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While real estate agents chase leads and close deals on houses, there’s another level of deal-making that takes place within the real estate industry: mergers, acquisitions, integrations and partnerships.

We’ll be recapping every week’s noteworthy deals that didn’t make it into print (and some that did) for your perusal.

We missed you last week!

June 19

Engel Völkers announced a new real estate shop location in the prime Beaver Creek market, strengthening its existing Colorado presence. The new brokerage is led by license partners Josh Lautenberg and Tyra Rudrud along with managing broker Kristina Bruce and Mike Seguin, both formerly of High Life Properties. Engel Völkers Vail Beaver Creek will serve the markets of Beaver Creek, Bachelor Gulch and Arrowhead, working in tandem with the Engel Völkers Vail location to service the entirety of the Vail Valley.

June 20

Intero Real Estate Services, a San Francisco Bay Area brokerage owned by Berkshire Hathaway Home Services, recently added the widget Kukun to its property search site with the aim of curing buyers of “Renophobia,” the company announced. Kukun makes estimates of the cost and return on investment of renovation projects available on listings. “The Kukun solution not only offers the cost but the equity you can build and also the list of contractors that the neighbors have used so you can vet them,” said Derek Overbey, director of innovation at Intero Real Estate Services.

Homes.com has announced that UtahRealEstate.com, Utah’s largest Multiple Listing Service, will join Homes.com’s MLS Partnership Program. The new partnership will offer UtahRealEstate.com’s 14,000 members and over 17,000 listings free exposure to Homes.com’s audience of more than 14 million monthly transaction-ready consumers. Homes.com will also provide UtahRealEstate.com members access to the Homes.com Connect Lead System.

June 21

Birmingham-based Lake Homes Realty announced it is now licensed and operating as a real estate brokerage in New York and Connecticut. This expands the company’s brokerage operations footprint to 13 states.

Leading Real Estate Companies of the World has selected Clareity as a preferred provider through its Solutions Group program, which identifies business resources for its global community of 565 residential real estate firms. “While many of our members utilize Clareity’s services through their MLSs, we are excited to introduce them to DASH, their full-service platform for brokers,” said Robin LaSure, LeadingRE vice president, corporate marketing. “This platform gives our brokers a convenient way to support their agents through a secure mobile-friendly dashboard that centralizes applications and streamlines communications.”

This week’s deals

June 26

T3 Sixty is offering the T3 MLS Workshop to help MLSs learn about their consolidation options. It will be held on Tuesday, September 12, the day before the 2017 Council of Multiple Listing Services (CMLS) conference, at the JW Marriott in Austin. This one-day workshop is not part of the conference but hosted separately in association with CMLS. The T3 MLS Workshop will cover T3 MLS’s 7-step consolidation roadmap and provide best practices based on over 50 previously handled consolidations. It is custom-designed for chief executives of Realtor associations and MLSs, Presidents/President-Elects, MLS Chairs and MLS Directors. Attendance is limited to only 50 MLS organizations and will be on a first-come, first-serve basis. Register now at www.t3mls.com/register.

Armed with an additional $13.5 million in funding, Pillow, a short-term rental management service, has released a platform to help landlords and tenants walk the line — while milking units for extra cash. Pillow Residential lets apartment-building owners either directly rent out vacant units on a temporary basis or provide a controlled environment under which their tenants can do the same. The service essentially allows landlords to add an amenity to their buildings — permission and support for tenants to rent out their units short term — while wringing more cash from their inventory.

June 27

BrokerSumo, a leading back office, commission management and accounting platform for real estate brokerages and agent teams, announced a new integration partnership with SkySlope. The partnership brings together SkySlope, an industry leading transaction management platform, with BrokerSumo to make the process of managing and closing out transactions simple. The integration allows BrokerSumo customers to pull their SkySlope transactions seamlessly into BrokerSumo, eliminating double entry of data, the potential for human errors when entering data and making the contract to close process more efficient.

June 28

Homebuilders that advertise with Zillow Group can now get deeper insight into homebuyer preferences and housing supply to figure out where to break ground next. Housing analysis tools and data have been baked into Zillow Group’s platform for homebuilder advertisers that market listings on Zillow and Trulia. Drawing on homebuyer search activity, “as well as Zillow Group’s unique economic insights,” the feature allows homebuilders to see data such as how often Zillow users are searching and favoriting certain home types by ZIP code.

