#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 report by the Irvine, Calif.-based firm shows the Santa Rosa-Petaluma Metropolitan Statistical Area as the 18^th most profitable market for those who buy, renovate and resell homes, part of a list of the 25 markets where the practice generated the highest rate of return in 2012.

Brian Burke

Yet Brian Burke, managing director of the Santa Rosa-based real estate private equity investment fund Praxis Capital, cautioned against labeling the area or any other as a hub for that activity.

“It’s very deal specific — it’s hard to generalize,” said Mr. Burke, whose company specializes in real estate investments that include flipping homes. “What that tells me is not that Santa Rosa is the best place to buy homes because you can buy at a deep discount. Houses in Santa Rosa have appreciated faster than homes in other areas.”

A “flipped” home in Santa Rosa generated an average gross profit of 19 percent, or $53,558, according to the report. There were an estimated 527 such sales over the year, with an average original purchase price for the home of $285,344. The number of single family homes involved in the practice had increased 47 percent from the year before.

The city was the least profitable of other Bay Area markets that made it to the list. Flipped homes in San Francisco and San Jose generated an average return of 23 percent.

The most profitable market on the list was Orlando, Fla., where a home purchased at an average price of $103,701 generated an average profit of 63 percent upon resale, according to RealtyTrac.

Climbing home prices have attracted an array of investors in the current market, with “flipping” being among those practices. RealtyTrac estimated the sales that involved a flip by counting transactions that occurred within six months or less of a previous sale of the same home. The firm looked at 600 metro areas for the report.

The practice has changed from the days when buyers could purchase a distressed property at a deep discount and sell at a profit after basic renovations, Mr. Burke said. While investors were able to put between $10,000 and $30,000 into a property for a profitable sale while the market was at its low, those activities now entail from $30,000 up to as much as $250,000, he said.

“Now the business has shifted to looking for properties that may need another bedroom, or even a full rebuild of a home,” he said. “It’s basically the homebuilding of this decade. It used to be you buy a property and build 20 homes on it — that was real estate development.”

Investors, which account for the majority of absentee buyers, purchased 24.2 percent of all homes across the Bay Area in April, according to San Diego-based real estate data tracker DataQuick. That number was up from 23.5 percent in April 2012, with investors paying a median of $362,000 across the Bay Area region.

With multiple private placement funds involving single-family homes, “flipped” homes and multifamily properties in Texas, Praxis has grown to $25 million under management in four years, Mr. Burke said. Those funds have generated an average 20 percent annualized return for investors, but it is the stability of the funds that has proven attractive in a volatile investment climate, he said.

Median home prices in Sonoma County were up 23.5 percent in April versus the same month in 2012, at $376,000, according to DataQuick. The number of sales, 611, was also up 15.3 percent, while the number of sales Bay Area-wide notched down 0.6 percent.

Median prices continued to climb outside of Sonoma County as well, with approximately half of that due to price appreciation and half due to a greater number of higher-priced homes in the sales mix, according to DataQuick. Distressed sales are also on the decline, accounting for 24 percent of sales versus 44 percent across the Bay Area one year ago.

In Marin County, a median price of $799,000 was 29.3 percent greater than one year ago, with 345 homes sales representing an 18.2 percent increase. Napa County saw an April median of $385,000, up 21.3 percent, and a 13.3 percent increase in homes sales, at 136. There were 1.3 percent more homes sold in Solano County, at 564, and the median price of $238,000 was up 36 percent from April 2012.

Bay Area-wide, median prices rose above $500,000 for the first time since almost five years. Prices first passed that threshold in May of 2004, and continued rising for four years before dropping below $500,000 in June 2008. Median prices for homes sold across the Bay Area reached a low of $290,000 in March 2009.

Bill Facendini

With fewer distressed properties in the mix, larger investors are now looking towards higher-end homes and income properties, said Bill Facendini, president of Terra Firm Global Partners. More of their investor clients are holding on to their current properties, particularly those that are generating rental income, he said.

Meanwhile, the period of flipping distressed properties has left a positive mark on many neighborhoods, he said.

