Bet you didn ‘t see this at the Metro Center Safeway today!

Sorry folks, I realize that lots of you are here for the 80th week of the Funky Foto Contest but I’m putting it off until next week. Instead I decided to talk about a subject near and dear to my heart…that of the disease called Epidermolysis Bullosa…or EB. The reason being that this week is International EB Awareness Week and I really want to draw attention to that fact. You see the thing is my daughter Christina has this condition…albeit the mildest form, yet I can assure you that our awareness is certainly up. I wrote a post last year on this date telling her story a bit and oh, by the way…that’s the little kooks picture down below. EB is a condition in which the proteins we all have that allows us to absorb friction somehow went missing in the genetic makeup of these kids. As a result, they blister…sometimes alot. As I said earlier, some kids have it more severely than others. Christina, in the mildest form, will most likely need a wheelchair for anything that would entail lots of walking throughout her life. Places like large school campuses, or the airport, or the mall…or Disneyland would really be impossible for her to navigate on foot because the friction that we all take for granted would render her incapable of walking in those places.

Please, please don’t get me wrong! We’re incredibly blessed! Christina is an amazing kid! She’s triumphant. It would be impossible to describe the multitude of lessons I’ve learned because of her patience and courage…and what an attitude! Pistol is the best word to describe her.

Here’s the thing…there’s a ton of kids that have more severe forms of EB. The photo above is of one of those kids. Honestly, when I went in search of a photo for this post, and found this precious child above, I typed in “photos of Epidermolysis Bullosa” into Google. The photo above is one of the milder ones…by far. (see for yourself) The kids with Recessive Dystrophic and Junctional EB are absolutely devastating to behold. I really believe there is no condtion or disease in life that’s worse than this…and I’m honestly not even coming close to exaggeration. Thus…this annual awareness post. Please click on the following links and please consider donating to the ongoing research, lots of which is going on just down the road at Stanford, to rid the world of this condition and bring hope to many many families worldwide. Thanks for reading this and thanks for your help! Here’s the links: 

 http://www.ebinfoworld.com/

http://www.debra.org/        http://www.ebkids.org/

Got this really outstanding e-mail the other day from blog reader Nancy Chang:

“Hi Jim,

Just read your blog entry on “Choosing the right path”. Sounds a lot like homes in the $600,000 to $800,000 will get offer prices over asking prices. So what do you think about 827 Vespucci lane unit that sold for $570,000 when the asking was $630,000 and the 1497 Marlin unit that sold for $630,000 and the original listing price was $699,000? It just doesn’t make sense at all. Why are they sold for so much lower while others are being bought for higher than asking price. By the way, I don’t know about the Marlin unit but I saw the Vespucci unit. It’s nice and updated and the HOA is low. What gives?”

GREAT QUESTION! There’s not an easy answer either. Why do some homes get 13 offers, go $120,000 over asking and some sit for months? The example in Nancy’s e-mail are classics too. Maybe the only explanation lies in the reality that the old, pre 1998, way of thinking about real estate has returned…being that location and type of property are of singular importance in determining value. In 2004, for example, anyproperty seemed to get multiple offers! If your house was right on Hillsdale Blvd, it got multiple offers. Small condos got 15 offers, houses right next to the train tracks did too. The properties that Nancy mentions above are all townhouses and even though they are in good locations and have reasonable HOA dues they’re still townhouses…and those have historically not been as valuable as single family homes.

 I know that I have far more requests from clients this year to find a single family house than for condos. One in particular, a young woman in her late 30’s who’s qualified up to about $385,000 is determined to find a single family house when a condo would be so much better suited for her. About 95% of the houses in her price range are in areas that she really doesn’t want t0 live in, but she’s SO very motivated to buy a house that she’s been overlooking these homes obvious location problems to reach her goal. The locations of the condo’s in her price range are much better…but that doesn’t matter. A house has more appeal.