June 29

ShowingTime, the residential real estate industry’s leading showing management and market stats technology provider, announced that Triangle MLS, Inc. (TMLS), a regional multiple listing service covering 16 counties in the greater Triangle region of North Carolina, selected the ShowingTime Appointment Center to equip its 11,000 subscribers to manage showings. The ShowingTime offering will enable TMLS subscribers to call the ShowingTime Appointment Center 24/7/365 or schedule showings online through their MLS system, the ShowingTime mobile app or through other technology platforms selected by TMLS.

Email deals and partnerships information to press@inman.com.

Article source: https://www.inman.com/2017/07/01/the-week-in-real-estate-industry-deals-june-26-30-2017/

California’s housing market bounced back in May with strong monthly and annual gains in existing home sales and median home price in every major region of the state. The Inland Empire experienced the largest sales gain with a 9 percent increase in existing home sales from last May, followed by an increase of 6.9 percent in the Los Angeles Metro Area, and a 4.9 percent rise in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Information collected by the California Association of Realtors from 90 Realtor associations and MLSs statewide, shows closed escrow sales of existing, single-family detached homes in California totaled 430,060 units in May. The May sales figure was up 5.4 percent from the revised 408,030 level in April and up 2.6 percent compared with home sales in May 2016 of a revised 419,000.

Mortgage rates dropping to the lowest level since November could have been a motivating factor for the May sales increase, according to Geoff McIntosh, president of the state Realtor association. “The low interest rate environment, however, may not last long as the Federal Reserve’s gradual rate hike and plan to reduce its balance sheet will likely lead to higher rates, and could change the momentum of the market,” said McIntosh.

The statewide median price stayed above the $500,000 mark for the third straight month, reaching the highest level since August 2007. The median price was up 2.3 percent from a revised $537,920 in April to reach $550,200 in May, and was 5.8 percent higher than the revised $519,930 recorded in May 2016.

The May sales increase was wide reaching as every major region in the state posted an increase over the previous year. Month-to-month and year-to-year sales in Santa Clara County were up 26.2 percent and 6 percent, respectively. The median sales price of a Santa Clara County home in May rose to $1,200,000, 3.4 percent higher than the April median of $1,160,000 and 9.1 percent higher than the May 2016 median of $1,100,000.

Alameda, San Mateo, and Santa Clara counties had the lowest inventory, at 1.7 months in May. A six-month supply is considered normal for the state.

“The lack of inventory has become a serious issue in the Bay Area and unless it is addressed, will continue to drive up home prices and create an even more challenging affordability situation, especially for first-time homebuyers,” said Denise Welsh, president of the Silicon Valley Association of Realtors.

“Without more new homes, the only other way we can generate new inventory is for people to sell; yet we advise them to hold property as an investment. It’s a catch-22 without an easy solution,” added Welsh. “We just simply have to build more homes. We need at least 65,000 more housing units to keep pace with population growth.”

Information provided in this column is presented by the Realtor members of the Silicon Valley Association of Realtors at www.silvar.org. Send questions on any topic to rmeily@silvar.org.

Article source: http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/06/30/real-deal-california-housing-market-rebounds-in-may-but-inventory-remains-low/

A new real estate “Hotness Index” is loaded with Bay Area housing markets, which is only to be expected.

Less expected is this: the Vallejo-Fairfield market in Solano County is the No. 1 “hottest” in the nation. Vallejo, a city whose reputation has been tarnished through the years by news reports about crime and gangs, has established itself as a hot housing destination, according to the June index from realtor.com.

Last month’s sale price for a single-family home in Vallejo was $365,000 and properties are moving quickly.

“Something’s on the market, and you look at the map and see we’re about the cheapest place in the Bay, with a fast commute to the city,” said Ron Gold, a Vallejo-based agent with the Re/Max Gold real estate franchise. “If you want something cheaper, you’d have to go to Stockton.”

People are going there, too. The index ranks the Stockton-Lodi area as the 14th hottest market in the U.S.

