There are exactly 65 days left to qualify for the $8000 First Time Buyer’s Credit. You must be in contract by April 30,2010 and close escrow by June 30th. You can buy a home up to $800,000 and have an income as high as $225,000 for a couple or $125,000 for a single person. We have homes to show you, so why aren’t you looking? Seriously. This price range is hot, hot, hot and we are seeing multiple offers, once again, which means you must be out looking every weekend.

We don’t really anticipate seeing many foreclosures this year because the banks are beginning to work with their customers to stave them off. This year will see short sales. The Alt-A loans are almost all gone and now what will be coming up are some loans that should affect our market. The people who purchased homes in the mid to late 2000’s and who took out ARMs of 5 or 7 years are going to see them resetting this year. If they reset now, they’ll reset for lower then the original rate for the first year only.

Over all Foster City is the healthiest market in our area. Prices are up and we’re seeing that there were 2 months where prices exceeded the list price. This is something we haven’t seen in several years. Foster City sits in a perfect location for commutes to bio-tech or hi-tech, east bay or the City.

We expect to see short sales and REO’s to come in 2010 in Burlingame and if you’re hoping to buy or need to sell because of this, then you need an agent who is experienced in this kind of sale. The Wilkas Group is trained and has had experience with both short sales and bank owned sales. Do not use an agent who will learn on your transaction. There are too many issues that come up during the escrow to allow a person learning the system. Use an expert like the Wilkas Group.

I just ran a report to see how the market has been in San Mateo for single family and condo/townhouses this past year. San Mateo has about 90,000 people living in it making it the second largest city in the county. Prices run from entry level condos and houses into many millions of dollars for a huge house.