homesmillbrae.com » East Palo Alto

Real Estate "Flash Sales" Prove Market Is Hot

Sat, 23 Mar 2013 11:57:45 +0000

If you’re looking for a home in the Bay Area, you will probably need two things on your side: luck, and a lot of cash.

Those who aren’t willing to compete with up to dozens of other offers on a home are now trying to buy it – hours after it’s listed on the market.

The new trend has been dubbed by realty experts as “flash sales” – any sale that happens within 24 hours.

For example, a home in East Palo Alto on Gates Street was put on the market on March 19. It got nine offers the same day and sold for above asking price within 24 hours.

Glenn Kelman, CEO of online real estate brokerage Redfin which is set up in 19 U.S. markets, said that trend is growing in the Bay Area and calls it “Ground Zero” for an incredibly hot housing market, one that experienced an incredible boom at the start of 2013 in January.

“In the Bay Area in the past six months, we’ve seen 1,000 homes get under contract in less than 24 hours. It used to be a fast sale was three days – now, it’s three hours,” Kelman said.

Ken DeLeon, a realtor, said his latest listing is a 1200 square foot home in Palo Alto that he just put on the market Thursday. “The amazing part is just within 24 hours, we already had a client with a Chinese all-cash buyer offer us more than 300,000 above and we said, ‘No thank you, please wait,’” DeLeon said.

He and other realtors said they’re still catering to those wealthy foreign buyers, mostly from China and Russia; however, with historic-low mortgage interest rates and an inventory that’s also hitting record lows, they said the competitive cash offers are no longer limited to the high-end homes.

“That’s the main trend. It’s spreading out to other neighborhoods that once weren’t so hot,” added Kelman.

The Silicon Valley Association of Realtors compiled data from MLS listings for the South Bay. According to its numbers, for single family homes between February 2012 and February 2013, inventory was slashed by 52 percent in Santa Clara Country and 44 percent in San Mateo County.

Both experienced more than 30 percent in increase of median sale price. Redfin’s numbers show just how competitive it’s gotten in the last couple of months.

A San Francisco home in the Sunset District had 29 offers, a townhouse in Oakland got 15, and one on Dauphine Avenue in Fremont was hit with a stunning 65 offers. That house eventually sold for at least $100,000 more than the half-a-million asking price.

“There are sometimes traffic jams outside open houses,” said Kelman. “Folks get worried they can’t wait for the offer deadline on Sundays, so they make a preemptive strike to try and buy it on the spot.”

He said Redfin and other companies offer “mobile alerts” that let customers know almost immediately after there’s a new listing on the market. He believes that has also contributed to the high competition and quick sales.

Both he and DeLeon agreed on one more thing: the only relief, if it comes, will be when people decide to start selling, and when you’re talking about the Bay Area, there is no way to predict when that will happen, or if prices will go up or down.

“I hate it when people ask me about Bay Area real estate because it defies all the laws of physics,” Kelman lamented. “When you look at Chicago real estate, Atlanta real estate, you know what goes up must come down. It’s going to act like a normal economic market, but in the Bay Area, it seems there’s all sorts of money from the tech economy. There’s all sorts of people who want to move here for the sun. I can’t way when it will ever let up.”

Article source: http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Real-Estate-Flash-Sales-Prove-Market-Is-Hot--199652731.html

Palo Alto Real Estate Agent Rebecca McDonald Lists Bay Area Peninsula Home for …

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 14:51:10 +0000

Palo Alto, CA (PRWEB) August 25, 2011

Rebecca McDonald of Linwood Real Estate and Property Management has good news for those who thought they could never afford a home in the Bay Area. The San Francisco Peninsula real estate agent has just listed a 1,100 square foot 3 bedroom, 2 bath home in East Palo Alto for the unbelievably low price of $325,000.

The East Palo Alto property, conveniently located near the new Facebook campus, has been beautifully remodeled. Cooks will love cooking in the newly renovated kitchen, rich with natural materials and shiny stainless steel appliances. In addition to the granite slab countertops and all new cherry wood cabinets, the kitchen features travertine floors.

Hardwood floors refinished and polished to perfection, fresh paint in every room, recessed lighting, and double-paned windows throughout the entire house make this ready-to-live-in home comfortable. The home, situated on a 5,000 square foot lot, also features a 2-car garage, a new roof and a fireplace in the living room / dining room area.

“Everything is new, new, new-and the neighbors are wonderful,” said Rebecca McDonald, the Linwood Realty real estate agent who has listed the home. “This is a great opportunity for a family or investor.”

For more information about the 2589 Emmett Way home in East Palo Alto or any of Linwood Real Estate and Property Management’s property management services, call them at (650) 549-4801 or visit their website at www.paloaltopropertymanagement.com.

