I know, I know, you’re tired of me talking about our awesome weather, but I just couldn’t help but smile as I went past these Cherry Blossoms trees in Hayes Valley (Pierce Street to be exact.)
We’re seeing Cherry Blossoms in bloom ALL OVER SF! The glorious sunshine has fooled the trees into thinking it’s really spring and they’re blooming left and right. Driving through Golden Gate Park is, frankly, magical!
And remember, Cherry Blossoms are a symbol of the fragility of life – here today, gone sooner than you realize – so don’t just enjoy the Blossoms while you can, but get out there and enjoy San Francisco!
UPDATE!!!! CORRECTION!!! STOP THE PRESSES!!! 🙂
Thanks to James leaving a message in the comments below, I now know those are PLUM blossoms! NOT cherry! But they still sure are PURDY! 😉
Misc Musings from Your San Francisco Realtor
Brrrrr….. It's Cold in San Francisco (NOT!)
I almost caught myself complaining today that our February weather had dropped from last weeks high 70’s to today’s (brrrrr) mid 60’s. I mean, I had to wear a jacket, in SF, in February. How inconvenient!
But then I saw this post while browsing Laughing Squid’s blog.
And then I had to laugh at the superiority of San Francisco! HA! Snow Day? We don’t need no stinking Snow Days!
And then, I caught this post on Uptown Almanac’s site featuring the video below. Which made me stop laughing and feel bad for the rest of the country.
And then I got over my feelings of sympathy and started laughing again!
Hey, they could live in SF if they wanted to! 😉
Hmmm….. do you think that our near perfect San Francisco weather has anything to do with the overall resilience of SF’s real estate market? I’d say so! Cheers to not having any snow days!!! 😉
(And yes, I’ve lived here in SF since I was 2 years old, so I’m well aware that our winter months aren’t usually THIS mild, but I’m relishing in it while it lasts!!! You should too!!! 🙂 )
Win Play Tickets! Just Share Your Favorite San Francisco Quote!
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Like free stuff? Like San Francisco? Like doing free stuff in San Francisco?
All you have to do is submit your favorite quote about San Francisco, either in the comments below or by email no later than 5pm on Friday the 11th for your chance to win!
(And the quote doesn’t have to be real – I just found out one of my go to Mark Twain “quotes” about San Francisco’s infamous weather wasn’t even really said by Mark Twain! My life has been changed FOREVER!)
Win a pair of tickets to the West Coast premiere of Harper Regan at the SF Playhouse and choose the performance you want to see – either Tuesdays 7 PM, Wednesday 7 PM, or Thursday 8 PM, now through February 17th.
From the National Theatre in London comes this riveting drama named “Best Play” by the Guardian UK newspaper. For moe information, visit www.SFPlayhouse.org.
San Francisco Real Estate Dances "The Bump"
As the good folks at the San Francisco Real Estate Blog noted, January is often the time when San Francisco home buyers shake off the holidays and add buying a home to the list of New Years Resolutions.
The San Francisco Real Estate Blog notes:
In years past, when the market was stronger, there was a “January Bump” in the San Francisco real estate market. The surge in activity occurred as droves of buyers came back to the market after the holiday season, while sellers lagged behind.
This meant there were more buyers than property listings, and competition ensued. Last year the San Francisco real estate market didn’t experience a January bump, but there are early signs that one is happening right now.
The blog post quotes a fellow Zephyr Realtor with a recent experience where a home his buyers tried to purchase received 3 over-asking price offers the FIRST day the home was on the market!
And his experience is not rare.
An Inner Sunset single family home received 11 offers on its offer date just 4 days after the first open house.
An Inner Mission condo sold after just 9 days on the market with 8 offers (an offer date was set on this one also.)
In fact, of the 67 reported sales at Zephyr Real Estate’s weekly meetings for January, 15 had multiple offers and 13 sold over the asking price. Another 11 sold at the asking price. (One caveat to mention – these are just the sales that are verbally reported – some agents aren’t able to make the meetings and those sales don’t get mentioned. But BTW – based on those numbers, that means Zephyr represented more than 20% of the sales that occurred in January. Um, yeah, we ROCK!) 😉
In fact, 329 properties went into contract this January. There are still a total of 1356 properties on the market.
That means the absorption rate is just 4.1 (or it would take 4.1 months for the market to “absorb” all of this inventory – aka, it would take 4.1 months for these San Francisco listings to be bought up by buyers.)
