Along with their two children, three dogs and a cat, they had sold their house in Atlanta and were all packed, with the moving truck scheduled for late May, ready to move to the Bay Area for a job transfer.

When conventional house hunting with a real estate agent didn’t work out, Kevin Silva placed a detailed Craigslist ad describing their target neighborhood, price and house size. He netted five responses, one of which led to making a deal to buy a San Anselmo house directly from the owner.

While having all the stars and planets align so perfectly is rare, the Silvas’ story illustrates how many house hunters are coloring outside the lines to land a place in the overheated real estate market. Whether it be cold-calling homeowners with offers or placing ads in search of potential houses for sale, being creative is key, experts say.

Of course, the top strategy is both the simplest and the hardest – pay way over asking, in all cash.

Short of that, there are a variety of ways prospective buyers can find a house as well as rise to the top of the offer pile:

Placing an ad: Swooping in with an offer before a home is officially posted for sale is a top tactic, and it worked for the Silvas.

After being consistently outbid, they considered renting, but that market was too competitive. “I realized unless we got really aggressive, we would end up in my parents’ basement in San Mateo with the kids, the dogs, the cat and a really unhappy wife,” Kevin Silva said. In the end, a simple online ad labeled “Wanted to buy: House in San Anselmo or Fairfax” did the trick. A $1 million budget undoubtedly helped. He got one response from a man who, like Silva, was of Portuguese ancestry. They quickly bonded on the phone. Silva visited the three-bedroom house and liked it, and returned with a real estate agent friend who advised him that $1 million was a reasonable price. Attorneys helped draw up the paperwork in an amicable deal.

Both parties agreed that if the sale fell through, the Silva family would rent the house. “That took off a huge amount of stress, knowing we had a place to land,” Silva said.

Pocket listings: Many buyers are taking advantage of “pocket listings” – a heads-up within a brokerage or an informal notification network of an upcoming sale – that have been growing in popularity in recent months.

“We see pocket listings more especially in the upper end,” said Patrick Leaper of Red Oak Realty in the East Bay. “Generally, it’s someone across the aisle (in a real estate brokerage) who says, ‘Look, I have a three-bedroom house in the hills for $1.2 million and the owners don’t want the hassle of publicly marketing it.’ “

Such tips are generally within bigger brokerages, but agents at smaller firms can call friends at the larger brokerages to seek them out.

“I got my buyers in because we responded to a pocket listing e-mail within our own company,” said Simon Shue of Zephyr Real Estate in San Francisco. “We were able to negotiate and save the seller money through not staging, painting and (refinishing) floors.” Located north of the Panhandle, the property sold in March for $760,000.

Zillow’s Make Me Move feature: Real estate site Zillow.com has a feature called Make Me Move for homeowners to post what price they’d accept to sell their house.

That’s how one couple from Newark finessed their move to the Peninsula. Doris and Charles (they asked to withhold their last name for privacy reasons) faced the usual discouraging situation of being consistently outbid – in their case, five times.

That’s when Doris decided to check out Make Me Move. She saw a house in San Carlos asking $950,000.

“If we hadn’t gone through those bids, I would have thought that was crazy,” she said. “The house is not quite 1,500 square feet, one story, an old house, nothing spectacular like you’d expect for almost a million bucks.”

They contacted the owners and visited the house several times. While it had some deferred maintenance issues, it met their needs, and the price was in line with similar properties.

“We thought, ‘Do we want to keep being outbid by other people or take this house?’ ” Doris said. They ended up buying it for $925,000, negotiating money off for a new roof.

Both Doris and Charles are attorneys, so they prepared the paperwork themselves. The sellers were real estate savvy as well, she said.

“We were happy with each other. I gave them a good deal – they lived there rent free for two months after the sale – but they gave me a good deal, too,” Doris said. “If they’d put the house on the market, they probably could have gotten a little bit more, but paying the real estate commission would have eaten that up.”

