East Bay homes, like this house in Fremont, saw the biggest price gains during the past year in the Bay Area.

Blanca Torres
Reporter- San Francisco Business Times

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Home prices are shooting up across the nation with the Bay Area leading the pack — but which submarket has soared the most? Oakland.

Metropolitan Oakland — which includes much of the East Bay — saw home prices jump 31.2 percent from May 2012 to May 2013, towering above San Francisco with 19.6 percent growth and the San Jose metro area with 23.2 percent, according to Trulia, the San Francisco-based real estate information site. Nationwide, home prices grew by 9.5 percent during the past year.

Everyone keeps talking about how expensive homes are getting in San Francisco, but East Bay prices have more room to grow. Those growth figures over one year look pretty steep — and they are — but you have to keep in mind that prices dropped by greater percentages after the 2008 mortgage crisis.

“Inventory is really low,” said America Foy, an agent with Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate who specializes in the East Bay.

A lack of inventory has led to bidding wars even in lower-cost areas or starter homes, Foy said, but more home owners are realizing that their homes are worth more and putting more homes on the market as demand shows no sign of slowing down.

“Some people have been saving up for the last four or five years, so they are ready to buy a house,” Foy said. “It’s smart to buy a house right now, that’s what people are feeling.”

Trulia looked at how much home asking prices had grown in 100 metropolitan markets in the United States and determined the 10 most expensive markets based on price-growth and percent of income going toward a mortgage.

You see the full list here. Here’s Trulia’s top ten:

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

Article source: http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/real-estate/2013/06/where-home-prices-grew-most-in-bay-area.html

With such high real estate prices, it’s no surprise that Bay Area residents earn some of the highest incomes in the country.  After all, how else will you pay for that million dollar house?

Households in the San Francisco and San Jose metro areas have some of the highest incomes in the country.

The U.S. Census Bareau recently announced the results of a study that looked at household incomes over a 5 year period, from January 2006 to November 2011.  The San Jose metro region had the 2nd highest concentration of households with incomes in the top 5%, which was defined as earning more than $191,469  per year.  In the South Bay, 15.9% of the households are in the top 5%.  The San Francisco metro area, defined as “San Francisco – Oakland – Fremont” followed closely, being the 4th on the list of high income earners, with 13.0% of the households’ income in the top 5%.  The Stamford, CT and Washington, DC metro areas squeezed in between our two Bay Area regions, taking the #1 and #3 spots, with 17.9% and 14.1% of their households in the top 5%.

As the results only included data up through November 2011, it won’t be shocking if the incomes of Bay Area residents continue to rise given the strong local economy, thanks in large part to the burgeoning tech industry.  Will it only push up the real estate markets in these two metro areas?

Article source: http://blog.sfgate.com/ontheblock/2013/02/20/south-bay-and-sf-residents-are-amongst-highest-earners-in-the-nation/

Asking prices for homes for sale around the Bay Area rose substantially in December compared with the same time last year, according to San Francisco real estate website Trulia, ranging from a 16.3 percent spike in tech-fueled Santa Clara County to a 7.6 percent increase in Napa County. The nine-county Bay Area saw an average increase of 13 percent. By comparison, asking prices nationwide rose 5.1 percent in December compared with December 2011, Trulia said.

“Both job growth and tighter inventory gave (sale) prices a lift,” said Jed Kolko, Trulia’s chief economist. “Price increases accelerated throughout 2012, getting bigger as the year went on.”

Analyzing asking prices of homes currently for sale provides a leading indicator of what sales numbers are likely to look like in a few months’ time, Trulia said.

Data on sales throughout much of 2012 have shown the housing market recovering from the extended downturn that started in 2007.

Nationwide, Trulia said, “2012 marked a huge turnaround year for most local housing markets” with prices increasing in 82 of the 100 largest metro areas in December. In December 2011, only 12 markets had price increases.

Las Vegas, Seattle and Phoenix were Trulia’s “top turnaround” markets, followed by Oakland metro (Alameda and Contra Costa counties) and San Jose metro (Santa Clara and San Benito counties).

California cities such as Sacramento and Fresno that were devastated by the housing crisis also saw strong gains in 2012, Trulia said.

“Nine of the top 10 turnaround markets in 2012 were in the West,” Kolko said. “The only one east of the Rockies was Atlanta.”

