Glen’s Latest East Bay Housing Numbers
October 4, 2009 by Glen Bell · View Comments
Here’s a snapshot of the San Francisco East Bay Real Estate Market. I run these numbers monthly and have been tracking 38 cities since 2005. The spreadsheet indicates that inventories are still decreasing and are now at their lowest levels since I began this process (May 2005).
DOM (Days on Market) is decreasing, months supply in most areas have reached lows, and the relationship between what, on average, homes are selling for to list price support this. We’re seeing properties in many areas getting multiple offers and actually now, on average, selling at or above the average list price.
Areas that were hit hardest last year due to high inventories and downward pressure on prices due to the high number of distressed properties on the market, are now starting to see some recovery, especially in the lower priced areas. Examples would be in East Contra Costa along highway 4, (Pittsburg, Antioch, Brentwood, even Concord). More recently, in West Contra Costa in the San Pablo, Richmond, Pinole, Hercules areas).
Pendings have increased dramatically. However, this is due in part to longer escrow periods and a larger number of short sale transactions.
Call me if you’d like to chat more in depth about the San Francisco East Bay market.
-Glen 510-333-4460
Introducing RE.net Talks v1.0 (alpha of course)
January 12, 2008 by Andy Kaufman · View Comments
Who wants to try something cool?
Inspired by the reaction to my recent Yahoo Pipe that I made for the Inman RE ConnectNYC conference & blogged about on AgentGenius , I decided to do a bit more tinkering this afternoon.
So this is what I did… I’ve launched a real time RE.net conversation tracker (currently in alpha) If you want to appear in RE.net Talks (alpha), just add re_net_talks (REnet_talks) on Twitter & I’ll add you back. Once we’re connected, your tweets will start appearing.
Update: Note the new twitter user name
Update 1/12 7:34pst – Back up and running (I think)
Reactions to Today's Bank of America/Countrywide Acquisition News
January 11, 2008 by Andy Kaufman · View Comments
Big waves continue to ripple across the mortgage & real estate industries, as people begin to digest the news that Bank of America agreed to buy Countrywide for $4.1 Billion in Stock.
I know what you’re thinking… $4 MORE billion after basically throwing $2billion down the drain a few short months ago. Don’t worry, they have a plan. They’re getting a little help from us taxpayers.
Huh?
That’s because Bank of America, which is solidly profitable, will be able to use some of Countrywide’s losses to offset its own taxable income. The tax break could total about half a billion dollars over the first five years, according to an estimate by tax guru Robert Willens, who left Lehman Brothers Friday after a 20-year run and will be in business as Robert Willens LLC starting next week.
Awesome, eh? At least the people responsible for creating this mess will pay dearly, right?
Think again, Countrywide CEO Anthony Mozilo is going to walk with a severance totaling $110 million and change.
Matthew at Blown Mortgage has a thorough analysis that I’d recommend checking out. As an REO agent, I found these points were of particular interest
The real question we all want to know is how bad is Countrywide’s loan servicing portfolio? Rumors creeping out on The Street is that Countrywide has a very serious REO problem they are not reporting as of yet.
In California alone, Countrywide’s REOs have risen from 2,361 to 4,051 – a whopping 72% increase in just seven months. What are these numbers gonna look like in 1-2 years? Any math geeks want to extrapolate that one?
Well, at least I know of a good team of REO listing agents. Memo to Bank of Countrywide America: check the contact info in the top right corner.
Continuing on…
Over on BloodHound Blog, Brian Brady argues Why Bank of America is the WRONG Buyer
BA is buying problems with this CFC acquisition. The CFC sales force will not mesh well with the button-downed arrogance the BA crew exhibits. My prediction? CFC originators flee the newly-formed entity in droves during 2008. Mortgage brokers will reject the new entity because of their lousy customer service.
Who’s perfectly positioned to benefit from this exodus? Why, Wells Fargo, of course.
Wells Fargo, the mortgage lender disguised as a federally-chartered bank.
Over on Mashable, Paul Glazowski take a different angle and explains how the news will affect the big tech ad networks
The figures comprising Countrywide’s contributions to the coffers of the abovementioned ad networks (Microsoft, Yahoo!, and, yes, Google) over the past few seasons are fairly impressive. According to a Nielsen/Netratings assessment for the month of August, Countrywide spent $34.77 million on online advertising. Several months later, the company, still on its fateful decline, was then found to have increased spending considerably. In November, Nielsen showed it to deliver a total of $57.6m in its marketing efforts on the Web.
