat, 17 Aug 2013 11:27:33 +0000

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) – If you’re planning on purchasing a home in the Bay Area soon, you may be up against steep competition.

According to San Diego-based company DataQuick, house and condo sales throughout the Bay Area in July were the highest since 2005.

A total of 9,339 sales were finalized, up 13.3 percent from July 2012, when 8,241 homes were sold, according to DataQuick.

The sales were at its highest since 12,538 homes sold in July 2005, the data company stated.

The spike in sales was most evident in Santa Clara County, where 2,244 homes were sold, 26.1 percent more than the 1,779 from July last year.

In San Francisco, 718 homes sold last month, up 31.3 percent from last July’s 547 sales.

Solano County was the only Bay Area county that recorded fewer sales this July from last, totaling a 0.8 percent decrease, from 610 last year to 605 last month.

With the rise in sales, the median price of homes in the Bay Area has also increased, reaching its highest price in more than five and a half years.

In July, the median price was $562,000, the highest since December 2007 when homes were averaging a price tag of roughly $587,500, according to DataQuick.

Twelve months ago, the median price of homes in the nine-county region was 33.5 percent less, averaging roughly $421,000 per sale.

All counties throughout the Bay Area recorded an increase in median sale prices, but none more than in Contra Costa County, which had its median sale price rise nearly 43 percent from $308,000 to $440,000, according to DataQuick.

Article source: http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2013/08/15/bay-area-home-sales-home-prices-climbing/

Inventory Shortage Means Fewer Home Sales, Higher Prices in Bay Area

Tue, 07 May 2013 02:37:35 +0000

A chronic shortage of homes on the market added up to fewer homes sold and sharply higher home prices across the entire nine-county San Francisco Bay Area in the first quarter of 2013, according to an analysis of MLS data by the research division of Better Homes and Gardens Mason-McDuffie Real Estate.

According to the company, sales of existing, single-family detached homes in the Bay Area fell to their lowest level in five years. Only 9,985 homes changed hands in the first quarter, down 25 percent from 13,391 homes sold in the fourth quarter of 2012 (a difference of 3,406 homes sold) and 16 percent below the 11,906 homes sold during last year’s first quarter. Contra Costa County reported the greatest number of homes sold with 2,182, followed by Alameda County (1,977 homes sold) and Santa Clara County (1,972 homes sold).

Despite the downturn in home sales, demand from homebuyers remained robust, and that led to higher home prices. The Bay Area as a whole reported a median sales price of $667,021 in the first quarter, up 10 percent from the previous quarter’s median price of $604,863 and 25 percent higher than the median sales price of $520,834 reported at the conclusion of last year’s first quarter.

All nine Bay Area counties reported double-digit, year-over-year increases in their median sales price for the second consecutive quarter. San Mateo County led the way with a 43 percent annualized increase, followed by Alameda County (+33%), Contra Costa County (+31%), and Santa Clara and Solano counties, which reported 30 percent year-over-year increases. San Mateo County recorded the region’s highest median sales price at $1,075,097, followed by the City and County of San Francisco at $1,052,626 and Marin County at $878,945. Solano County recorded the Bay Area’s lowest median sales price at $243,006.

Behind the decline in sales and increase in prices is the continued lack of inventory. As of the final day of the first quarter (March 31, 2013), only 4,098 existing, single-family detached homes were listed for sale in the entire nine-county Bay Area – an improvement from 3,370 homes on the market at the end of the fourth quarter of 2012 but nonetheless down 55 percent from 10,282 homes available for purchase on the final day of the first quarter of 2012.

Once listed, homes sold at a brisk pace. For the Bay Area as a whole, homes were on the market an average of 54 days before receiving a final purchase offer, down from 55 days in the fourth quarter of 2012 and 74 days in the first quarter of last year. Homes in Alameda County sold in an average of 29 days, while Napa County recorded the highest average with 94 days on the market.