Asking rents also rose, with Alameda County seeing the biggest spike (13.2 percent) and already pricey San Francisco the least (2.9 percent), Trulia said. The average increase for eight Bay Area counties (Napa did not have enough data) was 7.8 percent. Nationwide, rents grew 5.2 percent.

“We’re seeing rent increases across the region,” Kolko said. “In San Francisco they were smaller because rents are already so much higher there than elsewhere and it has had strong rent increases before this. The slower increase doesn’t make the city affordable.”

While rising home prices illustrate a housing market beginning to recover – and to stimulate economic recovery – they of course are not good news for those house hunting.

“They come with the perennial challenge of affordability in the Bay Area,” Kolko said.

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

Article source: http://www.sfgate.com/realestate/article/Bay-Area-rents-home-prices-up-sharply-4163037.php

We’ve written numerous times about how crazy expensive buying a home in the Bay Area is for the average folk.  Out comes another survey, this one by the National Association of Home Builders/ Wells Fargo Housing Opportunity Index, that confirms what we already know about Bay Area real estate.  As AOL Real Estate reports, this survey looks at a metropolitan area’s median home price and median income and then determines what percentage of the homes an average homebuyer can afford.

The San Francisco metro area ranks 2nd in the nation in housing affordability

Based on these statistics, the San Francisco metro area was the second least affordable area to buy.  With a median home price of $659,000 and median income of $103,000, only 31.4% of homes are affordable to the average Bay Area resident.  This wasn’t too far off from New York City, which was the least affordable place to buy, where the average New Yorker could afford to buy only 28.5% of homes there.

Heading south along the bay, San Jose was ranked the sixth least affordable place to buy.  The median home price there was $530,000.  Median incomes in the San Jose metro area were $105,000 and based on these two numbers, about 46.2% of homes are affordable to the average homebuyer.  Better, but still not great.

San Jose is 6th in the country in housing affordability

Interestingly, the article also points out that San Francisco and San Jose were two of only a handful of metro areas where the median income was in the six figures – all thanks they say to the once again booming tech industry.

In all, California heads the list as the least affordable state.  In addition to San Francisco and San Jose, the metro areas of Los Angeles, Santa Ana and San Diego made the list.  To look at the other areas that made the list, click here.

Article source: http://blog.sfgate.com/ontheblock/2012/12/07/san-francisco-2nd-san-jose-6th-least-affordable-places-to-buy-in-the-country/

Earlier in the year, home buying was still considered to be the more pricey route to go when compared with renting in most parts of the Bay Area.  But the tables seem to have turned recently, as both the buying and rental market have heated up all around the bay the last few months.

Real estate site Trulia recently dug into data on both rental prices and homes for sale across the U.S. in the months of June, July and August and based on their analysis, it’s cheaper to buy than to rent a comparable property everywhere in the U.S., including the bay area.

In the San Francisco metro area, it was 28% cheaper to buy than rent.  It was 31% less expensive to be a homeowner in the San Jose metro area and in the Oakland metro area, a homeowner would save 41% over renting.

Courtesy of Trulia.com

Trulia’s report made several assumptions:

Cost of homeownership assumes that the home is sold after 7 years and includes closing costs, maintenance, insurance, property taxes and other costs. Cost of renting includes security deposit and renters insurance. Monthly cost is based on net present value of costs over 7 years. Monthly costs are based on the average across all properties listed in the metro area, including those for sale and those for rent, in summer 2012.

They also assumed that a homebuyer was able to secure a 3.5% mortgage rate, was in the 25% tax bracket and was able to put a down payment of 20%.  Any change in these assumptions, such as having a higher mortgage rate, a lower tax bracket and selling sooner could significantly change the outcome.  With a mortgage rate of 4.5%, being in the 15% tax rate and only a 3 year window, the tables turn once again and it is 28% cheaper to rent than to buy in the SF metro area.

And while buying may be the way to go in the long run, many are held back by the difficulty in saving for that 20% down payment (especially in the bay area where homes are pricey) and you’re much less flexible in relocating once you’ve got a mortgage.

You can play around with different assumptions on Trulia’s fun interactive infographic here to see what how your particulars work out.  Is it better to rent or buy for you?

Article source: http://blog.sfgate.com/ontheblock/2012/09/19/what-its-cheaper-to-buy-than-rent-in-the-bay-area/