Paragon Real Estate Group® first brokerage in San Francisco to provide Clarus touchCMA™ to its REALTORS®

Paragon has always been a company that is light on its feet, highly responsive to new ideas and opportunities, and now the time has come to take big steps in virtually every facet of our business to take us to the next level – Paragon CEO Bob Dadurka.

San Francisco, CA (PRWEB) September 26, 2013

“Since we opened our doors in 2004, we’ve been gratified by being able to build Paragon into one of the most successful brokerages in San Francisco. 2013 is shaping up to be our best year ever – with total sales up 20 percent and luxury home sales up a whopping 82 percent, we should go well beyond a billion dollars in sales – and our agents now have one of the highest averages sales per agent figures in the country. San Francisco has always been a very competitive market, the price point is very high and our clients are extremely sophisticated financially and technologically and in what they expect from the professionals who serve their needs. Paragon has always been a company that is light on its feet, highly responsive to new ideas and opportunities, and now the time has come to take big steps in virtually every facet of our business to take us to the next level,” Paragon CEO Bob Dadurka.

These steps include spinning off their investment real estate division, already one of the biggest players in that market segment, into the separate Paragon Commercial Brokerage in beautiful new offices at 1700 California. Another big piece of the plan is the centralization of Paragon’s residential brokerage operations in the 4-story building they purchased and completely renovated at 1400 Van Ness. This will then be followed by the opening of new, mobile-oriented, hub offices in other areas of the city such as the luxury home market of Pacific Heights-Marina, Potrero Hill, South Beach-SoMa and the Hayes Valley-Noe Valley area. Paragon is also actively growing the number of agents working in Marin, Napa and Sonoma, where their business is growing quickly. According to Paragon Managing Broker, Sally Stull, “The way people do business is rapidly changing and the way our agents serve our clients is changing. Big old-style offices with desks and phones are much less important; cutting edge technology that improves client communications, property marketing and the delivery of highest quality market analytics is what helps our clients most and what they want. So we are moving resources from an older business model to this more dynamic and more mobile model. We are extremely excited about the large investments we’re making in improved technology and more streamlined operations right now. This will be a huge win-win for Paragon and for our customers.”

Paragon has been investing particularly heavily in new marketing technologies. Paragon’s Director of Brand and Digital Marketing Lisa M. Norman highlighted a few of the biggest initiatives: “Marketing is one of the core products a real estate brokerage offers its clients and Paragon has always invested heavily in stand-out marketing across the multiple media platforms. But now we’re taking a quantum leap in digital and mobile marketing. Both our website and new online resource, ParaScopeSF, offer comprehensive information about living in the Bay Area and its complex real estate market. We’re the first brokerage in San Francisco to offer touchCMA, a highly sophisticated iPad-based presentation and market analysis tool, to all our agents and clients. Paragon has moved to a new, mobile marketing platform, Imprev, that allows marketing staff and agents to create incredible materials from wherever they are in less time than ever. As our footprint in the luxury home market grows by leaps and bounds, we are designing new programs and developing new partnerships to meet the special needs of that market segment. And finally, within the realm of traditional marketing, Paragon is redesigning and upgrading all its print marketing materials to a standard currently unmatched in San Francisco real estate sales.”

About the Company:

Paragon’s main residential office is at 1400 Van Ness Avenue in San Francisco and its Commercial Brokerage at 1700 California Street. Paragon can be found online at paragon-re.com and ParaScopeSF.com.

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Article source: http://www.prweb.com/releases/real-estate/San-Francisco/prweb11166036.htm

Music

By Jonathan Curiel | Feb 24, 2013

Near the corner of Broadway and Columbus, in the heart of San Francisco’s North Beach neighborhood, a storefront beckons passers-by with signage that suggests good times for all. “Jazz at Pearl’s,” blares the awning at 256 Columbus Avenue, where an outside wall has the same big lettering. Below the lettering, though, are stickers with graffiti, and a bigger sign that tells the bitter truth: “For Lease.” If there’s a poetic symbol of the up-and-down state of jazz in San Francisco, it’s 256 Columbus Avenue.

When Jazz at Pearl’s was going strong, as it was a decade ago, jazz aficionados crowded into the space to hear the likes of singer Madeline Eastman and percussionist extraordinaire Pete Escovedo. Those days, anyone walking by 256 Columbus Avenue could hear and see the music, too, because the Jazz at Pearl’s stage was right by the window. It was San Francisco at its best — a public spectacle of an art form that has always had deep roots here.

