homesmillbrae.com

“Most of the IPOs are for firms based in and around San Francisco, which is likely where any additional job growth and expansion will take place,” he said.

Gilpin, the owner of the Bennett Valley home, said those with excess wealth often look to buy second homes, airplanes or other luxury items. When he bought the Bennett Valley property, he wasn’t looking for a second or vacation home.

Gilpin said he was able to connect remotely to his work and started looking for property in all the usual locations, including Healdsburg and Sonoma. Bennett Valley offered both a beautiful rural setting that was only minutes away from Santa Rosa.

The nearly 6-acre property is surrounded by vineyards such as Matanzas Creek, Frost Watch and Argot, as well as undeveloped natural spaces that are visible from nearly every vantage point on the property.

Gilpin essentially razed the home that was built on the property but kept the unique, U-shaped footprint. The 5,700-square-foot home includes an open courtyard, a long, spacious kitchen and main dining and living room area, four bedrooms and six bathrooms.

The property also has a 75-foot lap pool, outdoor hot tub, bocce court and a half-acre, deer-fenced orchard that doubles as a dog run and has two dozen fruit trees, including cherry, pear, apple, plum, persimmon, pomegranate and fig.

Gilpin said he’s lived there with his family since it was completed in 2017 and it was supposed to be their “long-term” primary home. But he said he’s moving his family to the Portland area because one of his companies there is growing rapidly. He said he also has relatives in Portland.

“We loved it here,” he said.

Gilpin had the flexibility to live in Sonoma County but work remotely. Not all tech workers and soon-to-be tech millionaires will have that luxury, and many will stay close to their jobs in San Francisco and Silicon Valley, said Kahramaner of Big Data Realtor.

Issi Romen, a chief economist at Trulia, and a fellow with the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at UC Berkeley, said the effects of the economic impact of the coming IPO wave is likely to be dispersed throughout the Bay Area.

Romen said some employees who joined tech companies during their infancy years ago have already moved out of San Francisco. For the vast majority of these workers, as well as those still living in San Francisco and Silicon Valley, commuting all the way to Santa Rosa or some other Sonoma County town or city is unlikely, he said.

The impact of the next injection of IPO wealth will be generalized, he said. “It’s not going to cause a temporary spike, but will likely feed demand in the long-run housing appreciation,” he said.

As housing prices in the SF and core Bay Area rise, people gradually move outward to “cheaper pastures,” Romen said.

“Appreciation comes in the form of IPOs and employee equity,” Romen said. “This is another pump or cycle or influx of that flow of capital into the Bay Area. It’s going to keep supporting the long-term increase in prices.”

That’s been happening for years, said Ned MacDonald, the owner of a 500-acre ranch just east of Gilpin’s property.

During a real estate broker’s tour of Gilpin’s home this week, MacDonald, 67, and his wife, Vivien, got a chance to see the inside of the new home they said “lit up” a good portion of Bennett Valley at night. The MacDonalds said they were viewing the property for a friend.

The couple said they’ve tried to maintain their property much as it was when their home was built around 1900. They could see their horse stables on the other side of Bennett Valley Road from Gilpin’s east wall windows in the living room.

“The landscape of people in Northern California has changed with the money from Silicon Valley, which is kind of the epicenter of the world,” said Ned MacDonald.

You can reach Staff Writer Martin Espinoza at 707-521-5213 or martin.espinoza@pressdemocrat.com.

Article source: https://www.pressdemocrat.com/business/9677467-181/sonoma-countys-luxury-home-market

Earlier this month a host of sources, including the Orange County-based data firm Core Logic, reported that the median price of a house in San Francisco declined year-over-year for the first time since 2012.

The depreciation was a bare margin of 1.4 percent or less, depending on the source. But coming as it did after years of nonstop increases, it still qualified as a shocker.

But (not so) easy come, easy go is the law of the land: Now Core Logic has released its early estimate for May and reports that SF’s median price leapfrogged last year’s median, spiking 5.7 percent compared to May of 2018.

The firm’s latest San Francisco Bay Area home sales report, released Thursday morning, recorded 572 single-family homes sold in the city in May for a median price of $1.4 million.

The same time last year the median was just over $1.32 million.

Despite the bump, Core Logic economist Andrew LePage says that prices remain mostly middling across the region.

“For the past two months, the median sale price and other data have indicated that home prices across much of the Bay Area have basically flattened out,” he explains.

Across all nine Bay Area counties, the combined year-over-year price change was zero. Individual locales ranged from a gain of 7.6 percent in Napa to a decline of 6.5 percent in Marin County.

What does the May SF spike mean after April’s surprising drop? Possibly that April was a weird fluke and prices will keep going up as they have for years, despite recent flatness.

