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Wednesday, July 20, 2016
Piedmont Real Estate Update 2Q14--
Wednesday, October 8, 2014
Why It's So Tough to Get a Loan These Days
Bloomberg has a nice piece today following up on Bernanke's comment last week that he applied to refinance his loan and was rejected recently. The story is pretty basic, but covers the "pendulum has swung too far back" issue, the "lenders' job is to find what's wrong with your package" issue, as well as the "our incomes are actually lower now than 10 years ago, on average, so of course lending is more difficult" issue. This latter point I've not heard paired with the tightening guidelines issue before (though of course folks lost so much equity and savings during the downturn, that downpayments are dramatically more difficult to pull together these days--for instance, 10 years ago, you could buy a $1 million home with $50,000 down, let's say. Today you might need $200,000 down (a 300% increase, and savings are incredibly hard to set aside quickly!), and your income might be 3% lower, on average (but rates are too, so......).
Tuesday, October 7, 2014
Should I Sell my Home Off-Market?
I don't know why it took me this long to mention this, but this spring, I had a
client who thought seriously about selling his home off market. Price was important,
and privacy was not a big issue. I argued that to get the best price, there's no
doubt the best approach is to stage, market a home very strategically, and open
it up to the broadest range of potential buyers possible. You want multiple buyers,
in part to keep the prevailing buyer "in line." Off market, too often, the sole
buyer thinks s/he is doing a seller a big favor, and begins asking for lots of
concessions in return.
Of course I know I'm the agent and you're the principal, so I do whatever you tell
me to do. In this case, the seller was convinced to list the house off-market with
another brokerage in town. They opened it up unstaged, to about a half-dozen buyers
working with (only) their agents. None felt the look of love, and the seller felt
that none was really properly pre-selected (we agents typically will bring all financially
qualified buyers to an off-market listing, in part because our buyers would want
to get in when others can't (why? They are hoping for a bargain.....)). The asking
price was x. No bites. Not even an offer below asking.
I got the listing a few days later, staged, cleaned up the tax record to reflect
about 1000 sf of permitted additional space, did a bang-up marketing job, and put
the house on the market shortly thereafter for 93% of x, hoping for x or more.
The prevailing buyer closed with zero complications at 27% over x (and 40% over
asking).
There were a number of extraordinarily strong offers, and the three strongest were
from agents who don't traditionally work in Piedmont--two from Berkeley and one
from San Francisco. (You remember my story a few years ago that in a year with
say 140 sales or 280 "sides," there were something like 200 different agents and
dozens of firms which had participated in the Piedmont market?)
Enough about You; Let's Talk about Me (and Pacific Union a tad...)
This has been a very big year for me, and for PacUnion. You've probably seen the
graphically striking full-page ads in the Chron pointing out that we have the most
productive agents ($ sold/agent), the fastest growth rate, and the largest share
of sold over-$1 million homes throughout the Bay Area. We've also been getting
great press and awards for our pacunion.com website, and for our big presence in China.
We have an office there, key staff have made several visits, all our listings are
uploaded to the Zillow.com equivalent there (with text translated of course) and
our concierge office here handles incoming inquiries ("I'd like to buy x house
in Piedmont," as well as "I need a Chinese-speaking agent to help me buy my son
a condo in Berkeley while he's at UC"), as well as advertising opportunities in
a range of Asian pubs.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I've sold a bit under $25 million in real estate in the past year--85% of it in Piedmont. Prices have ranged from $665,000 to--oops I can't tell you because my clients' offer was confidential, and I never violate a confidentiality commitment. A bit less than half involved buyers, and I represented sellers (or renters!) for the balance.
Of greatest interest to me is how I stack up against the "typical" sale. On average,
homes closed in Piedmont at 8% over the asking price over the same period. In contrast,
looking at my buyers and sellers, my buyers closed at an average 7% below asking,
and my sellers closed at 24.6% above asking.
You can achieve that kind of performance while being a jerk, yelling and screaming,
and developing a reputation among agents and clients for lack of transparency and
ethics. Actually, I'd argue that you can't, and have always approached my business
hoping to deliver thoughtful, insightful advice in a collegial fashion while keeping
my clients' interests paramount. Click here for more of what my clients say.
A Few Garden Ideas
--On Sunset Magazine's site is a nice set of suggestions for great fall color. Think about shots of orange and purple, combined with waving grasses.
--Are you yet addicted to Gardenista?
The NYT's Michelle Slatalla's current roost, it's cooler than Sunset, and covers
plants, hardscapes, floral, and has great graphics from correspondents in a few
locations around the world. Because it's based here, much of the international
coverage tends to be in other Mediterranean climates--South Africa, Australia, Spain
and Italy, and so on.
--Been to the Bayview to Flora Grubb's shop? I hear succulents are heading toward passé, but otherwise, it's a great idea generator.
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