Maybe we’re just in a normal market…or maybe the desire to live in the Mid Peninsula is so stable and solid that we’ll see mutiples on all categories again soon. We’ll see…

For the last few years, since the proliferation of real estate and real estate related topics on the Internet, I have heard comments about great deals available on foreclosures…usually coming from a buyer’s discovery of said opportunity online. Most of the large aggregator sites…Trulia, Movoto, Realtytrac get info from the public record and publish this data and a great many people think they can buy a house on the water in Foster City for pennies on the dollar. Folks can see, for example, a “pre-foreclosure” opportunity on Grunion Ct in Foster City with an amount of $10,649.00 next to it. Every once in  awhile, I’ll get a call from somebody all excited about the opportunity to buy this type of house for a price like this. Ummm…I think not. There’s a ton of this type of listing out there and what they are in reality are notice of defaults filed. It means that this homeowner is experiencing some kind of financial difficulty, maybe has missed a couple of payments. Maybe the homeowner missed a couple of payments on some other type of note not related at all to the subject property too. In my experience, people don’t lose homes around here for amounts this low. Certainly, you can’t buy it for that low amount.

When I looked at the MLS history on closed property in Foster City since the beginning of 2009 I was surprised to see very few foreclosures. That is, homes that were owned by a bank and sold by them. There have been short sales, but most of those are in smaller condos. All told there were less than 10 foreclosures that actually matriculated in Foster City so far this year. Yet, Realtytrac is showing that there are 281 bank owned properties here. Go figure! Where have they been hiding? Are secret buyers buying them from secret bank representatives? I’m confused.

I’d love to see deeply discounted REO’s hit this market…even though they would get lots and lots of offers. I just don’t think they’re coming. I think folks in trouble have found ways to get out of it. Certainly we would see ALOT more short sales in this market long before we would see REO’s. If there really are 281 bank owned properties, how did we miss 281 (or so) short sales? Did these sellers just all emotionally throw in the towel collectively? As a conspiracy…like they all planned to let their banks take over their homes without trying to sell?

I really don’t know the answer…I just know that it makes no sense that Foster City has a large number of secret foreclosures.

You guys are good! The answer from Friday is, of course, Plum Island. Congratulations to Nicole Fabris who wins the $30.00 gift card to Jack’s Prime in San Mateo. Great job Nicole! Also arriving with the correct answer was Carol, Kirk, Erika, Suresh, Pak, Bill and Jan. Good knowledge folks! I hope you have a great and productive week and we’ll see you again soon!

Not too far from reality!

Sorry!! Kind of got hung up this morning! Anyway, this weeks pic begs the question…what is this FC waterfront development? This weeks winner will receive a $30.00 gift card to Jack’sPrime burgers in San Mateo. All correct answers along with the winner will be published on Monday morning. Any and all silly jokes, kooky barbs, quips or snide remarks about this post being late will be published immediately if not sooner. All the rules are available to view on the left hand margin as well as on the bar above. Thanks for hanging in there! Have a great weekend!

I saw this post yesterday in the SF Chronicle’s blog “On The Block” and was really crazy about it! So much so that I’m reprinting the whole thing here. It’s right on…except for the part about ponying up commission! Enjoy.

Anna Marie Hibble

Disclaimer: I am not a Realtor. I speak as a buyer-to-be, always shopping not only for home, but for an agent who can get me in that home. And in choosing an agent, I trust most word of mouth: friends who love the person they worked with. What I trust least is actually what costs the agent most: visual advertisements.

Seriously not a good use of money

Now, house porn I get: we are looking to buy a house. We want to see the exterior, the interior. We want to imagine ourselves cooking something steamy and sinful in that glossy kitchen. We want to lounge in the that backyard, feeling the sunshine (magically captured in the photo) on our graying, coastal-climate skin. Sexy.

But why are agent self promotion ads also sexy? We do not expect to buy the agent, so his/her appearance is really far, far beside the point. Why the glam shot? Why that weird shine in the face? It just makes agents look plastic, made by Mattel-like, Barbies and Kens. Such a look does not engender trust, but rather the opposite, because no one in her right mind trusts Barbie, and especially not Ken.