The monthly index measures where houses are selling the fastest — they’re typically gone within 31 days in Vallejo-Fairfield — as well as which markets are generating the most listing views on realtor.com.

Beyond that, the index has become a reflection of the Bay Area’s housing crisis, which is pushing commuters to purchase homes at relatively affordable prices in out-of-the-way places.

Yes, the San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward metropolitan area is the No. 2 “hottest” in the country, and San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara is No. 9 on the list.

But then there is the Sacramento-Roseville-Arden-Arcade metro area (No. 4) and Santa Rosa (No. 17). Yuba City – in Sutter County, about 40 miles north of Sacramento — is the nation’s 19th hottest market, and Modesto is No. 20.

Realtor.com reports that “there were 11 percent fewer homes on the market (nationally) in June 2017 than during the same time last year, marking 24 consecutive months of year-over-year inventory declines.”

Javier Vivas, realtor.com’s manager of economic research, added that “more markets than ever are struggling with inventory problems; in 80 percent of markets there are fewer homes for sale currently than this time last year.”

Given that the housing supply is at historically low levels in much of the Bay Area — where the job force keeps growing along with buyers’ demands for homes — it isn’t so surprising that the march of gentrification is reaching Vallejo, Stockton and Yuba City.

“We always make the 10 o’clock news for some reason, going back to the 1980s,” said Gold, the agent in Vallejo, “but we’re not really a whole lot different from other communities.”

In 1998, he bought his own house for $125,000: a modest place, just 1,300 square feet. He since has more than doubled its size, turning it into a custom home with granite counters and a three-car garage. He figures it’s now worth between $600,000 and $700,000.

About 25 miles to the south, Pacific Union agent Carla Buffington has watched as more and more upscale homeowners move to West Oakland and the Berkeley Flats, both previously deemed affordable, though not so much anymore.

“There’s just a lot of crazy sales, ” she said. “You just go, `Oh my gosh. Who pays that for that?’”

This year in the Flats, she said, four homes have sold for more than $1 million.

“They’re these transitioning areas and they’re close to the city,” she said. “You can fly over the Bay Bridge, and people are looking at it and saying, `Well, I can afford a lot more here than I can in the city.’ If you have a million dollars and you can’t get a three-bed, two-bath in what’s considered a little bit nicer neighborhood, you get pushed.”

Article source: http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/06/29/nations-hottest-housing-markets-include-oakland-san-jose-and-vallejo/

As competition drives home prices ever higher in the Bay Area, there is a whiff of good news for first-time homebuyers.

The number of starter homes coming to market across the region rose in the second quarter: by 10.9 percent in Oakland, 24.1 percent in San Jose and 26.1 percent in San Francisco, compared to the same quarter last year.

You’re feeling excited? Don’t. A new report by Trulia contends that traditional buyers of starter homes – households in the lower third of the income bracket – have basically been frozen out of the market.

Assuming those earners could put together a 20 percent down payment, they still would face spending an outlandish portion of annual income on their mortgages.

Here’s how much: 60.5 percent of income would go to paying the mortgage on a starter home in the Oakland metro area, which includes Alameda and Contra Costa counties. In the San Jose metro area, which covers Santa Clara and San Benito counties, the percentage is 78.4 percent. And it’s a crushing 99.6 percent of income in the San Francisco metro area, which includes San Mateo County and the city of San Francisco.

“So the news is bittersweet,” said Ralph McLaughlin, chief economist for Trulia and author of the report.

Besides, he pointed out, the uptick in the starter-home supply is minuscule in terms of real numbers. Only 389 starter homes – single-family homes, condominiums, co-ops and townhomes – came to market in the San Francisco metro area in the second quarter, compared with 722 in San Jose and 768 in Oakland.

Trulia defines a starter home as one with a value in the lower third of the market.

Nationally, the housing supply has shrunk for nine consecutive quarters, and the shrinkage recently includes the starter-home segment of the market, which fell 15.6 percent in the second quarter.

So why is there any expansion of the starter-home market in the Bay Area, which is notorious for its slim pickings?

Because overall inventory — all homes in all price ranges — is chronically low across the region while the job force keeps growing, competition among buyers has been fierce, driving prices to record highs.

