Congratulations to Michael Sit of Foster City who won this weeks Foto Contest! Way to go Micheal!…He got there real early too. Of course the picture is the metal overhang above the amphitheater stage at Leo Ryan Park. Also thank you very much to everyone who participated and especially to Sean, Erika ,Stephanie and Steve for coming up with correct responses!! Try again on Friday of this week! Michael wins a gift certificate at ABC Seafood at the Metro Center. Thanks again!

Nowhere on the Peninsula is there a community boasting as many large condo/townhouse projects as does Foster City. I’ve actually sort of procrastinated about writing a post about this market segment because it’s shear vastness makes it a bit of a struggle trying to consolidate all of it’s facts into a coherent report on how it’s doing. There are 24 projects with 50 or more units, Redwood Shores by comparison, has 15. These developments span the price range from a high of over $1.3mil last year at Promontory Point to a 1 bedroom condo being sold short at the Admiralty for $329,888. It’s been a long held staple of real estate thought that a single family home will hold it’s value better than a condo or townhouse and thus it’s a better investment but the fact of the matter is that in a community where an entry level house is $900,000 minimum and lots of people want to live here condos/townhouses have done really well. Appreciation has been steady in Foster City over the last 10 years yet some values have fallen slightly over the last 18 months or so. I believe that to be the product of 3 things, 1. The market is experiencing a natural adjustment, 2. Foster City’s short sales have basically been in the lowest price ranges where zero down sub-prime loans were most prevalent and thus these properties have been sold at a discount to move them and 3. Association dues in some projects have risen to a point where it has, to some degree, effected desirability. Dues in some projects are hovering between $450.00 and $500.00 a month…one project is now at $735 a month. Here’s some fun facts:

30 Total number of Condos/Townhouses actively on the market in Foster City

13 Total number of them that are traditional 2 story townhouse units

14 Total number of Pending Sales

15 Total number of closed sales in the last 3 months

6 Total number that sold at or over the asking price

2.1% Average percentage of price reduction on the other 9 properties

6.8% Average price reduction across the board on Condos/Townhouses in the last year in FC.

Again, with 24 projects chiming in and considering the variations in units and their relative conditions it sure seems to me that condos and townhouses in Foster City has been, and will continue to be, a pretty darn good investment. I debated this with a mortgage broker buddy of mine recently…I think that if a buyer is qualified to $650,000 and it’s a choice between a house in San Bruno, South City or Pacifica or a condo in Foster City…it’s the Foster City condo all day long. In the long run it will hold it’s value better.

OK, here it is. Today’s strange and wonderful foto. For the uninitiated, every Friday we have a contest where you need to identify the object in a featured photo of some obscure Foster City landmark or oddity. Today’s winner gets a $30.00 gift certificate for lunch or dinner at ABC Seafood located at the Metro Center Shopping area. In order to win you must identify two things…Where is this thing? and What is this thing? Just place your answer in the comments below. All the rules are available both at the top of this page and on the left margin. I won’t publish the correct answer, or answers, until Monday but I will publish gentle ribbing, overt kidding around and all wrong answers. First person to identify it correctly wins! Go for it!

BLOG BRAWL

Thanks to all of you I’ve moved into the Finals of the 2008 Varbuzz Blog Brawl!! Now’s our chance to really put Foster City on the national blogging map. In this round we’re up against some tough competition from Texas…the dreaded xbroker.com! You can help this little blog win it all by casting your vote here:

FinalsVoteFinalsVote

No registration needed. Just one easy click!

Thank you very much!! Go Foster City Blog!!

Foster City’s market for single famly houses had a good month in March so far. Of the 11 pending sales 9 of them sold this month. As expected, Cliff Wong from Coldwell Banker’s listing on Crane (pictured above) sold with multiple offers yesterday and the Prudential listing at 800 Marlin got 8 offers last week. There’s currently only 11 single family homes for sale in Foster City and zero non Eichler ranchers on the market. I know, I know…I’m a cheerleader, but this is a very good time to sell a house in Foster City! There’s almost no inventory. Here’s how we stack up:

Foster City…11 Active Listings, 11 Pending Sales

San Mateo…146 Active Listings, 52 Pending Sales

Belmont…39 Active Listings, 27 Pending Sales

San Carlos…47 Active Listings, 26 Pending Sales

Redwood City…188 Active Listings, 62 Pending Sales

There’s over 4500 single family homes in Foster City…I think 11 of them on the market is an incredibly low number. Now’s a good time.