Looking ahead, what’s the bottom line for Bay Area homebuyers and sellers?

Buyers need to bring their “A” game to the negotiating table, and that increasingly means being able to offer more than the listing price and waive appraisal and other contingencies that may add to the ultimate price. An experienced REALTOR® with extensive local market knowledge and negotiation skills is a must in a market where all-cash offers continue to be a factor.

“Given the likelihood that inventory will continue to be an issue in the months to come, homeowners with mortgages that are “above water” (or nearly so) may find now is a good time to list their home,” says Keith Robinson, COO. “While prices are rising, it is important that sellers price their home competitively. Again, working with an experienced REALTOR® who can help price the property for sale and vet the offers that follow is critical.”

For more information, visit www.bhghome.com.

Article source: http://rismedia.com/2013-05-06/inventory-shortage-means-fewer-home-sales-higher-prices-in-bay-area/

Inventory Shortage Means Fewer Home Sales, Higher Prices In Bay Area

Mon, 06 May 2013 08:31:42 +0000

Pleasanton, CA. May 1, 2013. A chronic shortage of homes on the market added up to fewer homes sold and sharply higher home prices across the entire nine-county San Francisco Bay Area in the first quarter of 2013, according to an analysis of MLS data by the research division of Better Homes and Gardens Mason-McDuffie Real Estate.

Sales of existing, single-family detached homes in the Bay Area fell to their lowest level in five years. Only 9,985 homes changed hands in the first quarter, down 25 percent from 13,391 homes sold in the fourth quarter of 2012 (a difference of 3,406 homes sold) and 16 percent below the 11,906 homes sold during last year’s first quarter. Contra Costa County reported the greatest number of homes sold with 2,182, followed by Alameda County (1,977 homes sold) and Santa Clara County (1,972 homes sold).

Looking ahead, what’s the bottom line for Bay Area homebuyers and sellers?

Buyers need to bring their “A” game to the negotiating table, and that increasingly means being able to offer more than the listing price and waive appraisal and other contingencies that may add to the ultimate price. An experienced REALTOR^® with extensive local market knowledge and negotiation skills is a must in a market where all-cash offers continue to be a factor.

“Given the likelihood that inventory will continue to be an issue in the months to come, homeowners with mortgages that are “above water” (or nearly so) may find now is a good time to list their home,” said Keith Robinson, COO. “While prices are rising, it is important that sellers price their home competitively. Again, working with an experienced REALTOR® who can help price the property for sale and vet the offers that follow is critical.”

First Quarter 2013 Housing Market Survey – Bay Area Counties

Single-Family Detached Homes

First Quarter 2013 Housing Market Survey – Bay Area Counties

Single-Family Detached Homes

* Days on market is the number of days a property was listed on the market until it went under

contract at its final listing price. This may not reflect previous listings.

**The median home price for the entire Bay Area is the mean of median home prices of each of the nine Bay Area counties. Each county’s median home price is the mean of median home prices of each of the cities within that county.

Data are sourced from multiple listing services and are deemed reliable but not guaranteed.

All percentages rounded to nearest whole number. Bay Area refers to sales within Alameda County, Contra Costa County, Marin County, Napa County, San Francisco County, San Mateo County, Santa Clara County, Solano County and Sonoma County.

## About Better Homes and Gardens Mason-McDuffie Real Estate

Our heritage began with the founding of Mason-McDuffie Real Estate in 1887. In 2010, the company was named the 19th largest real estate services firm in the nation (REALTrends 500), and Number One in the San Francisco East Bay (SF Business Times). The company provides comprehensive solutions to home buyers and sellers, and handled 6,500 transactions in 2012, generating $2.8 billion in sales volume. Better Homes and Gardens Mason-McDuffie Real Estate includes joint ventures with partners Highland Partners in Piedmont and Montclair, Wine Country Group Realtors in the North Bay, and Tri-Valley Realty in Pleasanton-Hopyard and Ruby Hill, and Bahay Co. in Concord. Better Homes and Gardens Mason-McDuffie Real Estate is locally owned and has more than 1,100 real estate professionals with 30 offices in eight counties in the Bay Area and the Tahoe/Truckee region. For more information, go to www.bhghome.com

