Posts Tagged ‘sf gate’

Home tours showcase Bay Area living

October 1st, 2010 by Katy Dinner

Arc du Triumph, one of the stops on the Sausalito Floating Homes Tour. Credit: Ric Miller

By Anabelle Garay

Gaze at bay views, lush gardens, cobblestone walkways, intricate woodwork and classic architecture in the Bay Area during fall home tours taking place next weekend and extending into October.

Four tours covering a range of architectural styles in Oakland, Sausalito and Alameda feature dozens of houses where owners have preserved the quirky character or former grandeur while enhancing with modern comforts:

Sausalito Floating Homes Tour

Now in its 25th year, this parade of the floating community includes seven homes never before on the tour and two that haven’t been part of it in years.

With 19 homes spread over four docks, it could be hard to choose what to check out. Among the must-sees are the Ameer, an ark still bearing its original design and the only ark on Richardson Bay; the Oyama Flower, a 4,000-square-foot, three-level floating home designed to resemble a Japanese barn; and the Red Star, a home featuring wrap-around windows and etched glass, said tour committee spokesman Paul Winward…Read More (via SF Gate)

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Experts illuminate the future of lighting

September 30th, 2010 by Katy Dinner

Lighting designer Randall Whitehead's San Francisco living room is illuminated by LEDs and a fluorescent lamp in the hanging fixture. Credit: Dennis Anderson

By Jeannie Matteucci

When lighting designer Randall Whitehead of San Francisco set out to remodel a two-bedroom home on Potrero Hill, he knew he wanted to upgrade the lighting and make it more energy efficient. But while Whitehead wanted to be green, he had no plans to sacrifice the style and look of his home.

“I have made it my personal mission to find energy-efficient lighting that can be attractive – and dare I say it – sexy,” he says.

“All the lighting in my home has been changed to energy-efficient lighting. OK, to be totally truthful, the fridge and the oven still have incandescent lamps. I haven’t yet found a viable alternative for those two locations. I could buy a new refrigerator with LED lighting but that just isn’t in the budget at the moment.” Read More (via SF Gate)

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6 Things You Think Add Value To Your Home – But Really Don’t

September 28th, 2010 by Katy Dinner

Every homeowner must pay for routine home maintenance, such as replacing worn-out plumbing components or staining the deck, but some choose to make improvements with the intention of increasing the home’s value. Certain projects, such as adding a well thought-out family room – or other functional space – can be a wise investment, as they do add to the value of the home. Other projects, however, allow little opportunity to recover the costs when it’s time to sell. (For more, check out Top 5 Home Renos For Your Money.)

Even though the current homeowner may greatly appreciate the improvement, a buyer could be unimpressed and unwilling to factor the upgrade into the purchase price. Homeowners, therefore, need to be careful with how they choose to spend their money if they are expecting the investment to pay off. Here are six things you think add value to your home, but really don’t.

1. Swimming Pools
Swimming pools are one of those things that may be nice to enjoy at your friend’s or neighbor’s house, but that can be a hassle to have at your own home. Many potential homebuyers view swimming pools as dangerous, expensive to maintain and a lawsuit waiting to happen. Families with young children in particular may turn down an otherwise perfect house because of the pool (and the fear of a child going in the pool unsupervised). In fact, a would-be buyer’s offer may be contingent on the home seller dismantling an above-ground pool or filling in an in-ground pool.

An in-ground pool costs anywhere from $10,000 to more than $100,000, and additional yearly maintenance expenses need to be considered. That’s a significant amount of money that might never be recouped if and when the house is sold.

2. Overbuilding for the Neighborhood
Homeowners may, in an attempt to increase the value of a home, make improvements to the property that unintentionally make the home fall outside of the norm for the neighborhood. While a large, expensive remodel, such as adding a second story with two bedrooms and a full bath, might make the home more appealing, it will not add significantly to the resale value if the house is in the midst of a neighborhood of small, one-story homes. (Overbuilding might be anticipating your neighborhood’s next move. Find out more in 8 Signs Your Neighborhood Is On The Upswing.)

