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MOasis moving to Union City from Mountain View

Thu, 10 Jan 2013 01:29:13 +0000

mOasis Inc. leased 11,000 square feet in the Dowe Business Park in Union City.

Blanca Torres
Reporter- San Francisco Business Times

MOasis Inc. is taking its headquarters east to Union City from Mountain View.

The company, a maker of a polymer hydrogel, leased 11,000 square feet in the Dowe Business Park, a 354,000-square foot industrial park owned by Harsch Investment Properties.

The tenant, founded in 2010 at Stanford University, makes a gel used to store and preserve crops throughout California. The company says its product increases crop yields and helps farmers reduce their water and energy use.

“We’ve had the fortunate problem of outgrowing our lab space at Stanford a year ago, and in Mountain View most recently, and we are thrilled to find a new home at Dowe Business Park,” said Susanna Kass, CEO and president of mOasis Inc. “We now have a work space that offers both office and production space, as well as a lab. Dowe’s location is convenient for our East and South Bay-based employees and we look forward to the expansion and growth that the property will allow us.”

The property is now 85 percent occupied. It is close to Interstate 880 and both the San Mateo and Dumbarton bridges.

“This is a great time for real estate activity in the East Bay, and our properties here are seeing steady growth,” said Don Little, senior vice president for Harsch Investment Properties in the Bay Area and head of development in three states.

Harsch, based in Portland, Ore., owns and operates 20 million square feet of office, multi-tenant industrial, multi-family and retail properties in five western states and has regional offices in Seattle, the Bay Area, Sacramento, Las Vegas, and San Diego.

Harsch Investment Properties was represented by Joe Yamin and Sean Sabarese of Colliers International.

MOasis Inc. was represented by Rick Keely and Aileen Dolby of Colliers International.

Blanca Torres covers East Bay real estate for the San Francisco Business Times.

Article source: http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/real-estate/2013/01/moasis-moving-to-union-city-ditches.html

Craigslist begins embedding maps in real estate listings

Tue, 28 Aug 2012 08:49:57 +0000

A map at the bottom of a Craigslist ad shows the location of a “spacious” townhouse in San Francisco’s South of Market district.

(Credit:
Screenshot by Steven Musil/CNET)

Not long after Craigslist cut off a mapping app that tapped its housing data, the popular online bulletin board has quietly begun embedding maps in certain real estate listings.

The maps, which appear on housing ads in the San Francisco Bay Area and Portland, Ore., harness data from OpenStreetMap, a service that offers free maps of the world compiled and edited by volunteers.

The new feature emerges a little more than a month after Craigslist sued PadMapper, an apartment listings aggregator that collects listings from Craigslist and other services and displays them on a Google map. Craigslist, which has become a popular portal for apartment ads, sued PadMapper and the data harvester it uses — 3taps — on copyright infringement grounds.

The battle began in June when Craigslist sent PadMapper a cease-and-desist letter that claimed the app violated its terms of use, which prohibit “copying, aggregation, display, distribution, performance, or derivative use of Craigslist or any content posted on Craigslist.”

For a short while PadMapper took Craigslist data off its site, but then earlier this month, it said it would resume using the data after it discovered a workaround PadMapper creator Eric DeMenthon described as “somewhat dickish” but “legally kosher.”

The solution was provided by 3taps, which created an API that harvests data from Craigslist postings by “indirect means,” meaning they aren’t subject to the Internet bulletin board’s terms of use.

Craigslist responded with a lawsuit filed in San Francisco’s federal court, accusing the two companies of “unlawfully and unabashedly mass-harvesting and redistributing postings entrusted by Craigslist users to their local Craigslist sites.”

CNET has contacted Craigslist for comment and will update this report when we learn more.

Article source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57501390-93/craigslist-begins-embedding-maps-in-real-estate-listings/

Prometheus Real Estate Group Launches New Website

Wed, 11 Jul 2012 03:27:10 +0000

SAN MATEO, Calif., July 10, 2012 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ –
The newly designed Prometheus Real Estate Group, Inc. website (prometheusreg.com) goes live today. The site aims, consistent with the Prometheus brand, to provide an online experience that makes renting and living in an apartment fun, creative and effortless. Using the most current search technologies, the new web site is a mobile friendly experience with increased user flow, geo-location functionality and, of course, a beautiful, updated aesthetic.

