Luba Muzichenko

San Francisco Realtor

Archives for September 2007

That Chicken Took My Parking Spot! – PARK(ing) Day 2007

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park-bench-small.jpgIf your usual parking spot has a chicken running around, or has a park bench, or looks like an art gallery, don’t be surprised.

September 21, 2007 – PARK(ing) Day

Conceived by REBAR, a San Francisco-based art collective, PARK(ing) Day is a one-day, global event centered in San Francisco where artists, activists, and citizens collaborate to temporarily transform parking spots into “PARK(ing)” spaces: temporary public parks.

Check out these links for more info:
Got Eggs
PARK(ing) Day 2007

PARK(ing) Day 2007 Locations
PARK(ing) Day 2007, Turning Parking Spaces Into Parks

11 Steps to Buying the Home That’s Right for You – Step 2: Choosing Your REALTOR®

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man-house-small.jpg So you’ve made your list of wants and needs and preferences about your dream home. You are now ready for the next step in your San Francisco real estate hunt!
Your job now – look for an agent to represent you in the purchase of your home. There are many reasons to work with an agent, from having someone that can help you find your home, to someone that will negotiate for you in the purchase, to someone that will make the escrow process smooth and problem-free for you – a good REALTOR® can help you every step of the purchase process, and it doesn’t cost you a dime!
So how do you find the REALTOR® that is perfect for you?
Start by asking friends for referrals. Real estate is not just about business, it’s about relationships. A good agent will not just help a buyer buy a home, but will be there for years afterward to make sure that their home ownership needs are constantly being met. Ask your friends, family and co-workers about their experience with their REALTORS® during, and after the purchase process. If you hear good things, schedule an interview with their REALTOR®.
Go to open houses. Wander into a few open houses in one weekend. Pick places that meet what you think your price range will be, and in the neighborhoods you want to purchase in. Then talk to the agents that are at the open house. Most of the time, agents are at an open house, not to sell the house, but to meet buyers. Some are pushy about it, and will follow you around the home. Others take a more hands off approach, and wait for you to come to them. Others still provide you with some information, and maybe offer to help, but let you decide where the conversation leads. I can’t tell you what to look for in an agent in terms of personality, like every relationship, we all have different needs. But some things you do want to look for are:

  • whether you have a good repoire
  • whether the agent is knowledgable about the areas that interest you
  • whether they are giving you their full attention
  • whether they feel trustworthy
  • whether they work for a reputable company

    • Talking to the agent should give you a good feel for what to expect from them. First impressions are, well, priceless.
    Look on the Internet. Many real estate agents these days have web sites, blogs, reviews on Yelp, etc. Read what the agents have to say on their web sites. Do they provide you with useful information without asking you for anything in return? Read their blogs. Do they sound knowledgable? Do you like the tone of their posts? Read their reviews. What do other people have to say about them? Pick one or two that seem to fit your personality, and call them.
    Ideally, through getting referrals, going to open houses and searching the web, you should find about two or three good agents to interview. Schedule your appointments. Meet the agents, and come armed with a list of questions to ask. (But also listen to what information the agent is providing you on their own. They should be armed with a good amount of info, and hopefully, will answer some of your questions before you even ask!) As for what questions to ask:

  • How will you search for my new home?
  • How many homes will I likely see before I find a home I want to buy?
  • Will I be competing against other buyers?
  • How do you handle multiple offers?
  • Do you present offers yourself?
  • How do you communicate with your clients?
  • How often do you communicate with your clients?
  • What are your hours of availability?
  • How should I look for properties?

    • There’s not necessarily right or wrong answers to these questions, but they should give you a feel for how they work, and whether they will work well with you.
    Picking your agent may very well be the MOST important part of the entire home purchase. A good agent can make the process fun, exciting and stress-free. A bad agent – well, the worst case scenarios are endless. Choose wisely!
    Stay tuned for the Step 3 to Buying the Home That’s Right for You – Get Pre-Approved!

    To Rent or Not to Rent – That is the Question!

