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San Francisco, CA Real Estate News

By Michael Ackerman, CRS, Top Producer, 24+ Years Experience!
(Vanguard Properties)
Nöel Valley’s Third Annual Holiday Block Party! San Francisco’s Noe Valley holds it’s 3rd annual holiday event, the Noel Stroll on Saturday, December 13, 2008 from 5 pm-9 pm. 24th and Church Streets unique mix of boutiques, gift shops, restaurants and cafe's will be staying open late, hosting an enjoyable evening of festive libations and special in-store promotions. Enjoy strolling local carolers and musicians, hot cocoa, cider, latkes and other holiday festivities. Santa will be available from 5 pm to 8 pm for wishes (and earlier for photo opportunities from 11 am to 2 pm) at Zephyr Real Estate. Readings of A Child’s Christmas in Wales by Dylan Thomas will occur at: - 5:30 pm at Cover To Cover - 6:30 pm at Fima Photography - 7:30 pm at When Modern Was. "Noel Stroll Official Website" Jo...
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By Rebecca White, Real Estate Agent - San Francisco
(Alain Pinel REALTORS)
Here are the REO stats that I worked on today...  A few more SFR REOs than before and the number of SFR listings is down so the percentage is up. Since Halloween, this number has gone up both times I checked, starting at 5% and now 6.4%.   REO TOTAL REO % REO TOTAL REO %     DATE SFRs SFRs of SFRs CONDOS CONDOS CONDOS 2-4 UNITS TOTAL 12/5/2008 39 611 6.4 23     5 67         23 938 2.5       As I continue to track this, I will keep you posted. What is most interesting is there is hardly any change in the relative numbers. Last time there were 69 total REOs (condos. SFR's 2-4 units); today there are 67.
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By Keith Rockmael
(Intero Real Estate Services)
At the San recent Francisco pit stop of the Green Festival, while trying to avoid the masses searching for samples of organic this and sustainable that, one of San Francisco’s green builders Chris Connors mentioned to a few of us attendees, “Wow, this festival has gotten big.” Indeed, for those who haven’t attended in a few years – yes, the festival continues to grow faster than FSC certified bamboo. For those lucky enough not to suffer from green claustrophobia, attendees could choose from a potpourri of Green rock stars – such as Van Jones who spoke about the new green collar economy, the incredibly interesting and sometimes bizarre Paul Stamets who seems like the Fox Mulder of the mushroom world and the dynamic food sovereignty trio of Raj Patel, Eric Holt-Giménez and Miguel Altieri ...
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By Ryan Jones
(TRI Commercial Real Estate Services)
First the bad news... AT&T is cutting 12,000 jobs (4% of its work force). See Business Times Article. This is going to further hurt our economy - where more and more jobs seem to be disappearing each day. However, It isn't bad news across the board. Several local San Francisco based companies are doing quite well. Del Monte and Salesforce are still cranking out the $$. See Business Times Article for Del Monte and Salesforce. This is great news for the local economy.
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By Ryan Jones
(TRI Commercial Real Estate Services)
John King wrote an article in the San Francisco Chronicle that I think is helpful for understanding what is going on in the Mission Bay redevelopment zone. As you walk through the area, it is easy to notice both the newness of the buildings and construction, but also the fact that there are still large tracts of land that are sitting empty. What is happening with that? The Mission Bay area has still not reached its maturity and completion. But it is on the right track. Check out the article: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/12/02/DDUV14E03A.DTL&type=business
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By Ryan Jones
(TRI Commercial Real Estate Services)
I hate to be taken advantage of. Thus, I am a person who is always leery of scams or bait and switch schemes. Because I am this way, I regularly identify these tendencies in othes who are equally leery. This comes up often when people talk to me about finding a space to lease. They want to know, "how much will your services cost me?" I inevitably launch into an explanation about how my services cost the tenant nothing because the landlord compensates me for bringing a tenant to his / her space. However, the suspicious side of the person I am explaining this to often feels this is too good to be true. I'm here to tell you that being represented by a broker in order to find space for your office and business is truly FREE. It costs you nothing out of pocket. In fact, it actually saves you...
