Former San Francisco Giants star catcher Buster Posey has quietly sold his Lafayette mansion for $9.28 million, cutting ties to a region he’s called home since he became a fixture with the team more than a decade ago.
The seven-time All-Star and three-time World Series champion spent his entire 12-year career with the Giants; he shocked the club and fans when he announced his retirement last year.
Posey, 34, sold the 6,038-square-foot six-bedroom, five-bathroom home off-market. It sits on almost an acre of landscaped grounds. He purchased it in 2013, after winning his second World Series title with the Giants, for $4.585 million.
The future Hall of Famer is moving back to his native Georgia. While the Giants will try their best to replace Posey’s phenomenal skills and leadership on the team, fans undoubtedly will miss his presence at the ballpark.
Thankfully, he’ll be back at Oracle Park on May 7 for Buster Posey Day.
Some sellers offer plots where people can live after buying their tiny home. Others require them to be shipped or trucked to land that the buyers own.
But with that demand also comes supply issues. Companies like Pacifica Tiny Homes, which builds and sells a variety of model tiny homes that ship to customers nationwide, say there’s a six month wait time for one of their custom-built homes.
This is in part what’s spurring a lot of buyers to look into direct buyers through websites like Tiny House Listings, where a 324-square foot redwood cottage can sell for upwards of $300,000.
So what’s available in the Bay Area when it comes to tiny home living? Here are a few properties that illustrate the sheer scale of how the market is growing.
A 192-square-foot tiny home in Windsor, Calif. The property is listed for $95,000.
Provided by Marisa Rosas, W Real Estate
129 Katherine Pl, Unit 59, Windsor
• 1 bedroom, 1 bath
• 192 square feet
• Listed at: $95,000
• Price per square foot: $495
In the eight days this tiny home — which is actually a manufactured home on wheels — has been on the market, listing agent Marisa Rosas says she’s already received more than 30 phone calls about it and has given 15 showings.
Most of the people interested are older than 65, and are looking to downsize or move the property to land they either own or can otherwise live on. But if a buyer doesn’t have that option, they can stay on this lot, which is zoned specifically for a tiny home and rents for $631 a month at Royal Mobile Manor, the all age RV park in Windsor.
The solid 2×4 wood throughout, in-unit laundry, butcher block countertops and yard space are just some of the elements drawing so many customers to her listing, Rosas said. But at nearly $100,000, Rosas knows that their asking price is high — though, she says, it’s never been a better time to roll the dice.
“I told my client, this market is a really interesting one right now, and that if (they) wanted to try a number, they could try it now.”
A 30-foot “Tiny Victorian” model built by Pacifica Tiny Homes.
Provided by Pacifica Tiny Homes
Pacifica Tiny Homes
• 1 bedroom – 2 bedroom, one bath
• 211-363 square feet
• $39,900 – $80,900
Having just started in 2018, Pacifica Tiny Homes is one example of the types of companies emerging to the meet the growing demand for simpler and more affordable living. While based out of Pacifica, their factory operations are in Corcoran (Kings County), and the custom-built trailer tiny homes have been shipped all over the Bay Area, said co-owner Crystal Serrano, who started the company with her husband. They’re also the first tiny home company to have their plans approved by the state of California for their homes to be used as accessory dwelling units, Serrano said.
They offer more than 30 different design and 120 color and material options, and the tiny homes can range in length from 18’ to 30’.
Each of their three models come furnished with a smart TV, a AC/Heating unit, and an Ikea queen sized sofa bed. Some can accommodate up to three sleeping spaces.
A 192 square foot tiny home at 129 Katherine Pl Unit 59 in Windsor, Calif. The property is listed for $95,000.
Provided by Marisa Rosas / W Real Estate
On the highest end, their 2.0 Tiny Victorian model — which is named because of its gabled-style roof — comes with two loft sleeping or storage spaces, and a propane tankless water heater.
Serrano says Bay Area customers make up at least 50% of their overall sales, and though many of their buyers are older and looking to downsize, many of them are also younger and building families.
“When COVID hit, we saw a bit of a lull and we didn’t know what was going to happen,” said Serrano. “It’s just skyrocketed since then, because there is obviously a high need for housing in the state and this has become an affordable way for a lot of people, young and old.”