Article source: http://www.sfgate.com/business/press-releases/article/Inventory-Shortage-Means-Fewer-Home-Sales-4486549.php

Inventory Shortage Means Fewer Home Sales, Higher Prices In Bay Area

Sat, 04 May 2013 02:08:17 +0000

Looking ahead, what’s the bottom line for Bay Area homebuyers and sellers?

Buyers need to bring their “A” game to the negotiating table, and that increasingly means being able to offer more than the listing price and waive appraisal and other contingencies that may add to the ultimate price. An experienced REALTOR^® with extensive local market knowledge and negotiation skills is a must in a market where all-cash offers continue to be a factor.

“Given the likelihood that inventory will continue to be an issue in the months to come, homeowners with mortgages that are “above water” (or nearly so) may find now is a good time to list their home,” said Keith Robinson, COO. “While prices are rising, it is important that sellers price their home competitively. Again, working with an experienced REALTOR® who can help price the property for sale and vet the offers that follow is critical.”

First Quarter 2013 Housing Market Survey – Bay Area Counties

Single-Family Detached Homes

First Quarter 2013 Housing Market Survey – Bay Area Counties

Single-Family Detached Homes

* Days on market is the number of days a property was listed on the market until it went under

contract at its final listing price. This may not reflect previous listings.

Data are sourced from multiple listing services and are deemed reliable but not guaranteed.

## About Better Homes and Gardens Mason-McDuffie Real Estate

Article source: http://www.sfgate.com/business/press-releases/article/Inventory-Shortage-Means-Fewer-Home-Sales-4486549.php

Homes sell faster than ever in Bay Area

Sun, 24 Mar 2013 06:22:39 +0000

Tight inventory – a dearth of homes for sale – is driving bidding wars throughout the Bay Area, sending prices up and leaving scores of disappointed would-be buyers. Homes that do hit the market sell within days.

So few homes are listed for sale that agents are resurrecting old ways of drumming up business – going door to door, leaving cards and flyers and writing personal letters, asking owners if they’re interested in selling. Social networking and e-mail blasts are being used to increase inventory as well.

“People are going old-school, farming their territory,” said Lynda DiVito, an agent with Redfin in the East Bay, using real estate agent slang for canvassing neighborhoods.

While tight inventory is a national trend, it’s especially pronounced in the Bay Area.

Alameda County, for instance, had 949 homes for sale in February, down 64 percent from the 2,617 on the market at the same time last year, according to data from Realtor.com, the listings website of the National Association of Realtors. Contra Costa County had 899, down 58 percent from 2,152 in February 2012.

“Those are striking reductions in inventory,” said Errol Samuelson, president of Realtor.com.

While inventory numbers did tick up slightly from January to February, that was a normal seasonal change, not an indication of the logjam loosening.

“After seasonal adjustments, inventory is still falling; the underlying trend is still downward,” said Jed Kolko, chief economist with real estate site Trulia.com.

However, he thinks the rate of decline is slowing.

“Inventory tends to fall the most sharply after prices bottom, as no one wants to sell at the bottom, they just want to buy,” he said. Trulia shows that Bay Area prices bottomed more than a year ago.

Price a factor

Sellers remain reluctant and elusive for several reasons. Those who are still underwater – owing more than their house is worth – have the obvious impediment of not wanting to do a short sale.

But many others “feel underwater based on the price they paid,” Samuelson said. That is, someone who paid $700,000 for a home in 2007 won’t feel good about selling it for $625,000 right now, even though the sale would cover their remaining mortgage.