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By Rebecca White, Real Estate Agent - San Francisco
(Alain Pinel REALTORS)
Hello,  I have always enjoyed numbers and like trying to make sense of them. I have been keeping an eye on short sales and foreclosures in San Francisco for some time now. I will endeavor to track these distressed properties a little better. I recently checked out all of the foreclosures currently on the market in San Francisco:  single-family homes, condominiums and multi-family buildings. I also broke down the number of SFR REOs and condo REOs by "district"-our way of looking at our City of San Francisco. A few interesting items... Of course, I could scare you all and say that single-family home foreclosures are up 20% in the past few weeks. This is accurate but very misleading. A few weeks ago, we had 712 single-family homes on the market; 36 of which-5%--were REOs. As of today, Nove...
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By Keith Rockmael
(Intero Real Estate Services)
As we walked into the San Francisco Green Business Conference 2008, our expectations rose just a tad when we spied not only the recycling, landfill and compost bins (with Biobags) but also fair trade coffee and organic tea which may seem insignificant but first impressions mean a lot. As is the case with many Green festivals, summits, etc in the Bay Area that a significant percentage of attendees hailed from the local region however it we enjoyed seeing representation and discussion from people in “red” states. With the economy on just about everyone’s mind, the green business conference made for timely discussion. A panel of Jay Harris, publisher of the still independent Mother Jones, Adrienne Brown (Executive Director, The Ruckus Society) and Paul Ray of Integral Partnerships, discuss...
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By Ryan Jones
(TRI Commercial Real Estate Services)
I was privileged to have the opportunity yesterday to hear Liz Ann Sonders who is the Senior Vice President and Chief Investment Strategist at Charles Schwab. Here are a few nuggets from what she said that I found interesting. - The dollar has strengthend rapidly over the course of the last month or so. Historically there is some substance to the idea that there is a reverse correlation between the strength of the stock market and the strength of the dollar. There is also a relationship between the strenth of the dollar and the strength of commodities. When the commodities market crashed, the dollar strenthened. - When you look at the real estate market, it is interesting to note "real" mortgage rates. Over the course of the "boom", properties were increasing at perhaps 17% a year over ...
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By James Testa
(Paragon Real Estate Group)
Most of my clients have come to me with the burning question: "When should I buy?" We all know this is the best buyer's market in 20 year, sellers have slashed their prices, and FHA loans have the highest conforming limits through the end of this year! So why not buy??CONSUMER CONFIDENCE!You have to ask yourself, especially as a first time home buyer, ARE YOU GOING TO PLAY IT SAFE OR ARE YOU GOING TO BE ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE WHO BUILDS WEALTH IN A DOWN ECONOMY?It’s that simple.I have listened to so many reasons for not taking advantage of this market and you may recognize some...(1) I don't think the market has bottomed out yet.(2) I am not ready to buy.(3) I can't afford it.The list goes on and on and it makes NO SENSE.You will NEVER be able to pinpoint the market however you can make an...
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By Ryan Jones
(TRI Commercial Real Estate Services)
just read an article that I think will be helpful for consumers and professionals alike. It is honest, concise and informative. Basically, it appears that this article is a summary of the extensive report created by Price-WaterhouseCoopers called “Emerging Trends in Real Estate 2009″ Here is the link: http://www.compropguide.com/specialreport_08.html
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By Tom Carlson
(Pacific Union Real Estate)
Two Year Market statistics San Francisco Here are the numbers as sourced from Broker Metrics for San Francisco area.This is a 2 Year Comparison from the month of September 2006 to the month of September 2008.Single Family Homes All SF as of September 2008: Median sales price is down 6% from 835,000 in 2006 to 782,500 in 2008 Months Supply of Inventory is up 42% from 2.7 in 2006 to 3.8 in 2008 (it is down from 4.45 in 2007) Days on Market was 34 in 2006, 31 in 2007, and 44 in 2008 Condos All SF as of September 2008 Median sales price is flat. It was 738,250 in 2006 and is 735,000 in 2008 (it is also flat from 07) Months Supply of Inventory is up 30% from 3.6 in 2006 to 4.7 in 2008 Days on Market was 41 in 2006, 38 in 2007 and is currently 53 for 2008 Additional Information October/Novemb...
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By Ryan Jones
(TRI Commercial Real Estate Services)
There are literally hundreds of millions of websites accessible in hundreds of languages to the 6 billion plus people on our planet. Of those numerous options, I basically move between a few that I find most interesting and helpful. Here are some of my favorites (not in any particular order): 1) Google - between Gmail, Google Maps (with street view!), Google search, Google analytics, Google Knol, etc., they have made my world a better place. 2) The Daily Beast - A concise and fun way to read the news 3) TechCrunch - Blog that keeps the tech headlines coming 4) Craigslist - for selling and buying and everything else 5) NBA.com - I'm a basketball addict I guess 6) Weather.com - I know when to bring an umbrella 7) Yahoo Finance - For more bad news about the stock market 8) Huffington Post ...
