In its monthly report on housing prices, the SP/Case-Shiller Home Price Index — considered to be the leading measure of home prices across the country — said Tuesday the average selling price for a home in the San Francisco area jumped 23.9 percent over a 12-month period ending in April.

Jed Kolko, Trulia’s chief economist, told SFBay home prices in the East Bay showed even more dramatic increases:

“Trulia’s Price Monitor, which is a forward-looking indicator of price trends based on asking prices and reports the San Francisco and Oakland areas separately, showed prices up 31 percent in the East Bay year-over-year, the biggest increase among the 100 largest metros in the country.”

Kolko said home prices in other Bay Area counties also increased, but not as much as the East Bay:

“Prices in our San Francisco metro area, which includes San Mateo and Marin counties, were up 20 percent year-over-year, which is also a very steep increase but not as steep at the East Bay gain.”

Though the housing market is rebounding in most cities, a tight inventory of homes across the Bay Area and one of the fastest job growth rates in the nation is helping to boost home prices locally.

And as Kolko points out, home prices in the East Bay saw prices fall sharply during the bust, creating bargains for home buyers.

SP/Case-Shiller says nationwide prices the average price for a home during that same period of time ending in April jumped 12.1 percent — setting a monthly record.

David Blitzer, chairman of the index committee at SP Dow Jones Indices said the housing recovery is looking strong:

“Atlanta, Las Vegas, Phoenix and San Francisco posted year-over-year gains of over 20 percent in April. San Francisco was the highest at 23.9 percent. … Recent economic data on home sales and inventories confirm the housing recovery’s strength.”

Behind San Francisco in showing strong growth was Las Vegas, which saw prices climb  22.3 percent and Phoenix, which saw prices rise by 21.5 percent.

Article source: http://sfbay.ca/2013/06/25/housing-boom-sends-bay-area-home-prices-soaring/

That would be unequal pay, or what Rosin – who sees the 21st century service-oriented economy playing more to women’s strengths – calls “the last artifacts of a vanishing age.”

How are those artifacts doing? Nationally, for every dollar paid to men, working women are getting 77 cents, according to 2011 figures from the U.S. Census Bureau. Working women in California are doing relatively better, earning 85 cents for every dollar paid to men. But if you think women in the progressive Bay Area are doing the best of all, you’d be wrong.

The four congressional districts where women’s median pay equals or exceeds men’s are in and around Los Angeles, suggesting there’s more equality in the entertainment world than in high tech or finance.

The southern part of Silicon Valley, including San Jose, comes close, with women there making 97 percent of men’s pay. But in another Silicon Valley congressional district, including Santa Clara, Los Altos and Cupertino, women are paid just 73 cents for every dollar made by a man – below the national and state averages, and equivalent to an annual wage gap of $21,000, according to an analysis of the Census Bureau report by the National Partnership for Women Families, an advocacy group in Washington, D.C.

San Francisco, represented by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, also has a ways to go, with women here making 85 percent of men’s median pay – an annual wage gap of $9,800. Alameda, San Mateo and Marin counties do better than San Francisco. Contra Costa lags, with a wage gap of up to $20,000.

Other studies suggest the gender gap may be smaller – as low as 5 cents on the dollar, according to one produced for the U.S. Labor Department in 2009 – but it’s still there, as the Equal Pay Act of 1963 approaches its 50th anniversary.

Scofflaw watch: It’s that time of year again, when the state Board of Equalization puts out its quarterly list of the top 500 tax delinquents.

Many of the names will be familiar to those keeping tabs on California’s biggest offenders; for example, C JD USA Inc., a shipping firm in Oakland, has owed $16.9 million since at least 2010.

One new name did catch our eye, though: Siebel Systems, co-founded by billionaire entrepreneur Thomas Siebel, owes the state $1,371,765 in back taxes, and has a lien placed on the company’s listed headquarters in San Mateo.

One of America’s largest customer relationship management software companies, Siebel Systems was acquired by Oracle for $5.8 billion in 2006, and a Wikipedia entry labels the company “defunct.” Its listed telephone number was disconnected.

So who is actually on the hook for the money, and how far back do the unpaid taxes go? Oracle, when contacted, declined to comment. Oracle continues to market Siebel-branded products, including Siebel CRM Public Sector 8.2.2, released in December.

Siebel, a former Oracle executive, is currently chairman of First Virtual Group, a holding company headquartered in Palo Alto, and of C3 Energy, an enterprise management software company in Redwood City. Calls and e-mails to both companies were not returned on Monday.

Citing confidentiality rules, the Board of Equalization says it could not provide details of the date or dates of the unpaid taxes, but referred me to published information about the tax lien, first dated March 7, 2012.

Are there cases of companies or business owners being cited for unpaid taxes dating back several years? Yes, said board spokesmen.