“It has been good for communities. I’ve seen some communities that had started to slide, but then these people come in and refresh some of these distressed homes. People are having pride of ownership again,” he said.

Article source: http://www.northbaybusinessjournal.com/73472/santa-rosa-ranked-one-of-most-profitable-flip-markets/

Those are just a few, but suffice it to say prices are rising based on higher demand and abnormally low supply. Supply, ironically, is low because so far regular home sellers who don’t have to move would rather not sell into a market that is just beginning to recovery.

Also, many homeowners are still underwater on their mortgages, and therefore they would have to pay into their current homes in addition to paying for a new one.

(Read More: Old Ills Still Hit Big Banks)

But why are the price jumps so high? Some say it’s all relative.

“Market observers shouldn’t be fooled by the large headline numbers,” warned Alex Villacorta, director of research and analytics at Clear Capital, a data provider. “Last year was a turning point for the market where the year started with prices at virtually their lowest point and saw a very strong correction through the year. Much of the gains we see right now in the yearly trends are a reflection of the market lows in 2012, rather than a function of recent short-term momentum.”

Villacorta expects these big gains to subside as the market stabilizes and more supply comes up for sale. He sees the recovery of housing itself, not some broader economic resurgence, as housing’s main driver.

“Moderate improvements in the broader economic landscape likely haven’t offered potential homebuyers strong reason to jump back in at the start of the season. We do expect to see more buyers and sellers ready to take action over the next several months as rising prices continue to free up some underwater mortgages,” he offered.

Article source: http://www.cnbc.com/id/100715894

“Drum-tight inventory, lower (interest) rates than most people alive have ever seen, and in some areas record levels of investor purchases (created) an unusual environment,” said Andrew LePage, analyst at San Diego’s DataQuick, which produced the report.

Another big factor – “unleashing of pent-up (buyer) demand,” he said. During the downturn, “for years, some people sat on the sidelines, afraid to buy. Now there’s been a shift in psychology in the past year with people switching from fearing prices might fall more, to fearing they will go up, so they want to buy now.”

An improving economy and job growth – factors that are stronger here than elsewhere in the country – also feed buyer demand.

“The San Francisco Bay Area is the hottest market in the country right now,” said Errol Samuelson, president of Realtor.com, the online marketplace for the National Association of Realtors.

February’s sales median for the nine-county region was $405,000, compared with $325,000 in February 2012. It was the fourth straight month in which prices rose more than 20 percent compared with the prior year, and the ninth consecutive month of double-digit increases, DataQuick said.

The same dearth of inventory that amped up prices caused the volume of sales to slump 6.1 percent compared with a year earlier. A total of 5,404 new and resale homes and condos changed hands in the region in February, DataQuick said.

Return of bidding wars

Realtors around the area report that tight inventories are spurring ferocious bidding wars over properties – a phenomenon that holds true at all price points.

In Berkeley, John and Judith Ratcliffe of the Grubb Co. sold three homes in recent weeks that listed for more than $1 million and went for substantial amounts above asking. One architecturally distinctive home was listed at $1.295 million but sold for $1.8 million, all cash – more than half a million dollars, or 39 percent, above the asking price.

“Everything in our market is getting multiple offers,” Judith Ratcliffe said. “We need more inventory.”

At a different point on the scale, Annie Brown, an agent with ZipRealty in the East Bay, recently took an investor client to tour a $399,000 four-bedroom tract home in Dublin.

“We drove up and saw all these people in a line,” she said. “I was thinking, ‘What the hey?’ and then I realized it was to get in this particular house. It’s human nature; if people think they can’t get something, they want it more. We stood in line for over an hour to get in.”

Her client offered $92,000 over asking and lost out to another investor who bid $100,000 more than the list price, she said. There were 40 offers.

“It’s an investor’s market right now,” Brown said. “Our first-time home buyers … are having a really hard time getting an offer accepted. It’s hard for them to compete with investors.”