Unlike the Windsor property, people are on their own when it comes to finding a place to live in the tiny home, but Serrano says many of their customers have found luck finding rental spots on Craigslist, finding RV parks that are accepting tiny homes, or joining tiny home communities like one in Delta Bay in Isleton.
And because the company handles all of the design and construction, customers are also able to customize the models even further, said Serrano, adding that one buyer, a nurse who worked long hours, requested her tiny home be built with a bathtub.
Some of the models of Harmony Communities’ tiny homes.
Provided by Harmony Communities
Harmony Communities
• Studio – 2 bedroom
• 220-400 square feet
• $67,500-$99,950
Like Pacifica Tiny Homes, Harmony Communities — one of the largest tiny home purchasers in the state — offers a few different models for their customers to choose from, though they’re not as customize-able.
The company, which is based out of Stockton, works with two factories in Lindsey (Tulare County) and Corona (Riverside County).
“They cannot get us homes fast enough,” said President Matthew Davies. “We are six to nine months out on our orders.”
The reason, he says, echoes a narrative that has come to explain the tiny home craze: affordability, at least by Bay Area standards.
“It’s impossible (here),” said Davies, referring to the Bay Area’s housing crisis. “These are your bread-and-butter, blue collar workers who are buying these … these are the workers who don’t have telecommuting jobs.”
For many white-collar workers, and especially those able to tele-commuting, the defining trend over the pandemic was to find more space, not less. But for working class Bay Area residents finding themselves increasingly priced out of cities they are tied to, tiny home living has become one of their only options for home ownership, said Davies.
The company sells about four properties a month to Bay Area buyers in three different park communities: Gilroy Garlic Farm, Bayshore Commons in San Leandro, and Creekside Village MHC in San Pablo. The properties are fairly austere, but sometimes include some added flourishes, like a wrap-around porch and additional loft units that can accomodate families of up to 4, sometimes 5 people.
“The model works best for the Bay Area,” he said. “Because land is scarce and prices are already high.”
Annie Vainshtein (she/her) is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: avainshtein@sfchronicle.com
SAN JOSE, Calif. (KGO) — We’ve all heard that Bay Area housing prices are out of control and higher than they’ve ever been. It’s true, and it’s a story we’ve all been seeing for years. But experts are saying that this spring is going to take everything to a whole other level.
“With everything being as high as it is, we have to make the tough decision between: do we pay $3,500 to rent or do we spend over a million dollars to buy a house?” First-time home buyer Ben Zorn said. “It’s crazy right now.”
“What’s happening is, only the people who can really afford houses in the South Bay area are getting into them,” Intero Real Estate Salesperson Jim Mauldwin said. “People who are just hopeful, they’re probably not going to have a great opportunity to get into a house at retail.”
Homes are selling at record prices and their values are only growing.
According to Redfin, more than 45% of homes sold in San Jose went for at least $100,000 over asking from January 1 to February 15; 29.8% in Oakland went over $100k and 40% in San Francisco.
Meanwhile, while the median income in San Jose is $93,000, Zillow says homes values increased more than an average of $229,000 over the span 2021.
“We’ve gone through crazy markets before, this one seems to be a little bit different than others,” Santa Clara County Association of Realtors President Doug Goss said.
This year is already off to a record start, but springtime is typically the best time to sell your home.
High demand, low supply. So the question is, will this spring selling season be the craziest one ever?
“It’s going to be the craziest spring in home buying,” Mauldwin said. “It’s the craziest January, February, March that I’ve ever seen in 30 years of selling real estate.”
Obviously, this means these experts say it’s a great time to sell.
But when will it be a good time to buy?
Federal Interest rates have just gone up and that is not expected to dip costs. There’s also still record-low inventory with only around 1,000 homes for sale currently in Santa Clara County.
“When you get to about 1,800, 2,000 to 2,500, the market will subside a little bit and it will be more in the buyers favor at that time,” Mauldwin said.
So in the mean time, what’s their best advice to home buyers?
“You need to be in a position where, in your mind you’re thinking, ‘I won’t lose’,” Mauldwin said. “Because the winners in this market are the ones who won’t lose. They’re not somebody who has a really good offer.”
“You’ll be able to get into a property,” Goss said. “It just may take you a lot longer than typically.”
