Archive for September, 2009

Here’s a quick snapshot for all those interested in condos at the Infinity in San Francisco.  We’re not allowed to publicly post sales prices, unfortunately, so email me at michael -at- resonantproperties.com and I’ll email them to you (I will only send one email, I won’t add you to any list).

Without further ado:

Source: New York Times

The New York Times just recently wrote a great article about the 7 New Rules For First Time Home Buyers.  It’s well worth reading in it’s entirety, but if you’re short on time here are a few gems:

The Basics: Put 20% down, get a fixed rate mortgage, and if you want to be conservative don’t spend more than 35% of your pretax income towards your mortgage.

Dennis Stearns, the financial planner quoted in the article, estimates that owners who do some of the work themselves but contract out bigger projects will spend 3.6% of the homes price on upkeep and repairs every year. For older homes, this amount jumps to 4.5% per year.  Probably not an issue for San Francisco Condo owners, but if you’re buying a Victorian keep this in mind.

Another financial planner, Michael Kalscheur, recommends you either buy an entry level home or stretch to get your favorite home, but don’t settle for anything in the middle. The reasoning is that if you buy an entry level home, you’ll save a lot more so you can get the home you want sooner.  If you stretch and buy the home you want, you’ll stay in it longer and won’t lose money on the transactions costs of selling (6% of the home’s cost or more).

Click here to read the full article.

San Francisco Real Estate Market Activity Statistics

The above chart, from Altos Research, shows the “Market Action Index” for the four price tiers of San Francisco condos.  The market action index doesn’t measure a single specific stat, such as sales price or volume.  Instead, it is a combination of those stats and more, developed by Altos Research, to give a rough sense of what the market is doing.

From looking at this chart, it would appear that the bottom was closer to April and May, and that we are now doing substantially better.  As with all statistics, though, it’s important to keep in mind this is just one piece of data.  From what I’ve been seeing, there are still many short sales out there with the potential for a fair amount more to come.

Our local association of Realtors has been working hard to create high quality videos to help buyers and sellers better understand the real estate market and process.  Click the icon below to take a look at some of the latest San Francisco real estate videos they’ve created… because knowing is half the battle.

(Learn more about buying, selling and financing
real property. Click on the link to view video
features on contemporary real estate subjects.)