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

It’s a normal life transition – but one that would have been unavailable to him just a year ago, when his home was underwater. Now, with the Bay Area real estate market on a rapid upward trajectory, Walawitch, 62, should be able to sell his three-bedroom, two-bathroom home at a decent profit.

“This is my dream, it will provide me with the down payment for my retirement home,” he said. “I was quite concerned (during the housing downturn); I didn’t know how long I’d have to stay in the house. I’m very happy the market has turned.”

Sale prices of Bay Area homes surged in 2012 at a pace that accelerated throughout the year, according to DataQuick, a San Diego research firm. In December the nine-county median rose to $442,750, an astounding 32 percent increase compared with the prior year – the highest jump in 25 years of record keeping, DataQuick said Wednesday.

That benchmark is heavily influenced by a changing mixture of homes sold. About half of the increase represents higher values, while the other half stems from fewer bargain-priced distress sales and more high-end homes changing hands.

Foreclosures dropping

Foreclosures and short sales comprised about a third of the resale market in December; a year earlier, they were 52.4 percent of sales. The number of homes sold for more than $500,000 rose 61.2 percent, while the number sold for less than $500,000 fell 12.6 percent compared with a year earlier, DataQuick said.

“This absolutely does not mean the typical house in the Bay Area is up 32 percent compared to last year,” said DataQuick analyst Andrew LePage.

Beating previous year

However, 2012′s strong sales do show a market that is finally in recovery after the carnage of the housing collapse. From April on, Bay Area median sales prices consistently outshone those of the prior year; from June through December they outperformed 2011 by double-digit percentages.

“We’ve had a sustained buildup,” LePage said. “There is real price appreciation, particularly in the more-desirable coastal markets with a lot of demand meeting very little inventory.”

A total of 7,832 new and resale homes and condos changed hands in the nine-county Bay Area in December, up 4.5 percent from a year earlier. Realtors throughout the region report that inventories remain super-tight and many homes attract boom-style bidding wars.

December marked “the 20th consecutive month of a decline in inventory,” said Glen Bell of Better Homes and Gardens Mason McDuffie Real Estate, speaking of data for Alameda and Contra Costa counties.

The East Bay now has a two-week supply of homes for sale (meaning the existing inventory would sell out in two weeks at the current sales pace), the lowest he has ever seen, Bell said. Ordinarily it should have a three- or four-month supply.

Investors jumping in

“There is so much (buyer) competition for so few properties out there that people are scrambling to try to get in,” he said. “If a home looks good, is in an area people want to live in and is priced right, you get multiple offers all over the place.”

Even properties that don’t meet those criteria win popularity contests. Bell recently listed “a little, tiny, dinky fixer,” a bank-owned foreclosure in a “not great area of Richmond,” priced at $72,000, and received 32 offers, six of them north of $100,000. Every offer was for all cash, implying they were from investors. It went into contract this week for about two-thirds above the asking price.

All that competition – so many buyers vying over so few houses – is driving up prices. But soon it should also bring more sellers, increasing inventory, which in turn should moderate the pace of price hikes.

Correction is real

Potential sellers “are getting the sense that the market has really corrected and this is a good time to make a move,” said Rick Turley, president of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage, which covers much of Northern California. “The market improvement has gotten people to a point where they can transact, which they previously couldn’t.”

Will spring, the traditional kickoff for real estate’s strongest selling season, see a surge in sellers?

“We are certainly hopeful that the spring will give us the bump we need in listing inventory,” Turley said.

Looking back at the full year, 2012 saw an annual Bay Area median price of $404,000, still shy of the median a decade earlier. But annual medians – which mute some of the month-to-month spikes – paint a portrait of a market where the prices that shot up during the boom and crashed during the collapse now seem on a steadier path.

Could the rise in prices presage another housing bubble?

“I don’t think it will shoot up and crash down again,” Turley said. “The more-conservative lending will help us to stay healthy longer.”

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

Article source: http://www.sfgate.com/realestate/article/Bay-Area-home-sales-prices-surging-4200912.php

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Notable mergers and acquisitions in the Bay Area last week.

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Article source: http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Bay-Area-mergers-and-acquisitions-Aug-27-3816953.php

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SOURCE Transwestern

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