These days, San Francisco’s jazz scene is centered in Hayes Valley, at 205 Franklin Street, where SFJAZZ has its new $63 million super structure — a 35,000-square-foot Shangri-La that opened last month and has everything from a 700-seat concert hall to state-of-the-art café run by Charles Phan (of Slanted Door fame).

Photo by Jonathan Curiel.

The contrast between the gleaming SFJAZZ Center and the graffitied former home of Jazz at Pearl’s is emblematic of the state of jazz in San Francisco. Because of the changing economy — fueled by booming housing prices, booming rents, and booming tech money — San Francisco is becoming a city of economic haves and have-nots. Running a jazz club can be highly expensive. A city that, in its jazz heyday, was festooned with small jazz clubs is down to a handful of clubs facing an uncertain future.

“Small jazz clubs cannot survive in this day and age,” says Pascal Bokar Thiam, a prominent jazz guitarist and academic who co-owns Savanna Jazz, a Mission District jazz club that opened in 2003. “San Francisco used to be a Mecca for jazz. But the art form doesn’t necessarily die because small jazz clubs cannot survive. In the context of San Francisco, what SFJAZZ is doing is important because it puts front and center the reality that America has an art form of its own. And that art form expresses the highest standards of aesthetics that humanity has been able to make. By cultivating this, SFJAZZ is doing something extremely important to the general health of jazz.”

But jazz elders are now debating whether there’s a substantial audience for jazz in San Francisco beyond the confines of SFJAZZ’s programming. Sonny Buxton, a deejay at Bay Area radio jazz station KCSM who was the musical director of Jazz at Pearl’s before its 2003 closing, says an increase in college jazz programs around the country has helped produce a new generation of jazz-goers steeped in the music’s history.

“There’s a new, upcoming jazz audience that’s young and vibrant,” Buxton says. “They’re into jazz and world music and a lot of different things. One thing today that wasn’t in existence when I was coming up is that virtually every college and university in the country today has a jazz program. That means a lot of young people are being exposed to it.”

The decrease of San Francisco jazz clubs in the past 20 years may be due more to real-estate economics than a leveling-off of jazz audiences. Jazz at Pearl’s shut down in 2003 when the building’s owner declined to give the club more than a five-year lease. (A new Jazz at Pearl’s opened in the same location but closed its doors in 2008 over similar lease issues.) Savanna Jazz faced foreclosure when a bank refused to negotiate new terms. Facing a possible bankruptcy, Yoshi’s San Francisco is trying to redo the terms of loans it received from the now-defunct San Francisco Redevelopment Agency.

Will audiences support these venues at their most vulnerable economic times? Thiam says the audience for jazz is limited because jazz and music education have disappeared at the grade school, middle school, and high school levels. San Francisco’s jazz scene, he says, reflects a nationwide trend: among younger audiences, jazz is losing out to hip-hop, rap, pop, and other music. Young black students have even told Thiam that they consider jazz a “white music” that has little relevance to their lives.

“Jazz is not profitable, primarily because there is no audience for it — it’s an art form that isn’t taught in schools,” says Thiam, whose club is located on Mission Street between 25th and 26th Streets. “Schools teach Mozart and Beethoven, but Mozart and Beethoven are the products and the geniuses of Europe. In America, we have our geniuses that created an art form that’s performed all over the planet. Singapore has a jazz festival. Turkey has a jazz festival. Denmark has a jazz festival. And these geniuses are called King Oliver, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and so forth. Because our student population as early as elementary school is not knowledgeable about people who created an art form that lifted this nation to the status of a cultural superpower, we have this vacuum. There is no energy for young people to go to jazz clubs — not because they don’t like jazz; it’s simply because they don’t know anything about jazz. This is an area where culture has impacted business. And as a result, business by dwindling impacts the culture.”

The Danish government, Thiam says, gives financial support to the country’s jazz clubs — upwards of $125,000 a year to each club, “so they can operate a higher-standard learning environment.” While the U.S. government may not have a similar approach, moneyed institutions like SFJAZZ should consider supporting small jazz clubs, which are incubators of upcoming jazz musicians and singers, says Thiam and Franzo King, the saxophone-playing Archbishop at Saint John Coltrane African Orthodox Church on Fillmore Street. The San Francisco church, which some jazz fans consider a de facto jazz club, was evicted from its longtime home on Divisadero Street in 2000 because of a massive rent increase.

