As promised, here’s the chart for the condos/townhouses for the first 6 months of 2008. Strangely, it looks alot like the single family homes chart…with 56 units selling, 14 of which experienced price reductions. The total reduction in value in this segment of the market was 1.52%…again very similar to single family. Interestingly, the unit at 854 Andromeda actually had an original list price lower than the price it got an offer at! It was originally listed for $739,500, raised the price to $759,000 and it ended up selling for $742,000.

Still a tad sluggish when it comes to active listings in this category. 36 active and 10 pending…that’s just slightly better than the last time I looked but not by enough to make any real difference.

Anyway, have fun.

In the past I’ve done market updates that have shown the currently active listings as well as the pending sales. I thought it would be worth it to post the sold homes in Foster City for the first half of this year as well. These sold comps actually bleed a little bit into July but I’ll try to adjust to that when I do this again at the end of the year. The chart above shows the 54 single family homes that have closed escrow through the first weeks in July. The highlighted properties reflect homes where their asking prices were reduced prior to receiveing a ratified offer…there’s 14 of them. I commonly hear people say “I see all these price reductions…the market must be really slow!” In my opinion 14 price reductions out of 54 solds isn’t too bad. Secondly the question has to be asked, what factors led to those reductions? In many of these cases the homes sold right about where they should have…they were priced too high to begin with.

If you’re thinking of being ambitious and crunching these numbers yourself…have fun! I’ve been trying to do it all day today! It’s hard to do this, there’s so many similar numbers that my brain kept boggling. I’ll bet I added them up 15 times and kept getting different answers! I finally gave up and asked the accountants in my office to do it for me! Turns out, as I suspected, that the Foster City single family market is down 1.77% through this period. Pretty much what I had spoken of in that podcast I did…with less comps at that point. This number reflects the ratio between the asking prices and their closed prices, not a comparison to 2007. I’m looking forward to that comparison at the end of this year.

It’s worth mentioning that the market has opened up again. As of today there are 25 active listings and 17 pending sales. Significantly different than a few weeks ago when we had 32 active and 9 pending.

Anyway, I think it’s all pretty interesting stuff…I’ll be doing a chart for condos/townhouses too coming soon.

“There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics” Mark Twain

I got so excited about this post that I really feel like it needs musical accompaniment…so before you start digging in, go ahead and click the button below first. It’ll add to the enjoyment!

On Tuesday afternoon I surfed through SFGate.com and discovered that our friends at the Chronicle had, as one of their lead stories, a piece on the real estate market that was headlined “Real Estate Market in Free Fall”. They later modified that and it morped into the more friendly “The Plunge In The Price Of Homes Gets Worse” . The story had an attached companion piece showing Bay Area Home Prices By Zip in which I was shocked to discover that Foster City(FYI: The Chronicle thinks that Foster City is in San Mateo) has dropped in value 9.9% and, incredibly, the San Mateo Zip Code 94402 has dropped a whopping 27.1%! That last number was particularly stunning since it made it worse than Daly City, South City or Pacifica. As you may have guessed…I didn’t believe these numbers.

The Chronicle was touting the work of “experts” S&P/Case-Shiller who had compared the numbers from May 2007 to May 2008 numbers and thus had drawn their conclusions. Honestly, I got a little nervous because I had not done a year to date analysis myself and I reasoned that since May 07 was pre-mortgage meltdown I figured it was logical to assume that there could have been a fairly significant drop. So yesterday morning I got up and crunched the actual numbers from the MLS database. I looked at 94402 because that decline was so enormous. That zip is comprised of San Mateo Park, Baywood, Aragon, Parrott Park and, atypically, Sunnybrae, which is largely a starter home neighborhood. The others are very pricey. Guess what? Turns out that in May of 2007 not a single house in Sunnybrae sold…the lowest priced house in 94402 that month went for $1,200,000. Of the 20 houses that sold then all of them were on the west side. In May of 2008 8 out of 21 houses sold were on the east side and as you might guess that has a very large effect on the averages…actually a difference of 27%!

How about Foster City? In single family homes in May of 2007 19 sold at an average price of $1,131,526. In May 2008 17 homes sold…at an average price of $1,153,287! That’s right, values on single family homes actually ROSE year to date! So why the 9.9% decline? Because S&P/Case-Shiller averaged in condos/townhouses, and in May 2007 19 of them sold…including two at Promontory Point that sold for $1,087,000 and $1,335,000. In May of 2008 only four condos/townhouses sold…the most for $750,000. The average of both single family and condos/townhouses together shows a net loss of 9.9% as a result.

This kind of reporting is preposterous folks. You can’t compare multi million dollar properties to studio condos in search of truth about real estate values. I wonder if the June or July numbers come out and show no Sunnybrae sales in 2008 but 8 or 9 in 2007…will the Chronicle report that 94402 had a 27% increase year to date? If the July 2007 numbers show several 1 bedroom condo sales at the Admiralty and the July 2008 numbers show the three single family houses that closed over $1,600,000, will they report a 200% increase in values in Foster City?

