Homescopes

Homes in Walnut Creek and the 680 corridor have been excluded from Federal and State grants for years.  The purchase price and loan amounts were always too high.  The federal stimulus package continues to assist people who have the income to support the monthly mortgage payments to live in Walnut Creek and central Contra Costa County.  And here’s how.

The Nehemiah Program has been around for decades it has helped over a quarter of a million Americans purchase homes. Unlike some down payment assistance programs, Nehemiah offers down payment help to anyone who qualifies for an approved FHA loan. There are no limits on income or assets, but buyers must have an FHA loan or be pre-approved for an FHA mortgage. 

Nehemiah will allow up to 6% of the final contract sales price for down payment and/or closing costs.  It’s available for first-time and repeat homebuyers.  You can use it  for new construction and resale homes, with no geographical restrictions.

 This means a FHA loan up to a $750,000 loan amount with a supporting Nehemiah grant to cover the down payment. I’m sure certain restrictions are attache to this product, but if you want to buy a Walnut Creek home with nothing down, this may be one fo the ways to do it.

Every Tuesday is the Half Moon Bay coastside’s ”Tour Day”.  What that means for local SAMCAR members is starting the meeting at the Community Center, but today it was at the Oceano Hotel at Pillar Point Harbor.  If you’ve been reading my blog you know that I’ve gotten a sneak peak before today!  The local Realtors were treated to warm scones, fresh cut fruit, coffee and juice, in one of the harbor view conference rooms, followed by a tour of a few ocean view suites, the ballroom, and the shopping village…a fun change of pace from our normal weekly meeting location.

The meeting is typically led by one of the local Realtors.  We go over announcements, review the printed tour sheet (new listings entered into the MLS since the prior week) and agents announce any additions or deletions to the day’s tour.  Other important announcements are made also.  George Mozingo, SAMCAR’s Government Affairs Director announced that anyone is welcome to attend the public meeting in Sacramento tomorrow (4/30/08) on AB1991, a single-issue bill written by Assemblyman Gene Mullin in an effort to help resolve the City of Half Moon Bay’s Beachwood judgment.

If a Listing Agent has a home on tour, they leave to arrive at the home before the 50+ agents get there.  Some have food and some don’t.  Today, homemade focaccia bread wafted from Grant Walters’ Moss Beach listing.  Ina and Terry offered “to go” snacks at their El Granada home, and Bob McCahon spent hours rolling and dunking (kidding!) the infamous donut holes…but agents didn’t drive to his Pescadero listing for more sweets today!

This special country property is about an hour south of San Francisco.  Or land your private plane at the HMB airport and drive 15 miles down Highway 1.  With pastoral views to die for, plenty of outbuildings, beautiful swimming pool, hot tub, entertaining nooks around the property, caretaker’s cottage, and direct access to riding/hiking trails, it is waiting for one lucky family to create memories.  Thanks, Bob, for bringing us this great property to offer our clients!

One of the view scenes.

A trailhead and one of the outbuildings.

Caretaker’s Cottage.

5785 Pescadero Creek Road, Pescadero, CA

A mid-day walk along one of the wide lower El Granada avenues.

I had to capture this lovely scene as I was recently driving around town on a recent Tuesday morning Broker Tour of new listings.  Glad I had my camera for this one.

It brought back memories of when I was the parent of a preschooler - a few moons ago…  My daughter attended Marty’s Alameda Station in El Granada and even now, as a college student, has continued friendships from the buddies she made while at Marty’s.

 More about El Granada neighborhoods HERE.

Another post about an El Granada neighborhood:

Quiet neighborhoods reaps the benefits of P.O.S.T.

Coastside Preschool Directory 2008, by Coastside Mother’s Club

Sonoma County Foreclosure Active Listings by Area

Of the 404 active foreclosure listings in Sonoma County today, here is a snapshot overview. For a more detailed look, and information on specific properties available on your own private web portal, please contact me directly and I will email you a report.

Of the 404 properties available today, the average number of days they have been on the market is 63 days. Buyers on top of their game are jumping on the best properties in the best locations (surprise, surprise) and many are subject to multiple offers, but generally under asking price. Banks are sometimes offering concessions such as credits to closing costs for certain repairs, but it really depends on the property and the competitive landscape. Of these properties, the minimum price is $101, 200. The maximum price is $1,249,000. The median price is $309, 975, well below the median sales price for the county.