Target a neighborhood: Real estate agents and would-be home buyers sometimes contact owners in target areas directly.

Randy Brase, who owns a modest two-bedroom bungalow in San Bruno’s Huntington Park neighborhood, said he was surprised to receive unsolicited calls and letters from Realtors and house hunters expressing interest in buying his house. At the time, he was in the midst of some repairs and remodeling so the house appeared run-down.

“A man and his wife wrote me a letter saying they wanted to relocate from San Francisco and wanted to buy my house,” he said. “They said that they’re not afraid of doing work to fix up the house; they’ve done stuff like that to their house they live in now.”

While representing clients hoping to buy in the Eureka Valley/Castro area, Scott Yarmack and Dan Bunker of Zephyr wrote to local property owners looking for potential sellers. They got one response, and after viewing the house decided to pursue it. Yarmack lined up a contractor for an informal inspection before the house hit the multiple listing service.

As soon as it was listed, he convinced the listing agent to present his client’s offer immediately after the first Sunday open house, rather than waiting to market the house for several weeks. The all-cash offer with no contingencies and a 14-day close was accepted.

Getting an offer accepted: Finding a suitable house is only part of the hunt. Getting an offer accepted is the next big hurdle.

Prospective buyers often write a heartfelt “love letter” describing their family and their positive feelings about the house. While that alone won’t land a place, it can keep the buyers in the game.

“The personal component has an impact,” Leaper said. “If the letter paints a sweet picture of a buyer who (the seller) feels more attracted to, but their offer isn’t as good, often sellers will give the buyers a chance to improve their offer to match a better offer.”

Offers with as few contingencies as possible are more attractive to buyers. Getting inspections in advance to forestall an inspection contingency and having enough cash to avoid either financing or appraisal contingencies are ways to ensure a deal will close quickly.

“Do your homework,” said Red Oak’s Larry Benedetto. “My clients closed in late July. For every property they considered purchasing, they went to the city to check out permits, they got disclosures from the listing agent and they read everything. When there were any unknowns, they would get an engineer to check things out. Only then, when they were confident they fully understood the property, were they able to write clean offers with a quick close.”

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

Article source: http://www.sfgate.com/realestate/article/Creative-ways-to-buy-a-house-4806993.php

Along with their two children, three dogs and a cat, they had sold their house in Atlanta and were all packed, with the moving truck scheduled for late May, ready to move to the Bay Area for a job transfer.

When conventional house hunting with a real estate agent didn’t work out, Kevin Silva placed a detailed Craigslist ad describing their target neighborhood, price and house size. He netted five responses, one of which led to making a deal to buy a San Anselmo house directly from the owner.

While having all the stars and planets align so perfectly is rare, the Silvas’ story illustrates how many house hunters are coloring outside the lines to land a place in the overheated real estate market. Whether it be cold-calling homeowners with offers or placing ads in search of potential houses for sale, being creative is key, experts say.

Of course, the top strategy is both the simplest and the hardest – pay way over asking, in all cash.

Short of that, there are a variety of ways prospective buyers can find a house as well as rise to the top of the offer pile:

Placing an ad: Swooping in with an offer before a home is officially posted for sale is a top tactic, and it worked for the Silvas.

After being consistently outbid, they considered renting, but that market was too competitive. “I realized unless we got really aggressive, we would end up in my parents’ basement in San Mateo with the kids, the dogs, the cat and a really unhappy wife,” Kevin Silva said. In the end, a simple online ad labeled “Wanted to buy: House in San Anselmo or Fairfax” did the trick. A $1 million budget undoubtedly helped. He got one response from a man who, like Silva, was of Portuguese ancestry. They quickly bonded on the phone. Silva visited the three-bedroom house and liked it, and returned with a real estate agent friend who advised him that $1 million was a reasonable price. Attorneys helped draw up the paperwork in an amicable deal.

Both parties agreed that if the sale fell through, the Silva family would rent the house. “That took off a huge amount of stress, knowing we had a place to land,” Silva said.