& to lighten things up Paul Kedrosky cracks a funny, saying that
…why should I have more confidence that Ken Lewis and BofA have timed this infusion better than their last one? After all, since their $2-billion for 16% deal months ago the stock has fallen 50%. Let’s just say that as far as bottom-spotters go I put more faith in Sir Mixalot than I do in BofA’s Lewis & Co.
Ba dum bum ching!
graphic via The Mess That Greenspan Made
Send Us These 4 Things And We’ll Send You An Investment Property Analysis
January 10, 2008 by Norman · View Comments
Based on your feedback from the Foreclosure/REO lists we’ve been providing, we are going to start offering free investment analysis of individual properties. Send an email to norman at myeastbayagent.com with the following information:
1. Purchase price
2. Down payment
3. Property address
4. & If it will be self managed
Using this info, I will produce a basic investment analysis with projected expenses and appreciation and email it back to you. Check out the attached pdf as an example.
4 Reasons Why I'll Be Kicking Myself For Not Going to RE Connect NYC
January 4, 2008 by Andy Kaufman · View Comments
1. Missing out on the forum session that Dustin Luther & Brian Brady are going to lead. Not only are they two of the some of the smartest and most respected bloggers in the RE.net, they started sparring over their contrasting viewpoints in the past couple of days. Should be a lively conversation.
2. Not being able to check out the latest & greatest in RE Technology first hand.
3. I could use a vacation & even though I’m not too keen on a winter trip to the Big Apple, I’m behind on visiting my peeps in NYC and need to make it out there soon.
4. Missing out on meeting and reconnecting with some of the wittiest, tuned in, and most interesting people in the real estate industry.
Eh, guess I’ll have to wait until you all come to San Francisco later on this Summer. Have fun & be safe out there 
Bay Area Housing Forecast
January 1, 2008 by Glen Bell · View Comments
What’s in store for real estate in the Bay Area for the coming year?
Most in the real estate industry agree that it will get worse before it gets better. However, predictions vary among our “experts.” What are we in store for in 2008? When will prices begin to recover?
Hear what some of them are saying…
“Don’t count on market rebounding in ’08, experts say.” – Marni Leff Kottle of the San Francisco Chronicle.
“A real recovery in the housing market is probably at least a year off,” said Robert Kleinhenz, deputy chief economist for the California Association of Realtors.
California Association of Realtors’s forecast for 2008; sales volume will continue to fall, 9% in 2008, as will the median price of a home, at 4%. Take a look at the 2008 California Housing Market Forecast (CAR membership required) presentation by Leslie Appleton-Young, Vice President and Chief Economist for the California Association of REALTORS® (C.A.R.).
“The best guesstimate most can come up with these days on a residential housing recovery is that 2008 will be more than half over before housing prices even stabilize. Right now, it’s anybody’s guess as to when they will start to grow positively.” – Ryan Fuhrmann, an article printed in The Motley Fool.
It may take until the end of 2008 or beginning of 2009 for the market to hit bottom, said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com.
“But the one thing that economists and real estate agents seem to agree on is this: As bad as it may get in the Bay Area, the region is weathering the downturn in the real estate market much better than most other places.”
“The housing market is fairly strong in the vast majority of the Bay Area,” said Ken Rosen, chairman of the Fisher Center for Real Estate at UC Berkeley. “It’s slipping a little, but it’s not the free fall you have in some parts of the country.”
“When you look at the rest of the state and even the rest of the country, the Bay Area has held up quite well,” said Larry Klapow, president of Coldwell Banker’s San Francisco Bay Area region. “The market has shown incredible resiliency.” – “So Long, ’07″
“Builder’s expect recovery in second half” – Jessica Saunders, East Bay Business Times. “At least two builders expect to see some recovery in the East Bay housing market in the second half of 2008, but another expert thinks it will be 2009 before demand and supply balance out.”
“Once we get through the credit crunch, and buyers realize the world didn’t end, they will come back,” said Scott Menard, SummerHill Homes’ chief operating officer, who predicts the market will continue down through at least the first quarter. “Next year will probably be a bit of an adjustment year.”