Absentee buyers

Indeed, investors continued to be powerful forces in the market. Absentee buyers accounted for an all-time high of 28.2 percent of February sales, DataQuick said. All-cash buyers also hit a record, representing 31.9 percent of February sales. Historically, cash transactions have been about 12.9 percent of sales.

Realtor.com data show that listings here are being snapped up much more quickly than elsewhere in the nation. In Alameda County, for instance, listings go into escrow on average within 14 days of hitting the market. Nationwide, it takes 98 days for houses to sell.

Around the Bay Area, inventories of for-sale homes are about half what they were a year ago, Realtor.com shows. By contrast, nationwide, inventories are down about 16 percent compared with last year, Samuelson said.

That’s true in many micro-markets as well. Take San Francisco’s Nob Hill, for instance. A year ago, it had 30 homes for sale. Now it has just 15, according to Redfin.

Kiesha Stephens, a listing specialist with Redfin, is preparing a two-bedroom Nob Hill condo – a remodeled unit that retains its early 1900s character, including stained glass windows, wood wainscoting and two fireplaces – to hit the market next week for $799,000, a relative bargain in that neighborhood.

She’s already had six agents ask if they could make pre-emptive offers.

“There’s so little inventory that things are definitely skewed in sellers’ favor,” she said. “Right now there seems to be a surge of buyers.”

Fewer distress sales

DataQuick said that changes in the market mix, such as fewer bargain-priced distress sales and more high-end homes, account for about half of the median’s increase. In other words, all Bay Area home values did not jump 25 percent in February, although values definitely are rising across the board. Distress sales – foreclosures and short sales, both often sold at a discount – are still above their historic norms but are declining.

About a third of February’s existing-home sales were distressed; a year ago more than half (53.4 percent) were foreclosures or short sales, DataQuick said. Just 13.6 percent of resales were foreclosures in February, the lowest level since November 2007.

At their peak in February 2009, foreclosures accounted for 52 percent of all resales. Short sales also declined, but not as much. They were 21.4 percent of resales, versus 27.0 percent a year ago.

The number of homes selling for more than $500,000 rose 27.7 percent compared with last year, while those less than $500,000 fell 14.4 percent, DataQuick said.

Prices, which went into free fall during the downturn, are still far off their peaks. The Bay Area median reached a high of $665,000 in summer 2007 and a low of $290,000 in March 2009. DataQuick said that if the current rate of increase holds up, the Bay Area prices will be halfway back to their peak this spring or summer.

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-home-prices-up-24-6-over-2012-4356658.php

Housing starts are up 24 percent from a year ago, but residential construction employment is up only 3.1 percent, according to the U.S. Commerce and Labor Departments. Former construction workers headed to higher paying jobs, such as the trucking industry. Some in the Southwest headed north to the newly thriving energy sector, said Marquis Jackson. Others headed to highway construction jobs in Texas.

(Read More: Job Creation Surges as Rate Falls to 7.7%)

In Las Vegas, where Pardee Homes is building 150 percent more homes this year than they did last year, finding workers is increasingly difficult.

“We lost quite a bit of labor to the oil fields and to places like Wyoming and North Dakota, where you would not expect it to go,” noted Klif Andrews, Pardee’s Las Vegas president.

Andrews said he is paying workers five to ten percent more now, and that has pushed his home prices higher. “We’ve raised median home prices up over 15 percent, so we’ve been able to stay a little bit ahead of it, but cost increases, it’s not just labor, it’s also materials,” he added.

Nationwide, the median price for newly built homes rose 2 percent in January and new home prices now far exceed the median price for existing homes.

(Read More: Housing: Picking Up the Pieces)

Another factor is weighing on workers. Contractors, who hire the specialty workers for builders, are small businessmen themselves. In order to fund their operations, they need to hire people to have ready, and that takes capital. Unfortunately, despite the housing recovery, banks are still not lending freely to builders. Builders are trying to find ways around that, by paying subcontractors more frequently, essentially bankrolling them so they can hire more workers.

“The wheels are starting to work, but all the gears are not working in alignment,” said Marquis Jackson.

