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SUNNYVALE (KPIX 5) — A tiny house in Sunnyvale brought in a big sale price and smashed a real estate record.

Coldwell Bank realtor Doug Larson said, “I expected a higher offer than the list price.”

In the Bay Area’s red-hot housing market that’s not unusual, but the offer they got for this modest Sunnyvale home was unusual.

Larson said, “I was more than a little surprised — pleasantly surprised.”

The two-bedroom, one-bathroom home in Sunnyvale’s Cherry Chase neighborhood was listed at $1.45 million. But before it even officially went on the market, a private buyer ponied up $2 million in cash.

So, why this home, in this neighborhood?

Larson says it’s close to a number of tech companies, including Apple’s spaceship campus.

“Sunnyvale is the heart of Silicon Valley. It’s close to all the employers in the high-tech industry,” Larson said.

Still, the home sold in record time for a record price: At $2,358 per square foot.

It’s the highest price per square foot for a home in Sunnyvale…ever.

Neighbor Florence Winslow said, “This is pretty spectacular. I understand it’s a big lot. Maybe, the buyer plans to tear it down and build a great-big house someday.”

So, money always talks. And coming in a half million over the asking price didn’t hurt.

But the buyer also wrote a personal letter to the seller, from one cat owner to another.

He told her how much his cats would love living in her home someday. It was part of the personal touch that helped the sale speed through.

According to Zillow, homes in Sunnyvale had been selling for an average of just over $1.5 million in January, but that number is expected to rise.

Article source: http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2018/03/02/house-apple-spaceship-campus-sunnyvale-real-estate/

The New Year brought lots of home shoppers, but not so many home buyers.

Bay Area residents continued to show strong interest in home ownership in January, despite rising mortgage rates and home prices, according to a study by real estate brokerage Redfin. Demand hit record levels across the country for the typically slow winter month.

“This is the highest level we’ve seen to lead off the year,” said Nela Richardson, chief economist at Redfin. Even the surging home prices, she added, haven’t dampened demand.

But the strong interest may show more people browsing, not buying. Redfin saw home tour requests jump nearly 14 percent from the previous year, while actual offers on homes dropped about 10 percent.

Demand in the Oakland metropolitan area hit levels typically seen in the early summer, while San Francisco also hit a January high for the last three years, according to Redfin. The brokerage’s housing demand index, which has tracked demand for four years, factors in the number of buyers requesting home tours and making offers.

The study did not look specifically at San Jose, but Richardson said other indicators show demand in the city is among the nation’s highest. For example, homes for sale in Santa Clara now take about two weeks to sell, twice as fast as in the San Francisco market.

Redfin also saw strong winter levels of home-buying interest in Seattle, Phoenix and Washington, D.C., among other major metropolitan areas.

The desire for home ownership comes despite a rise in mortgage rates, the new federal tax law that diminishes some incentives for buying homes, and an up and down stock market, Richardson said.

Home shoppers are still looking despite a nationwide drop in housing inventory. Redfin has seen 32 straight months of declining home inventory. “We’re just not building enough new homes to meet the demand,” Richardson said. “That’s been a persistent problem.”

Local agents also report steady interest from clients through the winter months. They note that low inventory has driven prices to the highest in the country. The median sale price for the region climbed to a record $825,000 in November, according to real estate data firm CoreLogic.

Doug Goss, an agent with KW Bay Area Estates in San Jose, said less than 500 homes were listed for sale this month in Santa Clara, a low number for any season. For new buyers, he said, “you have to be patient, you have to be willing to step up.”

Neighborhoods in Willow Glen, Los Gatos, Sunnyvale, Cupertino, Palo Alto and Mountain View continue to draw strong interest, Goss said.

San Jose agent Gustavo Gonzalez of Valley View Properties sees demand coming from young professionals, existing homeowners looking for more space, and people looking to move out of family homes.

“Lots and lots of demand, little supply and lots of frustrated people,” Gonzalez said. “We have so much pent-up demand, I don’t see it going away.”

Article source: https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2018/02/28/more-browsers-fewer-home-buyers-in-hot-real-estate-market/

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You’ve heard about the cutthroat Bay Area real estate market before, resplendent as it is with cash offers and egregious overbids. Homes will be on the market one week, then snapped up the next.