Some potential sellers, seeing prices surge, are hoping to hold out for more. Others who might want to move up to a bigger house fear that the market frenzy means they won’t be able to find or afford anything else.

Now that it’s spring, the busiest real estate season, more homes should start hitting the market. But many agents have been taking matters into their own hands, making pitches directly to potential sellers about why it’s time to get off the fence.

Although there are numerous online sites to track homes for sale, “the way the market is set up now is forcing us to go back to the beginning where (agents) walk up to a door and knock and say, ‘Hi, how are you, my name is … ‘ ” said Adelaida Mejia, a Realtor with Vanguard Property in San Francisco.

Personal touch

She recently worked with a client seeking a home in San Francisco’s Clarendon Heights neighborhood, above Cole Valley. After losing out with bids, she walked the neighborhood with him and identified houses he particularly liked. Mejia looked up the homeowners and wrote personal letters to each, explaining that her client loved the area and was seeking a house there.

“Three weeks later, one person called me back and said ‘We loved your letter, we’d love to talk even though we’re not on the market, come on over,’ ” she said.

Rich and Renee Gimigliano, the homeowners, said they received two or three agent solicitations a week after unsuccessfully trying to sell the house last year, but ignored them because they were form letters.

“Adelaida’s note was different; more personalized,” Rich Gimigliano said. “We were planning to put the house on the market again, but the note just pre-empted that.”

Her client ended up visiting the house, making an all-cash offer and buying it. “It was a really stress-free experience for both” the buyer and seller, she said.

Beating the bushes for sellers is an about-face from just 18 months ago, when the challenge was to find people who wanted to buy.

A corresponding trend is that homes are selling very quickly.

‘Unbelievable’

“The median days on market in Contra Costa is 13 days – that’s unbelievable,” Samuelson said. A year ago it was 33 days.

Redfin has identified another trend it calls “flash sales” – homes that sell within 24 hours of being listed, usually because a buyer swoops in with an offer too good to refuse. Often, those are buyers who have lost other bidding wars and are determined to land a property.

In the past six months, almost 1,000 Bay Area properties went under contract within one day, Redfin said.

“I just had that experience at a house in the Oakland hills,” DiVito said. “I held the brokers’ tour just before putting it on the market. A buyer and agent walked in and offered us our list price in cash on the spot.”

Underscoring how much the market has changed, she said her sellers had tried to sell the house a year ago “and could not move this property, even though they lowered the price three times.”

Same-day offer

The sellers, who were buying a new home and needed to sell quickly, were happy to take the same-day offer since a cash deal meant it couldn’t be derailed by problems with financing or appraisals.

“Flash-sale terms tend to be really good because (buyers) really want to lock down that property quickly,” DiVito said. “They’re more willing to meet the sellers’ needs to scoop it up before anyone else gets it.”

What happens next with inventory is a big question hanging over the real estate recovery.

“My best guess is that you’ll see an orderly return of inventory to the market,” Samuelson said. “I don’t expect that you’ll see the floodgates open and torrents of properties hit the market. But for each percentage point increase in price, there will be some people who for life reasons have wanted to sell for the past five years – their kids moved out, they got divorced – and now feel that the time is right and they have enough equity.”

Tight inventory, fast sales

The number of homes for sale in the six largest Bay Area counties has dropped dramatically compared with a year ago, according to data from the Multiple Listing Service. Correspondingly, the time the homes stay on the market has also dropped.

Source: Realtor.com

Carolyn Said is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: csaid@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @csaid

Article source: http://www.sfgate.com/realestate/article/Homes-sell-faster-than-ever-in-Bay-Area-4375058.php

Rising home values push more Bay Area homes above water, Zillow says – Alameda Times

Thu, 21 Feb 2013 06:20:30 +0000

Rising prices pushed thousands of Bay Area homes back above water last year, according to a report released Wednesday, another sign that the region’s housing crisis is easing as the economy recovers.

The report, by the housing website Zillow, shows drops across the region in the number of homes that are underwater — worth less than the value of their mortgages.

