This home at 3800 Washington St. in the Presidio Heights neighborhood of San Francisco is on the market for $21 million. It has eight bedrooms, seven bathrooms and 17,895 square feet. Prices for homes above $1 million grew by 11 percent during the past year.

Blanca Torres
Reporter- San Francisco Business Times

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The Bay Area’s housing market continues heating up, but for how long?

Home values in the Bay Area rose by 27.8 percent during the past year to an average of $628,200 in July, according to Zillow, a real estate information site. Zillow calculates home value appreciation for all homes, not just homes that have sold or are on the market.

Click on the image for a slideshow of Bay Area homes that are on the market or have risen significantly in value.

San Francisco ranked third nationwide for home value appreciation after Sacramento with 33.1 percent growth to $274,600 and Las Vegas with 30.8 percent growth to $151,600.

Nationwide, home values crept up by 6 percent during the past year to an average $161,600 — about 25 percent of San Francisco’s average (kind of makes you want to move doesn’t it?).

“The U.S. housing market recovery has proven it is on very sound footing,” said Zillow Chief Economist Dr. Stan Humphries. “We have entered a new phase in the recovery when we can begin to turn away from ugly recent history and turn toward what the housing market of the future will look like and how it will act.”

The housing market has improved significantly, but I’m not sure the Bay Area’s performance will continue to rise at the rapid pace we’ve seen in the past couple of years.

Also, the market here is increasingly shifting toward the high-end and away from first-time and entry-level buyers.

First Republic Bank reported today that luxury home prices in the Bay Area jumped 10.9 percent during the second quarter of this year compared with 2012 to an average of $2.9 million — the highest since the fourth quarter of 2008 and approaching the all-time highs of 2007.

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/bay-area-home-values-up-28-percent.html

SUNNYVALE (KCBS)— New townhome projects continue at a rapid pace in Sunnyvale, where home construction can barely keep up with demand. The 14 currently under construction probably won’t be empty for long. Home values increased nearly 11-percent nationwide over the last year, but homes in the Bay Area are getting even greater gains.

The Standard Poor’s/Case-Shiller home price index released Tuesday showed that all 20 cities measured by the report posted year-over-year gains for the third straight month.

And prices rose in 15 cities in March from February. That’s up from only 11 in the previous month. The monthly figures aren’t seasonally adjusted and may reflect the beginning of the spring buying season.

• Latest Case-Shiller Survey Results
• DataQuick’s Median Bay Area House Price By County

Prices rose in Phoenix by 22.5 percent over the past 12 months, the biggest gain among cities. It was followed by the Bay Area (22.2 percent) and Las Vegas (20.6 percent).

Niccole Beckerman said her family has been priced out of the Silicon Valley.

“It’s really expensive. My parents were trying to buy a house and it’s really expensive just because the schools are really good,” Beckerman said.

The story is the same throughout much of the Bay Area. According to the San Francisco Association Of Realtors, the median Bay Area price for a single-family home has crossed above the $1 million mark for the first time since 2007.

The Inventory of available homes remains extremely low according to San Jose realtor David Martz. He said there are only about 1,000 homes for sale in a population of nearly two-million people in the greater San Jose area.

“Combined with the fact that we currently have interest rates at an all-time low, it’s possible to get an interest rate close to three percent, which is driving demand, so the buyers are out there in force,” said Martz.

Martz said four out of every five homes that come on the market here receive multiple offers, with prices, in some cases, going up hundreds of thousands of dollars over asking.

Despite the gains, a limited number of homeowners are putting their houses on the market. That’s helped lift home prices. And it’s made builders more willing to ramp up construction. Applications for building permits rose in April to the highest level in nearly five years.

The supply of available homes jumped in April, but was still 14 percent below its level a year earlier.

Stan Humphries, chief economist at Zillow, a real estate data provider, said that the increase in the Case-Shiller index has been skewed higher by cities such as Phoenix and San Francisco. Fewer homes are available in those areas because many homeowners still owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth. That makes it difficult to sell.

Still, even excluding those markets, home prices are rising steadily nationwide, Humphries said. The increases are “certainly confirmation that the housing market is experiencing a brisk recovery,” he added.

The housing recovery is creating more construction jobs and bolstering the economy in other ways. Higher home prices make homeowners feel wealthier and encourages them to spend more.

Rising prices also encourage more would-be buyers to purchase homes, before prices rise further. They also enable more homeowners to sell homes, by reducing the number of people who owe more on their mortgages than the homes are worth.

Prices have been increasing steadily since last summer. Still, they are about 29 percent below the peak reached in July 2006.