Sometimes it’s interesting to look at numbers and statistics because they often provide really wonderful answers to the negativity we’re frequently exposed to in the mainstream media. Here’s alot of hard data that demonstrates where we are right now…and where we’ve been.

Recent data distributed by Realtytrac, a company that compiles data on home foreclosures shows that in fact foreclosures are a regional problem, not a national crisis. While parts of Contra Costa County and Stockton have foreclosure rates in excess of 4%, the national average is 1.033%. Foster City had 4 foreclosures in the last calendar year while Antioch had almost 600. Considering the fact that 30% of all homes are actually free and clear of any mortgage the true foreclosure rate is only seven tenths of 1% of all homes.

In 1978 3.9 million homes were sold. In 1988 the number was 4 million homes. In 1998 the number jumped to 4.9 million homes. Then came this decade…in 2005 7.1 million homes sold with 40% of them being non-owner occupied. Folks went a little hog wild trying to flip houses, 12% is a typical number. Also, anybody who could fog a mirror could get a stated income subprime loan. In 2007 the total number was 5.6 million…the 5th best year ever for home sales in a supposedly dead market. There’s a whole website filled with positive statistical data put out by the National Association of Realtors that you might want to explore, here’s a link:

http://www.housingmarketfacts.com/

Ultimately you and I can peruse stats all day long, and maybe we would even agree about their authenticity but the fact remains that it’s the presence of fear in the marketplace that moves, or slows down, the pace of the market. If the majority of people think it’s a bad time to buy it’ll be a flat market at best. Way back when, I sold a waterfront townhouse on Juno Lane in Isle Cove (Foster City) to a client of mine. The market was slower and this unit had been on the market, vacant, for several months. It was pretty much original and was a little worn around the edges, we negotiated a great deal well under asking. Several other agents, including the listing agent, cautioned that it hadn’t sold because it was the end unit right next to the tennis courts and across from the pool and thus it would be a noisy problem. The seller really wanted to get rid of this place and my client got a really great buy on it so she didn’t worry about it’s location challenge. A few years later, and after some remodeling, she sold it and moved up to a bigger place. We had 5 offers on it and it went way over asking. I still clearly remember holding it open that first Sunday afternoon as droves of people filed through and I’ll bet half of them told me how much they liked the location…so conveniently located right next to the tennis courts and the pool! The fear that was present in that original marketplace had disappeared…it had been replaced by a different fear. That of being shut out of an escalating market. I suspect this pendulum will swing back again too.

First of all, congratulations to all three people who correctly named Week 1’s “Funky Foto” as being in the Dog Park in Foster City at Bounty and Foster City Blvd. The first correct answer came from Steve Toler in Foster City…and possibly he was aided just a tad since he works for the City. Way to go, Steve!! (At least he can’t play again for another 4 weeks.) Thanks also to Erika and Michael who also choose correctly…get ready guys for the next photo this Friday - March 28th!

Secondly, we made it to the Final Four in the VARBuzz Real Estate Blog Brawl! It’s really incomprehensible and certainly I owe it all to you guys for voting for this blog! Thank you very much! This round we’re up against a fantastic blog from the Detroit area…myoaklandcounty.com. Your continued support is very much appreciated, please help this little blog into the Finals! You can vote here up till midnight on March 26th:

FinalsVoteFinalsVote

Thanks again!! Go FosterCityBlog!!

I have this new listing in San Mateo, it’s a little 2 bedroom, 1 bath condo on El Camino which I put on the market on Thursday. It’s priced competitively (honest!) at $415,000. There’s two other units just like it on the market right now, a more upgraded place for $449,000 and a short sale at $405,000. I held it open at 1:00PM today, it’s first day of real exposure. At about 1:15 a young couple drive up in a new S550 Mercedes, come in spend about 5 minutes looking around with a printout on the property from some on-line source in hand and the young guy says;

“Will the seller take less?”