Pocket listings: Many buyers are taking advantage of “pocket listings” – a heads-up within a brokerage or an informal notification network of an upcoming sale – that have been growing in popularity in recent months.

“We see pocket listings more especially in the upper end,” said Patrick Leaper of Red Oak Realty in the East Bay. “Generally, it’s someone across the aisle (in a real estate brokerage) who says, ‘Look, I have a three-bedroom house in the hills for $1.2 million and the owners don’t want the hassle of publicly marketing it.’ “

Such tips are generally within bigger brokerages, but agents at smaller firms can call friends at the larger brokerages to seek them out.

“I got my buyers in because we responded to a pocket listing e-mail within our own company,” said Simon Shue of Zephyr Real Estate in San Francisco. “We were able to negotiate and save the seller money through not staging, painting and (refinishing) floors.” Located north of the Panhandle, the property sold in March for $760,000.

Zillow’s Make Me Move feature: Real estate site Zillow.com has a feature called Make Me Move for homeowners to post what price they’d accept to sell their house.

That’s how one couple from Newark finessed their move to the Peninsula. Doris and Charles (they asked to withhold their last name for privacy reasons) faced the usual discouraging situation of being consistently outbid – in their case, five times.

That’s when Doris decided to check out Make Me Move. She saw a house in San Carlos asking $950,000.

“If we hadn’t gone through those bids, I would have thought that was crazy,” she said. “The house is not quite 1,500 square feet, one story, an old house, nothing spectacular like you’d expect for almost a million bucks.”

They contacted the owners and visited the house several times. While it had some deferred maintenance issues, it met their needs, and the price was in line with similar properties.

“We thought, ‘Do we want to keep being outbid by other people or take this house?’ ” Doris said. They ended up buying it for $925,000, negotiating money off for a new roof.

Both Doris and Charles are attorneys, so they prepared the paperwork themselves. The sellers were real estate savvy as well, she said.

“We were happy with each other. I gave them a good deal – they lived there rent free for two months after the sale – but they gave me a good deal, too,” Doris said. “If they’d put the house on the market, they probably could have gotten a little bit more, but paying the real estate commission would have eaten that up.”

Target a neighborhood: Real estate agents and would-be home buyers sometimes contact owners in target areas directly.

Randy Brase, who owns a modest two-bedroom bungalow in San Bruno’s Huntington Park neighborhood, said he was surprised to receive unsolicited calls and letters from Realtors and house hunters expressing interest in buying his house. At the time, he was in the midst of some repairs and remodeling so the house appeared run-down.

“A man and his wife wrote me a letter saying they wanted to relocate from San Francisco and wanted to buy my house,” he said. “They said that they’re not afraid of doing work to fix up the house; they’ve done stuff like that to their house they live in now.”

While representing clients hoping to buy in the Eureka Valley/Castro area, Scott Yarmack and Dan Bunker of Zephyr wrote to local property owners looking for potential sellers. They got one response, and after viewing the house decided to pursue it. Yarmack lined up a contractor for an informal inspection before the house hit the multiple listing service.

As soon as it was listed, he convinced the listing agent to present his client’s offer immediately after the first Sunday open house, rather than waiting to market the house for several weeks. The all-cash offer with no contingencies and a 14-day close was accepted.

Getting an offer accepted: Finding a suitable house is only part of the hunt. Getting an offer accepted is the next big hurdle.

Prospective buyers often write a heartfelt “love letter” describing their family and their positive feelings about the house. While that alone won’t land a place, it can keep the buyers in the game.

“The personal component has an impact,” Leaper said. “If the letter paints a sweet picture of a buyer who (the seller) feels more attracted to, but their offer isn’t as good, often sellers will give the buyers a chance to improve their offer to match a better offer.”

Offers with as few contingencies as possible are more attractive to buyers. Getting inspections in advance to forestall an inspection contingency and having enough cash to avoid either financing or appraisal contingencies are ways to ensure a deal will close quickly.

“Do your homework,” said Red Oak’s Larry Benedetto. “My clients closed in late July. For every property they considered purchasing, they went to the city to check out permits, they got disclosures from the listing agent and they read everything. When there were any unknowns, they would get an engineer to check things out. Only then, when they were confident they fully understood the property, were they able to write clean offers with a quick close.”

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

Article source: http://www.sfgate.com/realestate/article/Creative-ways-to-buy-a-house-4806993.php

Rents going up…and up! Data via ApartmentList.com

In terms of where to find the highest demand, Apartment List doesn’t have data on every city on the Peninsula, but reports that Mountain View jumped 45%, San Mateo jumped 54% and Sunnyvale jumped 40%.Over the last 12 months, the cities rank in this order (aggregate rise = 10%)

Clearly, the recent tech boom has a lot to do with this rent spike. The high salaries of this industry creates a competitive rental market, whereby landlords can ask higher rents. Tenants may end up offering even more than that rent, in order to stand out from the dozens of other people applying for an apartment.

John Kobs, CEO of Apartment List points out that another big factor is inventory of homes for sale. “For the past two years the available inventory of for sale homes in the Bay Area has been at an all-time low.” As a result, many people who want to buy are forced to become renters instead, unable to find a home for sale. And logically, “these people who are able to buy have higher income on average than renters, and are therefore able (and willing to) pay more rent. The supply side of for sale housing is a key driver in the increase in rents.”

Local Experiences

Many of us have friends looking for apartments now reporting back with horror stories– or maybe we have those horror stories ourselves: incredibly high rents, hundreds of people looking at available units, desperate applicants offering everything from home baked cookies to cold, hard cash to sweeten their chances. But can it all continue? Readers, is there any end in sight for rising rents in the Bay Area?

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/2012/08/16/peninsula-rents-going-the-way-of-sf-and-manhattan/

Bay Area home sales are continuing to rise, with the median sale price the highest it has been in nearly four years, according to a real estate report released Friday.

In the nine-county Bay Area, 8,461 homes were sold last month — a 22.9 percent increase from the same time last year, according to a report by the real estate information service DataQuick.

The average figure for July, based on data recorded since 1988, is 9,371 home sales.

The median price for a new home or condo was $421,000, which is a 1% increase from $417,000 in June and a 12.6% jump from July 2011.

July’s median price was the highest recorded since it was $447,000 in August 2008.

The increase appears to be connected to a higher share of sales in the mid-to-upper price ranges, according to DataQuick.

Median sale prices in San Francisco, Alameda, Contra Costa, Santa Clara, Solano, Marin, Napa, San Mateo and Sonoma counties all increased in the past year with Napa County seeing the biggest price increase at a 32.6% jump.

Median prices in that county were at $281,000 in July 2011 and reached $372,500 this July, according to DataQuick.

The highest home prices in the region this summer are in San Francisco with $714,000 listed as the median cost, while the lowest can be found in Solano County at $188,000.

Sasha Lekach, Bay City News

— Bay City News Service

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Article source: http://www.pleasantonweekly.com/news/show_story.php?id=9901

In the nine-county Bay Area, 8,461 homes were sold last month — a 22.9 percent increase from the same time last year, according to a report released Wednesday by the real estate information service DataQuick.

The average figure for July, based on data recorded since 1988, is 9,371 home sales.

The median price for a new home or condo was $421,000, which is a 1 percent increase from $417,000 in June and a 12.6 percent jump from July 2011.

July’s median price was the highest recorded since it was $447,000 in August 2008.

The increase appears to be connected to a higher share of sales in the mid-to-upper price ranges, according to DataQuick.

Median sale prices in San Francisco, Alameda, Contra Costa, Santa Clara, Solano, Marin, Napa, San Mateo and Sonoma counties all increased in the past year with Napa County seeing the biggest price increase at a 32.6 percent jump.

Median prices in that county were at $281,000 in July 2011 and reached $372,500 this July, according to DataQuick.