Banks have raised their credit standards since the housing bubble burst and are demanding larger down payments. That’s made it particularly hard for potential first-time buyers to get a mortgage.

(Copyright 2013 by CBS San Francisco. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

Article source: http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2013/05/28/builders-cant-keep-pace-with-demand-as-bay-area-housing-booms-again/

(Read More: Is the Refi ‘Apocalypse’ Really Upon Us?)

Analysts at Clear Capital, which runs a four-month moving average price index, note that January’s numbers show, “momentum stalls.” While they blame this on seasonal slowdowns, they point to Florida as a concern.

“Florida metros, namely Miami, Orlando, Tampa, and Jacksonville, were all missing from the top 15 performing market list. Since September 2011, at least one of these markets made the list,” cautions Dr. Alex Villacorta, Director of Research and Analytics at Clear Capital. “While this isn’t confirmation that the recovery is finished in the sunshine state, it’s certainly something to keep an eye on. These markets led the recovery in late 2011, and share some of the hallmarks for recovering markets overall.”

Florida’s housing market has been driven by distressed homes, and investors buying them at a rapid pace.

Other markets that saw the most distress during the housing crash, like Phoenix, Las Vegas, and much of California, have also seen so much investor demand, that prices are up by double digits from a year ago.

(Read More: New Housing Fears: Home Prices Rising Too Fast?)

Article source: http://www.cnbc.com/id/100435276

Raintree acquired the property directly from the seller in February 2012.

(Save the date: RealShare Apartments East comes to the Hyatt Regency Miami, Florida on February 26^th, 2013)

REDWOOD CITY, CA-As GlobeSt.com reported this morning, Raintree Partners, a Laguna Niguel, CA-based real estate investment and development company, has begun construction on a ground-up multifamily development project, called 201 Marshall. The project is a 116-unit, seven-story community next to the Caltrain station in the heart the Citys expanding downtown.

201 Marshall is the first large project approved under Redwood Citys Downtown Precise Plan.

GlobeSt.com has learned from Raintree director of development, Jason Check, that The citys proximity to San Francisco and San Jose makes it a desirable location for young professionals who are commuting to these markets for employment, as well as for those wishing to live in an area with shopping, night-life, transportation, and expanding employment opportunities all within walking distance.

Check explains that When we decided to build this project, one of the first things we did was to contact Zipcar, a car sharing company, to encourage the company to expand into Redwood City, which it did earlier this year across the street from our property. Our residents will now be able to walk to Zipcars, to Caltrain, and to employment, groceries, shopping, restaurants and nightlife, Check explained.

According to Check, Redwood Citys Downtown Precise Plan enabled Raintree Partners to quickly entitle the site. We were able to complete our entitlement effort with the City and start construction in little more than one year, he says.

The Downtown Precise Plan is a very innovative plan, and one that should serve as a model to other cities seeking to create community supported change at a more rapid pace when the market supports new development, Check says.

Raintree Partners acquired the property at 201 Marshall St. directly from the seller in February 2012 in an off-market transaction after it had completed the entitlement for the project. The firm would not release further information on the seller or for how much it was purchased for by deadline. Construction is now underway on the project, which is scheduled to open in Spring 2014.

201 Marshall will contain studios, one- and two-bedroom floor plans. The community was designed by TCA Architects, and will feature a modern design with open-concept units, as well as loft-style units. The community will also feature upscale finishes, a bike repair workshop and bike lockers, telecommuting center, outdoor communal dining, and an expansive roof deck with an indoor/outdoor lounge area.

Raintree currently has three other Bay Area projects in development. The company is actively pursuing additional development opportunities in California, focusing on infill sites in core markets in both Northern and Southern California, according to a prepared statement.

Article source: http://www.globest.com/news/12_514/sanfrancisco/multifamily/City-Plan-Helps-Expedite-Multifamily-Build-328563.html

Optimistic: “There’s a sense that things are getting better,” says John Carpenter.

An uptick in deals and tenant activity has yet to push the Tri-Valley office market out of the stagnant state it’s been in the last several quarters.

Still, with office leasing increasing at a rapid pace in San Francisco and the Peninsula, secondary markets like the East Bay could start picking up speed.

“There’s a sense that things are getting better,” said John Carpenter, principal of tenant representation brokerage Carpenter/Robbins Commercial Real Estate Inc. in San Ramon. “That sense is really derived from the markets in San Francisco and on the Peninsula that are getting better very rapidly, but we …

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Article source: http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/print-edition/2011/05/20/bay-area-office-deals-may-lift-up.html