Prometheus Real Estate Group is the largest private owner of multi-family properties and apartments in the San Francisco Bay Area with a growing portfolio of more than 18,000 metropolitan-area apartments in the Seattle, Portland, Ore., and Los Angeles communities. Cindy Park, Vice President of Marketing at Prometheus, summarizes: “Many of the people who live at our properties enjoy luxuries of working in some of the most admired, most creative, campuses in America. We wanted our online experience to feel as easy as possible and take the chore out of finding an apartment. We tried to have some fun with it and at the same time keep it elegantly simple.” The website makes the apartment search process quick and easy by typing in a City or property name. If more specificity is desired, a search can also be done by amenity, price, bedroom type, etc. And if a user is not sure exactly where to look for specific information on Prometheusreg.com, the newly developed site-wide search engine will help.

The online leasing function allows renting an apartment to be done 24/7 in the convenience of your home. And the online services functions provides access to most every online need for apartments from signing up for utilities, paying rent, to service requests. The website also includes a constantly updated blog providing entertaining and useful information spanning everything from interior design, community, to fashion. For future employees (“Prometheans”), the site also provides real time job opportunities and the ability to apply online.

Challenging the very typical and traditional approach to apartments is not new for Prometheus. Its brand won the Rosey Award in the Portland Advertising Federation and the firm has been recognized two years in a row as the best apartment management firm in the nation – in 2011 by the National Association of Home Builders and in 2010 by Multi-Housing News.

The website team of the Prometheus creative resources division and Owen Jones and Partners collaborated in creating this latest version of prometheusreg.com.

About PrometheusPrometheus Real Estate Group is the largest private owner of multi-family properties in the San Francisco Bay Area with a growing portfolio of more than 18,000 metropolitan-area apartments in the Seattle, Portland, Ore., and Los Angeles communities. Since its inception in 1965, Prometheus has specialized in the acquisition, development and management of high quality residential and commercial properties throughout the Western United States. Prometheus has a long history of award-winning approaches to development, management and general excellence. The firm was the recognized as the best property management firm in the nation in both 2010 (by Multi-Housing News) and 2011 (by NAHB).

For more information visit:
http://prometheusreg.com , Facebook/PrometheusAptsTwitter/PrometheusAptsLinkedIn/Companies/Prometheus-Real-Estate-Group

SOURCE Prometheus Real Estate Group, Inc.

Article source: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/prometheus-real-estate-group-launches-new-website-2012-07-10

Fewer vacant office spaces

Fri, 28 Oct 2011 08:27:17 +0000

By Mark Puente, Times Staff Writer

In Print: Friday, October 28, 2011

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The Tampa Bay commercial real estate market is no longer in the basement but remains far from the penthouse.

A bright spot in a national report released this week shows the commercial sector has improved in the bay area and other parts of Florida amid the languishing economy and lackluster job growth.

The report ranked the bay area as the 33rd best of 51 metro areas for investment in commercial real estate. Overall, the bay area improved to fair this year from poor last year, according to the “Emerging Trends in Real Estate” report by the nonprofit Urban Land Institute and accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers.

“It shows we’re moving in the right direction,” said Ray Sandelli, head of the Tampa office of the CB Richard Ellis commercial real estate firm. “It will also challenge us to improve.”

Experts attribute the improvement locally to the commercial market not being overbuilt during the boom, and real estate prices correcting downward to match today’s market.

Statewide, Miami ranked 17th and recorded the biggest gains among major markets for investment opportunities. Foreign cash is flowing into the city because of political instability in Latin America, the report said. Orlando ranked 29th; Jacksonville ranked 40th. Detroit, Cleveland and Las Vegas were at the bottom.