Seeing those high prices, McLaughlin theorized, some owners of starter homes feel that now is a good time to sell. They “think they’re going to make a bundle because they bought at the best time, when the market was at its bottom,” he said. “Or else they bought their homes at the worst time – at the pre-recession peak – and now they’re above water, so they can unload them.”

Either way, he said, “those homes are nowhere near affordable for traditional starter-home buyers, so it’s not great news for those trying to get into a first home.”

According to Trulia, the median price of a starter home is $286,300 in the Oakland metro area, $445,667 in the San Jose metro area and $535,823 in the San Francisco metro area.

Who can pay those prices? McLaughlin said some of the homes are likely being snapped up by investors.

Others are being bought by middle- and upper-income homeowners who feel overwhelmed by their mortgages and other costs associated with living in larger homes. Squeezed by the pricey market’s “compression effect,” he said, they are downsizing.

They “feel stymied,” he said. “So they will start to look down the ladder at homes that are not necessarily suitable to their needs – with the exception that they’re less expensive.”

Article source: http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/06/28/bay-area-starter-homes-can-cost-500000-easy/

http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Bay-Area-residents-moving-to-Sacramento-relocating-11243395.php

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Debra JonesI do not have “plans,” I have dreams. San Francisco is my home. It’s where I was born and raised. I am a graduate of SFUSD, SF State and UC Berkeley. I bleed blue and gold. I rep the Warriors, Raiders, even though my heart belongs to the Pittsburgh Steelers. But I ache for another 49er championship. I miss Muni, BART, flaming hot days in September, foggy damp mornings, the fog horn, the siren on Tuesdays at noon. As I age, my income level will not allow me to age in the place that shaped and molded who I am and my world view. less

Photo: Max Whittaker/Prime, Special To The Chronicle

The weekly music art scene, the abundance of everything delicious (whatever you crave: ice cream, shawarma, burrito, poke, acai bowl, banh mi, artisanal cocktails) all within walking radius, the convenience how easy it is to get around (walk, bike, Muni, BART, ferry) and last but not least, my rent-control apartment. less

Photo: Steve Yeater, Special To The Chronicle

Sacramento is seen in a file photo.

Sacramento is seen in a file photo.

Photo: H. LORREN AU JR.

SFGATE is exploring how people’s lives change after leaving the Bay Area, for better or for worse, in a new series. Today we’re focusing on those who have relocated to Sacramento. We’ll explore other relocation areas in future articles, so follow SFGATE for more.

“I lived in a Victorian, four blocks from work, one block from a grocery store and next door to a wine shop and bar,” said Briana Mullen of her first room in midtown Sacramento.

Mullen spent the first 22 years of her life in the Bay Area, having grown up in Concord before attending UC Berkeley. Upon graduation, she moved to Sacramento for a job in the state superintendent’s office.

“Everyone at Berkeley was really skeptical of the move,” she said.

Two years later, Mullen is still in Sacramento, and she considers herself somewhat of an ambassador for the city that many of her Bay Area friends consider a “cow town.”

Why did she uproot from her dreamy midtown digs?

“I just bought a house,” the 25-year-old said. “And my mortgage is only a couple hundred dollars more than my apartment’s rent.”

Click through the slideshow above to read the stories of people who left the Bay Area for Sacramento. See what they like better and what they miss about the Bay. Responses have been edited for clarity and length.

• 
  Is the grass really greener? People who left the Bay Area for the Pacific Northwest tell us why
  
• 
  The grass isn’t greener: Why people regret leaving the Bay Area for the Pacific Northwest
  
• 
  San Francisco refugees go from ‘Hell no’ to ‘Hello Sacramento’
  

When asking people why they left the Bay Area for Sacramento, the stories can begin to blend together.

“Moved from a basement apartment in East Bay to a whole house in Sac for less,” said Nichole McKenna, 33, a dentist with three years of Sacramento living under her belt. 

Aminah Ikner, 42, shared a similar tale: “I was able to buy a house, something I could never do in San Francisco.”

Then there’s Katheline Tran. She’s 26 and “bought a spacious house for the price of an old, dated condo.”