“How much less?” I ask.

“$300,000″ he says.

” The condo’s been on the market for less than 48 hours, we’re 15 minutes into it’s first open house, would you accept an offer $115,000 under asking if you were the seller?” says I.

“Well, that all depends on what my personal situation was” he says.

We actually, believe it or not, ended up having a good conversation but in a nutshell here’s what I told them. Nobody has a personal situation in which they give their home away to the first person who walks in the door. I’ve seen prices on properties drop $100,000 but it comes after time has elapsed via, usually, more than one price reduction. In almost 20 years I’ve never seen a seller accept an offer almost 28% under their asking price…and I hope I never do. I have heard of bank owned foreclosures in many distressed areas taking far less to get a listing off of their books but it sure isn’t happening in our area, (check out any of the posts in “How’s the market” on this blog). These are real flesh and blood people in almost all of these properties, they know the market, and they’re not real excited to be taken advantage of…and their agent’s should never let that happen anyway. You can write lowball offers until the cows come home and probably be successful…in Stockton or Antioch.

Here’s something I’ve told both buyer and seller clients for a long time. Whatever you are thinking or feeling about how to proceed towards a sale always stop and ask yourself “How would I feel if I were on the other side of this equation?” How would I respond if I were looking at the offer I want to write? How would I feel about this price if I were a buyer right now in this market? Hopefully, that little bit of perspective will go a long way.

Since it’s Friday I figured we ought to have some fun. Beginning today I’m going to have a contest to see who can successfully spot various obscure Foster City landmarks; we’ll do this every Friday from now on. You’ll find today’s goofy object above…to win the contest you need to be the first person to tell me exactly where this little gem is located by making a comment to this post. “In Foster City” doesn’t count. For the first person to reply correctly I’ve got a $30.00 gift certificate to dine at Chalet Ticino over at Charter Square in Foster City…a nice lunch for 2. I’m not going to publish the correct answers until Monday, but the first correct answer wins. I do promise to publish any and all humorous retorts, gentle ribbing and all wrong answers. Check out all of the rules by clicking the tab at the top of this page or on the left margin. Have fun, and Oh, By the Way…don’t forget to vote for me again in the Blog Brawl. I’m now in the Elite 8 and my esteemed opponent, a really great lady by the name of Cindy Jones in Virginia, is posting a page depicting herself knocking out a bottle of Foster’s lager (I guess that must be us!). Let’s not let her get away with that! See for yourself:

http://activerain.com/blogs/cijones52

Just scroll down a little bit and you’ll find the voting booth link. Go California!

A couple of years ago the New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman wrote a book called “The World is Flat” in which he asserts that thanks to the advance of technology the global playing field has been leveled and thus whatever prizes are out there can be had by any of us no matter where we reside on earth. It’s actually sort of common thinking in our world today that whether we live in the middle of nowhere or we live in Foster City we can and will be just as productive and our lives will be just as full. Place, we’ve been led to believe, is no longer relevant. Well, there’s a brilliant writer and columnist for the Toronto Globe and Mail by the name of Richard Florida who’s written a new book called “Who’s Your City? How the creative economy is making where to live the most important decision of your life” and his assertion is that the “flat world” truism is just simply wrong. While globalization may open up more of the world to us it also makes place a more key factor than ever before. Where we live affects every aspect of our lives, the people we meet, the “mating markets” in which we participate, the job networks and the careers accessible to us. Florida shows how the real driver of the global economy is a new economic unit he calls a “mega-region” and explains how the relatively few mega-regions around the globe make the world in fact “spiky” instead of flat. When factors such as population and economic activity are plotted on a world map spikes appear in various areas where these factors are most prevelent. But it’s innovation- which actually runs economic growth-that is the most concentrated. Guess who’s real, real high on the world map in terms of innovation. What’s also interesting is that the spiky pattern for commercial innovation can also be seen in it’s financing. Venture capital is geographically concentrated…and again, guess which area has the most venture capital. Florida states that VC firms often invoke the “twenty minute rule”…that is, only firms within a twenty minute commute from the VC firms office are considered worthy of high risk investment. If you think the spike is pretty high in our area when it comes to innovation you should see the spike for the source of much of the technological innovation…Scientific discovery. It’s amazing how many of the worlds most heavily cited scientists in leading fields are congregated here.