Going begging: The state of California has $6.1 billion to give away. That’s the amount of unclaimed property it’s collected on behalf of 17 million individuals and organizations, according to the controller’s office.

No, not real estate; these are bank accounts, safety deposit box contents, cashier’s checks, money orders, stocks, mutual funds, CDs, matured insurance policies and more that owners, or their heirs, have forgotten to collect.

They’re being held under California’s Unclaimed Property Law, designed to prevent institutions like banks and insurance companies from pocketing the uncollected money for themselves.

Feeling lucky? Check out the controller’s unclaimed property page at scoweb.sco.ca.gov/UCP.

Back to the table: The California Public Employees’ Retirement System must be feeling luckier than the last time it dabbled heavily in real estate.

CalPERS recently announced a $530 million investment in Chinese real estate funds, despite rumblings of a bubble in that country’s real estate market.

“Income growth and urbanization remain the key themes for growth in China,” said Joe Dear, the pension fund’s chief investment officer. “China’s office and retail sectors offer stable rental income and potential for capital value growth.”

Previous investments in Chinese real estate have done well for CalPERS, earning a 19.2 percent return for the year ending March 31. On the other hand, CalPERS’ real estate investments have taken a shellacking at home, losing almost half their value in 2009 when the U.S. bubble burst.

Not to worry, though.

“We believe foreign investment in the Chinese real estate market will continue to grow over time, notwithstanding near-term challenges and some price volatility along the way,” Moses Song, head of ARA Asset Management, which is handling CalPERS money, told the English-language China Daily last week.

Andrew S. Ross is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. E-mail: bottomline@sfchronicle.com Blog: www.sfgate.com/columns/bottomline Twitter: @andrewsross Facebook: sfg.ly/doACKM

Article source: http://www.sfgate.com/business/bottomline/article/L-A-beats-Bay-Area-on-gender-gap-in-pay-3890940.php

Throughout the nine counties, the median paid for an existing single-family house in July was $400,000, down 7.5 percent from the same month last year, according to DataQuick, a San Diego real estate research firm. A total of 5,096 homes changed hands in the month, virtually the same as in July 2010.

“More people became more concerned about the future and took a step back to the housing sidelines as we saw an increasing number of negative reports on the economy and jobs, and people fretted about the outcomes of the debt-ceiling debate in Washington, D.C.,” said Andrew LePage, a DataQuick analyst.

The median is strongly influenced by the mix of homes sold: more low-cost homes changing hands results in a lower median. DataQuick said sales of homes above $500,000 fell 19.2 percent compared with a year earlier, while sales of homes below $500,000 were up 3.5 percent over July 2010.

Many of the low-end transactions relied on low-down payment, government-backed Federal Housing Administration mortgages. They accounted for 22.4 percent of all Bay Area home purchase loans in July.

Distressed home sales remain a significant market force. Bank resales of foreclosed homes accounted for 26.6 percent of Bay Area resales in July. Short sales – in which people sell their home for less than they owe on the mortgage – represented 18.8 percent of resold homes.

As has been true throughout the housing downturn, coastal counties with easy access to job centers performed better than those in outlying regions. The median for San Francisco resales was virtually flat at $715,000 versus $714,500 a year earlier. Median prices for existing homes in Santa Clara, San Mateo and Marin counties were down about 3 percent.

“There is no question that Santa Clara and San Francisco (counties) have stood out as being relatively stable, given the strength of their local job markets and the constrained supplies,” LePage said.

But medians declined more steeply in Napa (down 15 percent), Solano (down 9.9 percent), Sonoma (down 8.6 percent), Contra Costa (down 8.5 percent) and Alameda (down 6.4 percent) counties.

For all homes, including resale homes, resale condos and new homes, sales volume inched up 1.7 percent and the median price fell 7 percent to $374,000 from $402,000.

Two competing factors affect the housing outlook for the rest of the year. On the one hand, consumer concerns about their finances were exacerbated by the wild ride the stock market has taken this month. On the other hand, interest rates are at historic lows and home prices are more affordable than in years past.

Even the best-case scenario doesn’t involve an immediate recovery but rather an extended period of prices bouncing along the bottom.

“I think it’s likely we’re in for a long period of stagnation,” LePage said. “If we get worse news on jobs and the economy and see big dips in the stock market, we could see prices come down some more. Of course (even with stagnation) prices will always bounce around a bit.”

The California Association of Realtors, which on Monday issued its report for July, had a similar take.

“Economic uncertainty and recent developments in financial markets have caused hesitation among buyers, the effects of which we may see in the coming months,” said Leslie Appleton-Young, the group’s chief economist, in a statement. “We must see sustained job and income gains along with an increase in consumer confidence before we can expect to see consistent improvement in the housing market.”

E-mail Carolyn Said at csaid@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page D – 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

Article source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/08/16/BUD91KO7CA.DTL