King views the opening of SFJAZZ’s new center with decidedly mixed feelings, saying its new location in a gentrified neighborhood anchors San Francisco’s jazz scene away from the African-American community that historically supported jazz in the city. Popular jazz in San Francisco, King worries, may become an art form performed in a symphony-like environment where audiences are snazzily dressed and discouraged from being vocal during performances. “SFJAZZ moved out of the community where it was born,” King says.

After opening its doors last month, SFJAZZ has had a series of sold-out performances, and is well on its way to raising all necessary funding. So far, donors have contributed $54.9 million, with nine donors giving $1 million or more. One anonymous contribution totaled $25 million. “The SFJAZZ Center believes that rising water raises all ships,” says SFJAZZ spokesperson Marshall Lamm. “We hope the Center can generate more exposure for the genre that will then increase the interest in jazz so more people go out to experience live music in every venue.”

Thiam is taking a wait-and-see approach. In the meantime, Savanna Jazz is negotiating new loan terms with its bank, says Thiam, who is hopeful the jazz club, with its nightly jazz and its prominent display of jazz memorabilia, will be around for the foreseeable future. “We’ll be here,” Thiam says in his office on a recent Saturday night, “as long as the spirit of Louis Armstrong says we’re going to be here.”

As Thiam spoke, the Montreal-based jazz singer Jeri Brown and her trio of top-flight musicians performed another song for an enthusiastic audience of 30. That number may seem small, but even famous jazz clubs like the Village Vanguard in New York get crowds that are similar in number. The night I visited Savanna Jazz, one audience member moved her hands to the rhythm of Brown’s beats, as if the woman were on stage with Brown and her trio. The woman seemed to be in a trance, and her seat was practically shaking with feeling. Nearby, other audience members were also riveted, even if they were less demonstrative.

On that night, jazz was alive and well at a small club in San Francisco — just like it was in the old days when John Coltrane, Miles Davis, and other big names would visit San Francisco and perform in venues that were not much bigger than a studio apartment. Jazz spots like Savanna Jazz helped forge the cultural environment that led to SFJAZZ in the first place. A venue like Savanna Jazz is the only place to see an artist like Jeri Brown, who’s highly considered in jazz circles (and a new favorite of mine) but not yet so popular she could sell out SFJAZZ’s concert hall.

“Small jazz venues are the incubators of local talent,” says Thiam. “In order for this art form to survive, small jazz clubs have to be able to survive. It’s very important for big entities like SFJAZZ and Lincoln Center in New York to realize that there has to be a partnership with small jazz venues. If that becomes a commitment — if the big outfits that have the financial endowment hold hands with small jazz venues — then only then will the tide lift all boats.”

For more information on the programming at SFJAZZ, visit sfjazz.org.

Resources

• SFJAZZ

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In the greater San Francisco and San Jose markets, average rental prices increased by 10.4 and 12.2 percent, respectively, making the two areas the markets with the greatest rent appreciation in the country, according to a report by RealFacts, a company that analyzes rental data. The S.F. region includes parts of the East Bay, and San Jose includes other parts of Santa Clara County.

Click on the photo at right to see how rents have increased in the Bay Area.

Over the past four years, according to the survey, rental prices have climbed 13.7 percent in San Francisco, while occupancy rose only 1.3 percent. The City’s high apartment occupancy rate is one of the factors contributing to its rising prices, real estate experts agree.

“We’ve reached a point where there’s nothing out there,” said Craig Berendt, a broker with Berendt Properties. “People are knocking down my door to get an apartment.”

Renters now have to compete for apartments, sometimes creating a bidding war. Vacancies are filled quickly, and for above-average prices. Berendt recently rented a client an 800-square-foot Hayes Valley apartment with an outdated 1950s kitchen and without parking for $2,100 a month. About a year ago he would have been lucky to get $1,700, he said.

The tech industry, which is credited with contributing to the boom in both residential and commercial real estate, has created a renter profile of young, well-paid professionals who can afford the cream of the crop.

“Current renters moving in are pickier about what they want,” said Janan New, executive director of San Francisco Apartment Association. “They are willing to pay high rents, but don’t want to compromise on amenities.”

