Need A New Home . . . There is an App for That

So, I purchased and an iPhone about two months ago, and love this phone. I do not know how I lived without my camera, video camera, music player, email, IM and oh yea phone in one devise. But it is the apps that make the phone a must have, they have games, tools, news and business apps. They have an app for almost anything you can think of, but since this is a real estate column I am going to review the newest entry into field and then give you other of my favorite apps.

Today, ZipRealty Introduces Free iPhone application enabling mobile house-hunting in more than 4,800 Locations and Alameda is definitely included since this is a Bay Area company. Buyers can now search listed homes, view photos, and get home prices and appraised values while on the go and allowing them to search for and view full information from the Multiple Listing Service (MLS).

Here is some cool feature from the app:

There’s no start screen search function there is a prompt to share location your current location, and the user is taken right to a display of properties. Clients can begin with new geo-targeted searches for homes that meet their unique home-buying criteria like price range, number of bedrooms or bathrooms, and property type. This means if you are walking or driving along the geo target will start the search where you are currently located. Searchers get to see both listed properties and recently sold properties. There is a filter that allows searching by one or the other if you prefer. The search area can be modified from this point either by panning across the map or manually entering a location.
The application displays search results on Google Maps allowing the client to see homes currently on the market as well as a comprehensive list of recently sold homes with sale prices. By syncing the application directly with Google Maps, users can easily access GPS-enabled turn-by-turn driving or walking directions while exploring new neighborhoods.

This is also one of the fastest real estate apps in terms of downloading information. I tried in three Alameda neighborhoods (Fernside, Gold Coast and Bay Farm) and got good data across town.

The photo display on the property detail page is a filmstrip of all the property photos, Double tap on the photos and you get a good sized photo to review the property. There is no need to collect property flyers any longer.

If you like a home or want to refer back to a property in the future you can create a saved list. Each client’s ZipRealty.com account will sync with the iPhone application after initial login. Homes bookmarked on the web version are easily accessed on the go, and clients can bookmark new homes seen during mobile searches.

In addition to home listings and photos, the application provides access to third-party home value estimates from Zillow, Cyberhomes and Eppraisal. So you do not have to go to multiple sites for valuation.
The application is free and easily available by searching for ZipRealty in the iTunes store under the App section. For additional information and screenshots from the application, please visit www.ziprealty.com.

Two other apps that I really like are Walkscore and Fido Factor.

Walkscore is a great too if you want to figure out how walkable a neighborhood is for pedestrians. My home rates a 93, walkers paradise. The people at Walkscore use things like restaurants, coffee shops, grocery stores to create their score. I use this app a lot when I travel to select a hotel. Many times I do not have a car and I want to have resources close by. If I was buying a home this is a great resource to compare two properties.

The final app I wanted to let you know about is Fido Factor. As a person that has a dog in our home, we like to go to dog friendly businesses. Fido factor helps you locate these types of businesses and rate them. I can tell you without Fido Factor our dog loves two businesses in Alameda: Dog Bone Alley and Books Inc, he get treats at both.

Tough Search For Alameda Bargain Homes

Everybody loves a bargain, and when it comes to homes people real want to get the best deal possible. This deal hunting is the premise of a Quarterly Report produced by ZipRealty called the “Home Hunter Report,” http://www.ziprealty.com/whitepaper/homehunterreport/thirdquarter2009.pdf, it identifies the Hottest Markets for Home Sales based on sales-to-list price ratio.
The markets are spread out throughout the United States, but California leads the country in areas where sellers are fetching the highest offers.

Phoenix (85035) and neighboring Glendale (85307) join four California ZIP codes – San Diego’s Rancho Bernardo (92127), Los Angeles proper (90022) and its Arleta district (91331) and Oakland (94608) this quarter.
Southern Florida’s Davie (33328), Dallas/Forth Worth’s Grand Prairie (75050), Greater Seattle’s Everett (98205) and New York’s Whitestone, Queens (11357) round out the top ten list.

The 94608 in Oakland was the closest zip code that to Alameda that made the list with sales averaging 105.65% of list price.

So what does this mean for the Alameda market? The “Home Hunter Report” had third quarter sales at 98.08% of list price in the 94501 and the 94502 reported a sales ratio of 98.62%.

Basically the Alameda market is tepid. I took a look at nearly 200 sales going back to June 1 and it showed that you may be able to find a bargain or two, but for the most part if you want to buy on the Island you will need to come in close to asking price. During the four month period the average list price was $580,498 and the average sale price was $569,372. Sellers captured 98.08% of their asking price.

For those looking to buy single family residence the cost is much higher. The 127 sales in four months showed an average list price of $655,330 and an average sale price of $643,929 for a 98.26% ratio.

Condo and Townhomes held well with an average of 98.24% sales ratio. The multi-family market had smallest sales ratio at 95.24%.