About Linwood Real Estate and Property Management

Linwood Real Estate and Property Management is a Palo Alto property manager and Palo Alto real estate agency located in Portola Valley, just west of Palo Alto. Linwood serves the San Francisco Peninsula communities of Atherton, Burlingame, Cupertino, Hillsborough, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Los Gatos, Menlo Park, Mountain View, Palo Alto, Portola Valley, Redwood City, San Carlos, San Jose, San Mateo, Santa Clara, and Woodside.

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For the original version on PRWeb visit: www.prweb.com/releases/prwebpalo_alto/property_management/prweb8749329.htm

Article source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/08/25/prweb8749329.DTL

As Facebook Moves in, Hopes That Progress Follows

Fri, 12 Aug 2011 06:24:53 +0000

Belle Haven residents earn less than half as much as other Menlo Park wage earners. Modest homes, some boarded up, line the streets. People swelter under the bright sun as they wait for the bus, because Belle Haven’s spartan bus stops provide little shelter.

“You know how normally you have a desert, and in the desert you have a little oasis?” said Matt Henry, president of the Belle Haven Neighborhood Association. “With us, it’s just the exact opposite. We’re here in Silicon Valley, which is absolutely wonderful. But we’re the little small desert in the middle of something great.” Now, Facebook, the world’s largest social network, is moving in to the neighborhood.

Facebook has grown to more than 750 million active users and is on the verge of an initial public offering projected to value the company at $100 billion. After outgrowing its Palo Alto headquarters, the company is moving to Belle Haven, where it is creating a campus large enough to accommodate nearly 10,000 employees. The move is to be completed by the end of the year.

Residents of Belle Haven and its neighbor East Palo Alto, which is also entrenched in an urban malaise, hope Facebook’s arrival signals their long-awaited integration into the Silicon Valley economy. They picture the company’s wealth and dynamism spreading across the freeways, bringing better housing, services and schools.

“The table is being set for some really great things to happen,” said Charley Scandlyn, executive director of the Ravenswood Education Foundation, which aims to bring East Palo Alto schools up to the same standards as those in neighboring communities.

“The whole Facebook mission is about connecting people,” Mr. Scandlyn said. “Sometimes our kids in East Palo Alto don’t feel like they get to be a part of the good dreams in the world. Here is Facebook, that actually gets to live out its mission in its own neighborhood.”

It may not be that easy. Across the Bay Area, cities continue to hope that tech companies will provide the spark for a renaissance in low-income communities. Earlier this year, for example, San Francisco granted Twitter a six-year tax holiday to lure the company to the blighted mid-Market district.

But there is no conclusive evidence that the presence of a technology company can turn a neighborhood or a city around. Google’s hometown, Mountain View, still struggles to pay its bills and is threatening to lay off employees, despite the presence of several tech companies, including Google, with a combined value of well over $200 billion. Belle Haven’s hopeful uncertainty underscores the growing disconnect between a technology boom fueled by the explosive growth of social media companies and the continuing struggles of the communities in which those companies are located.

According to economists and public officials, the divide is related to the nature of the tech economy, much of which takes place in cyberspace, removed from the world of cash registers, low-income jobs and sales taxes. Companies like Google and Facebook pay property taxes, but cities draw little direct economic benefit from their core businesses. Their highly skilled, highly educated employees commute to lavish, insular campuses where most of their needs are met.

“A social networking company doesn’t have as much revenue-generating material,” said David Johnson, Menlo Park’s business development manager.

Still, Mr. Johnson said he was pleased to have found a company to fill the vacated one-million-square-foot property once occupied by Sun Microsystems.

“How can you not be excited about Facebook coming to town — it’s a potential game changer for that whole part of town,” Mr. Johnson said. “They are showing all indications of being a great corporate neighbor.”

Menlo Park officials said that as Facebook expanded, the city would have leverage to negotiate additional compensation. The site is currently zoned for 3,600 employees. Once Facebook outgrows that number, “the city will be looking for something in exchange,” said Justin Murphy, Menlo Park’s development manager.

In its recent approval of a hotel project, the city agreed to alter zoning requirements in exchange for a guarantee that the developer would spend $1.25 million on capital improvements and lock in the amount of revenue the city would receive from a hotel transient tax.

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Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/12/us/12bcfacebook.html

Census: Blacks leaving urban core for East Bay suburbs

Sun, 13 Mar 2011 17:21:07 +0000

In early 2008, moving from West Oakland to Antioch was a deal Felicia Duncan couldn’t refuse.

“I had purchased a house, the kind of house I was able to get out there but I couldn’t get here for the price,” said the real estate agent and single mom. She moved into an almost-3,000-square-foot, four-year-old house that would have cost two or three times more in Oakland.

Today Duncan is renting out both her West Oakland and Antioch homes while living in an apartment in Oakland’s Adam’s Point section; she returned in early 2010 because Antioch didn’t offer an adequate public or private education for her daughter, now a sophomore at Oakland’s Bishop O’Dowd High School, and she couldn’t hack the commute.

She’s an exception, in that she came back. Many African Americans quit Bay Area cities for good in favor of lower housing prices, job opportunities, better schools or other draws elsewhere, according to data released Tuesday by the U.S. Census Bureau.