More than 56,826 homes bobbed back above water across seven counties of the Bay Area in 2012, Zillow reported. That still leaves 205,986 homes with a total negative equity of $31.5 billion.

And that negative equity is keeping thousands of homes off the market, forcing buyers to compete for whatever comes up for sale.

A dozen wealthy Silicon Valley and Peninsula communities from Belmont to Los Gatos have already returned to pre-crash home prices, the company said.

Zillow is forecasting continued growth in prices this year, followed by a leveling off in 2014.

The company uses a proprietary formula to calculate home values.

In the last three months of 2012, a little more than one-third of Contra Costa County’s homes that had mortgages were underwater, Zillow reported. That was down from 41.3 percent a year earlier.

The figure for Alameda County was 25.4 percent, down from 31 percent a year earlier, while Santa Clara dropped to 15 percent from 22 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011. San Mateo County had 15 percent of its homes with mortgages

underwater,¿¿ down from 20.7 percent a year earlier.

Nearly every part of the Bay Area is seeing a surge in home prices, with the areas that saw the biggest drops following the subprime bubble’s burst having the biggest price increases.

Oakland real estate agent Mark Biggins of Redfin Realty said that in some parts of the East Bay, frenzied bidding has caused prices to soar.

“It’s crazy in parts of Oakland and Berkeley,” Biggins said.

One of his clients just lost out on a home listed at $729,000 that sold for more than $900,000 with 23 offers. “There were five offers over $900,000 for this property. In 2005, that same property sold for $940,000. I think it just sold pretty much for that or more today,” Biggins said.

“Eastern Contra Costa County was dramatically overpriced” before the crash, said Bryce Ellsworth, broker at Windermere Ellsworth and Associates in Brentwood. “Now it’s underpriced, but that’s not going to last for long.”

The Silicon Valley corridor extending from Atherton and Menlo Park through Sunnyvale to Los Gatos is essentially back above water, Zillow reported, with median home values what they were before the crash. Many of those communities lost less in the crash and had less to regain.

“Those that have dropped the least have come back the quickest,” said Rick Turley, San Francisco Bay Area president of Coldwell Banker Residential.

“I would say the sweet spot would be that whole upper Silicon Valley and Peninsula area,” he said. “It probably lost the least amount in the downturn and has come back to new peak highs the quickest.”

San Jose, which fell sharply on large numbers of subprime loans, is still more than 20 percent below its pre-crash peak. But recovery also depends on when a person bought the home.

Real estate agent David Contreras, who specializes in condos in San Jose, said the recovery has gone so fast in San Jose that one client who wanted to short-sell her house for around $160,000 six months ago is now above water and planning to stay.

“Her home shot up easily to $235,000 within the span of about six months,” said Contreras.

But that’s not the case everywhere.

Contra Costa County median home values are still about 48 percent below their peak. Alameda County is 30 percent below, while Santa Clara County is 13.5 percent from its peak and San Mateo is 15.1 percent below it, Zillow said.

San Francisco was the county closest to a return to peak prices, with only slightly more than 3 percent to go.

Contact Pete Carey at 408-920-5419 Follow him on Twitter.com/petecareyg

uneven recovery

A sampling of Bay Area cities and the percentage they are below their peak home prices reached between 2006 and 2007
City Change from peak
Hayward -48.6 percent
Oakland -38.8 percent
Livermore -30.1 percent
El Cerrito ………..-26 percent
San Jose -20.6 percent
San Ramon……..-18.4 percent
San Mateo……….-15.1 percent
Berkeley…………..-12.5 percent
Redwood City……- 5.7 percent
Menlo Park 0.0 percent
Sunnyvale 0.0 percent
Source: Zillow

Article source: http://www.insidebayarea.com/breaking-news/ci_22632191/rising-home-values-push-more-bay-area-homes

Bay Area housing values jump in second quarter

Tue, 24 Jul 2012 16:49:08 +0000

Bay Area home values increased at a sizzling pace in the second quarter, the online real estate site Zillow reported Tuesday, reinforcing hopes that at least some parts of the region are in the early stages of a housing market recovery.

Home values increased 3.9 percent in San Francisco from the first quarter of this year; 3.79 percent in Santa Clara County; 2.75 percent in Alameda County; 2.18 percent in San Mateo County; and 1.47 percent in Contra Costa County.

For the nine-county Bay Area, which includes areas hit hard by negative equity and foreclosures, the quarterly increase was a surprising 2.5 percent.

While such increases are unsustainable over the long run, according to Stan Humphries, Zillow’s chief economist, the rising values eventually should persuade more people to put their homes up for sale. That will ease the current lack of inventory that has put a damper on sales, he said.

Home sales in the region have been crimped because so many houses are worth less than their mortgages, so owners don’t list them, he said. Also playing into the low inventory is “seller psychology,” Humphries said. “No seller wants to sell at the bottom,” he noted.

With inventory low, parts of the Bay Area are experiencing bidding wars, and some buyers are even enticing sellers with paid vacations or a couple of months of free rent in their home or a condo. Last month Zillow ranked the San Jose and San Francisco metro areas as the top two

“sellers’ markets” in the U.S.

“I have so many frustrated buyers spinning their wheels, having a difficult time getting offers accepted when there’s a multiple-offer situation or quite simply just finding home,” said real estate agent Linette Edwards of Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate in Piedmont.

Edwards, who represents homebuyer and sellers in Contra Costa and Alameda counties, said she has started getting queries from would-be sellers who were too far underwater last year to consider putting their homes on the market.

“Now they’re calling me and realizing they may be able to start listing their houses,” Edwards said. “I anticipate we’ll see more of that in the coming year as homeowners realize the market has picked up.”

She said one homeowner in Danville is listing his home for $700,000. Last year the valuation was too low for him to consider selling, she said.

Zillow uses a proprietary formula for its home value index for detached single-family homes, as well as condos and co-ops. It includes homes that were sold, but also looks at other factors, including various attributes of homes sold, and excludes foreclosure resales.

For the greater Bay Area, the median home value was $453,255, Zillow said. San Francisco’s median home value was $680,000, followed by San Mateo County, $608,800; Santa Clara County, $575,200; Alameda County, $392,500; and Contra Costa County, $297,500.

Paul Kim of San Jose said he stopped looking to buy after a home in San Jose’s Rose Garden district drew 70 offers. Kim said he bid $80,000 over the asking price but the winner bid $140,000 over the price. “I’m going to start aggressively looking again in late September, when hopefully there won’t be as many buyers,” he said.

If rising prices spread to other areas, more homes may go on the market.

“When prices go up, more people will put their homes on the market and inventory will come back to normal levels,” said Richard K. Green, director of the Lusk Center for Real Estate at the University of Southern California. “There are places in the Bay Area where that could happen pretty quickly.”

Negative equity — the plight of homeowners who owe more on their mortgage than their home is worth — will probably remain high for the next two to five years, gradually lessening as home values increase, according to Zillow.

In some areas, negative equity is “not as much as people think,” said Silicon Valley real estate agent Brenda Avilla-Kintz. “We need another 10 to 15 percent growth and a lot of people won’t even need to do short sales,” in which a home is sold for less than is owed on it. “That’s still a couple years out,” she added.

“It’s becoming less negative as house prices are going up around the Bay Area,” said Ken Rosen, chairman at the Fisher Center for Real Estate and Urban Economics at UC Berkeley. “It only affects those people who bought at the peak two or three years. Part of the reason they have negative equity is that they borrowed a lot of money.”

Contact Pete Carey at 408-920-5419.

Article source: http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_21142320/bay-area-housing-values-jump-second-quarter-zillow

Prudential California Realty continues growth

Sat, 23 Jun 2012 02:04:30 +0000

Converging road image via Shutterstock.

San Ramon, Calif.-based brokerage Prudential California Realty Pearson Properties has acquired Brentwood, Calif.-based Coldwell Banker Amaral Associates.

The deal brings 25 agents and three offices to Prudential California Realty and represents the 12th acquisition the brokerage has made in the past two years. The brokerage — which has doubled in size since affiliating with Prudential Real Estate in September, 2010 — has more than 500 agents in 18 offices in the San Francisco Bay Area and Sacramento.

“We’ve been strategically expanding for the past two years, and the addition of these productive offices strengthens our existing and thriving presence in East [Contra Costa] County,” said Gretchen Pearson, president of Prudential California Realty Pearson Properties, in a statement.

Amaral Associates will now do business as Prudential California Realty under the continued leadership of broker-owner Aaron Meadows, who became president of the 25-year-old brokerage in 2001.

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Article source: http://www.inman.com/news/2012/06/22/prudential-california-realty-continues-growth

San Francisco Bay Area Home Prices Climb to 22-Month High

Fri, 15 Jun 2012 13:19:53 +0000

Home prices in the San Francisco Bay
Area rose to a 22-month high in May as more expensive properties
made up a greater portion of sales, DataQuick said.

The median price for houses and condominiums in the nine-
county Bay Area increased to $400,000, up 2.6 percent from April
and 7.5 percent from May 2011, the San Diego-based data seller
said today in a statement. Almost 39 percent of purchases
exceeded $500,000, the most since August 2010.

“It’s not exactly a stampede, but people are starting to
move off the housing-market sidelines in numbers we haven’t seen
in quite a while,” DataQuick President John Walsh said in the
statement. “Foreclosures are a significantly smaller portion of
what’s selling, and the higher-cost coastal markets are seeing
more activity.”

Total sales in the Bay Area rose to 8,810, up 15 percent
from the previous month and 26 percent from May 2011. It was the
highest tally for the month since 2006. Foreclosure sales
accounted for 22 percent of the total, down from almost 27
percent a year earlier and the lowest since January 2008.

Prices in both San Francisco and Santa Clara counties rose
6.2 percent, to a median $701,000 and $529,000, respectively.
The biggest increase was in Contra Costa County, where the
median gained 16 percent to $295,000. The Marin County median
price fell 2 percent to $627,000, according to DataQuick.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Dan Levy in San Francisco at
dlevy13@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Kara Wetzel at
kwetzel@bloomberg.net

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Article source: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-14/san-francisco-bay-area-home-prices-climb-to-22-month-high.html

Bay Area open space: 75 percent is being protected, but 300000 acres are still …

Wed, 23 May 2012 22:47:52 +0000

Click photo to enlarge

Roughly 75 percent of all the land in the Bay Area is either permanently protected in parks or open space, or at low risk of development because it is zoned for farming or other rural uses.

But 322,000 acres — an area 12 times the size of the city of San Francisco — remains threatened by development over the next three decades, with hot spots in eastern Contra Costa County and around Gilroy, Morgan Hill, Livermore and Vacaville, according to a new report out Tuesday from the Greenbelt Alliance, an open space preservation group.

The Bay Area almost certainly has more parks, farmland, beaches and other open spaces than any other major urban area in the United States. That’s the product of 100 years of advocacy

by park lovers, hikers and environmental groups.

And while Bay Area residents regularly support tough zoning, and new fees and taxes at the ballot box for open space, the difficult economy over the past five years has meant less money to maintain parks — and rough times raising money to buy more land.

“We’ve had a lot of success in this region protecting our greenbelt,” said Jeremy Madsen, executive director of the Greenbelt Alliance. “We need to be proud of that, but there is a lot still to do, not only in stopping sprawl, but also in investing and stewarding land that’s already protected.”

When counties are ranked by the acres they have permanently protected in parks, wildlife refuges and open space preserves, the Bay

Area’s largest county, Santa Clara County, is first, with 229,800 acres, according to the report.

Next is Marin, with 185,400 acres; Sonoma with 171,200; Napa with 122,700; Contra Costa with 119,100; San Mateo with 111,000; Alameda with 106,000; and Solano, with 57,000 acres.

That may come as a surprise to Bay Area residents who see Silicon Valley as a poster child for Los Angeles-style sprawl. But most of the large developments that paved over orchards and farmland ended by the 1970s with tougher zoning. And over the past decade, land trusts such as the Nature Conservancy and Peninsula Open Space Trust have bought tens of thousands of acres in the Mount Hamilton area, around Henry Coe State Park, and in the foothills south of San Jose, preserving hillsides, ranches and farms.

“There’s been a dawning awareness that there are some spectacularly beautiful lands at risk just 15 or 20 minutes south of San Jose,” said Walter Moore, president of the Peninsula Open Space Trust, in Palo Alto.

In the East Bay, a historic milestone came in 2008 when voters in Contra Costa and Alameda counties overwhelmingly approved Measure WW, a $500 million bond act to provide new funding for the East Bay Regional Park District.

The district, founded in 1934, already has 112,000 acres preserved in 65 parks. With the new funding, it is adding lands. Further, roughly 6,000 acres of meadows and other grazing lands are being preserved by the Contra Costa Water District as part of its project to enlarge Los Vaqueros Reservoir near Brentwood.

“Contrary to what’s happening in other parts of the state, combined with the recent real estate downturn, there have been some amazing gains in open space protection in the East Bay,” said Ron Brown, executive director of Save Mount Diablo in Walnut Creek.

When counties are compared by how much of their land area is protected in parks and open space preserves, Marin comes in first, with 55.6 percent; followed by San Mateo at 38.6 percent; Santa Clara at 27.7 percent; Contra Costa at 25.8 percent; Napa at 25.4 percent; Alameda at 22.4 percent; Sonoma at 16.9 percent and Solano at 10.8 percent.

Brown and Moore both noted that funding is becoming a significant issue in many parts of Northern California. State bonds approved by voters in years past to buy new parkland and build playgrounds are nearly all spent. And Gov. Jerry Brown plans to close 70 state parks by July 1 to save $22 million toward balancing the state budget.

Although East Bay regional parks won passage of its bond measure, other agencies, like the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District and the Santa Clara County Open Space Authority, are running low on funding to buy new parks and will ask voters in the next few years for more to continue their efforts.

Tuesday’s report noted that of the 4.4 million acres in the nine counties around the Bay Area, 1.1 million are in parks and open space preserves. Another 2.2 million are protected through zoning for farms, hillsides and rural development. That leaves 788,000 acres developed in urban areas and 322,000 acres of open land at risk of development over the next 30 years, with a quarter of that at risk in the next 10 years.

Developers say the battle is done.

“The era of the mega-master-planned community in the Bay Area is largely over. Politically it is just too difficult,” said Paul Campos, senior vice president of the Building Industry Association of the Bay Area.

Campos said while developers support building “in-fill” homes, condominiums and townhouses in existing neighborhoods and near transit projects, as environmentalists want, enough people still want to buy affordable single-family homes with yards that they are willing to commute long distances from Tracy and other Central Valley towns.

But Madsen, of the Greenbelt Alliance, said there are lots of single-family homes for sale in the Bay Area.

“What we need to build now are the choices for people who want something else — townhomes, condos, rental property in town to meet the demands of empty nesters, young people in their 20s and families with kids who want to live an urban lifestyle,” he said.

Paul Rogers covers resources and environmental issues. Contact him at 408-920-5045. Follow him on Twitter.com/PaulRogersSJMN.

Article source: http://www.contracostatimes.com/science/ci_20685004/bay-area-open-space-more-it-is-being?source=inthenews