She said that means landlords have to deliver — by installing granite countertops, track lighting and other new features that also can drive up asking rates. The trend has made San Francisco a city that is increasingly unaffordable to middle-class residents, both New and Berendt said.

“I see our middle class really starting to dissipate,” Berendt said. “Obviously we don’t want that. We want a well-balanced class system, but the rents are just going through the roof.”

RealFacts’ report analyzes detailed data for 47 market survey areas in the country, including Los Angeles, Dallas, Denver and Tampa. Although the report omitted detailed information on major metropolises such as New York City and Washington, D.C., RealFacts spokeswoman Linda Burke said the company’s data on those cities supports its findings about San Francisco and San Jose.

sgantz@sfexaminer.com

Article source: http://www.sfexaminer.com/local/2012/01/bay-area-leads-nation-rental-price-increases

Rental price growth in our market was the highest in the nation for 2011, as much 12.2 percent on average according to a new report.

Researchers at RealFacts, a company that analyzes rental data, also found that occupancy in cities like San Francisco rose only 1.3 percent over the last four years. There’s just nothing available.

Real estate experts agree: “We’ve reached a point where there’s nothing out there,” said Craig Berendt, a broker with Berendt Properties in San Francico. “People are knocking down my door to get an apartment.”

When something good does hit the market in trendy neighborhoods, young professionals come from everywhere and line up for a chance to start a bidding war. And it’s not just Hayes Valley or the Mission — San Jose actually led the pack, with highest rental price increases in the U.S. last year.

For decades, the tech industry has been widely credited with driving-up commercial and rental real estate in the Bay Area, bringing young, high-earning and uncompromising professionals into market that are willing to spend way too much to get what they want. And with Facebook gearing up for one of the biggest tech IPOs in history, we don’t see this situation getting any better for the middle class in 2012.

“I see our middle class really starting to dissipate,” Berendt said. “Obviously we don’t want that. We want a well-balanced class system, but the rents are just going through the roof.”

Article source: http://sfbay.ca/2012/01/19/bay-area-rent-hikes-highest-in-u-s/

But after all the grand fanfare, with impressive deals made in anticipation of city funding contributions and millions of dollars raised for design and preliminary development, the harsh reality of the national housing meltdown brought the dream crashing to a halt. Public housing residents who have been repeatedly disappointed are back in limbo, living day-to-day in homes that — in many cases — are vermin-infested, lack heat, have broken walls, ceilings or windows, and are consistently rated as dangerous and life-threatening.

In U.S Department of Housing and Urban Development inspections, a score of at least 60 out of 100 is considered passing. Scores at the eight public housing projects supposed to be upgraded by Hope SF range from 51 to 65 — and HUD found “life-threatening conditions present” at all of them.

For decades, running well into the early ’90s, the rundown condition of San Francisco’s public housing was a disgrace to The City. Executive managers were ousted and angry federal reports blasted the projects’ inadequate upkeep. Then between 1994 and 2006, money from the federal Hope VI program successfully revitalized public housing in the Mission, North Beach, Western Addition, Hayes Valley and Bernal Heights.

But the money from Washington eventually disappeared. Newsom tried to continue the work by assembling one of his bolder programs. Hope SF was a complex package partnering with private or nonprofit developers who would make money by building market-rate condos in the area. However, with the housing market and real estate financing limping along in the Bay Area, four years after Hope SF began, only two of its sites — in Hunters Point and the Bayview — actually have the public funds to move ahead.

Funding has run dry for six other developments, including the 769-unit Sunnydale housing project, sites atop Potrero Hill and in the Western Addition. The dismal news arrived in The City’s March report outlining San Francisco’s next decade of development: City Hall needs $127 million for infrastructure upgrades such as utilities, street paving and drainage before money becomes available to finish the public housing rebuild.

The fact remains that Hope SF made a four-year-old unfulfilled promise to San Franciscans whose needs have been shoved back to the end of the line for a disgracefully long time.

There can be no arguing about how difficult today’s municipal spending constraints are. But simply giving up and leaving Hope SF on the back burner will only worsen the problems plaguing these low-income communities. This is a time to try moving beyond the bureaucratic envelope. Some ways should be found to sweeten the developer deals so they become more attractive to private funding. It would seem that a task force of creative business people ought to be able to find some way to move Hope SF forward.

Article source: http://www.sfexaminer.com/opinion/editorials/2011/04/san-francisco-public-housing-shouldn-t-be-left-hopeless