There are bargains out there, you just have to look. Here are the Top 10 properties that sold for fewer than 90%.

. Address Type Beds Full Baths List Price Sale Price % . 2269 -2271 PACIFIC AVE MFR 0 0 $635,000 $480,000 75.59% . 2394 MARINER SQUARE DR B-10 SFR 1 1 $165,000 $135,000 81.82% . 1333 WEBSTER ST #A300 CONDO 2 1 $298,000 $250,500 84.06% . 2106 OTIS DR #C CONDO 2 1 $295,000 $250,000 84.75% . 1527 WILLOW STREET MFR 0 0 $699,500 $617,000 88.21% . 735 PALMERA COURT SFR 3 2 $998,000 $889,000 89.08% . 81 MAITLAND DR MFR 0 0 $550,000 $490,000 89.09% . 81 MAITLAND DRIVE MFR 0 0 $550,000 $490,000 89.09% . 928 SAN ANTONIO AVE SFR 2 1 $533,000 $475,000 89.12% . 2218 CORAL SEA ST SFR 4 2 $869,880 $780,000 89.67% .

Round Table Discusses Housing Market

Forbes magazine holds a monthly round table discussion with some of the real estate leaders each month to discuss trends. This month discussion was titled "Housing Talk: Could The Rally Die?" the moderator Stephane Fitch, explores the ever volatile Golden State as Experts continue to fret over California's autumn numbers. Since Alameda is impacted with California and high unemployment, I thought it worth passing along.

The Panel includes Donald Trump Jr., Trump Organization; Pat Lashinsky, CEO of ZipRealty; Michael Feder, Radar Logic and Spencer Rascoff, Zillow.

It is an interesting read. They cover inventory, employment and what is needed to get things moving in the housing sector.

http://www.forbes.com/2009/10/03/real-estate-advisor-personal-finance-october-housing-panel.html

Looking for a Home Bargin: Watch Price Reductions

On way for home sellers to generate renewed interest in a home that has been on the real estate market for a while is to lower price. Dropping the price strategy works well in retail when you walk the isles of your grocery store or shopping for that must have 60” LCD television, but how good a strategy is it for selling homes.

In the Alameda housing market, homes that institute at least one price reduction is roughly 37 percent since the beginning of the year. That equates to nearly 50-60 homes in today’s market.

Locally we have a wide range of price reductions: The million dollar property, 7 Castlebar Place, has used three price reductions already in an attempt to get the property sold with a list price of $1,899,000 in July is now $1,699,000 a $200,000 reduction. 1221 Sherman saw a $900,000 reduction from $2,488,905 to $1,569,000.

In the more moderate price homes 447 Lincoln, a short sale, has used two price reductions starting at $410,000 and is now $389,000.

If you are looking to buy a home this is a good number to track. The number tells consumers if homes are being priced correctly. A good real estate sales person will try to hit the sweet spot for pricing to maximize the dollars you get for your home and time on market.

In the most recent report from online real estate brokerage ZipRealty the show nationally that list prices for homes are on the rise and there is a decline in price reduction. According to ZipRealty, this data may indicate that the worst is over for national housing market.

According to the Price Reduction report compiled from local Multiple Listing Service (MLS) data in the 27 markets tracked, include:

• The market Median Price Reduction in the San Francisco Bay Area for August was $51,900.
• More than 42 percent of home listings in 27 major markets tracked included at least one price reduction in August 2009 – twelve thousand fewer home listings with discounted prices in those markets compared to July.
• Nationally, Home owners slashed listing prices by an average of $24,494 in August, a decline of 2.01 percent compared to the month prior.
• In August, homeowners within all markets studied reduced list prices on average by 9.59 percent (a 1.67 point decline compared to July)
• Markets with the lowest percentage of price-reduced homes are Denver (31 percent), Los Angeles (35 percent) and San Francisco (37 percent)
  
  For access to all of the data and the full report, click here: http://ziprealty.typepad.com/blog/2009/09/ziprealty-price-reductions-by-metro-august-2009.html
  

September 14 Alameda Inventory Data

. . 9/14/2009 . Total 144 . 94501 114 . 94502 30 . SFR 94 . Condo 30 . Multi-Family 18 . Short Sale 15 . Foreclosure 9 . Price Reductions 50 . High List $1,899,000 . Low List $204,900 .

Lots of News So Here is: Three Dot Round Up

I have been trying to get to this post but time has been just flying the last two days. There has been a lot of news in the last 24 hours regarding Real Estate both nationally and locally. So I thought a three dot round up would be appropriate.

First a review of the Alameda Real Estate Inventory data, the chart is below. After coming off a 15-week high inventory pulled back this week to 174 units for sale. This may be good news with 33 sales already recorded for the month of July and with a few days left in the month we may be able to surpass last month’s 41 units sold . . .