I think this reporting is unfair and stretches the truth about this area alot. The only free fallin’ going on here is done by Tom Petty. (I saw him once in concert at the University of Denver…but hey, I’m a fossil)

It occured to me while I was showing property over the weekend that maybe the best thing about this current market is the fact that buyers don’t have to compromise nearly as much as they used to. Fortunately, the old and wise rules about real estate investment have returned…and that’s a good thing! In the past 10 years or so, if you wrote down a list of the top 10 or 15 attributes you wanted in the purchase of a home you might have been lucky to have gotten 2 or 3 of them. People, quite literally, were buying homes they didn’t even like because they were so afraid that an escalating market would price them out. Now there’s something we haven’t seen in a while…choice!

Of course the pendulum has swung pretty far in the other direction right now and many buyers have talked themselves out of making an offer on places they liked because of relatively small, or eminently fixable problems discovered about the home they’re interested in. I heard a story recently about some buyers that backed out of a transaction because they discovered that the seller’s small child had scibbled on a wall with a crayon as they were doing their final walkthrough. It is funny to me, and certainly ironic, that many things that didn’t seem all that important a few years ago take on so much more meaning today. Buyers certainly inspect a home more thoroughly than they used to and there’s more soul searching discussion about moving forward too.

All this circumspection makes me think of a listing I had in Belmont in 2000. The seller, who had grown up in the home, was liquidating it following the death of her parents. Across the street was the back end of a shopping center and there was a ton of garbage, including an old mattress sitting near the loading docks. The house was in original condition and had a rotting front porch, rear deck and an attached storage shed that was literally falling apart. The worst part though was that the painstakingly honest seller had written in the disclosure that “sewage backs up into the house”. “Ummm…could you explain that?” I asked. Turns out the main sewer line for the City of Belmont ran right behind the back fence and when it rained heavily it got clogged up with debris and wouldn’t drain properly…and when that happened all that liquid backed up into the house, sometimes filling up the sinks and bathtub! This was a first for me as a listing agent. “What do you do?” I asked. “We call the city and they unclog it…usually takes 3 or 4 hours, no big deal” She said. 3 or 4 hours of sewage in your bathtub and sinks! It actually had a pretty easy fix but her family had gotten used to it…for 38 years! The moral of the story? We got 3 offers and it went over asking, As Is.

Do you know how grateful I am not to be getting that listing in July 2008! Folks, there’s no such thing as a perfect house so you’ll end up having to compromise on something…but I’m betting you won’t have to accept sewage in your new home in this market.

My wife Lesley’s aunt Barbara lives in a little town about 30 miles north of Memphis, Tennessee called Munford. It’s sort of a bedroom community, kind of cute and quaint but kind of lacking when it comes to the truly important things in life that we’re used to…like soy latte’s and Pomegranate Jamba Juice smoothies. No 99 Ranch Markets yet in Munford either. You can get great BBQ there though! About 2 and a half years ago we were back visiting Barb and we happened to walk by this house you see above, which was for sale for $499,000. Lesley and the girls just came back from another visit…it’s still on the market. It’s $449,000 now. This house is a 4200 sq ft, 4 bedroom, 3.5 bath palace with 4 car garage on 3 acres with it’s own private lake…and it’s own dock. It also has a formal living room, 2 family rooms and a game room. I sold a house that wasn’t this nice on 1 acre in Atherton in 2006 for $5,975,000. Here’s the key feature…it’s hard to sell! Meanwhile, in Foster City, there’s a 998 sq ft 2 bedroom, 1.5 bath condo at the Admiralty on the market for $469,950…it’ll probably sell for $449,000.

I read alot of other real estate blogs because it really gives me great ideas but also because it gives me greater perspective. Do you realize that in Reno over 50% of the transactions done are short sales and foreclosures right now? That the average days on the market in large parts of Denver are around 200? I heard a realtor from Modesto tell a story about how she had talked to a person about selling their home and the place had almost $800,000 in loans on it…and she figured it’s value to be around $375,000.

I read another blog post about a home in St. Paul, Minnesota that had been on the market 6 months…and during that time had only gotten 2 showings! That’s amazing to me folks, especially since I had over 100 people at my last open house. There’s just no getting around the fact that we live in an incredibly special place. As I said in my podcast, we live in a place where values have only fallen less than 2% this year. I’m sure if you’re a buyer that’s not what you want to hear…because you’re hoping to buy that house in the picture above for $449,000 somewhere on the Peninsula. I’m sorry, but it’s simply not going to happen. We live in an area where, by and large, values are protected by the incredible vibrancy of the innovation economy here…and what better reason could there be to invest in this area.

I had so much fun with the last podcast on Single Family Homes I thought I’d do it again for Condos and Townhouses. Just click on the gray arrow below and your off and running. Thanks!

Welcome to the first ever FosterCityBlog Podcast! Today I thought I’d discuss where we’ve been so far in the first half of 2008. Just click on the gray arrow below, and off you go. Since this is a first time, if you’re having any problems opening this link please let me know. Thanks!