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By Ryan Jones
(TRI Commercial Real Estate Services)
In tough times things can get tense and relationships can be strained. In the midst of tension, it is often only humor that can break the power of fear or anger or anxiety. Humor acts as a ray of sunlight piercing through the darkness of the storm clouds. Marriage guru John Gottman has written extensively about the power of humor to heal relationships. We ought to pay more attention to humor! I have found that many of my closest friends are people who use humor often and who are just generally funny people. I hope that you are blessed with people like that in your life. Here is something to provide you a ray of hope: http://www.collegehumor.com/article:1764710  
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By Greg Anthony
(Metrocities Mortgage)
Mortgage bonds are starting a little slow this morning; after 3 straight days of hard losses stock are attempting a rally drawing investment dollars out of bonds.  The positive start for stocks seems a little counter intuitive considering all the bad economic news.  Between lower future earnings guidance from Wal-Mart and Intel and the worst initial unemployment claims data since 2001; it will be interesting to see if Stock can hold up today.   Keep in mind at 10 Pacific the treasury is auctioning $10 Billion in 30-year Treasury Bonds.  If this auction doesn't go well we might see mortgage bonds suffer later this today.   As always please feel free to contact me with any questions.   Have a great day!   Greg Anthony CMPS
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By Ryan Jones
(TRI Commercial Real Estate Services)
Although San Francisco has one of the strongest local economies in the nation, it too is feeling the pain of the terrible economic season we are experiencing. News broke yesterday about layoffs at Current Media, Wired.com and Six Apart. Current Media laid off 30 people (but its not clear if they were all in the San Francisco office - which seems doubtful). For more information, see: http://sanfrancisco.bizjournals.com
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By Ryan Jones
(TRI Commercial Real Estate Services)
Google has this relatively new internet website / application which is essentially their own version of Wikipedia but with some other twists. They call this site "Knol." While it has not apparently taken off as fast some thought it would, I have found it to be a pretty helpful / interesting site. I have posted a couple of "Knol's" myself now which are links below. Please take a look at the links and give me a good rating if you like what you read. (Thanks!) Retail Space In San Francisco How to Find Office Space in San Francisco
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By Ryan Jones
(TRI Commercial Real Estate Services)
Every once in a while I discover a jewel in our community that I feel the need to highlight. Today it is an organization that I stumbled across a few months back called, "The World Affairs Council of Northern California." This organization brings in fantastic speakers (200 times a year) for lectures and Q&A sessions. I have heard the ambassador from Afghanistan, the lead Iranian investigative journalist (a dissident who now lives in NY), and many other fantastic speakers in the last couple of months since I joined. The subject matter they cover is extremely broad, from politics to world events to philanthropy to economic development to religion and culture. The people who attend these events come from a broad cross section of society. The orgnanization offers a year long membership that...
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By Greg Anthony
(Metrocities Mortgage)
Knowledge (In Real Estate) Is Power. We have probably all heard the saying, "knowledge is power." We can even add a little more to the saying when it comes to Real Estate by suggesting that ‘knowledge in Real Estate is power.' Let me dispel a piece of this saying for just one second. It is not the knowledge that is power; it is what you do with that knowledge that is the true power. We are bombarded with media messages about Real Estate every day. Typically, the messages give us basic information. We especially see media coverage dramatizing a ‘sky is falling' effect. But is it really?  Here is where knowledge, and what we do with it, comes into play. The more educated we become about real estate, mortgage loans, and our markets, we can cut through the muck we see and read in the news a...
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By Howard Sobel
(yourpropertypath.com)
  National Association of Realtors in Orlando Lawrence Yun, economist for NAR at the Orlando conference notes that the depth of the current recession depends on the housing market’s recovery, and that will depend on stabilizing prices and inventory absorptions Home sales showed their first increase in three years during the last quarter. Yun “We are beginning to come back, but recovery won’t happen until inventories are reduced from their current 10-month levels back to a more normal six months. Even more critical to a housing recovery are stabilizing home prices. Only then will new buyers get back into the marketplace and underwater buyers be able to consider moving up, he added" via the Palm Beach Post. NAR had some proposals for the next administration: 1. NAR to urge Congress to cre...
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