Our favorite doomer has published some interesting stats about the Bay Area:
But he is looking at one month only, and comparing to one year only, 2015, which was hot. We’ll see how it plays out.
Yesterday around here we saw a 9% increase in NSDCC new listings and a 9% drop in sales year-over-year for the first two months of 2016 – which looks rather tame compared to those Bay Area numbers.
We can break it down further too. The lower price ranges have been in a tight range for the last two years, both in the number of active listings and average list-price-per-sf. There certainly has been more new listings this year in the Above-$1,400,000 range, but unless there is a major panic, they will wait until someone comes along:
NSDCC Inventory in the First Week of March
Up to $800,000
# of Active Listings
Avg LP/sf
Avg. SF
2014
82
$397/sf
1,942sf
2015
70
$379/sf
1,945sf
2016
49
$388/sf
2,108sf
$800K-$1.4M
# of Active Listings
Avg LP/sf
Avg. SF
2014
202
$421/sf
2,936sf
2015
200
$438/sf
2,885sf
2016
207
$418/sf
2,904sf
$1.4M – $2.4M
# of Active Listings
Avg LP/sf
Avg. SF
2014
221
$585/sf
3,761sf
2015
198
$602/sf
3,653sf
2016
254
$574/sf
3,595sf
Over $2,400,000
# of Active Listings
Avg LP/sf
Avg. SF
2014
309
$1,004/sf
6,628sf
2015
316
$1,058/sf
6,342sf
2016
414
$956/sf
6,085sf
Mark says prices in key STEM-centric markets will drop 40% – but if sellers can’t get their price, they are more likely to wait, than dump.
Higher-end sellers are just testing the market, and if they are desperate to sell, a few might lower their price in the summer. But most will wait it out for months or years – they’re not going to give it away!
My new one-story listing in Northeast Carlsbad, where almost 15,000 people live in this zip code. But there are only 13 houses for sale in the 92010 – and this house is the least expensive! Open house Saturday and Sunday, 12-3pm:
It’s $30,000 under zestimate too – holy salisbury steak!
The 11th Annual Overseas Property & Immigration & Investment Exhibition was conducted in Shanghai this past weekend. A contingent of Mandarin-speaking agents from Orange County had a display booth, where they included three of my listings among their offerings. They had hoped to make deals on the spot!
It turned out to be a ‘huge disappointment’.
My guy said they hit the ‘perfect storm’ of variables:
The Chinese government has clamped down on money flowing out of China, and the majority of people who came to the expo were wondering just how to get their money out of the country, let alone buying properties.
One month ago, the Chinese government also lowered the down payment required to buy local properties, which is fueling a resurgence of real estate investment there.
The currency exchange rate is going in the wrong direction.
He only got two leads out of it, one for Boston, and one for Houston properties. It’s a long ways to go for a couple of out-of-state possibilities!
He said the best hope going forward was for selling lower-cost properties, like condos for kids around major universities.
George Martin, producer of the Beatles, died yesterday at age 90. He had a profound influence on the Beatles sound – Paul’s comments:
“He was a true gentleman and like a second father to me,” McCartney wrote on his website Wednesday. “He guided the career of The Beatles with such skill and good humour that he became a true friend to me and my family. If anyone earned the title of the fifth Beatle it was George. From the day that he gave The Beatles our first recording contract, to the last time I saw him, he was the most generous, intelligent and musical person I’ve ever had the pleasure to know.”
The introductory comments from this video:
Of very few individual songs can it be said, ‘This changed the course of popular music.’ ‘A Day In The Life’ is one such song.
Recorded in January and February 1967, a large orchestra was assembled for the amazing additional flourishes and fills, although at first the 40 classically trained musicians struggled with the concept of what they were being asked to play.
George Martin and Paul conducted the orchestra and helped to create a finished track that was more than just different, it was utterly unique. Starting from John’s beautiful song, the end result was something simply unbelievable.
As you can see from the film, this was no ordinary recording session. The classical musicians, who had been asked to wear evening dress, took it upon themselves to wear fake noses, funny hats and generally enter into the spirit of the occasion. Filmed between 8pm and 1am with guests including Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, the occasion provided some of the inspiration for what transpired during the recording and filming of ‘All You Need Is Love’ for the Our World project.
The price of low-tier housing in San Diego County skyrocketed after the latter half of 2012, peaking in Q3 2014 and leveling off after. 2015 experienced another, more moderate price increase. This is likely due to the boost given by decreased mortgage rates throughout 2015.
Lower mortgage rates free up more of a buyer’s monthly mortgage payment to put towards a bigger principal. Thus, San Diego’s high home prices continue to find fuel — not from speculators as in 2012-2014 — but from increased buyer purchasing power.
Expect home sales volume to fall off after mortgage rates begin to rise in the second half of 2016. Prices will descend 9-12 months later, by the second half of 2017.
We got a new TV for the Super Bowl for free, paid for by American Express points. I set it up temporarily for the game, and now a month later it’s about time I throw it on the wall in place of the old one.
I guessed maybe 30 minutes to install.
Five hours later, this is as far as I’ve gotten. New wires fished through the wall, and hoping to get away with half a bracket. But as I got close to hanging the TV, it became apparent that the wire hole at the bottom would not be covered, plus wifey’s idea of painting the wall first ended up being clairvoyant.
These 3D viewers are already available, and could cause agents to skip the fancy movie-like home tours and just choose reality…..or some combo?
Homebuyers in less than ten years’ time will visit properties remotely through virtual reality devices – and check out potential neighbourhoods using their own personal drones, a new report has revealed.
Trends analysts The Future Laboratory said the idea of actually physically visiting properties while house-hunting will be less and less common by the 2020s.
Instead, there will be multi-brand 3D virtual reality cafes where buyers will be able to explore new off-plan homes for sale as if they were really inside them.
And by 2025, ‘haptic’ technology will even allow a home buyer to feel and even smell the inside of a property without leaving the showroom or the comfort of their own home, according to the report commissioned by leading national estate agency easyProperty.
Meanwhile, most Britons will own a personal drone with which home buyers will be able to see what the neighbours are like, how busy nearby roads are and other information not otherwise easily available.
Rob Ellice, CEO of easyProperty, said: “Many of the future technologies predicted in the report already exist in other sectors, albeit at nascent stage.”
“A small number of buyers are taking virtual tours of luxury homes but it will not be long until these tours will move into the mainstream property market, partly driven by the internalisation of the industry.
“Seamlessly integrating our digital and physical worlds, virtual reality tours will count as a first viewing, as people are usually going to physically do the second viewing, but this helps to better qualify them and speed up the sales process.”
This real estate video has a typical opening for the first minute, but then they take it to new level of creativity. The list price is $55,000,000, so it deserves the full treatment, but eventually we should see clever, high-quality real estate movies from every agent:
