This three-bedroom home at 330 Gravatt Dr. in Berkeley is on the market for $1.15 million.

Blanca Torres
Reporter- San Francisco Business Times

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Homes in East Bay cities are seeing dramatic price gains far greater than homes in San Francisco, according to ZipRealty, an online real estate brokerage.

Oakland’s median home price ballooned 76 percent to $432,000 in August compared with $245,500 in August of 2012. In Hayward, home prices jumped 55 percent to $387,000 in August 2013 compared with $250,000 last year.

Meanwhile, San Francisco’s median went up by 20 percent to $880,000, up from $735,000.

“Oakland and other communities in the East Bay were impacted more severely by the foreclosure crisis, which took a toll on East Bay real estate values while also setting these areas up for the dramatic recovery in prices we are now witnessing,” said Lanny Baker, president and CEO of Emeryville-based ZipRealty.

Prices are up by 36 percent across the nine-country Bay Area with a median of $585,000, so cities like Oakland and Hayward represent a deal in the region.

Nonetheless, prices can vary significantly from ZIP code to ZIP code in the same city. For example, Berkeley, where the median home price jumped by 21 percent during the past year to $737,500, has three ZIP codes where the median is above San Francisco’s median: $955,000 in 94707, $901,000 in 94708 and $1.22 million in 94705, which includes neighborhoods such as Claremont, the Claremont Hills, Elmwood and Panoramic Hill.

In Oakland, the 94610 ZIP code has the highest median home price of $743,000 and encompasses neighborhoods like Grand Lake, Adams Point, Lakeshore, Crocker Highlands and Trestle Glen.

In San Francisco, some of the fastest appreciating neighborhoods include North Beach and Telegraph Hill in the 94133 ZIP code where prices grew by 82 percent during the past year as well as the Marina, Cow Hollow and Pacific Heights in the 94123 ZIP code where prices rose by 68 percent in the past year.

A number of factors influence how much an area’s median home price goes up such as number of homes available. Cities such as Oakland, Berkeley, Hayward and San Francisco had less home inventory in 2013 than the year before.

Blanca Torres covers East Bay real estate for the San Francisco Business Times.

Article source: http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/real-estate/2013/09/east-bay-home-prices-san-francisco.html

#1. This three-bedroom home in Piedmont is offered at $2.75 million. Piedmont has a School Score of 9.5 and a median home price of $1.2 million.

Blanca Torres
Reporter- San Francisco Business Times

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For homebuyers looking for a great public school district, the East Bay is the top area to buy a home in the Bay Area. Emeryville-based ZipRealty, an online brokerage, compiled a list of the top selling cities in the Bay Area with the highest ranking public schools — eight were in the East Bay.

Click on the slideshow to see the top 10 .

“Home values and school scores are always going to be linked,” said ZipRealty President and CEO Lanny Baker. “In order to give our users the most complete picture of a home’s value, we provide a School Score, which is calculated based on test-score data as well as student/teacher ratios, for every home listing on ZipRealty.com.”

The scores range from zero to 10 with 10 being the highest.

The No. 1 city with the highest school score is Piedmont, a small rich enclave completely surrounded by Oakland where the schools scored a 9.5 and the median price dropped 27 percent to $1.2 million in August of 2013 from $1.53 during the same month last year.

The only non-East Bay cities on the list were Palo Alto and Benicia.

Overall, median home prices in the Bay Area rose 36 percent during the past year to $585,000.

Nationwide, the Bay Area real estate market ranked second after Sacramento for having the best public schools. The Bay Area is followed by Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Orlando.

Blanca Torres covers East Bay real estate for the San Francisco Business Times.

Article source: http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/2013/09/bay-area-real-estate-top-school-district.html

The Golden Gate Bridge is seen in the view from a 15,000-square-foot custom built home on Belvedere Island in Marin County, California, U.S., in Dec. 2012. The builder couldn’t find a buyer for the brand-new waterfront mansion he listed in January for $45 million. He hoped one will turn up at an auction, where the starting bid was $25 million. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

Blanca Torres
Reporter- San Francisco Business Times

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Home prices across the country show signs of stabilizing — except in the Bay Area where we continued to see big price spikes. Why do we always have to play the role of outlier?

Signs of stabilization depend on increases in median home price, numbers of new listings and the average number of days for-sale homes stay on the market.

In the Bay Area, our inventory of new listings increased by only 3 percent to 8,006 homes in July 2013 compared with the same month last year, while our median home price soared by 40 percent to $610,000 in July, up from $436,000 the prior year, according to Emeryville-based ZipRealty.

At the same time, nationally, inventory levels grew by an average of 12 percent and median home prices beefed up by 15.8 percent — a lot more moderate than our 40 percent hike.

Van Davis, ZipRealty’s president of brokerage operations, called the growth in the U.S. real estate market, “one of moderation with underlying strength.”

“The increase in listings coupled with moderating price growth and sales volumes provide significant evidence that the real estate market is beginning to become more balanced,” Davis said.

More inventory on the market keeps prices from ballooning, but clearly that isn’t happening in the Bay Area.

In fact, our total inventory of available homes dropped by 21 percent to 8,275 in July 2013, compared with 10,466 in July 2012.

Places where new listings are climbing at impressive rates include Denver with 34 percent growth, Portland, Ore. with 24 percent, Orange County with 22 percent and Seattle and San Diego both with 21 percent.

“Several metros on the West Coast, which have had the greatest supply imbalances, are now seeing the biggest increases in listings,” Davis said. Did you notice San Francisco is a glaring omission on that list?

Blanca Torres covers East Bay real estate for the San Francisco Business Times.

Article source: http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/real-estate/2013/08/housing-market-stabilizing-everywhere.html

“The pendulum has shifted,” said Michael Reynolds, managing partner of developer Embarcadero Pacific, which specializes in high-density urban infill projects.

In 2009, his firm opened The Bond, a 101-unit complex in Oakland’s Jack London Square area, as rental apartments. Now it’s switching the building over to condos, taking advantage of buyers’ avid appetites for real estate and the dearth of for-sale inventory. About a quarter of the units have sold in less than three months.

“Rents are rising too quickly that if you can make a down payment, the cost of ownership is lower than leasing,” Reynolds said. With a boutique hotel feel, the building has units ranging from $350,000 for a one-bedroom to $1.25 million for a top-floor galleria penthouse.

The Bond was always intended to start off as rentals and then switch to condos when the time was right. But other complexes that opened during the downturn intending to be for-sale had no choice but to become rentals “when the music stopped,” as Reynolds put it.

Condo to rental, back

For instance, the 125-unit Broadway Grand in Oakland, developed by Signature Properties, first opened as a condo complex, sold 17 units, and then switched to rentals as the market tanked, said Paul Zeger, a principal at PolarisPacific, which is marketing it and some other conversion projects. Last year it went condo again, and now has sold all but 11 of its units.

Similarly, the Skyline in San Jose with 121 units is now switching to condos after opening as rentals during the downturn. In Emeryville, the 424-unit Bridgewater is switching from rentals to condos. The current phase II, which started in June with 174 homes ranging from $185,000 to $450,000, is finding a receptive audience, said Alan Mark, president of the Mark Co., which is marketing the complex.

Other Oakland complexes, including 288 Third and Uptown, have already made the switch.

With only a few dozen condos on the market, the conversions stand out.

“The (East Bay) condos that are for sale are snapped up quickly,” said Anne Feste, an agent with The Grubb Co.

Some buildings benefit from Oakland transport changes. “Transportation options have blossomed with the Free B downtown Oakland shuttle (which runs along Broadway from Jack London Square to Downtown, Uptown and beyond) and the SouthSF Ferry for people in the tech world to get to work,” Feste said.

‘More for your money’

Then there’s the affordability factor.

“You get a lot more for your money in the East Bay,” said Mike Wilkes, who recently relocated from Portland, Ore., with his husband, Grant Barth. “We would pay easily over $1 million in San Francisco for something comparable to what we bought for under $700,000 at The Bond.”

The East Bay and South Bay apartment buildings’ switch to condos is worlds away from San Francisco’s contentious condo conversions of tenant-in-common units, which generally are in buildings with just a handful of units. The current breed of condo conversions involve properties that were approved as condos before they were even constructed. That means going condo is relatively simple.

“Demand has spiked for for-sale housing,” Zeger said. “Buildings that have a ‘condo map’ (meaning they’re already approved for condo sales) in the local municipality can just go to the Bureau of Real Estate” to get final approvals.

When a rental building goes condo, generally existing tenants have the first right to purchase their units at the public price. If they don’t want to buy, they finish out their leases, which can then be terminated by the developer. There’s also turnover in the normal course of affairs.

Harder to get a loan

“We gain vacancies through natural attrition as renters move out,” Reynolds said. “We then refurbish the units with new finishes and put them out for sale so part of the building is leased, part is owner-occupied.”

However, that mixture can make it harder to get a home loan. In today’s stricter climate, lenders often require a minimum percentage of owner-occupied units before they’ll issue mortgages in a condo complex.