Anecdotes such as these reveal the obvious: Sacramento boasts an affordable housing market, at least compared to the skewed standards of Bay Area residents. That’s enticement enough for many to pick up and move to the state’s landlocked capital.

The median home value in Sacramento is slightly short of $300,000, according to Zillow. San Francisco’s median home value is nearly quadruple that number, at $1,194,300.

Cow town stereotypes aside, Mullen said such a cheap cost of living was an undeniable draw, especially as a recent graduate with hefty student loans.

“I knew I wanted to work in public service,” she said, “but even earning a higher salary in the Bay Area, the cost of living would totally negate what I earned.”

In Sacramento, she has disposable income and the opportunity to save money.

“The financial stress of living in the bay just wasn’t worth it to me anymore,” she added.

VIDEO: Things you’ll miss if you leave the Bay Area

You may be thinking of leaving the Bay Area in search of a more affordable to live… but think of all the things you’ll miss!

Media: SFGATE

A city on the rise

While Sacramento hasn’t always been a glimmering refuge for those sick of the pricey Bay Area, the winds have begun to blow northward. Real estate prices aside, many of those who made the leap from the Bay Area to Sacramento have discovered a city coming into its own, with a burgeoning food, arts and culture scene.

When Michael Bauer visited Sacramento in 2016, he discovered an explosion of new restaurants, some of which were run by chefs trained in Bay Area kitchens. Despite a handful of restaurants lacking “focused execution,” Bauer says he discovered a “fresh energy in the dining scene” and “some things to love.” 

SEE ALSO: Michael Bauer’s picks for the top 10 restaurants in Sacramento

Bauer also points out Sacramento’s position as a vibrant agricultural sector – it produces 80 percent of the world’s almonds and caviar – which has inspired the Sacramento Visitors Bureau to promote the city as the “Farm to Fork Capital.”

Outside of up-and-coming restaurants, hints of an oncoming hipster makeover are scattered across the city. When the monthly art walks, microbreweries and third-wave coffee shops begin cropping up, the young and hip can’t be far behind. 

For a 20-something like Mullen, the city offers “everything I could want,” including trendy shops, bars filled with young people, and farmer’s markets — all accessible by foot or bike.

“You could be at a beer garden playing cornhole behind a giant mural of John Stewart, then you walk to the art pop-up, then on your way you pass the arcade bar,” said Mullen, describing the trappings of a typical night on the town.

Mullen thinks the “scene” is undeniably geared to a “younger crowd,” and U.S. Census data backs up her observations.

Between 2014 and 2015, the most recent years for which census data is available, nearly 170,000 people moved to Sacramento, the majority of which (25 percent) were aged 25 to 34. In just five years, Sacramento’s population has grown by six percentage points.

In the most recent influx, 12,000 people came from the Bay Area; according to Trulia’s annual “migration report,” those looking to leave the Bay Area are most likely to move to Sacramento.

Besides the “outstanding quality of life in Sacramento,” the Greater Sacramento Economic Council says the city has begun to attract non-agrarian businesses, including a handful of startups.

While San Franciscans were consumed with drama at Uber and the NBA Finals, Sacramento’s mayor was striking a $100 million partnership with Verizon to upgrade the city’s tech infrastructure and create a more connected, less digitally divided city. 

Growing pains

Not everyone is happy with the Sacramento’s shifting identity.

Hunter Watkins, 25, is a native Sacramento resident. He says he’s watched rent prices “skyrocket in the last five years.”

“There’s more people, there’s more traffic,” he said. “And, unfortunately, there are a lot of people here that can no longer afford to live where they grew up.”

It’s hard not to draw comparisons between Watkins’ sentiments and those of Bay Area natives, who have also watched a city morph before their eyes. Watkins said his early attempts to purchase a home were foiled by quick-closing sales and buyers paying in cash – sound familiar?

SEE ALSO: Is the grass really greener? People who left the Bay Area for the Pacific Northwest tell us why

Despite his city’s growing pains, Watkins is staying put for now. He was finally able to purchase a house – it closed in just 12 hours on the market – and is getting accustomed to all the newcomers.

One thing hasn’t changed for Watkins: “Sacramento has always been a place I’m proud to be from.”

Article source: http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Bay-Area-residents-moving-to-Sacramento-relocating-11243395.php