Testimonials for Blog

  A proposed ballot initiative in California could encourage older homeowners with larger homes to downsize and move to other counties, freeing homes for younger families and potentially easing the state’s chronic housing shortage. The real estate industry is leading the charge to qualify the measure for the Nov. 6 election ballot and has already raised about $6.7 million for the effort. Monday is the deadline for proponents of the measure to turn in signatures to qualify the measure for the November ballot. A state analysis of the proposed initiative, however, said the measure could end up costing local governments

  California housing looks overvalued with overall price appreciation exceeding the market’s economic foundation, according to one new analysis. But the chance that housing losses will occur in the state is minimal, says another industry report. Credit-rating agency Fitch’s is far more antsy about the state’s housing values than what mortgage insurer Arch MI found in its recent housing-risk study. But both reviews, comparing house-price trends with underlying economic patterns, showed other parts of the nation with dicier real estate than California. Fitch found the typical U.S. home was 3 percent overvalued in the fourth quarter with 17 percent of

  A real estate analytics firm has some good news for Bay Area landlords — and bad news for tenants: Rents began rising again last year after a brief “cooling off period” in late 2016. “The Bay Area region should register one of its best rent performances since at least mid-2016,” the Texas real estate analytics firm RealPage wrote in a new report for the real estate industry. In a trend likely to fuel an already supercharged fight over rent control in California, landlords in San Jose, San Francisco and Oakland began raising asking prices again last spring and continued to increase rents in

The evolution of the real estate market is unstoppable with new trends emerging every year.  As the economy shifts into an even higher gear, with more consumers making plans to own homes, there is a lot you can expect. Compared to 2017 and other past years, you can expect 2018 to take you on a long ride in real estate as highlighted by Realtor.com. Some of the main housing and real estate trends include: Supply meets demand:From market analysis and after about three years of crushing shortages in homes for sale, especially homes within the consumers’ budgets, predictions for 2018 show

  If you see a Bay Area home sale listing, don’t blink. You’ll miss it. Limited housing supply is driving prices sky-high and forcing buyers to move ever more quickly. In Santa Clara County, the median time for an existing home on the market in December was 9 days — by far the shortest listing-to-sale in a major metro. Homes sales in the county moved twice as quickly as they did during the same period last year, according to a new report from the California Association of Realtors. “Nine days is a very, very low number,” said Oscar Wei, senior economist

Bay Area housing trends are easily summarized: As the supply of available homes dries up, prices go up. It’s the law of supply and demand. But why is the housing supply — insiders use the term “inventory” — so tight to begin with? And what can be done to expand the supply? For answers, we turned to Ralph McLaughlin, chief economist with Trulia, the residential real estate website. McLaughlin, 36, is a former college professor who brings a conversational ease to subjects that might otherwise seem convoluted. He also has a keen sense of the Bay Area market: Raised in

  The first three months of the year tend to be slow for home buyers and sellers. But there’s plenty to do — or at least pay attention to — if you plan to buy or sell a home later in the year. Here are three housing and mortgage trends to heed in the first quarter of 2018: Peak buying season, traditionally, is later in the year, but the best-prepared buyers are laying the groundwork for success by tidying up their personal finances now Mortgage rates are predicted to rise, but not by a lot The new tax law will increase take-home pay

Just when it seemed Bay Area home prices couldn’t jump any higher, they soared to dizzying new heights in November — and in the process, set a new record. The median price for a single-family home in the Bay Area last month was $825,000, up nearly 15 percent from the same time last year, according to new data from property analytics company CoreLogic. That’s the most expensive since CoreLogic started keeping track in 1988, surpassing the last record of $823,000 set in June. (That data excludes sales of new homes, which make up a small fraction of the region’s housing inventory). “For

  A real-estate site’s predictions for 2018 offer yet more disappointing news for would-be first-time homebuyers in California hoping that the New Year might bring some relief. “The outlook for next year is rising prices, rising rates and rising property taxes,” said Redfin’s chief economist, Nela Richardson. “I wish I could have better news.” Here is how Redfin’s housing market team predicts that the new year will shake out: California exodus: Buyers in high-tax states such as California will move elsewhere if federal tax reform takes away deductions for state and local taxes — one of the more controversial aspects of the proposals pending in

Reflecting the chronically tight supply of available homes, Bay Area housing sales fell in October from a year earlier as prices marched up across the nine counties by nearly 11 percent. The region’s median sale price of a single-family home was $800,000 and surpassed $1 million in four of its counties. In Santa Clara County, where the housing supply is about half of what it was a year ago, the median price reached a new peak: $1,125,000 for a single-family home, up a whopping 19.7 percent from October 2016. Even in Contra Costa County, overall one of the region’s more affordable