Apartments are the safest place to park cash here and across the country, the report said. Nationally, brokers and investors of industrial properties, shopping centers, hotels and office buildings face a “slowing, grind-it-out recovery” in 2012.

Investment cash is gushing toward the 24-hour global gateways: Washington, D.C., San Francisco, New York City, Boston and Seattle. Money is also following young professionals to pedestrian-friendly cities such as Portland, Ore., Seattle and Austin, Texas.

Not all experts buy into the report.

Larry Richey, senior managing director of Cushman Wakefield in Tampa, said the bay area is doing better and will never be near the top when compared to big metro areas on the East Coast and West Coast. But it would rank high among similarly sized metro areas.

Vacancy rates have dropped in office and industrial buildings as companies move to bigger offices or relocate from outside the region, he said. He pointed to Time Warner’s recent pledge to create 500 jobs in Hillsborough County and to spend $5 million on new facilities over the next five years.

The report, Richey said, doesn’t reflect all the gains made in 2011.

“It’s the most improvement we’ve seen in the last five years,” he said.

[Last modified: Oct 27, 2011 09:54 PM]

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Article source: http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/realestate/tampa-bays-commercial-real-estate-sector-rebounds-report-says/1198914

Redfin Backs Off Some Agent Home-Sales Data

Tue, 04 Oct 2011 20:36:06 +0000

Just days after it introduced a tool that lets users search for real-estate agents by name and view their home-selling success statistics, the Web site Redfin backed out of some markets, after getting complaints from local multiple listing services about the use of some data.

Agents also identified some serious flaws in the tool’s information, which Redfin says it has corrected.

Since the “Scouting Report” tool went live last Thursday, two multiple listing services — one in Washington, D.C., and another in the East Bay area of San Francisco — have asked for a review of Redfin’s use of their data, said Glenn Kelman, Redfin’s chief executive. He says the company believes it is using the agent data in compliance with its licensing agreements with the multiple listing services, where agents list properties for sale. But Redfin has suspended offering information from those listing services while it sorts out the situation, Mr. Kelman said Monday.

“We knew this would raise a few eyebrows,” he said.

Also, according to a post on Redfin’s corporate blog, Redfin has discontinued the scouting tool in Sacramento, after determining that its offering did not comply with data-sharing rules there. It discontinued the tool in Atlanta, after determining that the effort there wasn’t ready. And it now requires users to register with the site in order to get access to information in certain markets, including Portland, Ore.

The site also had to correct some serious inaccuracies in its data, which some agents pointed out in angry posts to the site’s blog. In some instances, Mr. Kelman said, the tool showed an incorrect figure for the average length of time — known as “days on market” — that it took agents to sell some properties. (On the blog, Mr. Kelman conceded the mistake was “egregious” and apologized.)

In Phoenix and two other markets, the brokerage affiliations of about 10 percent of the agents were inaccurate. And in at least two markets — Denver and San Diego — the site initially said it was showing three years of data, but in fact just two years of data was available.

Agent Aquarium, a real estate Web site based in Austin, Tex., where Redfin is now offering its own scouting report, said it lets home buyers and sellers find active real estate agents in specific neighborhoods, but in a way that it says offers greater privacy for agents.

Agent Aquarium lets sellers and buyers search for agents by neighborhood or ZIP code and provides details of their sales records. But the agents remain anonymous — they are assigned an identification code — until the site makes an electronic introduction of a consumer and an agent. (The site will also request information from a specific agent, if a consumer requests it; the agent can decide if he or she wants to have the data released. If the information is provided, the consumer pays a $10 fee.)

“It’s the agent’s job and it’s their data, so we just feel it’s right to ask permission first to display their data,” Joe Molinelli, the site’s chief executive, said in an e-mail.

Agent Aquarium earns commissions from sales if the consumer chooses one of its own agents, and a referral fee — typically 25 percent of the agent’s commission — if the consumer chooses an agent who works for another firm, according to its Web site. The site currently is available in Austin and has plans to expand into other Texas markets.