Which brings us to the question; Will 2008 be a good time to invest in real estate? See what a recent survey showed taken by the East Bay Business Times. 60% say that now is a good time to buy! Read their comments as to why.
Too Sexy for Real Estate?
December 22, 2007 by Andy Kaufman · View Comments
No way!
The Front Steps blog in San Francisco had some fun recently and held a little contest where my buddy Mark Choey was named the sexiest male REALTOR in San Francisco.
Mark is the creator of the SF New Developments blog, a co-founder of the Climb Real Estate Group, and all around super cool dude.
He’s my go to guy when I need the skinny of what’s going down in the city, or need a sounding board for super geeky ideas that would draw blank stares from almost any other agent.
Fellow MEBA team member Norman and I recently spent a day with Mark looking at some East Bay new developments and brainstorming ideas for the new year and let’s just say that I’m super excited to get started on some of the things that we thought up.
Until then, I just wanted to say, congrats Mark! I know that you were on pins and needles waiting for the results. Now you can finally rest easy
4 Ways to NOT Buy an East Bay Bank Owned Foreclosure
December 16, 2007 by Andy Kaufman · View Comments
Since a majority of our business is centered around East Bay foreclosures, namely Bank Owned REOs, our marketing efforts tend to bring in a variety of interesting responses. Since I’m feeling a bit snarky tonight, I thought that I’d share a few of them with you in the form of the following how-NOT-to tips.
1. The first way NOT to buy an East Bay REO is to send me a one line email with no name attached.
“I’ll offer 480″ or “I would like to offer 250,000 for this house.”
That’s it. No name. No phone #.
I’ve been getting a quite a few of these recently. While I get the feeling that most of them are just scam artists, or seminar newbies; there have to be a least be a few that simply don’t know any better. I usually just ask them politely to contact me via phone so that I can better asses their needs, but that seems to scare them away. I have played phone tag with a handful of these potential buyers to no avail and have actually talked to a few, but half of these “connections” invariably lead to #2.
2. If you sincerely would like to make an offer, you’re going to need to put it in writing. Don’t expect me to relay a verbal offer to my client (the bank) and expect them to respond. They will laugh at both you and me and tell us to put it in writing if we really want an answer.
3. The third way NOT buy a east bay REO is to ask to buy via lease option. When buying a bank owned property, this simply is not an option. The bank has no interest in keeping the property on their books for any longer than necessary and for this reason an offer asking for a lease option will get flat out rejected.
4. The fourth, and final way NOT to buy an East Bay REO is to ask me to make a verbal offer to buy the note outside of escrow and w/o title insurance so that you can avoid transfer taxes & transaction costs.
This was an actual request from an investor that says that he’s does it all the time and I’ve been trying to work out the mechanics of this transaction for the past week or so. Still, it doesn’t compute. Why would a bank do that?
I did ask my client (the bank) if they’ve ever heard of such a thing and got a rejection email resembling something from #1 in this list- “all transactions must go through escrow” Plus, if the bank foreclosed and took the property back, why is there a note in the first place? If anybody has seen something like this and could enlighten me, I’d love to hear it.
So there you have it, 4 ways to NOT buy an East Bay bank owned property. In all reality though, I’m a glass is half full kinda guy and the ultimate goal of this site is to educate potential clients so that we can put some deals together, which means that I’ll be working on a companion post entailing what you SHOULD do to buy an East Bay REO.
You’ll just have to wait a few days though. Deal?
Download a Weekly List of Active East Bay REO Listings
December 14, 2007 by Andy Kaufman · View Comments
You asked for it and we’re going to give it to you. From now on, we’ll be offering a free list of active East Bay REO (Real Estate Owned) listings in excel format.
As experienced REO investors, as well as active REO listing agents, we’re constantly trying to provide the best information possible so that potential buyers can make decisions quickly and act upon then when they identify a potential deal. By offering this information as an excel spreadsheet, our readers will be able to download and sort the data as they see fit.
Searching through the data, you’ll notice that we’ve included the MLS numbers for each property. With this number, you can click on the “Search the MLS” button on the sidebar and pull up detailed property profiles for any of the listings that you’d like.
If return, we ask that if you see a property, (or ten) that strikes your fancy, you contact us (415-449-1609). Deal?
Alameda County Residential Income REO List
Equal Housing Opportunity. Equal Opportunity Employer.