Or, possibly, that the indicators of malaise will spread and May will turn out to be a fluke amid a general slump. Frustrating though it may be, it’s never a good idea to draw broad conclusions from just one month’s numbers—or from one analysis.

One longterm trend that the recent figures do corroborate is that the total number of houses sold is once again down year-over-year across the wider Bay Area, slipping 7.6 percent in April.

“Sales have fallen on a year-over-year basis for the past nine consecutive months,” notes LePage.

However, the number of home sold in SF rose compared to last year, up 5.1 percent.

Article source: https://sf.curbed.com/2019/5/31/18647045/san-francisco-housing-prices-rise-corelogic-may-2019

On Thursday, Orange County-based data firm Core Logic reported that the median home price in San Francisco is down year over year, dropping four percent in May.

Earlier this year, the firm recorded the first drop in the Bay Area’s median price year over year since 2012, diminishing an almost comically small yet still significant 0.1 percent for March. However, the price of a home in SF rose more than five percent within that period.

Now the firm’s most recent San Francisco Bay Area home sales report once again found prices down across the Bay Area, showing a decline of 1.7 percent across in all nine counties, including a four percent depreciation in SF.

Across 637 homes, the SF price (as calculated via MLS sales) declined from $1.38 million this time last year down to $1.32 million now.

Other resources have also shown small but significant dips in SF’s median year over year, but this is the first time Core Logic’s data has agreed. Last time the firm recorded a year over year decline in SF was in April 2017—at the time, a much larger decline of 7.3 percent.

The California Association of Realtors [CAR] released its May data this month. The firm not only corroborates Core Logic’s conclusions but builds on them, showing even bigger price drops at 4.8 percent in SF.

According to CAR, the May price in SF dropped from roughly $1.69 million in 2018 to $1.62 million this year. These figures are higher than those from the Core Logic report because they reflect only single-family homes.

The year-over-year drop from CAR for the entire Bay Area was 5.7 percent, ebbing below $1 million down to $990,000.

The problem with these monthly figures is the uncertainty as to which ones are blips and which ones might be part of or the beginning of real trends.

For example, the 7.3 percent SF price drop in April 2017 was big but didn’t last, with median rices soaring for the rest of the that year.

“San Francisco is a relatively small market compared with some of the larger counties, and the median sale price tends to be a bit more volatile,” a Core Logic spokesperson tells Curbed SF.

LA-based Beacon Economics’ regional outlook report for California homes, released this week, compared performances across the entire quarter. Their conclusion: Yes, prices are down in the long term as well:

From the first quarter of 2018 to the first quarter of 2019, the median price of an existing single-family home in San Francisco decreased by 1.1 percent, or $16,200, to reach $1.43 million. While not a huge dip, it is indicative of greater weakness in price appreciation

[...] Given the Bay Area’s healthy economy, it’s possible that even with all of the wealth being created in the region, the price points for homes have reached a level that households simply cannot afford.

Beacon notes that the number of homes sold also dropped nearly six percent in SF, along with much larger declines of 11.8 percent in the East Bay and 18.2 percent in the South Bay.

Just as one month does not itself a trend make, neither does one quarter. Still, there have been few signs of housing appreciation in 2019 so far—and none of these new figures are rocking the boat.

Article source: https://sf.curbed.com/2019/6/28/19106210/san-francisco-sf-housing-prices-drop-2019-median

OAKLAND, Calif. (KGO) — We dug into the story of a Peninsula family duped out of $10,000 by a fake home rental. Now, we’re digging deeper and finding more cases all over the Bay Area.

The Alameda County District Attorney is investigating dozens of similar cases in the East Bay.

EXCLUSIVE: South San Francisco family duped out of $10,000 by fake landlord says he contacted them again about new place

Property manager Daniel Bo found two of his listings posted by a fake landlord on Apartments.com.

“Prospective tenants actually gave out all of their personal information including social security number, pay stubs and all that information,” said Bo.

Bo’s properties were in San Leandro and Hayward. The fake landlord was offering to rent them for $2,000 less than the original price.

EXCLUSIVE: Tracking down fake landlord who duped a South San Francisco family out of $10,000

“I don’t know how but they basically took over our listing on those sites. Our actual listing didn’t even show up on the sites that we expected for them to show up and the fake one was there in its place,” said Bo.

In the last six months, the Alameda County District Attorney’s office has received more than 50 real estate complaints.

“Investigators here investigate those crimes and often we see a pattern. Often times is people who are part of a bigger scam… they go from location to location,” said Sabrina Farrell.

Farrell added, “If it’s too fast. If you are feeling pressured to enter into this transaction, if they are saying somebody else is getting ready to rent right away you have to send the money and information right now.”

EXCLUSIVE: South San Francisco family forced to live in van after being duped by fake landlord back indoors

How can you check that the realtor you are speaking to is a licensed real estate agent?