And according to the standard guidelines that we use to determine whether we are in a Sellers’ Market (1-4 months of inventory), a Neutral Market (5-6 months of inventory) or a Buyers’ Market (7+ months of inventory) – right now, we in SF are actually in (drumroll please) a *Soft* Sellers’ Market! 😀
(Fair warning to sellers – DO NOT get greedy, this ain’t 2005! Fair notice to buyers – there are still lots of great values out there, but a variety of circumstantial evidence including a decrease in the unemployment rate, especially in high-paying tech jobs, these good values may not be around too much longer!)
So, we in the SF Real Estate biz are enjoying the good news the January Real Estate Bump is bringing us. And since our spirits are dancing, you may as well dance with us. If you don’t know how to do “The Bump” – the video above will show you how. 😉
Doggone It – Where Will San Francisco's Dogs Go and Play?
We San Franciscan’s love our dogs. In a 2006 National Geographic article, it’s estimated that SF has 745,000 human residents and 110,000 canine ones! (And a gratuitous plug here, the pic up top is from the the Animal Care and Control’s website. His name is Moe and YES, he is available for adoption, as are dozens of other cuddly and loving animals!)
We REALLY do love our dogs. And we love the various places we can take them. Fort Funston, Crissy Field and Ocean Beach are just a few favorite places to let our four legged friends frolic. But a lot of them are a part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA) and to make a really long story short – your dog’s favorite place to burn off some energy may become a “No Dog” zone!
Supervisor Carmen Chu was kind enough to share the below information about the proposed changes as well as ways for you to give YOUR input on what to do with San Francisco’s parks. They might be Federally owned, but it’s San Francisco’s citizens that use them on a daily basis, and we deserve to make our input heard!
Here’s the scoop from the newsletter:
GGNRA dog management plan
The Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA), a Federal agency, recently released their Dog Management Plan/Draft Environmental Impact Statement. The voluminous document and its recommendations would have significant impact on use of Ocean Beach, Fort Funston, Lands End, Sutro Heights, Baker Beach, Fort Point, Fort Mason and Crissy Field. The document is available at all San Francisco Public Libraries and also online at http://parkplanning.nps.gov/dogplan
The Dog Management Plan/Draft Environmental Impact Statement presents several different alternatives for each park in the GGNRA, ranging from “no dogs” to severely restricting off leash areas. Our office wanted to make you aware that public comment on the plan will be accepted through April 14, and that it is important that the GGNRA and National Park Service (NPS) hear the concerns of San Francisco residents.
How to comment:
- Online at http://parkplanning.nps.gov/dogplan
- By mail: Frank Dean, General Superintendent, GGNRA
Fort Mason, Building 201
San Francisco, CA 94123
Public Meetings:
- March 2, 4 – 8pm , Tamalpais High School, Marin County
- March 5, 11am – 4pm, San Francisco State University, Seven Hills Conference Center
- March 7, 4 – 8pm, Fort Mason Bldg. A, San Francisco
- March 9, 4 – 8pm, Cabrillo School, Pacifica
Comments will be considered during development of the final plan, which is expected to be completed by late Spring/early Summer 2012. When making your comments, please refer to the specific area of the plan you would like to see changed, and your ideas for alternatives.
If you have any further questions about the Dog Management Plan/Draft EIS, please call the GGNRA at 415-561-4728.
The GGNRA is the nation’s largest urban national park, and includes areas of San Francisco, San mateo and Marin Counties.
Another Glorious Sunset at Ocean Beach…
I’ll never get tired of these San Francisco Sunsets. Good thing I’m lucky enough to call the Sunset District home and this is just steps from where I’m fortunate enough to live. If this isn’t a million dollar view, I don’t know what is!
Get Over Yourself, San Francisco (Except You *ARE* Marvelous, Baby!)
According to KCBS, San Francisco is the vainest City in the United States. Now, JoMama, a commenter on KCBS’s story so eloquently puts, “It’s hard to be humble, when you’re perfect in everyway.” (JoMama’s statement is so awesome, that I’m going to pretend she really spelled “every way” and not “everyway” – but hey, we NEED a little Wabi-Sabi to REALLY be perfect, right?) 😉
The article goes on to say:
A survey by the online magazine The Daily Beast ranks the city by the Bay as the most vain city in the country, more narcissistic than New York or Los Angeles.
The survey’s criteria compared how much people spend on personal trainers, spas and cosmetic products, and where the populations rank on the obesity scale.
Healthy San Francisco aside, the KCBS and Chronicle Insider believes banning toys in Happy Meals and similar legislation under the rule of two consecutive glamorous mayors, Willie Brown and then Gavin Newsom, only make the city seem that much more self-absorbed.