. 7/26/2009 . Total 174 . 94501 139 . 94502 35 . SFR 105 . Condo 39 . Multi-Family 28 . Short Sale 12 . Foreclosure 13 . Price Reductions 62 . High List $1,899,000 . Low List $232,900 .

The Bay Area is "Hot" in distressed neighborhoods. Oakland 94606 has been named one of the top 10 "hottest" real-estate markets in the country by Online real-estate company Zip Realty. A glut of foreclosures is leading some areas to see bidding wars -- just like the old days. Eight of Zip Realty's ten hottest markets are in California. While the cold markets, where offers are coming in at less than list price, are concentrated in the southeast, principally in Georgia and Florida. Of the 182 Bay Area zip codes the company included Alameda’s 94501 was 99th with homes selling for 97.51 percent of the list price. The 94502 was 137th on the list at 96.24 percent. I guess the Island is lukewarm. The details of the company's second-quarter Home Hunter Report. . .

Prices nationally continue to decline but just not as much as the past months. The Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller home price index for May showed a narrower decline in prices for a fourth straight month, but in its 20-city gauge was still down 17.1% from a year ago. While the reading was an improvement from the 18.1% decline in April, it was also the latest reminder that the struggling housing market still has a long road to recovery. . .

New home sales rose by the largest amount in more than eight years last month, in another sign the housing market might be bouncing back from the worst downturn in decades. The Commerce Department said Monday that sales rose 11 percent in June to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 384,000, from an upwardly revised May rate of 346,000. . .

Is The Housing Market Turning?

Good Morning America aired a story this morning about the every changing Real Estate market. The good news, as reported by local (Emeryville based) Online Real Estate Brokerage ZipRealty, is that inventory is going down across the country in several markets.

Inventory has decreased from over 11 months down to about 8 months. The result should be with fewer homes on the market prices will stabilize.

For us here in Alameda, as reported in yesterday's numbers, the news is not yet relevant both inventory and sales have remained relatively constant with over 5 months of inventory at the current sales rates. As always we will continue to monitor inventory to see what direction the Alameda market is heading.

Boo to ABC for not having an embed feature. Here is the link and a screen shot of the video player.
http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=7564250

Ninety Five Cents On The Dollar

We’re 123rd! In a recently released report by online Real Estate brokerage ZipRealty, Alameda’s 94501 finished in the 123 position out 144 zip codes when you compare sale price to list price for the First Quarter of 2009; the zips were required to have at least 30 sales in the quarter.

The 94501 sales-to-list ratio show that homes are getting ninety-five cents for every dollar of the listing price. Alameda's ratio scored a 95.28% for the first three month of 2009. The range for the Bay Area was a low in Sebatopol’s 95472 (87.46%) to a high in Daly City’s 94015 (110.70%).

For Alameda the data represents 54 sales with an average list price of $521,324 compared to the average sale price of $496,711. Bay Farm’s 94502 did not make the list because it had just 18 sales for the period; those sales did have a ratio of 96.07%.

Sixteen city zip codes were in the 95% range. Here are the top and bottom 10 in the Bay Area.

For the full report go the PR Resouce Section of the ZipRealty Newsroom. The link takes you to the News Room, but you will have to click on the PR Resources for the Home Hunters Report.

Link to the pdf: http://tinyurl.com/coxohu

Link to Ziprealty Newsroom: http://onlinepressroom.net/ziprealty/

Fun and Games With Real Estate

The news in the Real Estate sector has been pretty glum, so how about some fun and games to lighten up the week. For those readers that think that they know the Real Estate market, ZipRealty is now giving you an opportunity to prove it by testing your ability to price homes. Once you put in a guess, the site gives you an IQ score that is based on the community. You do have to be a registered user, to see the homes photos. (See the "Predict this sale price of this home" box on the right side of first photo; second photo: scoring page)

 

For those who read our local Knife Catchers blog, this is a must to check out. See the latest post about the house on Marina. I tried the Maria property on the price game, My IQ was 18. I was the third person and someone guessed over the list and two of us guessed in the $800K range. The more guesses that come in closer to us will raise the player IQ.

I think that the most interesting part is how the community can start a trend of identifying over priced homes or good values in the market. ZipRealty had an earlier version of the game and Myron Lo in a written statement said that they learned community gets pretty close.

 “Another big discovery for us was that the ZIP community price predictions were becoming great predictors of what homes would actually sell for (in many instances),” said Lo.

“The overall feedback from our customers was great. In addition to making real estate a little more fun, our customers appreciated the extra price opinion they would get with the ‘ZIP Community Price’. The biggest suggestion they had for us was to integrate our community pricing more tightly with our main website so that they’d be able to see price predictions for the specific homes they were interested in.”