To some extent it’s a statewide phenomenon. The 2010 census “Black or African American alone” category, including black people who don’t identify as mixed-race but including those who also identify as Latino, now accounts for 6.2 percent of California’s total population, down from 6.7 percent in 2000.

The change has been precipitous in the Bay Area’s historically black cities: Oakland’s and Richmond’s black populations each dropped by 23 percent from 2000 to 2010. That means black people accounted for

35.7 percent of Oakland’s population at the decade’s start and 27.3 percent at its end; in Richmond, blacks went from being 36.1 percent to 25.9 percent of the city’s population.

Elsewhere, Berkeley’s black population decreased by 20 percent, San Francisco’s by 19 percent, and East Palo Alto’s by 31 percent.

Many people moved to the suburbs. Antioch, in Contra Costa County’s eastern reaches, saw its black population double while nearby Brentwood’s almost quintupled. Manteca’s black population more than doubled, Tracy’s by 91 percent, Stockton’s by 30 percent. And further inland, Sacramento suburbs such as Carmichael, Elk Grove and Roseville saw significant black population increases.

The reason for the flight to the suburbs?

“From what I’ve observed over the past 10 years, I think it’s redevelopment and violence,” said the Rev. Andre Shumake, the Richmond Improvement Association’s president.

Urban redevelopment has not met “the double bottom line” of providing good returns for investors while also benefiting the affected communities, he said. Redevelopment projects often displaced low- and moderate-income African-Americans and “many wind up not coming back, or they couldn’t afford to come back taking their talents and skills elsewhere, and it leaves an incredible drain on the communities and the neighborhoods,” he said.

“The gentrification and displacement is alive and well in Richmond,” he said.

“As it relates to violence, I believe the devastation that many of these families have experienced and continue to experience meant families that could move away did move away to what they believed would be a safer environment.”

Many times, he said, he has heard Richmond residents wish “if only I could just get out of here, take my family somewhere else.”

Some have stayed and organized against crime, he said, while some “decided they were just going to pack up and leave.”

Reggie Moore became Antioch’s first African-American elected leader, a city councilman, in 2006. He said most of the black community’s growth there seems to be in the city’s newer southeast section — an area in which he had advocated for slower, more limited development while serving as a city planning commissioner a decade ago.

Moore said most African-Americans probably moved to Antioch for the same reason he did in 1990, from Hayward. “You can buy a brand-new big home and triple your lot size for less than say a 60-year-old house in Oakland. The weather is warmer, there’s just a lot of opportunity,” Moore said.

Some might have brought their urban attitudes with them, Moore said, and the city has felt some culture shock. Moore said he has witnessed some racial insensitivity, which surprises him given the overall Bay Area’s progressive nature.

“There are times I’ve been taken aback, even shocked,” he said.

A Cal State University academic saw a very old trend in the population shift.

This week’s data reveals market forces that have been shaping America’s cities for 150 years, perhaps exacerbated by the now-burst housing bubble, said Benjamin Bowser, emeritus professor and former chairman of the Sociology and Social Service Department at California State University, East Bay.

“African-American communities have generally been at the bottom of the housing pool in terms of price, cost and generational inheritance,” he said. “After other groups have settled communities and moved on, African-Americans have found that’s where they can buy into.”

Property values in historically black neighborhoods of Oakland, Richmond and other cities dipped to a point where they looked like bargains to more affluent people hoping to live near major urban centers. Many blacks suddenly saw their housing values rise, even if most of the rest of their economic outlook had not improved.

“And all of a sudden someone wants to give them obscene amounts of money for their property. That results in people selling and then taking that money and buying into newer, roomier, ‘better’ properties in their interpretation away from the Bay,” Bowser said. “These are going to be the new black communities for the next couple of decades, and the old black communities will be transitioned into new uses.”

This is producing a model more like European cities such as London and Paris, he said, in which poorer people of all ethnicities live in a ring around the urban center, commuting in to work. Better enforcement of ordinances that require new urban housing development to include space for low- and moderate-income households could ease this, he said, but ultimately “if values go up and you’re sitting on that, you get moved, and you get moved to places where values have gone down. That’s the nature of the market and of the economy.”

Another expert generally agreed with one reason for minorities moving to the suburbs, but cautioned that the housing crisis might be affecting the data.

With Oakland and other local cities hit hard by a foreclosure crisis that occurred during the census count, “that means the population of the community is in flux at that time” and so becomes harder to accurately count, said Steve Spiker, research director for the Oakland-based Urban Strategies Council.

For example, people who have lost their homes and moved in temporarily with relatives or friends might not be fully accounted for, he said.

“There’s a lot of big social churning that’s happening right around the census time so it’s hard to intricately trust the data.”

Staff Writers Paul Burgarino and Lisa Vorderbrueggen contributed to this report. Read the Political Blotter at IBAbuzz.com/politics. Follow Josh Richman at Twitter.com/josh_richman.

Article source: http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_17577468