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    home-prices-upsmall.jpgRents in San Francisco are (surprise) on the rise! As less people qualify for loans due to the tighteninig restrictions in the mortgage industry (restrictions that I agree with wholeheartedly), more people need to rent, rent, rent their homes in San Francisco. And what happens with supply & demand? As demand goes up, supply goes down, and prices skyrocket.
    One analysis points out that “In San Francisco, a full-time worker needs to earn nearly $30 an hour to afford a modest two-bedroom apartment. In West Virginia, the same “housing wage” is about $10 an hour.”
    Check out these thoughts from across the internet on the San Francisco rental market:
    Bay Area rental market roars back
    Rents on the rise in San Francisco
    As rent prices rise, families seek shelter

    Zephyr Weekly Sales Reports – September 19th, 2007

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    zinablackbox-smaller.jpg Below is Zephyr Real Estate’s sales data for the previous week. These are NOT properties that have closed, just listings on which a purchase agreement has been ratified and the property has gone into escrow.
    This week, Zephyr Real Estate’s pending sales have gone up by 272% from last week’s reported sales!!! I’d love to say the market has taken a huge jump in sales numbers, but this is common for the San Francisco market. Summer inventory is low, so the first two weeks after Labor Day show slow sales. But by mid-September, all of the properties that came on the market after Labor Day are starting to accept offers and go into contract. This means that we are back in full swing in real estate sales market. And homes in SF are selling!
    Here’s this week’s numbers, and check back next week to see how they change.

      43% of sales received multiple offers
      16% of sales sold under the asking price
      26% of sales sold at the asking price
      58% of sales sold over the asking price

    The Fed Lowered Rates Yesterday… So Why Are They Up Today?

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    roller-coaster-small.jpgSo… occasionally, I ask a fellow professional to write a guest post. Sometimes, it’s because I’m tired. (I am human after all.) But other times, it’s because someone else’s experience lends more credibility to the discussion. Please take a minute to read Monica Di Perna’s post on today’s interest rate situation and how it affects the real estate market in San Francisco and beyond:
    The Fed met and lowered rates this week. They lowered the Funds rate (or the rate at which banks lend to each other.) While in the near future, this change may lower rates in the mortgage industry, today, rates are actually slightly higher higher than they were yesterday.
    WHY? Well, the Fed isn’t the only influence that plays a hand in the interest rates that average borrowers see. Bonds also play a major role. But bonds are going the opposite way than we had hoped and now, they sit at 4.55%? So why is this the case? Well, a couple of reasons.
    First -The attraction and flow of money is heading away from Bonds and into Stocks worldwide, particularly Banking Stocks that are benefiting greatly. Thus, there is more money pumping into the Banking system.
    Second – There are expectations that the Fed may cut rates, yet again. This is making many investors stay the course and wait to see the Fed’s next move.
    Third – There are some concerns over the risk of increased inflation (though I do not see that as a major contributor yet.) All reports still show slowing growth and low inflation.
    So what comes next? Look for the market to moderate as investors adjust their portfolios to the new market and HOPEFULLY renewed activity in the secondary market with the influx of cash and a renewed attraction to Mortgage Backed Securities.
    If this happens, we will see rates drop a bit and lenders will start providing a greater variety of loans again (though NOT like they were doing in recent years where loans where as easy to get as the prize in the box of Cracker Jacks).
    In conclusion, the Fed’s action has definitely instilled a certain amount of confidence in consumers. However, there are still many unanswered questions! Is this a temporary fix? Will there be more rate cuts ahead? What impact will it have on the housing market? Let’s keep watching the inflation signs…this will be very important. If there are any signs of inflation, we may see the Fed refrain from any further rate cuts. So while the lowering of the Fed Funds Rate and the discount rate by .5%, has definitely calmed markets this week, the coming weeks will really let us know where the mortgage rates will stand.
    I don’t know about you, but I’m hoping for lower rates!