Realtors are often posed in these photos in ways that bring to mind high school year books: chin on hand, wise expression. Also the text is apt to be hyperbolic: wild promises of dreams coming true and ending world hunger and such.

Holy, hallowed agent!

Let us be realistic, shall we? It is just real estate, not a religious conversion

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Finally, the placement of these ads is often cause for mirth. Ads found at bus stops are targets for the cruelest graffiti tags, as miserable throngs awaiting an untimely N-Judah take out their rage with Sharpies. Now Barbie looks like Satan, Ken a cross dresser. Billboards, though higher off the ground, are no safer, as evidenced in the photo above.

My favorite pointless placements are in the small plastic squares that adorn shopping carts. These are particularly entertaining when the carts are captured by one of the more intrepid homeless, smattered with dirt and beer and less mentionables. In purest irony, one can just make out the ARE YOU IN NEED OF A HOME? tagline.

He does need a home- but not the way you mean

Oh, agent, save your money! What you spend on bad ads and stiff hair styles, you could offer in kick backs off your commission. Believe me, cash is a bigger draw than your visage, no matter how awesome the Photoshopping. Cheaper still: be ethical, practical, and convivial; thus, your conduct will be the kind of advertisement that really pays off.

Determining the correct path when it comes to making a decision about what price to offer on a house in this area seems to get more and more confusing with each passing month. In the last 3 months in San Mateo, Foster City, Belmont and San Carlos 187 single family homes have closed escrow in all price ranges. Of those 57 houses closed escrow at a price over their original asking price…and most of those were just slightly over asking. Only 1 house originally priced at $1mil or more sold for more. 42 of those 57 overbids were on homes priced at $825,000 or less, so in other words the lower the price, the greater the chance you’re going to have to pay more than asking to get the house. If the house is priced under $500,000…it’s a guarantee.

Here’s the thing, there were 100 houses priced between $829,000 and $2.4mil…and 15 over bids. 36 houses sold that were listed between $695,000 and $829,000…15 of those had overbids. The highest being 4203 Skymont in Belmont that went $60,000 over asking. 2 others hit $50,000 over but most were under $10,000. Even under $500,000 the overbids were at most $65,000 on an REO in San Mateo. It was originally listed at $389,000.

The question for buyers and agents alike becomes, what price should we offer? If a number of offers come in with FHA loans and I have 20% down will that overcome someone elses higher bid? Here’s my opinion…it’s flat out confusing! If less than 10% of the offers on every house sold in the last 3 months were aggressive overbids, how aggressive should we go?

Yesterday I presented an offer for some clients on a great house at 3519 Winway in San Mateo. The house was listed for $699,000 and needed some updating but was a great value. It was obvious at the open house Sunday that there was going to be multiple offers. My client commented that there were too many smiles on faces there, he was sure he was going to have competition! Sure enough, there were 13 offers…it sold for more than $800,000. How do you figure it? With no history at all of even 1 single $100,000 plus overbid in the area, somebody stepped up for this house. It actually is a fantastic house…so it”ll most likely pay off.

To me this is a very interesting thing. I had a listing a month or so ago that got 8 offers and only went over asking by $888.00. The question needs to be asked: Are we going back to large overbids to secure properties? If so, how will the appraisals come out if buyers are doing that? How many zany overbids does it take to constitute a trend? How many buyers will get sick of losing out before they start suggesting it themselves?

Great knowledge folks!! The correct answer from Friday’s question was, of course, Bayfront Court. This weeks winner was Debbie Yeung who arrived first on the scene with that answer. Good job Debbie! Also answering correctly was Lakshmi, AR, Asif, Edna, Carol, Jan, Kavita, SLC, Erika and Shrikant. Good job folks! Try again this Friday when we’ll do it all over again. Thanks for playing!