The community along with the estimating tools on the ZipRealty website gives buyers something to review before they buy. More than anything it gives us who follow this something to do at our desk besides playing Sudoku or Solitaire.

Magic Number

Alameda House Under $300,000

On Monday, the San Francisco Chronicle wrote an article about homes under $100,000 in the Bay Area and knew immediately that this did not apply to Alameda, but it did get me thinking about the magic number that would get a buyers attention for those looking in the 94501/02.

I pondered what that number would be for our little hamlet and then decided to do a quick search over at ZipRealty and review the current listings by price.

So after I did a quick sort of Single Family Residences, I was surprised to see a home listed at under $300,000 and a second right on that number. These were not Condo or Townhomes but a house with a yard and all the maintenance that goes with home ownership.

The home at 1715 Schiller is listed for $299,500 and is a two bedroom one bathroom 856 square foot Spanish Bungalow with hardwood floors and a fireplace. It says right in the notes it is a fixer and needs a makeover. According to Zillow the property last sold November 10, 1969. The did not have a sale price.

Over at 3016 Lincoln the sellers listed their home right at $300,000. This property is also a two bedroom, one bathroom but has 1,426 square feet. This is short sale so you will have to deal with the bank to make a deal. The agent tells you “Much work is needed to bring this home to its former glory. Amazing bones w/ original woodwork, boxed ceiling w/ original wood paneling in the large dining,” which tells me you need to be a little handy.

In the Condo market, I found one listing, a foreclosure, for under $200,000 at the Park Webster. The 731 square foot unit at 1305 Webster #C203, is a one bedroom and one bath. The Home Owners Dues are $302 per month. The listing agent writes it is priced to sell.

These numbers were a little surprising, but not way out of whack, back in 1999-2000, before the crazy run-up, two bedroom homes in Alameda had moved from the high 200s to the mid 300. So to see homes creeping into pre-2000 pricing is not a shock with what has happen in the housing and credit markets. If we start to see two bedroom homes below $275,000 then I think that would be a Chronicle cover story.

 

San Francisco Chronicle Article Link

http://tinyurl.com/6nnmbz

Alameda Real Estate: By The Numbers

It is amazing that 2008 is rapidly coming to a close. We are now midway through the fourth quarter of 2008, and before the new year starts, I wanted to take a look back at a couple of third quarter housing reports produced by online real estate valuation estimator Zillow and online residential real estate brokerage ZipRealty. Both companies produce housing reports that track the market, home values, sales and inventory and wanted to look at these reports and see what it means for Alameda.

Zillow reports, in their Real Estate Market Report, that Alameda experienced a 1.3% decline in pricing from the prior quarter. The year-over-year change was a -7.8% in value to Alameda homes. The good news is Island has not seen the same decline as the national average 9.7%. Zillow reports that the San Francisco, CA Metro Area has current index of $567,000 which is a one year change of -14.4% compared to Alameda’s index of $600,000 to the -7.8% change in the 12 months prior.

Prices in Alameda have taken a hit in the macro but the good news is the Island has held up well during the real estate downturn. Taking a look at the ZipRealty Quarterly Housing Report, reveled that sellers in Alameda are accepting offers about 98% of the list price.

City	Zipcode	Sales	Ave List Pirce	Ave. Sale Price	%
Alameda	94501	101	$651,473.47	$637,765.89	97.90%
Alameda	94502	33	$743,346.94	$733,665.15	98.70%

Looking at the report, this shows that Alameda is doing well for the Bay Area. The Bernal Heights neighborhood in San Francisco was tops in the Bay Area with offers on average at 103% of list. Eleven zipcodes were below 95%, at the bottom was the Green Valley area of Fairfield at 92% of list.

Sales from September to October are up, but the average sale price and average price per square foot declined. Although it is not a trend, I think that it shows that people (buyers) are starting to find prices that are attractive. Not so good news if you are selling.

I guess it is tough to swallow the fact that housing market continues to decline. Even though Alameda is not suffering like the rest of the country or even parts of the Bay Area the number show that 21% of Alameda's listing are either a foreclosure or short sale. With the traditional slow home sales period approaching during the holiday season, it will be interesting to see what happens to inventory over the next couple of months.

Weekly Inventory Report -- Total Alameda Inventory

Data Pulled November 15, 2008 at 7:30 AM

Total Listings: 183

Single Family Residences: 108

Condominiums: 44

Multi-Family: 31

Short Sales: 21

Foreclosures: 17

Highst List Price: $1,995,000

Lowest List Price: $210,000

Note: The lowest list price was $165,000 for a houseboat at Barnhill Marina. I did not include it as the low listing, because it is not on land. There are three house boats included in the numbers.

With the housing market being so tough, I thought a little humor for Monday is appropriate. So Welcome, to 94501 Real Estate!