homesmillbrae.com

SAN FRANCISCO (KPIX) — It’s one of few single family homes on the market in San Francisco’s SoMa District.

A top-selling realtor tells KPIX that, if you don’t mind the gruesome murder that happened there, the $1.5 million asking price is a steal.

“Three thousand six hundred square feet of land for $1.5 million almost seems like a bargain to me,” said David Ayerdi, a realtor with McGuire Real Estate.

The listing is for two lots on Santa Clara street — the house and a vacant lot next to it. Realtor Ayerdi is not involved in the listing but he believes most potential buyers are looking to tear it down to build condos on the lots. Ayerdi said those investors don’t care about the history.

This past August, police found homeowner Brian Egg’s headless body in a fish tank here. Detectives arrested a man but later released him saying there was not enough evidence to file charges.

Wilma Parker, who is a longtime friend and neighbor of Egg, told KPIX “As far as I know, Brian never had a fish tank. I think that fish tank was brought in.” Parker said Egg’s siblings recently decided recently sell the house because, after the murder, people didn’t want to live there.

Other neighbors agree.

“I’d be scared to sleep alone and be in that house any day,” said Clare Engel.

Realtor Ayerdi did some research and found out offers for the property came in very fast. “After two weeks of marketing, they set an offer date. So it went pretty quickly,” he said.

The listing agent told KPIX that, because he signed a confidentially agreement, he cannot reveal how many offers he received or what the pending price is.

Article source: https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2019/05/04/soma-house-sells-despite-murder-decapitation/

OAKLAND (CBS SF) — A formerly homeless couple from Oakland is living on a $4 million property in one of the most exclusive neighborhoods in the Bay Area, thanks to the generosity of real estate developer Terence McGrath.

In February, Greg Dunston and Marie McKinzie moved into the in-law unit of McGrath’s personal home, a sprawling 4500-square foot house on the 400-block of Hampton Road in Piedmont.

Prior to the move, McGrath sent an email to Piedmont Police Chief Jeremy Bowers, explaining the living arrangements, in case neighbors called 911.

According to Bowers, calls for service spiked shortly after Dunston and McKinzie arrived and began walking around the block, and smoking cigarettes on the sidewalk. Calls began to taper off at the beginning of April.

“It’s our mandate and it’s incumbent upon us to respond to issues that are related to crime or suspicious activity related to crime,” Bowers said. “Simply somebody looking like they’re not in the right place, or not looking like they live in a certain community, that’s not a crime. And that’s not something that this police department has a functional responsibility to respond to.”

2010 Census data shows 74% of Piedmont residents are white. According to Zillow, the median home price is $2.3 million.

“It’s a real issue in this neighborhood to walk while black or any other color,” said Lorraine Gray, a neighbor who had moved here several months ago.
“And so, the more the merrier, because let’s get some diversity in Piedmont.”

McGrath declined to comment, in an effort to deflect attention away from himself, according to Annie Campbell Washington, former Oakland city council member, and designated spokesperson.

“I was astounded. Terry is an amazing man, and to see him actually take an action like this. We can talk about being helpful, and Terry stepped up,” said neighbor Jordan Gudebski.

Gudebski says he understands why neighbors called police on Dunston and McKinzie, but he urged his neighbors to “try and move past that fear”.

“I can understand that initial reaction, but what I would say is look a little more deeply, trust Terry, trust your instincts to connect with them and see who they really are,” Gudebski said.

Article source: https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2019/05/03/piedmont-house-homeless-oakland/

What do you get when the office meets the parking lot?

Look no further for an answer than San Francisco, where some people are paying $2.25 an hour to work in a parking space, according to the NBC News reporter Scott Budman.

“Get this: San Francisco has become so crowded and expensive, people are paying $2.25/hr to work…in a parking space. It’s being called #WePark,” Budman tweeted.

WePark pays for the parking space, which doubles as an office using free nearby WiFi or mobile-phone hot spots, Sophie Williams of BBC reported.

Victor Pontis set up WePark on April 25 near San Francisco City Hall after being inspired by Twitter, he told Williams: “Somebody posted a photo of a truck that someone set up with bike parking on it and somebody mentioned ‘What if you could work out of a parking spot?’ I thought it was a pretty funny idea.”

About 30 people showed up the first day, Williams reported. “We live in a very expensive real estate market,” the WePark visitor Jean Walsh told Williams. “It’s just so crazy to think the way we use our street is not reflective of that and so those parking spaces are just dirt cheap compared to all of the other real estate in San Francisco.”

In San Francisco, the median price of listed homes nears $1.3 million and the median rent is $3,300, according to Zillow. That’s overwhelmingly more than the national medians of $285,000 and $1,675, respectively.