The highest home prices in the region this summer are in San Francisco with $714,000 listed as the median cost, while the lowest can be found in Solano County at $188,000.

—By Bay City News Service

Article source: http://losgatos.patch.com/articles/bay-area-real-estate-prices-highest-in-nearly-4-years

Bay Area home sales are continuing to rise, with the median sale price the highest it has been in nearly four years, according to a real estate report released Wednesday, Aug. 15.

In the nine-county Bay Area, 8,461 homes were sold last month — a 22.9 percent increase from the same time last year, according to a report by the real estate information service DataQuick.

The average figure for July, based on data recorded since 1988, is 9,371 home sales. The median price for a new home or condo was $421,000, which is a 1 percent increase from $417,000 in June and a 12.6 percent jump from July 2011. July’s median price was the highest recorded since it was $447,000 in August 2008.

The increase appears to be connected to a higher share of sales in the mid-to-upper price ranges, according to DataQuick. Median sale prices in Santa Clara, San Mateo, San Francisco, Alameda, Contra Costa, Solano, Marin, Napa and Sonoma counties all increased in the past year, with Napa County seeing the biggest price increase at a 32.6 percent jump. Median prices in that county were at $281,000 in July 2011 and reached $372,500 this July, according to DataQuick.

The highest home prices in the region this summer are in San Francisco with $714,000 listed as the median cost, while the lowest can be found in Solano County at $188,000.

— Bay City News Service

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Article source: http://mv-voice.com/news/show_story.php?id=5969

In the nine-county Bay Area, 8,461 homes were sold last month — a 22.9 percent increase from the same time last year, according to a report by the real estate information service DataQuick.

The average figure for July, based on data recorded since 1988, is 9,371 home sales.

The median price for a new home or condo was $421,000, which was a 1 percent increase from $417,000 in June and a 12.6 percent jump from July 2011.

July’s median price was the highest recorded since it was $447,000 in August 2008.

The increase appears to be connected to a higher share of sales in the mid-to-upper price ranges, according to DataQuick.

Median sale prices in San Francisco, Alameda, Contra Costa, Santa Clara, Solano, Marin, Napa, San Mateo and Sonoma counties all increased in the past year with Napa County seeing the biggest price increase at a 32.6 percent jump.

Median prices in that county were at $281,000 in July 2011 and reached $372,500 this July, according to DataQuick.

The highest home prices in the region this summer were in San Francisco with $714,000 listed as the median cost, while the lowest could be found in Solano County at $188,000.

Article source: http://www.ktvu.com/news/news/local/bay-area-real-estate-prices-highest-nearly-4-years/nRCTy/

Monthly sales of existing single-family homes and condominiums in the San Francisco Bay area fell from May to June but were still higher year-over-year for the 12th consecutive month according to real estate information provider DataQuick..

A total of 8,577 new and resale homes were sold in June in the nine county Bay Area, which includes Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, Santa Clara, San Francisco, San Mateo, Solano and Sonoma Counties. That was 2.6 percent lower than the 8,810 home sales in May but still 7.2 percent higher than the 7,998 sales posted in June of 2011. Year-over-year home sales have improved for 12 consecutive months.

Home sales typically increase from May to June in the Bay area with last month’s home sales 14.8 percent below their historical average.

Cash buyers accounted for 27.5 percent of the homes purchased for the month, down from 28.3 percent in May and they paid a median price of $277,000 for the homes they purchased, down from $280,000 the previous month.

Absentee buyers, usually investors and vacation home buyers, accounted for 23.4 percent of all sales, down from 24.4 percent in May, paying a median price of $270,000 for the homes they purchased, up from $262,000 the previous month..

The median sales price for new and resale homes and condos in June increased 4.3 percent to $417,000, up from $400,000 in May. The median price was 10.4 percent higher than in June of 2011, when the median price stood at $377,750. It was the third consecutive month that year-over-year home prices have improved in the area following 19 straight months of declines.

By comparison, the lowest median price posted during the current real estate cycle was $290,000 in June 2009, while the peak median price was $665,000 in June/July 2007.

John Walsh, president of DataQuick, stated, “Some of today’s stats are similar to what we saw in the thick of the housing downturn back in 2009, only in reverse: Instead of foreclosure resales soaring they’re waning, and instead of high-end sales slumping they’re posting some of the larger sales gains. This is one of the main reasons that various price measures are pointing higher – a so-called change in market mix. While last month’s jump in the median sale price might to some extent reflect prices edging a bit higher in certain markets, mostly it’s a reflection of the change in market mix. Fewer discounted distressed properties changing hands, more normal sales in the move-up range.”

Distressed home sales accounted for 36.1 percent of the Bay Area’s re-sale market last month, down from a revised 39.0 percent in May. Foreclosure re-sales accounted for 18.1 percent of all existing home sales in June, down from 21.4 percent in May, while short sales also made up about 18.0 percent of the Bay Area’s existing home sales last month, up from a revised 17.6 percent in May.

Tags: Bay Area, DataQuick, home sales, home prices, spring selling season, median sales price, new homes, re-sale homes

Source:
Dataquick

Article source: http://loanrateupdate.com/mortgages/bay-area-june-home-sales-fall-in-june

This week the social media giant is expected to open its doors to the general public. Overnight, Facebook will become a publicly traded company and a plethora of 20-somethings will see their personal wealth skyrocket.

In April, Facebook estimated its value at $77 billion, but since then the Palo Alto-based company’s worth has been assumed to be somewhere in the $100 billion range. This influx of cash will have a number of impacts, one of which could be the increase in property value.

Using a conservative analysis, Movoto — a real estate brokerage in the San Mateo — estimated that Facebook’s coming out party could increase property value in trendy Bay Area neighborhoods and cities by $1 to 2 billion.

“Competition to buy listed homes in desirable Bay Area zip codes is already discouraging for the average home buyer.” said Mark Brandemuehl, VP Marketing Business Development at Movoto. “The Facebook IPO will only add to the millionaires competing to buy a small number of homes, and it seems inevitable that prices will be driven up.”

To make this analysis Movoto spoke with Carole Rodoni, president of Bamboo Consulting, a Bay Area real estate agent. Rodoni expected overall property value to rise.

She estimated that property value in fashionable areas will increase anywhere from five to 10 percent. This is on top of the area’s typical appreciation. She expected this mini housing bubble to last between a year and 18 months.

Those trendy areas are:

• Pacific Heights;
• Noe Valley;
• South of Market Area in San Francisco;
• Hillsborough;
• Atherton; and
• Palo Alto.

Rodoni called these new renters and homebuyers “shuttle babies” because they prefer to move back and forth between areas. It also means these shuttle babies are looking to move to areas where “you can walk, and within four blocks, you get your whole life.”

How the Math Works:

To figure out how Rodoni’s estimate would translate into a dollar amount, the Movoto team divided the trendy Bay Area locations into two parts: cities such as Hillsborough and neighborhoods in San Francisco.

For the cities, Movoto used Census data to calculate the number of owner-occupied households in the area. After learning this figure, we used housing data to calculate the 75th percentile of current home list prices-or, the most valuable homes on the market, which the wealthy are more likely to purchase. We then applied the estimated five to 10 percent price increase to homes priced at the 75th percentile and above.

Movoto used a similar process for the San Francisco neighborhoods.

A Second Opinion

But like most things, there’s a difference in opinion.

Kathy Krize, a real estate agent in the Menlo Park area, called the local housing market “quirky” and suggested there was a small housing bubble in high-end areas. Nonetheless, Krize was hesitant to attribute the increase in home prices in the Bay Area to Facebook.

“I think all this media hype going on isn’t necessarily true; it may have an impact, but not the impact everyone is talking about,” she said.