“Hollister is really the up-and-coming place,” Macias, an associate with RE/MAX Gold, said of the recent real estate boom. “Ninety-nine percent of the buyers I’ve worked with have come from the Bay Area.”
But it’s not just individual home buyers fueling record home prices all across the San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose metro areas. After years of steadily increasing, the Bay Area’s overall share of investor purchases dipped slightly during 2020 and 2021, but purchases by investors still increased significantly in some areas. Downtown neighborhoods in the region’s biggest cities saw notable upticks, along with outlying communities like Hollister, Pacifica and Bethel Island, according to data analyzed by The Chronicle from real estate listing site Redfin.
Fewer investors are purchasing Bay Area single-family homes, townhouses, condos and two-to-four-unit apartment buildings than in lower-cost cities constructing more homes, like Atlanta and Phoenix. But in a region where bidding wars, risky no-contingency offers and losing out to all-cash offers have already become the norm, analysts say deep-pocketed investors can put more homes out of reach for ordinary Californians and add upward pressure on rents.
“There’s no sugar coating that it’s super hard right now, especially for first-time buyers,” said Redfin senior economist Sheharyar Bokhari. And the challenge is magnified in cities that attracted new residents during the pandemic: “They get competition from wealthier folks who may be coming into their area, and they can outbid them,” he said, “then investors can outbid them in cash.”
When measured by the percentage increase in investor purchases during the pandemic compared to 2018 and 2019, ZIP codes in uptown Oakland, Portola Valley and downtown San Jose were at the top of the list, seeing a 3% to 4% increase in investor activity during 2020 and 2021. Contra Costa County’s Bethel Island, along with parts of Richmond, West Berkeley, San Pablo and San Francisco’s condo-rich financial district also saw 3% upticks.
Suburban and rural areas near Walnut Creek, Hollister and Pacifica were all among the top 20 ZIP codes for increasing investor home buying during the pandemic. In Hollister’s 95023 ZIP code, investors purchased only 17 homes in 2018 and 2019, but that more than doubled to 36 homes in 2020 and 2021, according to Redfin’s analysis of deed ownership information.
The varied geography underscores that investors aren’t all the same. They can be individual people or a small group shopping for a quick flip, a vacation rental or long-term retirement income. Others are international buyers or branches of major financiers with varied short- and long-term investment strategies.
It can be difficult to track investor activity using public records, and to distinguish investors with no intention of living in a home from business entities employed by some wealthy homeowners to minimize taxes, maximize inheritance benefits and shield their privacy. Redfin identified investors by searching deeds for buyers whose names included the keywords LLC, Inc., Corp or Homes. They also included properties where a deed listed an ownership code containing the following terms: association, corporate trustee, company, joint venture or corporate trust.
“You don’t know which of these belong to a Wall Street firm, because they use some obscure name,” Bokhari said. And beyond that, “The data doesn’t tell us whether they’re using it as a rental or flipping it.”
In Hollister and other cities with ample land for new construction, Macias said investors sometimes buy new homes when they’re first planned in subdivisions, rent them out for a short period after construction, then sell at a profit. Cities including Oakland have seen a different trend since the last housing crash of large firms buying up houses in low-income neighborhoods and renting them out. Across California and the nation, home-flipping and income properties have become part of many peoples’ career and retirement plans.
The share of homes purchased by investors jumped in some outlying Bay Area communities during the pandemic, including Contra Costa County’s Bethel Island.
Paul Kuroda/Special to The Chronicle 2021
State lawmakers wary of constituents being shut out of homeownership have in recent years signed off on reforms designed to give individual home buyers more opportunity to bid against investors, though all-cash offers and other favorable terms are still hard to compete with. Politicians in Sacramento are currently weighing a measure, AB 1771, that would add a 25% tax on house-flipping profits. Cities including San Francisco and Santa Cruz, meanwhile, are debating vacancy taxes on empty homes.
After the uncertainty of the pandemic and ensuing eviction moratoriums, housing advocates like Maeve Elise Brown say that some property owners are also looking to get out of the rental business, opening another door for bigger investors.
“Small landlords are withdrawing from the rental market,” said Brown, executive director of Oakland nonprofit legal service Housing and Economic Rights Advocates, or HERA. “It’s tough. It’s messy. It’s clear that the pandemic drove some of the sales that are happening.”