SFist also picked up the story. And they didn’t try to dispel the myth of SF’s perfection (and c’mon, we know San Franciscan’s are perfect – even our gas smells like roses!), they did point out that vanity, actually has NOTHING to do with “how much city residents spend on average a month on personal-care products and services such as cosmetics and spa treatments; the percentage of the city’s population not overweight; and the percentage of the population that belongs to gyms.”
In fact, vanity has to do with excessive pride in one’s appearance or conceit (ok, have you SEEN the folks at Critical Mass, for instance? conceited? really? self-righteous, maybe, but conceited?), or something without real significance, value, or importance. (Um, I don’t see how maintaining a healthy weight to try to keep from having a heart attack is without value or significance.)
In fact, we here in San Francisco, care about things outside of ourselves. We constantly make the list of the Greenest Cities in the U.S. We helped to spread the idea of “no kill” animal shelters to the rest of the country and beyond. We’re charitable. We have the 18th largest economy IN THE WORLD! And we know how to have a good time! 😉 SF ROCKS!
So really, we’re not vain, we are just confident. I’d even go so far as to say that we’re cocky! 😉
But just like JoMama said, “It’s hard to be humble, when you’re perfect in everyway!” 😉
Have an amazing weekend you MARVELOUS San Franciscans! You’re so perfect, there’s no way that you can’t!
San Francisco Real Estate Trends at a Glance
Want a brief look at San Francisco Real Estate Trends? Of course you do! That’s why you’re reading a Real Estate Blog aren’t you!?!?!
These statistics are for ALL of San Francisco, and I can GUARANTEE you that YOUR neighborhood WILL be different.
Email me and I’ll send you detailed information on your SF hood, whether that’s the Outer Sunset or Outer Parkside, Golden Gate Heights or Pacific Heights, Potrero Hill or Nob Hill, Twin Peaks, South Beach or any other San Francisco neighborhood in between! Real Estate is local and San Francisco real estate is especially neighborhood-specific.
At a glance, Median Prices are trending up (multiple offers based on some aggressive pricing strategy is helping that trend!), Inventory is increasing (and we’re seeing some good stuff out there people!), and Average Days on Market is trending down (whether it’s another sign of aggressive marketing or a sign of a recovering market – it’s too early to tell.)
A San Francisco Map Like You Haven't Seen Before
I have awesome friends & blog readers. Stuff I wouldn’t find anywhere else come jumping into my email inbox on a pretty regular basis. For a while there, I had stopped blogging about San Francisco Real Estate (and all of the other awesomeness here in San Francisco), but now that I’m back to cranking out blog posts, I can start sharing the awesomeness with you once again.
Like today. I got an email that said “something for you to blog about” with a link.
Curiosity piqued, I opened the link and *VOILA!* Awesomeness!
The link took me to a magic page where it said:
Axis Maps is pleased to announce the release of our mapping / art project Typographic Maps. Created as a labor of love, these unique maps accurately depict the streets and highways, parks, neighborhoods, coastlines, and physical features of the city using nothing but type. Only by manually weaving together thousands upon thousands of carefully placed words does the full picture of the city emerge. Every single piece of type was manually placed, a process that took hundreds of hours to complete for each map. Take a look at our blog for more on how these maps were made.
We offer high quality poster-sized prints for $30, or a variety of other size and media options.
Oh yes, my friends! An ACTUAL map of San Francisco using NOTHING BUT TYPE! We’ve seen other cool maps out there, but the details on this one probably take the cake!
If you care, there are also maps of Chicago and Boston, with a few more that are on their way – but we all know that anything related to San Francisco is ALWAYS BETTER! 😉
Break Your New Years Resolutions with the Top Five Candy Shops In (and around) San Francisco
New Years’ Resolutions are SO January 2011. It’s February and you should really be over them by now.
And if you’re not, Haute Living is going to help you do just that.
Get your San Francisco candy fix on. Screw the resolutions – you can always make new ones for 2012! 😉
Top places to get your sweet tooth on?
1) Z. Cioccolato
2) The Candy Store
3) Powell’s Sweet Shoppes
4) Fiona’ Sweetshoppe
5) Sweetdish
Fair warning, not EVERY shop is in SF….. but I guess there might be life in other cities too (just like on Mars!) 😉
For the full breakdown – check out the article. Oh yeah, and that song that’s now stuck in your head???? Sorry ’bout that! 😉