Now what’s all this have to do with Foster City? I’ve believed this intuitively for years and I’ve seen it play out time and time again in my business. I’ve had clients from all over the planet buy or sell houses from me. One group in particular, who are all good friends, are from Switzerland, China, France, Minnesota, Egypt, Florida and the Philippines and all are involved with technology. On several occasions I’ve seen clients lose jobs, only to bounce back almost immediately thanks to the innovation engine that is our local economy. Can you imagine all of these relationships happening or new jobs appearing if they all lived in Timbuktu and were tele-commuting? To a very great degree we’re all protected from much of the harshness that hits most other economic regions just by living in this area. The fact of the matter is that even within the mega-region there are smaller mega-regions. I posted this map on an earlier post…it’s worth another look. Notice how the areas most directly involved with innovation are doing the best? In October of 2004 some clients of mine, having lost out on a few small 3 bedroom, 1 bath houses in San Carlos, bought a much larger home in Fremont for the same price, $655,000, that they were looking at paying over here. A couple of weeks ago he called me, told me how sick of the commute he was and wanted me to let him know his current value in preparation for moving back. Two houses identical to theirs sold so far this year for $610,000 and $589,000. Meanwhile, I sold a 2 bedroom, 1 bath house in the same San Carlos neighborhood two weeks ago for $687,500. Which areas are weathering the storm better? Now add to that the fact that Foster City is positioning itself for the future with the inclusion of innovators like Gilead, IBM and Reardon Commerce, just to start, and I think it’s undeniable how bright the future is here. Just for fun, here’s a couple of interesting links. One is Carol Lloyd’s column in the San Francisco Chronicle about Richard Florida’s book:

ChronStory

The other is a link to the Who’s Your City? webpage:

Who’sYourCity?

As an insurance professional, I am asked often about renter’s insurance.  Usually, it is followed by, “isn’t it expensive?”  The short answer?  No.  An average renter’s insurance policy is only about $15 per month.  What is expensive, is not having renter’s insurance.  As a college student some moons ago, I had my apartment broken into twice in the city.  It was during Spring break both times, and all of what I considered my prized possessions were stolen. Did I mention twice??  Believe it or not, I actually had renter’s insurance as it was required by my landlord.   I was required to fill out some lengthy inventory forms, and within a week or so, I was sent a rather handsome check to replace my lost belongings.  As far as renter’s insurance claims, this was a fairly basic claim.  What many renter’s don’t realize is, the insurance not only covers you for theft like in my situation, but for a multitude of other things.  How about a few years back when there were fires at the newly built Santana Row.  Does anyone remember seeing these poor people on the news who lost everything?  We’re talking all of their clothes, furniture, stereo, t.v.’s, kid’s toys?  The majority of these people did not have renter’s insurance.  I know this because the news was reporting it and actually urging renters to go out and purchase policies.  Had these people had renter’s insurance, not only would it have helped them re-build their lives, it also would have paid to put them up in temporary housing.  Renter’s insurance also provides liability protection.  How many renter’s out there have animals?  Any idea how much it costs if your dog bites someone?  A lot!!  How about if you have a cocktail party and someone has a little too much to drink and slips and falls while doing the limbo on your kitchen floor?  What if that little fall causes a serious head injury, or worse?  Guess who may be liable for that?  I think you are getting my point here.  $15 to $20 per month, you tell me, is it worth it?  Keep in mind that renters insurance policies do vary from company to company, but most basic policies cover at least fire, theft and liability.  Your limits are based on your individual needs.  Liability coverage is there to protect your assets, so don’t think just because you don’t own a home that you have nothing to protect.  If you work and bring home a paycheck, you have something to protect.  You may also be eligible for a nice discount on your auto insurance by adding a renter’s insurance policy.  Often times, the discount almost pays for the renter’s policy.  Give your agent a call today and let them assess your needs. If you would like to talk to me about it click here:

Jen’s website