You can check the California Real estate website and type in their name. Remember if a posting sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Article source: https://abc7news.com/exclusive-more-than-50-real-estate-complaints-reported-to-the-alameda-co-das-office/5364636/

The median price paid for a Bay Area home or condo last month was $860,000, up 1.2% from April but down 1.7% from May of last year, representing the biggest year-over-year percentage drop in more than seven years, according to a CoreLogic report released Thursday.

To put that year-over-year decline in perspective, it’s important to remember that in May of last year, the market was in a frenzy and the median price was one month away from its all-time high of $875,000, set in June.

After home sales rose at double-digit rates in the first half of last year, growth began slowing in the second half, to almost a crawl this year. In March, the median price actually dipped 0.1%, its first year-over-year decline in seven years, and in April it was unchanged from the previous year.

Last month’s 1.7% drop “marked the largest decline since February 2012, when the median fell 3.6% year over year,” said CoreLogic analyst Andrew LePage. The next month, the median rose 0.6%, and in April 2012, it began an 83-month stretch of consecutive gains. CoreLogic’s report includes new and existing homes and condos in the nine-county Bay Area.

Today, “there is a sense of pause by buyers because they don’t know what’s next,” said Selma Hepp, chief economist with the Compass real estate brokerage. “We are definitely seeing a lot of activity out there; buyers are coming to open houses. But for homes in imperfect condition, or imperfectly priced, they’re not willing to pull the trigger.”

Well-priced homes in excellent condition are still selling briskly, she added. The median time on the market for homes that sold last month was 14 days, only two more than a year ago. But for homes that were still for sale last month, the median time on market was 22 days, six days longer than last year, she said.

Plotted on a graph, prices today look like a “tabletop,” compared with the “mountaintop” seen in the last cycle when prices plummeted after a steep run-up, she said.

In San Francisco, the market varies by price range and neighborhood, but overall, “it’s relatively flat, which is not so bad, considering that the housing market has been nuts in the past few years,” said Dona Crowder, a broker with Coldwell Banker.

“Luxury” homes in the $7 million to $30 million price range are selling well, she said. And for homes priced from $500,000 to $1.5 million, “you’re still going to experience multiple offers in a preponderance of the situations.” The slowest segment is $3 million to $5 million homes.

Prices rose 1.2% from April to May thanks to “lower mortgage rates, more inventory and a transition to a more neutral market where buyers have some bargaining power,” LePage said in a news release.

The average rate on a 30-year, fixed-rate loan dropped to 3.73% this week from 4.5% the first week of January, according to Freddie Mac.

That drop “created a window of opportunity for a lot of first-time buyers,” said Phil Kerr, CEO of multifamily developer City View. He’s seen a “big surge in sales since January” at the Ice House, a townhome development under construction in West Oakland that was severely damaged in an October fire.

The blaze set the project back by about six months, but half of its 126 units have already been sold. About a dozen are on the market at prices ranging from the mid-$600,000s to the high $800,000s for two- and three-bedroom units, respectively. The rest of the units are not ready for sale.

The fire inspired Kerr to offer a $2,500 discount to buyers in “hero professions” at all of City View’s 22 projects going up around the state. For the discount, heroes include firefighters, teachers, nurses, police officers and veterans.

Kerr said Ice House is the fastest-selling of those projects, which also include the Station House townhomes nearby.

Danielle Milburn and her fiance, Marcus Edwards, had been looking at homes in the Bay Area for several years, waiting to save enough money and for prices to drop. But “the longer we take to save and prepare and wait, we’re kind of in the same boat because things keep going up,” Milburn said. “The more money we save, everything is going up that much more too.”

They finally decided to put a deposit down on a two-bedroom, 2½-bath unit at Ice House for $675,000. “We’re taking a leap of faith, ultimately,” Milburn said. Their mortgage payment will be about the same or a little less than they their combined rent on their places Oakland and San Francisco.

Milburn, who works in mental health, is familiar with the neighborhood; she used to work at the Boys and Girls Club around the corner.

There’s no sign yet that the large number of initial public offerings by Bay Area companies is pushing up prices, although they could be preventing a larger drop. Since January, 22 Bay Area firms have gone public; San Francisco e-commerce site the RealReal premieres Friday. But almost all of these companies, with the notable exception of Slack, prevent employees and other insiders from selling their stock for a period of time, usually six months.

The number of Bay Area homes sold last month was 8,310, up 18.9% from last month but down 2.7% year over year. Last month’s sales were the lowest for the month of May since 2016.

Since 1988, the average change in Bay Area home sales from April to May is a gain of 7.8%.

Kathleen Pender is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. Email: kpender@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @kathpender

Article source: https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/networth/article/Bay-Area-home-prices-fell-1-7-in-May-biggest-14056290.php