It’s also the longest partial lunar eclipse in nearly six centuries, according to NASA’s data. The last time a longer partial lunar eclipse occurred was Feb. 18, 1440, at 3 hours, 28 minutes and 46 seconds — and the next one won’t be until Feb. 8, 2669, predicted to be 3 hours, 30 minutes and 2 seconds.
And why is this event unusually long? According to timeanddate.com, it’s because the eclipse’s maximum point will occur as the moon nears its farthest point from Earth, known as its apogee. The greater the distance, the more time it takes the moon to pass through the Earth’s shadow.
At its maximum effect, around 1 a.m. PST Friday, 97% of the moon’s face will be covered in shadow, turning it a deep red, according to the website space.com. Only a little sliver of the moon will shine, NASA says.
The eclipse will be visible across much of the globe, including the Bay Area — but only if the weather cooperates with a clear sky. And unfortunately, experts say that’s not likely.
“Right now it is not looking so good,” said Matt Mahle, meteorologist with the National Weather Service. The long-range forecast is for a low pressure system to move across Northern California just in time for the eclipse.
“Clouds are forecast with a low-end chance of showers Thursday night,” Mahle said.
The iconic mid-century homes, which became known simply as “Eichlers,” are immediately recognizable by their glass walls, open floor plans, pitched A-frame rooflines, lofty atriums, covered carports and modernist details such as metallic closet doors and cozy in-floor heating.
8021 Shay Drive, Oakland, Calif.
BrightroomSF Photography / Compass
Finding (and posting online) Eichlers, has become a passion for a new generation of mid-century modern enthusiasts, and today the #eichler hashtag on Instagram retrieves over 40,000 photos. The New York Times once described the desire to own the frozen-in-time collectibles as “embodying the constant search for happier, better living: postwar California optimism served sunny side up on a concrete slab.”
One of the last, and smallest, Bay Area communities overseen by Eichler was the Sequoyah Hills tract in the Oakland Hills. The community is sometimes known as “the land of the lost Eichlers,” and many of the homes are in rare pristine condition after being spared some of the ugly remodeling efforts of the ’70s and ’80s on Eichler’s more well known communities.
8021 Shay Drive, Oakland, Calif.
BrightroomSF Photography / Compass
This week one of those “lost Eichlers” at 8021 Shay Drive has hit the market for $1,595,000.
8021 Shay Drive, Oakland, Calif.
BrightroomSF Photography / Compass
“This one is special. It’s rare to find all these features in one property,” listing agent Glennie Kramer-Baker said. “I think people will fall in love with the opportunity to live that California-cool lifestyle we all dream of.”
The four-bedroom, two-bathroom 2,121-square-foot twin gable home, built in 1965, features a landscaped atrium that leads into the open beam grand living area with a brick wood-burning fireplace, surrounded by the iconic Eichler walls of glass.
The home features an eat-in chef’s kitchen that opens to the dining and family room. “It’s unique in that beyond the modern aesthetic, it’s actually a super practical and high functioning design to live in,” Compass agent Lissa Moon LaCroix said. “That’s what I think sets Eichlers apart. People know that beyond the facade, it’s actually an incredibly thoughtful and effortless place to reside.”
8021 Shay Drive, Oakland, Calif.
BrightroomSF Photography / Compass
“It’s such a stunning home that really captures the quintessential mid-century modern feel of what makes the Eichler style so coveted for lovers of this era of home,” Kramer-Baker said. “The pool with a view definitely puts it up a notch.”
8021 Shay Drive, Oakland, Calif.
BrightroomSF Photography / Compass
The kidney-shaped pool, garden and hot tub have a wide view west over the bay and the San Francisco skyline.
8021 Shay Drive, Oakland, Calif.
BrightroomSF Photography / Compass
At the peak of the company’s expansion and success, Eichler explained his formula in a rare interview with American Builder magazine: “I operate on the theory of innovation. I develop what I believe to be good, and then I offer it to my customers,” he said. “Many builders say ‘give the people what they want,’ but how can people ‘want’ innovations they have never seen or heard of?”
The home on Shay Drive is hitting the market at about $400,000 under the Redfin estimate and previously sold for $925,000 in 2005.
The warehouse is a 336,680-square-foot structure, an Amazon spokesperson told SFGATE on Tuesday. The spokesperson also confirmed that the space will enable the shopping titan to strengthen the presence of Amazon Logistics, its delivery service, in the Bay Area. Its proximity to public transit and freeways is also desirable, the spokesperson added.
The warehouse is slated to launch by the end of November, the spokesperson added, but did not confirm hiring numbers.
The news of this lease comes as Amazon is set to formally propose construction of a warehouse in San Francisco’s Potrero Hill neighborhood where a Recology site once stood. That structure promises as many as 500 new jobs — but has drawn concern over clogging up the city’s already tight streets with more traffic, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. (SFGATE and the Chronicle are both owned by Hearst but operate independently of one another.)
Amazon’s Bay Area expansion has grown more rapid in recent months, with the e-commerce behemoth buying parcels of land — one in Pleasanton bordering a lake and the other in Milpitas, near the Great Mall. In recent years, Amazon has purchased or leased nearly 3 million square feet of Bay Area property, as documented by the Registry.
The annual household income it now takes to afford those prices is equally eye-popping: an average $235,200 across the Bay Area, and up to $364,400 in San Mateo County. Statewide, the association estimated that about 24% of residents could afford the California median price of $814,580 for an existing home, down from about 28% of residents last year and 56% of residents in 2012.
“In the winter, you might hear that you can lowball,” said Bay Area Realtor Wen Guo. “But not this year.”
The new home numbers come amid an uneven recovery from the coronavirus pandemic. Bidding wars are still raging for homes on roomy lots in popular school districts as thousands of renters and small landlords struggle to recover from lockdown-induced debt. While 62% of Californians said in a recent Public Policy Institute of California survey that their finances are about the same as a year ago, about 1 in 5 households also reported that they were forced to cut back on food in the last 12 months.
The dichotomy isn’t new in California or a Bay Area increasingly divided by wealth. But it’s one that economists like Oscar Wei are watching closely to predict the state’s future. From 2020 to 2021, a separate California Association of Realtors survey charted a 5% jump in the number of home sellers leaving the state, from 30% last year to 35% this year.
“We have been seeing some out-migration,” said Wei, the association’s deputy chief economist. “People who are selling their house — their next house is actually out of California.”
Wei said that while home prices have dipped slightly from their historic summer highs, he predicts that prices will keep inching upward at a more moderate pace in 2022 due to a long-term imbalance between supply and demand.
In the process, Wei said the income that it takes to afford a house in the Bay Area could also keep creeping upward. As it stands, it takes a household income of around $331,600 to qualify for a house in San Francisco, when factoring in a 20% down payment, a 3% interest rate and the recommended affordability threshold of keeping monthly payments at less than 30% of income, the California Association of Realtors reports.
“Unfortunately I don’t think that income level will come down anytime soon,” Wei said.
Guo is seeing buyers willing to go to extremes to win homes. In one recent sale in San Carlos, she said a client bid $3 million on a house, only for an appraiser to find that the house was worth more like $2.7 million. The deal went through anyway after they protested to the seller, and the response was similarly high offers from five other bidders.
“Everyone was aware of the situation, that we might be overpaying,” said Guo, a trained architect and Realtor with Keller Williams Peninsula Estates. “Our buyer was willing, and that’s where the market is.”
Guo’s listings range from just over $1 million to more than $22 million. At lower price points, the stakes can be higher for would-be home buyers attempting to stretch their budgets or waive financial protections like appraisal and loan contingencies. Buyers with bigger financial cushions after selling another house or cashing in stock may be able to pay extra to keep a deal together, but more vulnerable buyers can be out tens of thousands of dollars if a contract falls apart.
In some ways, Wei said the current home market is starting to look more familiar with its seasonal ebbs and flows. But as another unpredictable year winds down with inflation rising, businesses complaining of labor shortages and cargo ships piling up in port cities like Oakland, what happens next is still far from certain.
“Everything is just speculation,” he said. “It’s going to be interesting to see what happens in 2022.”
Lauren Hepler is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: lauren.hepler@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @LAHepler
BERKELEY (CBS SF) — Even in the San Francisco Bay Area’s rebounding real estate market, the recent sale of a four-bedroom Berkeley home was raising eyebrows.
The house, located on a desirable corner lot in the Claremont neighborhood, was initially priced at $2.75 million but sold for $4.25 million — a whopping $1.4 million over its listing.
It is a sign of the times, according to real estate agents across the Bay Area. Since the market awoke from its COVID slumber, prices of homes have soared and bidding wars have escalated from Marin County to the Silicon Valley.
“In the East Bay, there’s simply more demand than houses available, so I’m not surprised that we got so many offers,” said Compass Realty listing agent Julie Nachtwehy, who listed the Berkeley home.
“The home has lots of character, and the stunning interior remodeling was over the top,” she added. “The owners are selling because they want to downsize, now that the youngest son left for college. They’re ready to travel and do other fun things.”
The owners bought the home, built in 1911, for $1.58 million in 2016. They only had it listed for 10 days during which a heated bidding war erupted among potential buyers.
According to CoreLogic, a real estate data tracking firm, the median price for an existing single-family home in the Bay Area rose 12.8% in August over last year.
Prices rose by double-digits in Alameda, Santa Clara and Solano counties.
Tina Hand, president of Bay East Association of Realtors, told the San Jose Mercury News that the market has been particularly strong for single-family homes with big yards.