The financial stakes are magnified in diverse, gentrifying cities like Oakland and Richmond, which follow a national trend where some historically Black and Latino neighborhoods are “primed for investors,” Bokhari said, thanks to factors like systemic undervaluation and rising rents.
Those dynamics add to Jennifer Duffy’s challenges shepherding first-time home buyers through Alameda County’s AC Boost program, which uses voter-approved bond money to make down payment loans to teachers, first responders and lucky lottery winners.
When the program first opened applications in 2019, nearly 3,000 people pre-applied. After vetting and a lottery, Duffy said 70 people bought homes with the loans. AC Boost is in the middle of its second funding round, which opened last summer and drew 6,000 pre-applications.
The program has made “huge changes” to adjust to a chaotic market, said Duffy, president of AC Boost administrator Hello Housing, including raising the maximum amount participants who make around the area’s median income can borrow, to $210,000. Expanding networks of lenders and real estate agents has been crucial, she said, along with sending sellers letters from prospective first-time buyers.
Some participants had luck with condos after demand for smaller spaces dipped during pandemic lockdowns. Most who have found homes placed winning offers in Oakland, San Leandro or Hayward.
Others haven’t been so lucky.
“Sometimes they run out of time,” Duffy said, “They have 120 days to get out in the market.”
Back in Hollister, Macias is down to more like three offers per house, though homes in the $700,000 range can still incite a frenzy. For those left on the sidelines, it can be hard not to wonder if the opportunity to buy has already passed.
“Unfortunately it has put a strain on our locals here,” Macias said. “It’s very hard for them to compete and get into a house in their own town.”
Lauren Hepler and Susie Neilson are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: lauren.hepler@sfchronicle.com, susan.neilson@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @LAHepler, @susieneilson
In San Francisco, that demand was insatiable. The typical U.S. home sold for nearly $400,000, up 24.4% year-over-year. Meanwhile, in San Francisco, that price was $1.5 million.
But it wasn’t just the city proper — the whole Bay Area was in a frenzy. The median sales price of the nine-county region of Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano, and Sonoma, was $1.3 million ($733 per square foot), according to Norada Real Estate Investments. That’s a 18.2% increase over last November and it was the highest year-over-year gain in California, according to the California Association of Realtors. Bay Area house prices were also up 2% from the previous month (October 2021).
Pushing these prices is record-low inventory across the country, Redfin data shows. There were just 1.38 million homes for sale in June, down 23% year-over-year, which was a historic low. Inventory was down in San Francisco again as well, though historically, inventory has always been tight in the seven-by-seven square mile city.
Likely related to this scarcity, homes flew off the market in record time at record offer prices. Nationally, the average house sold in just 15 days, another historic marker as the lowest median days ever and down from 39 days in June 2020, the Redfin data showed. In San Francisco, homes sold on average in 16 days — and 72.9% of those homes sold above listing price.
The demand for homes has translated into record-breaking (and disturbing) bidding wars, the likes of which the country has never seen.
Data: Redfin
Redfin
This hot demand outpaces the record-breaking offer prices in the rest of the country: 56.5% of homes in the U.S. went for above list price in 2021, up 29.6% from 2020.
Across the country, demand for second homes almost doubled from before the pandemic, up 91% from pre-pandemic levels. In the Bay Area, that demand translated to record prices in places like Tahoe, Santa Cruz, and Hawaii.
The desire for sanctuary put a premium on luxury homes. The median sale price of U.S. luxury homes jumped 26.5% to a price of $990,000 in the second quarter of 2021, which is yet another record in the U.S. In San Francisco, that trend is mirrored: a sharp increase in uber-expensive home sales that started in 2020 kept climbing through 2021.
Luxury homes enjoyed an incredible surge in popularity in SF over the past two years. Image via Compass.
SFGate
2022 probably won’t be much different. Even if interest rates go up, demand is unlikely to go down. “There’s a main trend from 2020 that continued through 2021 and I expect this trend to continue in 2022. That trend is the importance of home, regardless of the price point. Luxury, or not, more people are placing more value in their main residence than ever before,” said Alex Clark, Realtor and Founder of The FrontSteps Real Estate.
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.