    11 Steps to Selling Your Home Successfully in San Francisco- Step 2: Get Your Property Evaluated, Then Do It Again!

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    dollars-small.jpgSo, you’ve read Step 1 to Selling Your SF Home, and you’ve defined your needs. Now it’s time to figure out what your home might be worth!
    There’s lots of ways to go about this. First, start with something like Zillow.com’s Zestimate. Keep in mind that this is a VERY rough idea of how much your home will cost. Yahoo has a similar feature which I used to look up a home in Golden Gate Heights. Yahoo’s estimate came back between $264,902 (for a HOUSE in the City with over 3,000 sq feet of living space) to $1,935,128 (for that SAME house!) I think these sites are a great place to start, but as you can probably see from the ridiculous range of values these sites provide, you NEED to get a professional opinion, or two, or three.
    So… how DO you get a professional evaluation of your home? Start by asking friends, neighbors and relatives that have had good experience with a REALTOR® for a referral. Hopefully, you can get one or two solid names. Next, search the internet, read Yelp Reviews (could I help but put in a shameless plug somewhere in this post?), and call around to the real estate agencies in San Francisco that ring a bell. (Zephyr, Zephyr and Zephyr?) 🙂 Open houses are also another safe and non-threatening way to meet an agent.
    An agent will come to your property, take a look at it, and then return with an in-depth market analysis of your home showing comparable properties to yours. This report should have a range of value for your property. (Just an aside, if an agent shows up at your home and gives you a value off the top of their head without giving you an in-depth evaluation, they are short-changing you. You can just about throw their evaluation out the window!)
    You want about three evaluations of property to get a really good feel for its true value. Do NOT assume that the highest priced evaluation is the best price. In fact, oftentimes, agents give you a ridiculously high evaluation of your property (and promise the moon and stars) just to get you to list your property with them. Then, weeks after your property is on the market without a single offer, you start wondering why every property on the market except for yours isn’t selling.
    What they say in real estate about “location, location, location” is true to a degree. But what’s even MORE important is “price, price, price!” If you don’t price your property right, it will not sell!!!
    So why three evaluations? A couple of reasons, really.
    First, you want to get a range of what your property is worth. No REALTOR®, no matter how good, can tell you what your home will sell for to the exact dollar. But the agent evaluating your property, should, in theory, have an idea of the market value of your home. If you get three values (or so), you should have a ballpark value of what your property may sell for. This is by no means exact. The REALTOR® can’t set the actual sale price, only the buyers in the market can! But a good REALTOR® should be able to interpret current market conditions and evaluate comparable properties to let you know how much moolah you may expect to get for your home.
    Second, you are not just getting an evaluation of your home’s market value! You are also preparing for Step 3 to Sell Your Home Successfully in San Francisco: Choosing YOUR Agent.
    So stay tuned to read about what questions you should be asking the REALTORS® that provide you with a market evaluation of your home. Choosing your agent may be the most important step you take during the home selling process, and you want to be sure you do it right!

    Rates Are Going Down Baby!

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    down-arrow-small.jpg
    As many people predicted, the Fed lowered its benchmark interest rates today. But while many people predicted a quarter of a point drop, the Fed actually reduced it by half a point, going from 5.25% to 4.75%. Not bad for the first rate reduction in 4 years!
    While across the country, the upward trend in mortgage rates and the fallout of subprime lenders had caused a serious downturn in housing markets, San Francisco real estate has managed to stay sheltered from the storm with high demand and little supply – keeping our market going strong.
    The lower rates will likely not bail out the entire country’s housing market, but here in San Francisco, where we haven’t really needed a bailout, we can only see positive effects as buyers reap the benefits of a slightly lower interest rate. If you’ve been sitting on the fence about buying or selling, it’s safe to jump off and take the plunge into the market.

    The San Francisco Real Estate Report – August 2007

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    It’s been a hectic Monday. Trying to function in the real estate world without email is like trying to catch a criminal without the ability to process fingerprints. It’s possible, but it sure is hard work. Our IT department is still trying to rebuild our email database, so that still means, no email for Luba. The first phase was denial, then it was anger, then it was acceptance…. now it’s just patient waiting. In the meantime, my “Official” The San Francisco Real Estate Report was just released so I thought I’d give you access to it.
    This is more thorough than the feature I recently started in September that I plan on publishing on the 1st of every month. Those numbers are rough, while the numbers in The San Francisco Real Estate Report are complete, and have pretty charts and graphs to go with them.
    A quick summary of the report:

    The median price for condos in San Francisco in August rose 0.6% to $820,000 from July, up 10% compared to last August. The average price for condos gained 2.3% to $847,209, month-over-month. The average price was up 7.3% year-over-year.

    San Francisco condo sales rose 1.5% in August, but was down 3.3% year-over-year. Year-to-date, condo sales are up 0.2%.

    The median price for single-family, re-sale homes rose 2.9%, a year-over-year gain of 10.1%. The average price fell 9.8%, up 13.7% compared to last August.

    Home sales fell 4.8%, month-over-month, and were down 7.4% year-over-year. Year-to-date, home sales are down 6.5%.

    To read more, and see the breakdown my district, and check out the pretty charts, check out The San Francisco Real Estate Report .