“It’s much more difficult to get Fannie Mae approval when you’re converting a building,” Mark said. The agency requires condo conversions to pre-sell 70 percent of units to owner-occupants before it will back mortgages, he said, but sometimes agrees to reduce that requirement a degree.

The apartment-to-condo trajectory is less likely to happen in San Francisco, where about 8,000 rental units are under construction. That’s because most were financed in a way that requires they generate rental income for many years, Zeger said.

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

Article source: http://www.sfgate.com/realestate/article/Bay-Area-rental-pendulum-swings-to-condos-4740789.php

This one-bedroom home in Berkeley at 1196 Cornell Ave. is on the market for $400,000.

Blanca Torres
Reporter- San Francisco Business Times

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For all the talk in recent years about more Bay Area residents steering toward a “car-free” lifestyle, it sure is hard to find a place to live that is affordable and pedestrian-friendly once you leave San Francisco’s city limits.

Emeryville-based ZipRealty Inc. ranked the most walkable cities with the most affordable homes near San Francisco and came up with a whopping four cities: Emeryville, downtown San Jose, Albany and Berkeley.

ZipRealty used data from WalkScore.com, which ranks locations with walkability scores of 0 to 100, to come up with its list.

“One of the allures of living in San Francisco is the city’s beautiful and convenient walkability, and that appeal is well-reflected in its lofty real estate prices,” said CEO and President Lanny Baker. “According to our partner Walk Score, San Francisco is the second-most walkable large city in the United States, behind New York City. In the local study we conducted, the most walkable and affordable communities were quite surprising alternatives to the high average price in San Francisco, which currently exceed $1 million.”

Here is a breakdown of the four cities with median home price and Walk Score:

1. Emeryville: $388,888 / 80.
2. Downtown San Jose: $508,450 / 74.
3. Albany: $622,500 / 86.
4. Berkeley: $786,256 / 95.

This list points out some interesting dynamics about Bay Area real estate. It appears living in a city where you can get around without a car will cost you a premium. San Francisco by nature is a dense, walkable city with amenities around the corner in most neighborhoods. In contrast, cities around San Francisco developed with the more suburban model of separating residential and commercial areas, making residents dependent on cars.

Emeryville is a compact, 1 square-mile sized city that has undergone a major transformation during the past few decades from an industrial wasteland to a city with thriving commercial and retail districts. Most of the housing there is either apartments or condos, as is the case with most of the homes for sale that fit ZipRealty’s criteria for affordable and walkable.

Having alternatives to driving is not just better for the environment and buyer’s pocketbooks, but has other benefits, said Josh Herst, CEO of Walk Score.

“The trend in urban areas is moving toward less dependency on cars and a greater commitment to live more sustainably,” Herst said. “People in walkable neighborhoods weigh six to 10 pounds less than those who don’t. Walk Score has also done extensive research showing that walkable places make people happier and healthier. Finally, short commutes reduce stress levels and give people more free time to be involved in their communities.”

Blanca Torres covers East Bay real estate for the San Francisco Business Times.

Article source: http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/real-estate/2013/08/top-bay-area-cities-where-you-can-buy.html?page=all

The area median home price shoot up by 43 percent to $620,000 in the Bay Area during the past year, according to ZipRealty.

Blanca Torres
Reporter- San Francisco Business Times

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The Bay Area housing market is on fire — and we’re about to get burned.

The median home price in the Bay Area ballooned by 43 percent during the past year to $620,000 in June, up from $435,000 a year ago, according to ZipRealty, the Emeryville-based online brokerage.

The Bay Area leads the nation in year-over-year growth, followed by Sacramento with 41 percent, Los Angeles with 31 percent, Las Vegas with 30 percent and San Diego with 25 percent.

Meanwhile, the number of homes on the market in the Bay Area has dropped by 32 percent to 7,961 from 11,662 a year ago.

The fire burns brighter in particular parts of the Bay Area (like San Francisco, where the median price hit $1 million in April).

Still, that type of growth is phenomenal — and likely unsustainable. So, how long before prices level off?

The drop in inventory indicates that we’re in a supply constrained market, which could entice more sellers to put their homes on the market.

“After months of runaway prices and a near-desperate inventory situation, the Bay Area housing market is starting to replenish itself,” said ZipRealty CEO and President Lanny Baker. “Home owners across the region now see increased values, tight bid/offer spreads and lightning fast sales, and they’re reacting by putting more homes, and particularly more attractive homes, on the market once again. It’s a welcomed break in the trend even if it ultimately means prices start to cool off a bit too.”