“We don’t have animosity towards Realtors as an industry group,” said Tom Cunningham, Agent Aquarium’s chief operating officer, in a phone interview. “We’re simply trying to find a better way for consumers to vet their Realtors.”

In the case of Redfin, users must search by an agent’s name — they can’t yet search for agents by neighborhood. Mr. Kelman said such a feature is in the works.

Do you think it is fair for real estate agents’ sales histories to be publicly available?

Article source: http://bucks.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/04/redfin-backs-off-some-agent-home-sales-data/

Rent or buy?: Condo ownership might make sense in San Jose, San Francisco, Oakland

Fri, 29 Apr 2011 06:34:15 +0000

As home prices fall and rents climb, it could make sense to buy in the Bay Area’s three largest cities, according to a report from San Francisco real estate website Trulia.

The site compared rents and list prices for two-bedroom apartments, condominiums and townhomes in the nation’s 50 largest cities. Trulia calculated a “rent-to-buy” ratio of 12 for San Jose, based on rents for two-bedroom apartments of $1,500 to $2,000 a month and listing prices of $200,000 to $300,000 for two-bedroom condos. According to Trulia, a rent-to-buy ratio of 15 or less means the costs of ownership are less than the expense of renting.

San Francisco and Oakland, meanwhile, are cities where renting is less expensive, but buying might be a better option depending on individual financial circumstances.

San Francisco has a rent-to-buy ratio of 19, based on rents of $3,000 to $3,500 a month and listing prices at $700,000 to $800,000. Oakland has a rent-to-buy ratio of 16, based on $1,000 to $1,500 monthly rents and listing prices at $200,000 to $300,000.

Among other West Coast cities, Trulia says buying is better in Fresno, Long Beach, Sacramento and San Diego; buying might make sense in Portland, Ore., and Seattle; and renting is more affordable in Los Angeles.

The Trulia report — including information on other big cities nationwide — can be found at http://explore.trulia.com/datavis/rentvsbuy/Q2-2011/.

Contact Frank Russell at 408-920-5876. Follow him at Twitter.com/mercspike.

Article source: http://www.mercurynews.com/real-estate/ci_17950061

Home values drop in SF, other big metro areas

Thu, 31 Mar 2011 01:41:28 +0000

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Real estate values in much of the Bay Area are continuing to fall, according to a report released Tuesday.

Home values in the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont metro area — which includes San Francisco, Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin and San Mateo counties — dropped 1.9 percent in January from the month before and were down 1.7 percent year over year, according to the latest Standard Poor’s/Case-Shiller home price report.

San Francisco was one of 18 of 20 metro areas with year-over-year declines. The only areas with gains were San Diego, at 0.1 percent, and Washington, at 3.6 percent. Eight metro areas — Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, Minneapolis, Phoenix, Portland, Ore., Seattle and Tampa, Fla. — had year-over-year drops of 6.7 percent or more.

“Keeping with the trends set in late 2010, January brings us weakening home prices with no real hope in sight for the near future,” David M. Blitzer, chairman of SP’s index committee, said in the report.

Pointing to a potential “double dip” for the nation’s real estate market, 11 cities — Atlanta, Charlotte, N.C., Chicago, Detroit, Las Vegas, Miami, New York, Phoenix, Portland, Ore., Seattle and Tampa, Fla. — reached new lows from the market’s peak in 2006 and 2007.

“The housing market recession is not yet over, and none of the statistics are indicating any form of sustained recovery,” Blitzer noted. “At most, we have seen all statistics bounce along their troughs; at

worst, the feared double-dip recession may be materializing.”

Although San Jose is Northern California’s largest city, it’s not included in the Case-Shiller report because its metro area is not one of the nation’s 20 largest.

Earlier this month, however, DataQuick Information Systems reported that the median sale price for existing single-family homes in Santa Clara County was $495,000 in February, down 3 percent year over year.

The Case-Shiller indexes are designed to track the values of typical single-family homes in a region.

Contact Frank Russell at 408-920-5876. Follow him at Twitter.com/mercspike.

Article source: http://www.mercurynews.com/business-headlines/ci_17726918