    I Missed the Mayor, but…

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    bamboo.jpg…I had a great time anyway! As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I got the opportunity to go to the Dwell on Design conference and exhibition today. I hear that our green Mayor Newsom swung by today… but even though I didn’t get a chance to meet Gavin and see his perfect hair in person, I still had a great time at the exhibition and couldn’t believe how much fun stuff I saw (not to mention the cool environmentally friendly bag I got that I’ll be using to carry my groceries in until it falls to pieces). Here’s a partial list of stuff that caught my attention and got my design juices flowing:
    EcoSmart Inc – The EcoSmartâ„¢ Fire is an Australian innovation – an environmentally friendly open fireplace. The EcoSmartâ„¢ Fire is flue less and does not require any installation or utility connection for fuel supply, which makes it ideal for just about any architectural environment. Fuelled by a renewable modern energy (Denatured Ethanol), it burns clean and is virtually maintenance free. Featuring remarkable design flexibility, the simplicity of the EcoSmartâ„¢ burner and the modular nature of its design grants consumers with significant versatility and choice.
    Bison Deck Supports – A great and inexpensive product for a roof deck! Adjustable BISON Deck Supports elevate concrete pavers, wood tiles, composite materials, industrial grating, conventional wood truss systems or natural stone over roof and plaza decks, on-grade, in water features… over any structural surface!
    Heath Ceramics – Heath Ceramics is one of the few remaining mid-century American potteries still in existence today. We have been making tableware and tile for over a half-century right here in our Sausalito, California factory. Our crew of 40 skilled artisans (many having been here for 20+ years) still makes every product on premises, often utilizing the methods and techniques developed by Edith throughout her career.
    GeoCrete by Cheng Designs – Just as nature formed granite and marble, skilled artisans shape Geocreteâ„¢ into the sculptural, luminous, concrete forms made famous by Cheng Design. Artful compositions of gently sloping plains let water flow naturally to the sink. Subtle contours cradle fruit or flowers. Integral trivets and cutting boards fuse art with function — function into award winning design.
    EQ3 – Cool furniture, at decent prices. No more needs to be said.
    Prefab, Prefab, and More Prefab – Too many prefab construction companies to name them all, but they are all super cool, with super low construction costs, and they all seem to think they have a chance at one day building prefab in San Francisco, even though no one has been able to convince the Department of Building Inspection here that they’re OK to build here. I suggested to a few of the companies that they form a trade organization and lobby the City of San Francisco to allow prefabricated construction to be built here. If they ever do that, I’ll be happy to take credit for it.
    Modwalls – Cool tile. Really cool tile. All kinds of shapes, and some of them with tattoo art painted on the inside (these might get outdated pretty quickly… but they do look cool today.)
    Bamboo Sourcery – An incredibly knowledgable company that was able to warn me away from black bamboo at my home on Great Highway. While everyone else has said it would be great there, their knowledgable representative explained to me that not all bamboo likes salt air, and black bamboo especially would look like crap in a short amount of time.
    There where tons of other exhibitors there today that had amazing things. The Dwell Outdoor section was pretty damn cool too, especially the odd hot tub that doubles as a bar-b-que (I kid you not). Overall, it was as fun as I had expected, and I learned way more than I expected.
    I can’t wait till next year! Dwell on Design 2008, here I come!!!

    11 Steps to Buying the Home That's Right for You – Step 1: Decide On Your Needs

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    list-small.jpgIf you’re following allong with my series on selling a house, Step 1 likely has a very familiar ring to it. Before you set out to do anything you really need to take a moment to sit down and make a list.
    If you’re following along, grab a pen. Grab a piece of paper. And write down this question, “Why do I want to buy a home?”
    At this point, your answers don’t need to be very well defined. Answers such as “I hate my landlord,” “I want a dog,” “I want to get a tax break” are all a good start. List all of your reasons. Every last one of them. Is “I hate white walls” on your list? Write it down. How about “I want to start a family.” Write it down. Over the next several days, keep adding to your list, and subtracting from it if you change your mind about certain items.
    Now, if you’re still followig along, flip that piece of paper over, and if you’ve still got room, write this question down, “What do I want in a home?” Next to that write “What do I need in a home?” And leave room for just one more question, “What do I know I don’t want in a home?” Brainstorm here folks. Make the lists long. Think about architectural styles, San Francisco neighborhoods, views, outdoor space, number of bedrooms, the condition of a place (fixer upper? or move in ready?), carpet, hardwood floors, place for an office, place for a ping pong table, etc., etc., etc. And again, over the next several days, keep working on your list. Move things from your “wants” column to your “needs” column, cross things off your “definitely can’t live with” column. This isn’t the time to be flexible (you’ll have to be later when you’re buying a place, but we’ll eventually get to that down the line in step 4 or so of the buying process.)
    So now that you’ve got your lists together… what’s next? In a few days, we’ll talk about Step 2 of the 11 Steps to Buying the Home That’s Right for You: How to Pick a REALTOR®. And while would love to think that every one of you reading this will call me tomorrow to let me help you buy your home, the reality of it is that not every REALTOR® is right for every buyer. I’ll give you some advice on how to determine which real estate agent is right for you. So stay tuned!