Read more: The Bay Area is so expensive that employees at Apple, Uber, Google, and other tech giants are putting off having kids — and it’s a sign of a much larger trend

Homes are so expensive that only 12% of households can afford them, with nearly 60% of tech employees unable to afford them, Business Insider previously reported. The pricey real-estate market is even causing some residents to delay having kids, decide to live in their cars, or leave the city altogether.

Tech giants have crowded the city with more people and have, in part, fueled the soaring real-estate prices. San Francisco also deals with a crowded homeless population of 7,500 and a consequent poop problem, Business Insider’s Ben Gilbert reported.

Some people on Twitter are wondering if WePark is a parody — but either way, its creation highlights how unaffordable and crowded San Francisco has become.

“WePark is serious! But it’s also a joke,” Pontis told Business Insider. “Setting up a desk and chair on a busy street is absurd.”

One way or another, the idea has spread to Toulouse, France.

Article source: https://www.businessinsider.com/san-francisco-residents-paying-to-work-in-parking-space-wepark-2019-5

According to Orange County-based data firm Core Logic’s monthly home sales report, the price of a home in the Bay Area for March declined year-over-year for the first time since 2012, albeit by a minuscule 0.1 percent.

While this drop is so small as to be meaningless in practical terms—and possibly anomalous in statistical ones—it snaps a seven-year trend of constant price growth in this metric and accompanies the tenth straight month of decline in the number of home sales year-over-year as well.

According to Core Logic, which compiled all public house and condo sales for March, the median price of a home in the region was approximately $830,000, down from $831,000 the same time in 2018.

While prices went up in San Francisco by 5.3 percent year-over-year (to $1.38 million on average), Marin County’s and Santa Clara County’s medians dropped during the period by 4.7 percent to $1.08 million and ten percent to $1.08 million, respectively.

In a separate national home price index report reflecting February 2019, which showed declines in growth nationwide, Core Logic Deputy Chief Economist Ralph McLaughlin says, “In places like San Diego, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, the proverbial chickens will be coming home to roost this spring because they haven’t been able to find a decently affordable coop.”

The number of homes sold in San Francisco was down in March too, dropping 12 percent from 517 to 455, the lowest in 11 years.

Across the region the decline was 14.8 percent, from 7,184 to 6,124 for March.

Comparing Core Logic’s figures to those from the California Association of Realtors, CAR found that prices declined year-over-year across nearly every Bay Area county, including San Francisco.

CAR recorded a year-over-year price change of negative 2.5 percent in March for SF, down to roughly $1.63 million.

This differs from the Core Logic figure because CAR only records the sales of single-family homes, which are usually more robust than sales of condos or the combined houses/condos metric.

In both cases, sales were up significantly from February to March of this year, although Core Logic notes that the month-over-month increase of 39.4 percent is less than the 39.9 percent averages month-over-month February to March sales bump for the past 20 years.

Article source: https://sf.curbed.com/2019/5/2/18526501/san-francisco-home-price-report-decline-march-2019

“It reflects a trend that began in mid-2018 when home sales slowed and inventory grew, forcing sellers to be more competitive,” Andrew LePage, a CoreLogic analyst, wrote in a release. “The year-over-year increase in the region’s median sale price was 16.2% in March last year. But after that, the gains in the median gradually decreased each month and fell to the 2 to 3% range early this year and then disappeared this March.”

Sales of San Francisco homes – including Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, Santa Clara, San Francisco, San Mateo, Solano and Sonoma counties – were nearly 15% lower in March compared with a year ago. That was the lowest March reading in 11 years. Sales have been at 11-year lows since December and have fallen on a year-over-year basis for the past 10 months.

These numbers are based on closings, so they were likely deals signed in January and February. The market should have been improving, as mortgage rates were falling, the government shutdown was over and the stock market was surging.

“Those factors bode well for stronger sales than we’ve seen in recent months, but any impending upswing in activity wasn’t evident in the March data,” LePage said. “Beginning in late spring last year, some potential buyers got priced out and others simply stepped out of the market amid concerns prices were near a peak.”

Buyers overall, and especially in high-priced markets like San Francisco, are extremely interest rate sensitive. The average rate on the 30-year fixed spiked to just over 5% last November, according to Mortgage News Daily, and then fell back again in December. In March it took a deep dive to around 4%, but has since climbed back to around 4.5%.

The next two months will be key to understanding whether all the weakness in prices and sales is due to fluctuations in interest rates, or whether the market has simply hit an affordability wall. Inventory is rising, but largely because homes are sitting on the market longer, not because there are a ton of new listings.

This tech-heavy housing market could also be impacted to the up or downside from IPOs including Lyft, Pinterest, Uber, Slack and Airbnb.

WATCH: Bay Area housing prices through the roof

Article source: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/29/san-francisco-bay-area-home-prices-fall-for-the-first-time-in-7-years.html