But, what do rising home prices really mean?

I asked economist Christopher Thornberg of Beacon Economics, who is best known for rightly predicting the 2008 mortgage crisis (even though no one agreed with him).

Blanca Torres covers East Bay real estate for the San Francisco Business Times.

Article source: http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/2013/07/bay-area-housing-prices-jump-43.html

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Homes keep getting bid up over asking, which keeps pushing up prices. Another week, another real estate report showing that home prices are on a tear, with the Bay Area among the nation’s leaders. This time, it was the SP/Case-Shiller home-price index showing double-digit prices increases.

Here are photos from one of those now-commonplace scenarios: A perfectly nice, but not extraordinary house that went for way over asking. In this case it was a four-bedroom rancher in Walnut Creek’s Larkey Park area. Listed for $615,950, it went for $650,000 — $34,050 or 5.5 percent over asking.

On average, homes in the 9-county San Francisco Bay Area area are selling for 103.6 percent of asking; this time last year, they went for 100 percent of asking, said Lanny Baker, CEO of Emeryville’s ZipRealty.

Realtors around the Bay Area continue to report flocks of buying chasing super-tight inventory. ZipRealty shows that for-sale Bay Area  inventory is down 43 percent from this time last year to only about 6,998 homes. In 22 out of 24 metro areas it tracks nationwide, ZipRealty “saw more new listings as of April 30 compared to April 30, 2012,” it said in a report. “San Francisco and Austin were the only two metros showing slight declines in new listings.”

“Five of the top seven cities in our national report on price appreciation are in California,” Baker said. “We see San Francisco (metro) as the No. 1 city in the country right now for price momentum,”

In the Case-Shiller report, prices for a 20-city composite index were up 10.9 percent in March versus a year earlier. For the SF metro, which Case-Shiller defines as the counties of San Francisco, Marin, San Mateo, Alameda and Contra Costa, the increase was a strong 22.2 percent, second only to Phoenix’s 22.5 percent gain. For an in-depth look at the report and its implications, click here.

Carolyn Said is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Follow her on Twitter: @csaid

Article source: http://blog.sfgate.com/ontheblock/2013/05/29/homes-prices-keep-on-ratcheting-up-as-bay-area-outpaces-national-growth/

Apartment hunting in San Francisco is not for the faint of heart. The latest news on spiraling rents and brutal competition for rentals in San Francisco — as well as Oakland and San Jose — is covered here.

Many folks find that they can get more for their money by trekking across the Bay.

Here’s a look at two state-of-the-art lofts in converted industrial buildings — one East Bay (Emeryville), one West Bay (San Francisco) that underscore the price differentials. Both are from the same dynamic duo team — architect David Baker and developer Rick Holliday. Admittedly they aren’t direct comparisons, as the San Francisco penthouse is bigger and in a more chi-chi location, but they give an idea of the price differences.

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First up, here is a “gorgeous light-filled” one-bedroom, one-bathroom in an historic Emeryville warehouse. At $2,450 a month for 1,300 square feet, it was snapped up within a week, said leasing agent Jeanne Zimmerman of McGuire Real Estate/Urban Bay Properties in San Francisco. “It would be about $3,800 if it were in San Francisco,” she said, pointing to the Hueblein Building as an equivalent SF comp.

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Next, take a look at this penthouse unit in San Francisco’s landmark ClockTower  building with one bedroom plus an office space and two bathrooms. It also found a tenant quickly. At 1,925 feet it went for $6,500.

Believe it or not, in the early 1990s when Holliday converted the 1907 ClockTower building, originally the home of a lithography company that printed  California fruit-crate labels, to 127  open-floor-plan live/work units, people “thought I was out of my mind,” he said. The South of Market/South Beach area seemed like a wasteland at the time. “Then the building sold out,” he said. “It blew everyone away; it was written up in Esquire magazine.”

The condos that sold for $250,000 “back in the day” now hover around $1 million with some of the better ones going for $2 million, Holliday said.

A side note on live-work lofts. Zimmerman said they have an unusual competitive situation where potential residents have to vie with corporate renters.

“I see a lot of small businesses and startups competing with residential customers for them,” she said. “The companies are looking to lease them for office space, and use the bed upstairs in the loft area for executives who travel or employees who work late.”

Carolyn Said is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. For insights and news on Bay Area real estate, follow her on Twitter: @csaid

Article source: http://blog.sfgate.com/ontheblock/2013/05/01/apartment-mania-sleek-live-work-lofts-in-east-bay-vs-sf/

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.