Click the link above to get to a Google Doc which breaks the foreclosure market down by area within Sonoma County. Cotati/Rohnert Park, parts of Santa Rosa, Windsor and East Petaluma are the most effected whereas communities such as Sebastopol and Healdsburg have very few foreclosure properties on the market. Also, the price points tend to be the lower ones with the median price at just over $300,000.

Many real estate investors and first time home buyers are seeking out real estate bargains in Sonoma County.  Investors had fled the county for a number of years due to rapid appreciation but the proliferation of bargain priced bank-owned (REO) properties and short sales have attracted them back.  As a realtor, I often am asked by clients where the best deals are, and sometimes they are surprised that not every type of property is a potential bargain, nor are they equally dispersed throughout Sonoma county.

As colleague Marian Benson, on the San Mateo coastal front says in her blog:

Bottom line:  There are foreclosure properties out there, and probably more coming through the remainder of ‘08.  Buying such a property requires research, patience, ready cash…and a bit of a stomach!  Support of your team may be helpful to some and crucial for others (be it contractor, accountant, real estate professional, loan consultant, or parents).

If you’re interested in starting your own online research, I just got this tip from Kevin Boer about foreclosureradar.com.  I’ll be tracking it along with where I currently have an account, Realtytrac, to look for San Mateo County trends.  My Realtytrac research has shown their properties to be pretty out of date so I may try to find another one to use as a comparison to foreclosureradar.  If you know of another good one, make a comment to share with everyone.

By the way, colleague Sam Benson at Real Estate 680 in Contra Costa county is opining on the same subject.

As part of my journey into real estate investment education,  I decided to visit the San Mateo County Courthouse “steps” to watch a trustee sale a few weeks ago.  I have seen a private auction but never this final step in the foreclosure process before the property becomes bank-owned (REO) - the Trustee Sale.  This link shows where the Trustee’s Sale is in the foreclosure process.  More about the link below.

It was surprisingly low key when I got there on a recent early Spring day (sorry Michigan friends!).  Then a few more people showed up for a total of about 10 people.  Most of the people there were seasoned investors.  By seasoned I mean, they are there all the time with their dog-eared list in hand and have mega millions to work with.  I know this because one of the Foreclosure Agents shared some information with me about who buys, how they buy, where the foreclosure market is heading in San Mateo. 

That day 20 properties were up for auction; 5 were postponed and new dates given; and 15 went to the respective banks because nobody bid on them at the minimum auction price.  The sheets were getting updated right then and there.  Sadly, one homeowner was desperately trying to hold onto her home at this eleventh hour; as far as I could tell, her home was not sold to the bank while I was there.  It is my understanding that the lender with the primary lien establishes the minimum auction price.  (My CB training in this starts Monday.)  In other words, none of the investors and bidders there thought the properties were enough of a “deal” to bid at the minimum price.  This is one day’s activity and Trustee’s Sales happen throughout the week depending on the number of properties available.

This experience was totally worth the 90 minutes I decided to allow myself.   There is NOTHING like first-hand education, as reinforced by seasoned investor Jeff Brown, whose blog I follow at BawldGuyTalking.  I also took the time because I wanted to find out what’s really going on in San Mateo County.

Bottom line:  There are foreclosure properties out there, and probably more coming through the remainder of ‘08.  Buying such a property requires research, patience, ready cash…and a bit of a stomach!  Support of your team may be helpful to some and crucial for others (be it contractor, accountant, real estate professional, loan consultant, or parents).

If you’re interested in starting your own online research, I just got this tip from Kevin Boer about foreclosureradar.com.  I’ll be tracking it along with where I currently have an account, Realtytrac, to look for San Mateo County trends.  My Realtytrac research has shown their properties to be pretty out of date so I may try to find another one to use as a comparison to foreclosureradar.  If you know of another good one, make a comment to share with everyone.

Colleague Sam Benson in Contra Costa County updates us on foreclosure property activity there. 

Colleague Pam Buda in Sonoma County told me yesterday that there are over 200 short sale or foreclosure properties just in her office.  Did I hear that right?

As our resident expert, Kevin Boer noted in his April 1 posting, the housing market officially hit  bottom a couple of weeks ago. For those of you who  were  skeptical of his information given the  April 1 posting date, and Kevin’s well known reputation for satire and irony, the California Association of Realtors published some new market data yesterday (April 24) showing how real estate really is local, and that the local real estate market in Silicon Valley is humming along nicely, thank you:

In case you’ve been wondering why high-end real estate markets continue to perform relatively well:  One out of every 10,000 American families has an annual income greater than $10.7 million, according to two university professors who study the super-rich.  By their tally, there are some 15,000 Americans who fit into that category.  These individuals also are getting an increasing share of the economic bounty:  In 2006, the super-rich possessed 3.89 percent of total income, up from .87 percent in 1980 and the highest level since 1916.

