How’s the market? Same question, different city but the answer is always the same, because it always depends on why you’re asking the question. If you own, is it because you want to sell, or need information for applying for a property tax adjustment? If you are considering selling and are curious if this is the right time to sell, yes it is because you may feel you’re selling low but you’ll be buying low, too. Are you an investor? Your reasons are always different. The market is seeing a recovery
Here’s the market snapshot for Foster City, CA. Comparing to the other communities around here it’s doing okay with low inventory and prices holding upwards. This is a perfect example of all real estate is local, local, local and then hyper-local. The average price for a home in Foster City is $1,002,584. The average price for a condo or townhouse in Foster City is $544,528.
San Mateo is the largest city in our County with over 90,000 people and of course that means the most houses. Hold your hats here, we’re talking about over 25,000 homes just in San Mateo and they offer the greatest spread of prices, too. From entry level condos and houses to homes as grand any many in Hillsborough
How’s the market doing? It’s a question we get often and one that doesn’t have a simple answer. It’s not necessarily good or bad, it depends. It depends on whether you want to buy, sell, invest, rent or are just curious to know if you home’s value has stopped dropping.
We’re into the January gloom. Both in weather and in real estate. Our local market really starts coming to life the end of January and sometimes as late as right after Super Bowl Sunday. If you’re a serious buyer you already know most of what’s on the market right now is either a short sale or a bank owned property. If a new listing comes out and isn’t a short sale or bank owned it might be one soon, if they can’t get their price.
Thanks to the California Housing Financing Agency (Cal HFA), first-time home shoppers can finance the purchase of their home with just about the same amount of money needed for a security deposit and first month’s rent required to move into a rental home.
Cal HFA currently provides 1.0% down payment, below market interest rate financing along with a little closing cost assistance to help home buyers finance the purchase of their first home. This program combines the Cal HFA FHA 30 year fixed rate mortgage currently (as of December 17, 2010) at 4.0% (APR 4.81%) with the California Homebuyer Down Payment Assistance Program (CHDAP) simple interest, silent mortgage at 3.25% (APR 3.25%).
I thought it would be interesting to look at what’s going on in the foreclosure arena for our corner of the world. It’s looking like the clock is ticking for a lot of families and they will soon have to come to a hard reality about their housing needs. We aren’t seeing a ton of bank owned properties in the MLS yet, but the data here is telling us there are a lot of houses schedule for auction, where they become bank owned, and a lot receiving notices of default where the mortgage hasn’t been paid for several months.
It’s a Buyer’s Market and there are a lot of great properties for sale. In fact, as the year winds to an end, each one of these houses is truly on sale. People listing homes this time of the year want to sell and are willing to negotiate. Negotiation is the key word today. What the asking price is, isn’t generally what the selling price is.
It’s not often that one gets recognition for toiling in the trenches writing about real estate. Realtor.com has just named me one of the 100 real estate influencers they are thankful for. I am, blush, very proud to be part of this distinguished group of Realtors across the US.
The Burlingame market report is showing prices have declined, but this is something that usually happens at year end. We’re seeing a good selection of houses with 64 listings. These houses are staying on the market longer and prices are getting reduced the longer they’re there. If you find a great house, don’t expect it to languish as the really good ones go pretty fast. It’s a great time to buy with historically low interest rates but the banks are tough today and you must be able to qualify
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