The Real Estate market this year in Foster City has been just like this…wavy! Up and down, peaks and valleys. Frankly, it’s made me a little nuts. Another thing that’s been true about it has been it’s unpredictability. Nothing will sell for weeks…and then 10 houses go all at once, and it’s been like that all year so far. What makes things even weirder is that in the upswing phase we’ve seen some pretty marginal houses sell, yet fantastic ones are just sitting there in a down period. In 2008 timing truly has been everything. I’m planning on doing something a little different later this week, I’m going to do a Podcast on the Foster City market’s first 6 months of 2008 and the numbers are really pretty interesting. In this post though I thought it would be worth while talking about what’s currently for sale.

Currently, there’s 30 single family houses on the market in Foster City. Between May 20 and June 10 16 houses sold. Between June 11 and today there’s been 3. I know I’m sort of going out on a limb here but, in my opinion, of the 30 active listings 9 of them are overpriced. If any of those 9 sold at their asking prices it would represent the most money ever spent for their floor-plans. I don’t believe that 2008 is a great year to pioneer a new price range. That has happened this year, but those houses (ie:763 Matsonia) were so extraordinary and unusual that the added value was understandable.

Of the remaining active listings some really stand out to me as worth mentioning and commenting on:

1128 Blythe listed by Ronda O’Leary of Cashin Company for $1,348,888. What a great job of preparation by these sellers and Ronda…it’s a great testament to them and the value of staging! Priced right in this great Ponderosa Shores neighborhood for a 5 bedroom house.

285 Duck Ct listed by Giovanni Bruschi of Prudential for $1,249,888. This is one of those houses I was talking about earlier. First of all, it’s stunning! Really a gorgeous house. It got multiple offers, ratified and the buyers couldn’t go through with the sale and it fell through after 13 days. Since then, no offers…it’s a real head scratcher to me.

1330 Ribbon listed by Mary Bee of Re/Max Today for $965,000. It’s the second lowest priced house in Foster City. It, too, is a very nice home…I’m surprised it’s still there after 52 days on the market. These houses are all good opportunities, I know I’ll show them.

Our last upswing came, in my opinion, following the Chronicle running a positive front page story about this market providing good opportunities for home buyers. They’ve run a dozen or more negative pieces since then, maybe they’re due to cycle around again and we’ll see something positive soon…and 16 houses will sell right away. Meanwhile, stay tuned for that Podcast on Thursday because the facts are really illuminating.

The Condo/Townhouse segment of the Foster City market is holding it’s own about as well as single family houses over all with 36 active listings and 13 pending sales as of today. The pendings are in the lighter tone above. That ratio has increased a tad since I did this report six weeks ago, when there were 31 active units and 18 pending sales, but it’s interesting to note that a large number of those sales, 10 of 13, sold since May 27. That sort of reflects the same little boost we had with Single Family houses during that same period. Of course these units vary tremendously in size and utility, but I can’t resist highlighting a few that are worth seeing because they’re so darn nice! I would expect to see them sell relatively quickly:

893 Erickson listed by Jan Majeski of Alain Pinel for $879,500. This is one really adorable townhouse at Winston Square. 4 bedrooms, 2.5 baths…and really done nicely! A top drawer remodel, I like this place alot.

1025 Helm listed by Debbie Wong of Prudential for $748,888. This wide waterfront 3 bedroom, 2.5 bath unit at Bayfront Court is also done well and it’s rare to see a waterfront exposure this terrific. Shows really well, it’s a great listing!

4106 Admiralty listed by Guillermo Reyes of Keller Williams for $415,000. I know, I know…the Admiralty has it’s issues, and yes, the refrigerator is in the dinning room, but you don’t see many folks willing to really fix up a one bedroom unit like these folks have. It’s a really cute unit!

Go have a look…tell me if you disagree.

As I’ve written on preceeding posts, Single Family inventory had increased considerably from earlier this year until we actually reached a high of 31 houses a few weeks ago. Several sales have taken place in the last 2 weeks bringing the total number of currently active homes to 23 this morning, along with 18 pending sales. In the chart above the pending sales are highlighted in gray. DOM denotes the days on the market the house has been actively for sale.

Of the newer listings here there are a few that are worth commenting on:

642 Greenwich listed by Sue Dickey of Alain Pinel for $1,698,888 is the gem of this crop. Really and truly gorgeous! If you can spare a few minutes this weekend go visit it’s open house…you won’t regret it. Very, very nice home on wide water at Whalers.

774 Widgeon listed by Cindy Liebsch of Coldwell Banker for $1,349,000. Narrow waterfront house that’s also a real beauty! Lot’s of natural light and very nicely remodeled. Another one that’s worth a look.

330 Bluefish listed by Jessica Yau of Coldwell Banker for $1,098,888. This listing was on for a while at a higher price and was recently reduced, making it a really good buy in my opinion for a 2 story 4 bedroom home. I can’t imagine it lasting too much longer at this price.

Keep an eye on these homes, I’m betting they all sell quickly.