Article source: http://www.cnbc.com/id/100537494

SF has never been a city making news for selling cheap homes, but this year, we surprised even ourselves by selling expensive ones. Here are a smattering of  expensive home sales in San Francisco this year, from 1st to 5th most pricey. (For a complete list, visit CurbedSF.)

1. Sperling sells to Sacks  and 2845 Broadway finally sells: $20 million

<!– –>

Note: Trulia’s original reports of $34.5 million were incorrect. Per tax records, this home sold for $20 million.

2. The Zynga/One King’s Lane Pincus home: $16 million

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3, 4 and 5.

Banner Year for Bay Area median home prices

San Francisco also made news for median sold price gains- and this not just in the city proper. The whole Bay Area had a banner year, including the formerly battered East Bay where home values slumped after real estate’s big crash. ZipRealty posted these figures, showing year-over-year growth from 11/2011 to 11/2012, of single-family homes.  Unless we have a major surplus of inventory in the next few months, it doesn’t seem likely these numbers will head south with the New Year.

Going up!

But readers always have their own opinions, so let’s have them now: What does your crystal ball (or other, more reliable source)tell you to expect from Bay Area home prices in 2013?

Anna Marie Erwert writes from both the renter and new buyer perspective, having (finally) achieved both statuses. She focuses on national real estate trends, specializing in the San Francisco Bay Area and Pacific Northwest. Follow Anna on Twitter: @AnnaMarieErwert

Article source: http://blog.sfgate.com/ontheblock/2012/12/27/looking-back-at-san-franciscos-amazing-real-estate-year/

The report on inventory and price activity, released Thursday, pointed out that the median price of a single-family home in L.A. County was $301,300 last month, compared to $271,540 in May— an 11 percent rise.

But compared to a year ago, prices were down 3.9 percent. The median level represents the midpoint of values.

Median home prices in California in June rose 1 percent to $295,300, from $292,420 in May, according to the report. 

Compared to a year ago, prices across the state were off 5.9 percent as the median price of a single-family home was $313,890.

As for home sales in the county, figures showed that existing home sales were up 2.4 percent from May to June, and down 11.6 percent from June 2010.

Sales of existing homes statewide rose 1.2 percent month-to-month, according to the report. The median number of days it took to sell a home was 50.3.

“Looking across the state, a number of areas are showing signs of strength, especially in the San Francisco Bay Area, primarily because of the strong performing tech industry,” said California Association of Realtors Chief Economist Leslie Appleton-Young in a statement.   

But the association’s president, Beth Peerce, warned in a statement that the positive signals shouldn’t be interpreted as a turnaround for the state’s real estate market.

Federal changes to mortgage loan limits and down payment requirements set to take effect Sept. 30 could “adversely affect the market,” she said.

June 2011 county sales and price activity for existing single-family detached homes:

(Source: California Association of Realtors)

— City News Service contributed to this report.

Article source: http://hermosabeach.patch.com/articles/home-prices-rise-countywide

As big banks and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac [ FMCC 0.373  +0.0145 (+4.04%) ] push foreclosures through the pipeline, the inventory of REO (bank-owned) properties is rising.

That pushes distressed and overall home prices down.

Note in California, median home prices took their steepest dive in May, down 8.2 percent year over year to $280,000, as distressed sales made up more than half the market.

Nobody knows all this better than mortgage giant, government-owned Fannie Mae [ FNMA 0.345  +0.018 (+5.45%) ], which at the end of March had more than 153,000 single family foreclosed properties on its books, worth $14.1 billion.

Fannie acquired 53,549 foreclosed properties in the first quarter, up from just under 46,000 in the previous quarter.

No surprise they are now adding incentives to unload these properties: The expanded incentives offer qualified homebuyers up to 3.5 percent of the final sales price to put towards closing costs.

In addition, selling agents representing the owner-occupant buyer can now receive a $1,200 bonus. The incentive must be requested in the initial offer.

Eligible initial offers must be submitted on or after today, June 14, and must close by Oct. 31, 2011. Investor sales are not eligible for the incentive.

Note, however, that these incentives are only for owner-occupants, not investors.

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