In general, homebuyers do not want to pay $250,000 for a house that sits in a neighborhood with an average sales price of $150,000; the house will seem overpriced even if it is more desirable than the surrounding properties. The buyer will instead look to spend the $250,000 in a $250,000 neighborhood. The house might be beautiful, but any money spent on overbuilding might be difficult to recover unless the other homes in the neighborhood follow suit…Read More (via SF Gate)

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Jerry Garcia’s Calif. home for sale for $4 million

September 22nd, 2010 by Katy Dinner

NICASIO, Calif. — Would-be home buyers now have a chance to taste the high life, Grateful Dead-style: Jerry Garcia’s house is for sale.

The 11-acre estate in rural Marin County, north of San Francisco, was the bandleader’s last home before he died of a heart attack in 1995 at age 53.

The sellers are asking just shy of $4 million for the 7,000-square-foot Mediterranean-style home and surrounding grounds…Read More (via AP/SF Gate)

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Bay Area home sales tumble 22.5%

August 24th, 2010 by Katy Dinner

Credit: Michael Macor / The Chronicle

Bay Area home sales slumped by almost 23 percent last month compared with last year as the federal home buyer tax credit expired and buyers stayed on the sidelines despite record-low interest rates, according to a real estate report released Thursday.

“It was a significant drop,” said Andrew LePage, an analyst with MDA DataQuick, the San Diego real estate service that released the report. “It was to be expected (after the tax credit expired), but no one knew the magnitude. For seasonal reasons, you normally see a bit of a drop from June to July, but this was triple that.”

A total of 6,773 homes, including existing homes, condos and new homes, changed hands in the nine-county region in July, DataQuick said. That was a 22.8 percent decline from the same time last year and represented the lowest July sales volume in 15 years. For existing single-family homes, sales were down 22.5 percent to 5,104 homes.

The median price edged up as more high-end homes changed hands. For existing homes, it rose 5.9 percent to $432,500. For all homes, it was up 1.8 percent to $402,000. The median is skewed by the mixture of homes sold.

Real estate agents say that inventory – the number of homes for sale – is clearly on the rise, even as demand is dropping.

“Alameda and Contra Costa (counties) have almost doubled our inventory since December,” said Glen Bell of Keller Williams Realty in Berkeley. “Normally you get an increase of maybe 20 percent or 30 percent from the end of the year through the early summer, but I’ve never seen this kind of increase.”

In December, those counties had 1.7 months’ worth of homes for sale; in July they had a 3.5-month supply. (That represents how long it would take to sell all the homes on the market at the current sales rate.) While that’s still below the historic average of five months’ supply, “the trend is clearly swinging to more inventory,” Bell said…Read more.

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$20M Dollar Home Sellers Fall Victim

October 12th, 2009 by Katy Dinner

3573594581_c631dafb8cA charming home in a coveted Oakland neighborhood almost sold last year, even though the market for high-end listings was challenging at best.

The sellers selected a list price that their agent thought was good for the market. Two offers materialized, one at the asking price and one for $20,000 more. The sellers had their mind set on a higher price, so they refused both offers and eventually took the home off the market.

After realizing they’d made a mistake, they offered their home for sale again this year at a lower price to reflect changes in the market. A deal was negotiated, but it wasn’t easy. The buyers initially offered $125,000 less than the list price. It took more than four weeks to come to a final agreement. The transaction closed, but the sellers sold for about $100,000 less than they would have last year.

Don’t let wishful thinking get the best of you. Realize that what you think your home is worth may be out of line with what a buyer will pay. Sellers need to detach themselves emotionally from their home. This isn’t easy, but it’s necessary in order to make rational decisions about whether to sell, what price to ask and what to do with an offer…[Read more!]

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$30 Billion Home Loan Time Bomb Set for 2010

September 30th, 2009 by Katy Dinner

Carolyn Said, Chronicle Staff Writer
Sunday, September 20, 2009

Next year, many option ARM payments will begin to readjust, slamming borrowers with dramatically higher monthly mortgage bills. Analysts say that could unleash the next big wave of foreclosures – and home-loan data show that the risky loans were heavily used in the Bay Area.

From 2004 to 2008, “one in five people who took out a mortgage loan (for both purchases and refinancing) in the San Francisco metropolitan region (San Francisco, Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin and San Mateo counties) got an option ARM,” said Bob Visini, senior director of marketing in San Francisco at First American CoreLogic, a mortgage research firm. “That’s more than twice the national average.