It can be hard to catch a breath when ensnared in the quagmire of Bay Area real estate. According to a new study, some people aren’t even bothering to stop for air before placing a bid on a future home.

In a SurveyGizmo study for real estate listing site Redfin, 44 percent of San Francisco homebuyers said they made an offer on a home they had not viewed in person last year. The figure is likely indicative of the advent of online real estate listings, as well as the tenacity demanded of potential Bay Area home buyers. If you don’t act fast in this housing-deprived region, someone else will.

Of the 1,500 people surveyed throughout the country, all of whom purchased homes in 2017, 35 percent said they’d bid on a residence without viewing it first. That’s a 16 percent increase from the previous year.

How up to date are you with San Francisco Micro-Hood names? Have you heard of Smission for South of Mission? Or EoPa or East of the Panhandle?

Media: Kevork Demirjian

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Tech-savvy Millennials were most likely to have purchased a home sight-unseen, which hints at the possible link between an increase in blind home buying and recent technological enhancements in the real estate sector.

San Francisco wasn’t the worst market for sight-unseen bids. In Los Angeles, a whopping 57 percent of buyers said they had bid on a house sight-unseen. In San Diego, the number was 46 percent. San Francisco was No. 3 nationally on the list.

It might sound insane to buy a house without seeing it, but the internet can act as a pair of eyes.

Redfin predicts the trend of sight-unseen bids to continue growing in 2018.

Michelle Robertson is an SFGATE staff writer. Email her at mrobertson@sfchronicle.com or find her on Twitter at @mrobertsonsf.

Article source: https://www.sfgate.com/realestate/article/San-Francisco-real-estate-sight-unseen-bids-Redfin-12714821.php

The New Year brought lots of home shoppers, but not so many home buyers.

Bay Area residents continued to show strong interest in home ownership in January, despite rising mortgage rates and home prices, according to a study by real estate brokerage Redfin. Demand hit record levels across the country for the typically slow winter month.

“This is the highest level we’ve seen to lead off the year,” said Nela Richardson, chief economist at Redfin. Even the surging home prices, she added, haven’t dampened demand.

But the strong interest may show more people browsing, not buying. Redfin saw home tour requests jump nearly 14 percent from the previous year, while actual offers on homes dropped about 10 percent.

Demand in the Oakland metropolitan area hit levels typically seen in the early summer, while San Francisco also hit a January high for the last three years, according to Redfin. The brokerage’s housing demand index, which has tracked demand for four years, factors in the number of buyers requesting home tours and making offers.

The study did not look specifically at San Jose, but Richardson said other indicators show demand in the city is among the nation’s highest. For example, homes for sale in Santa Clara now take about two weeks to sell, twice as fast as in the San Francisco market.

Redfin also saw strong winter levels of home-buying interest in Seattle, Phoenix and Washington, D.C., among other major metropolitan areas.

The desire for home ownership comes despite a rise in mortgage rates, the new federal tax law that diminishes some incentives for buying homes, and an up and down stock market, Richardson said.

Home shoppers are still looking despite a nationwide drop in housing inventory. Redfin has seen 32 straight months of declining home inventory. “We’re just not building enough new homes to meet the demand,” Richardson said. “That’s been a persistent problem.”

Local agents also report steady interest from clients through the winter months. They note that low inventory has driven prices to the highest in the country. The median sale price for the region climbed to a record $825,000 in November, according to real estate data firm CoreLogic.

Doug Goss, an agent with KW Bay Area Estates in San Jose, said less than 500 homes were listed for sale this month in Santa Clara, a low number for any season. For new buyers, he said, “you have to be patient, you have to be willing to step up.”

Neighborhoods in Willow Glen, Los Gatos, Sunnyvale, Cupertino, Palo Alto and Mountain View continue to draw strong interest, Goss said.

San Jose agent Gustavo Gonzalez of Valley View Properties sees demand coming from young professionals, existing homeowners looking for more space, and people looking to move out of family homes.

“Lots and lots of demand, little supply and lots of frustrated people,” Gonzalez said. “We have so much pent-up demand, I don’t see it going away.”

Article source: https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/02/28/more-browsers-fewer-home-buyers-in-hot-real-estate-market/

Article source: https://globenewswire.com/news-release/2018/02/27/1396326/0/en/Zephyr-s-Clark-Acebo-and-Mead-List-Russian-Hill-Art-Collector-s-Dream-Home-for-Sale.html