She did note that some potential homebuyers believe they need to purchase a home before the newly minted rich do so, and at the same time there are buyers who want to wait to put their homes on the market in the hopes of gaining value.

“The fact is, a lot of them already have the ability to purchase,” she said about Facebook employees. “I think the impact would have been seen already. I’m not seeing a lot of people from Facebook coming into the open houses.”

From her experiences, Krize said that she’s seen an increase in the number of cash offers and noted homes are regularly selling above the asking price. She noted that buyers using more traditional financing are losing out to cash offers.

“It’s a quirky market,” Krize added. “It’s not to say that every home on the market is getting picked up. What I’m saying is that there are a lot of buyers who want to have prime property and there isn’t a lot of prime property on the market.”

Krize offered this example to explain the market trend: She recently listed a two-bedroom, one-bath home in a marginal neighborhood — what she called a great starter house — for $368,000. After five offers the house sold for $420,000.

“There is something going on with the market,” Krize said. “We are seeing it across the board.”

Article source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-j-cross/san-francisco-real-estate_b_1527172.html

A record amount of purchases by investors and cash buyers helped push monthly sales of new and existing homes in the Bay Area higher in February according to real estate information provider DataQuick.

A total of 5,702 new and resale homes were sold in February in the nine county Bay Area, which includes Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, Santa Clara, San Francisco, San Mateo, Solano and Sonoma Counties. That was 4.1 percent higher than the 5,479 home sales in January and 14.2 percent higher than the 4,991 sales posted in February of 2011. Year-over-year home sales have improved for eight consecutive months.

Home sales typically increase from January to February in the Bay area with last month’s sales still 9.0 percent below the historical average of 6,268 sales despite the help of an extra day of sales due to the leap year. February’s sales tally was still the highest for that month since 2007.

Cash buyers accounted for a record 32.0 percent of the homes sold for the month, up from a revised 29.9 percent in January, paying a median price of $247,000 for their purchases. The previous record for cash purchases was 30.5 percent, reached in February of 2011.

Absentee buyers, usually investors and vacation home buyers, accounted for a record 26.0 percent of all sales, up from a revised 25.2 percent in January, paying a median price of $230,000 for the homes they purchased.

The median sales price for new and resale homes and condos in February fell 0.3 percent to $325,500, down from $326,000 in January. The median price was 3.6 percent lower than in February of 2011, when the median price stood at $337,250. It was the 17th consecutive month that home prices have declined year-over-year.

By comparison, the lowest median price posted during the current real estate cycle was $290,000 in March 2009, while the peak median price was $665,000 in June/July 2007.

Transactions below $300,000, where most cash buyers and investors make their purchases, posted the largest increase in sales activity, up 16.8 percent from a year ago.

John Walsh, president of DataQuick, stated, “The market is still strange, just a little less strange than it was. We also need to keep in mind that, when it comes to statistical trends, February is the least typical month of the year. Over the winter you’re left with a higher concentration of investors and people who must buy or sell because of a major life event. In the spring, when many traditional buyers return, we’ll get a much better read on the market. Meanwhile, many potential buyers are still waiting for the lending spigot to open more. Drum-tight credit conditions continue to undermine housing, along with negative equity and the various uncertainties plaguing would-be buyers.”

Distressed home sales accounted for 50.5 percent of the Bay Area’s re-sale market last month, down from a revised 50.7 percent in January. Foreclosure re-sales accounted for 27.4 percent of all existing home sales in February, up from a revised 27.2 percent in January, while short sales made up about 23.1 percent of the Bay Area’s existing homes sales last month, down from a revised 23.5 percent in January.

Foreclosure re-sales peaked at 52.0 percent in February 2009 while the rate of foreclosure re-sales has been about ten percent over the last 15 years.

Tags: Bay Area, DataQuick, home sales, home prices, spring selling season, median sales price, new homes, re-sale homes

Source:
Dataquick

Article source: http://loanrateupdate.com/mortgages/bay-area-home-sales-improve-as-investors-and-cash-buyers-move-in