Strong employment and wage growth are two factors that have helped the San Francisco Bay Area stave off the kind of home sales and price declines experienced in the inland regions of California.  For example, Santa Clara County residents earn nearly double the nation’s average weekly wage and surpassed Manhattan as the county whose residents take home the largest paycheck, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.  Santa Clarans take home an average of $1,585 per week, slightly more than Manhattanites, who earn an average of $1,544 a week.  San Mateo County ranks fifth in the nation at $1,322, while San Francisco is eighth at $1,286.  Nationally, the average is $818.  San Francisco ranked tenth in new-job generation, adding 18,000 jobs for the twelve months ending Sept. 30, 2007.

Despite the above, some worry that California’s technology sector may be in for another “dot bomb.”  But experts say technology and Internet companies are better prepared to weather the storm this time around.  Their reasoning?  Many Web 2.0 companies learned a lesson from their free-spending predecessors and have discovered ways to operate with fewer employees and at lower costs.  That appeals to venture capitalists, who have tightened their criteria but continue to seek companies with strong revenue models.

Lately, I have been describing the market as “upside down”, where I am seeing unusually strong sales activity in the over $3 million market, while under $1 million is about the same as last year, or a little off depending on the neighborhood. What is interesting, is the $1 million to $3 million market, what I call “tweeners”, because these homes are in-between the entry-level and high-end.

Gross simplification warning: Buyers of “tweener” homes have significant amounts of cash or equity to put down, but still need a mortgage, and often a significant one. As banks and other mortgage providers have tightened their lending guidelines from recent years, it has become harder to get a $1.5 - $2 million mortgage, and those have become more expensive. As a result, more people aren’t upgrading, or they are getting priced down from say, $2.5 million to $2 million. Thus reducing demand relative to supply and creating a soft spot in the market.

In my experience, in the $3 million and over market, Buyers have more cash, Euros, Rubles, Yuan, Dinars, stock, gold, trust money, etc. to use to purchase their new “executive home”, so they are less concerned or affected by interest rates and loan qualification hurdles.

Let’s hope that VC money mentioned in the article above keeps flowing so we can keep paying for our million dollar tract homes and $5 a gallon (you know it’s coming!) gas.

I know you will have an opinion or comment, share it here.

Thanks for reading.

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Many Realtors, Mortgage professionals, Title and escrow representatives, and others in our industry know Carol.  I’m writing this post to give you a way to send your well wishes and keep up to date on her progress.  In case you don’t know Carol Icard, she is the Manager of the North American Title office in Half Moon Bay.  She brings years of knowledge and experience to her clients, offers classes on various topics to her colleagues – such as a class I attended last year that she prepared for us on short sales, and does this all with humor and grace. 

Carol needs us now as she fights for her life with a recent extremely serious diagnosis.  Her daughter Arwyn, who works at North American Title in San Mateo, also needs our support and encouragement.  A website has just been launched to provide updates and give us all a way to share encouragement, stories, well wishes, etc. to Carol and her family.  Here it is:  http://friendsofcarol.org/

Just got back from a sneak preview of an upcoming country property in the wine country of NW Santa Rosa on approximately 3 acres at the end of a private lane. 2 story farmhouse style with a wrap around porch and deck, HUGE 2 story shop building, a diversity of trees, a seasonal creek and small setup for horses. Very comfy and could take a nice update. Has the potential to be the quintessential wine country farmstead with endless vineyard and sunset views. Surrounded by horses and wine country! Please contact me for details and an early showing. Price to be determined but in the $1 to $1.2 million range.

The home on 2520 Hayward Drive in Burlingame is worth a visit. Currently it is listedby Sue Walsh/Cashin www.suewalsh.com for $ 2,400,000. This 3550 sqft home with 5 bedrooms and 4.5 baths has been nicely remodeled. The beautiful 12,000 sqft lot sets this home apart from newer constructed homes in town that are offered in the same price range! Besides a swimming pool and sports court, there is plenty of room to play or find a quiet corner to read and enjoy. Located in the upper Ray Park area, this house is close enough to walk to Franklin Elementary School and Burlingame Intermediate School.