“People think option ARMs (will be) a national crisis,” he said. “That’s not really true. It’s just in higher-cost areas like California where you see their prevalence.”

Of the 10 metro areas nationwide with the most option ARMs, three are in the Bay Area, according to Fitch Ratings, a New York research firm. They are the East Bay counties of Alameda and Contra Costa, the South Bay area of Santa Clara and San Benito counties, and the counties of San Francisco, Marin and San Mateo.

Together, these areas account for the second-most option ARMs in the country, although they are still far behind the greater Los Angeles area (including Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino and Orange counties), according to Fitch data.

Understated data

First American shows more than 54,000 option ARMs issued here with a value of about $30.9 billion. Fitch shows more than 47,000 option ARMs here with a value of about $28 billion. Both say their data underestimate the totals.

Why are so many option ARMs clustered here?

“In markets where home prices were going up rapidly, more and more borrowers needed a product like this to afford something,” said Alla Sirotic, senior director at Fitch Ratings. Option ARMs were designed for savvy real estate investors and people whose income fluctuates, such as those paid on commission. Instead, the loans became a tool for regular people to “stretch” to buy homes that were beyond their means.

That’s because option ARMs let borrowers choose to make very low payments for the first five years. During that initial period, borrowers can pick their payment option – they can pay interest and principal, interest only, or a minimum monthly payment that doesn’t even cover the interest.

Fitch said 94 percent of borrowers elected to make minimum payments only. The shortfall gets added to their loan balance, which is called negative amortization. The amount they owe can grow substantially…[Read More!]

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Savvy Buyers Use Self-Directed IRA to Buy Homes

September 22nd, 2009 by Katy Dinner

From SF Gate
By Carolyn Said

Nathan Foran used his self-directed IRA to buy a dilapidated foreclosed house in Richmond for $25,000 cash. Another $25,000 to $35,000 from the retirement account will go toward fixing up the property. He then hopes to rent it out for about $1,000 a month, money that will go straight into his retirement account.

Foran, 40, a San Anselmo real estate broker and investor, sees a lot of advantages in investing in real estate through his individual retirement account.

bu-irainvest01_p_0500529404“The net rental income goes into the IRA, so it’s generating money tax deferred,” he said. “Once I sell, the money also goes directly into the IRA without capital gains tax. If I hold onto it for five to seven years, it probably will be worth in the low $200,000s, so I’ll get a sizable gain. If I find another property I think will appreciate faster, I can sell this and use the funds to invest in that one. The IRA is a good long-term investment tool.”

With many properties at bargain-basement prices, more people have been turning to their self-directed IRAs as a ready source of capital to make real estate investments. Companies that manage self-directed IRAs say real estate investments by their clients are up as much as 30 percent over the past year.

But experts caution there are a range of potential issues and gotchas – including ones that could even disqualify the entire IRA.

Self-directed IRAs account for just 2 percent of the $4.2 trillion IRA market, but are among its fastest- growing segments. They allow access to a variety of investment vehicles beyond just stocks and bonds. The IRS closely regulates them, and any real estate investments must be handled by IRA custodian firms that hold the property inside the IRA…[Read More!]

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30-year rates edge up, still entice buyers

September 11th, 2009 by Katy Dinner

From The Associated Press via SF Gate

Rates for 30-year home loans edged up last week, but remain close to record lows reached over the spring.

The average rate for a 30-year fixed mortgage was 5.14 percent, up from 5.12 percent a week earlier, mortgage company Freddie Mac said Thursday. Rates, while above the record low of 4.78 percent hit in the spring, are still at attractive levels for people looking to buy a home or refinance.

“Long-term mortgage rates were barely changed (last) week, remaining historically low, which is helping to sustain a high level of affordability in the home-purchase market,” Frank Nothaft, Freddie Mac’s chief economist, said in a statement.

To revive the economy, the Federal Reserve has spent more than $600 billion out of a promised $1.25 trillion in mortgage-backed securities, which has driven down rates on home loans. It has also left a key interest rate near zero…[Read More!]

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