Marin Real Estate Blog

July is here in Marin, with warmer weather and plenty to do outdoors. That could mean afternoons at any of our half dozen beaches, dining outside, hiking, biking, or strolling through any of our twelve towns, you name it. I can’t say we have it all in Marin, but if it’s not here, it’s probably close by. This is a good thing, unless you’re trying to buy a home here. What was supposed to be our slower season of buying activity didn’t materialize, even after the Brexit news. And we don’t yet see that changing anytime soon.

Residents here know that June is normally the start of our summer slowdown. Buyers and sellers alike concentrate on vacation planning or graduation for kids and relatives. After Brexit, we were all thinking, “Okay, so this year we’re going to see an early slowdown.” Not so as we all witnessed multiple offers on the good properties, correcting those of us agents (and clients) who were expecting even a slight leveling off of activity. It’s almost as if people were selling off their volatile stocks and heading for the safety of real estate, who knows. But the home buying continued straight through July 1st (the day of this writing) with probably a few off-days for the holiday, then likely right back at it.

Buyers continued to buy, with no concern for a possible drop in interest rates either, as the media predicted and as they too were proven wrong. Any smart financial advisor or banker will tell you not to try and play the rate game with the market anyway. Mortgages are still near record lows and incredibly cheap. After interest deductions, you could be paying an effective rate of 2.5% on the average loan right now. No buyers I’m working with want to wait. They are locking in loan rates and home prices now, anticipating a slow rise in both over the near (and probably longer) term. The two go in step, though not at the same pace.

Mortgage rates are slow to fall, but can rise quickly. Home prices, on the other hand, go in short bursts in both directions: up in the spring and early summer months, then leveling off thru autumn, then back up in the fall. Winter is basically flat, but nowhere do you see prices drop, unless there is a world event of severe magnitude. Too many people want to live here and we don’t have enough homes for them all. It’s simple as that.

Thanks for reading this, as always. Enjoy July wherever you are!

TS

Text or call 415.377.5222 or email ted@gomarin.com

Filed under: Marin Real Estate Blog by Ted Strodder

City buyers have discovered Marin. Not that this is an average example, but a recent listing in Presidio Heights got bid up from $7.5 mil all the way to $11.3 mil, or nearly 50% of the asking price. The byline of the article is “Housing market shows no signs of sluggishness in one of the city’s priciest neighborhoods”, here at http://sf.curbed.com/2016/5/23/11746490/william-wurster-presidio-heights-over.

                                                  Bayfront Park in Mill Valley, one of many in Marin
Meanwhile, back down here on earth, we see those same buyers coming over the Golden Gate looking for a lot more house and land for a lot less money. My last six listing sales have all had multiple offers, with over half of them being folks from the city, looking for a single family house and an actual yard for themselves or their kids. And they don’t have to pay $11 mil or $2,000 per sq ft, either. For what you pay in SF for a 1 Br condo in a high rise, you get a nice 3 Br home in Mill Valley, or an even nicer 4 Br home a few miles north. Prices in local areas are primarily driven by proximity to San Francisco. If you’re in the bullseye itself, you’re paying top dollar. The farther out you go, the cheaper it gets, simple as that. And the buyers are figuring, why not drive 30 minutes to enjoy the 75% dedicated Open Space of Marin, vs the 1% of the city. But they also get much more.

Public schools in San Francisco (and many U.S. cities) are either closing, or of poor quality. If education is important, you have to go private at an avg cost of $20,000 annually per child. Two kids at twelve years of school is half a million bucks. Plus you get parks, hike / bike trails and actual parking when you go to nearly any store, none of which can be found in an urban setting, to say nothing of near zero crime rates found in outlying areas such as ours.

I’ve talked to these droves of buyers as they come through my open houses, many with kids in tow. To them, Marin prices are a bargain, even if they have to overbid on most listings. Unlike the city, they say, Marin isn’t adding any more housing and they expect it’s much safer here then buying in one of the many high rises popping up in SF. Or as one couple recently told me, “parks and parking” were two of the many contributing factors bringing them across the bridge.

Are Marin prices cheap? Hardly. But by comparison to San Francisco, Manhattan or even Hong Kong, they are. Unlike those areas, we aren’t able to add housing inventory. You can’t build outward as all the available land was built on years ago and we have strict height limitations (usually 35 ft) so you can’t go up. And with an increasing demand (see above) the existing supply just slowly ticks up. So it doesn’t matter if you’re looking for a home near downtown Mill Valley or a studio apartment near downtown Manhattan, if you have a lot of choices to pick from, you’re in the driver’s seat as a buyer, or an open subway seat in NY.

But in Marin, no matter what you’re looking for, your choices are going to be slim, with no change in sight. House, condo, houseboat or ranch, you may have only one or two places to see in your price range. Without some compromise or flexibility, you may be stuck looking, forever. Even rentals are scarce as more and more people swarm into California and discover the quality of life in Marin. Buying or renting, stay creative and you will succeed, I promise.

Thanks for reading this, as always. Enjoy June wherever you are!

TS

Text / call 415.377.5222 or email ted@gomarin.com

Filed under: Marin Real Estate Blog by Ted Strodder

The kids and I were talking about the Star Wars movies recently and how the first episode starts with “Episode IV”…. Interesting concept, to thrust you into the middle of a series of stories, though most people will say, “I remember the first one as being…”, and so on.

If you think about it, jumping into the middle of our real estate market can be pretty similar. If you’re moving in from out of state, you may feel like you’re dropped into the middle of a lightsaber battle, with only a general idea of what’s going on or where you are. After all, you haven’t seen the previous episodes, so you can only guess which direction things are going to go, hoping you chose the right team and location for your battle.

Face it, Marin has one of the more unusual real estate markets in the country, right up there the Peninsula and Pacific Heights, but also with Manhattan and Malibu. These are what they call “Star Markets”, where there’s no more available land and an increasing demand for people who want to live there. The reality is fairly obvious that prices of the fixed asset are going to climb, albeit slowly due to the higher property values than other areas. If you’re moving from a much lower priced area, coming to Marin to buy isn’t that far off from the aforementioned battle, where you often can’t see your opponent (think multiple offers).

Buyers, all I can say is, trust your instincts. If a place looks good to you, it likely looks good (if not great) to somebody else. I know it would sell for much less back home, but while our prices are hardly “affordable”, the trade off with the quality of life is unbelievable. Many people spend just a few evenings in their backyard, on their deck or on their porch and think, “It was all worth it”. I’m not sure they are referring to the lightsaber battle scenario, but I think you get the drift.

More to follow, let me know of any questions. Thanks and enjoy May wherever you are!

TS

Text or call 415.377.5222 or ted@gomarin.com

Filed under: Marin Real Estate Blog by Ted Strodder

It looks to be a glorious sunny April in Marin, assuming the long range forecasts are accurate. While that means warm days, spring flowers and excellent hiking weather, the real talk in the checkout line is: when are more homes going to come up for sale? If history is any guide, the answer to that is, hopefully this month.

The strongest months for listings in this county are March – June. By July, everybody is sometimes off doing other stuff, so we see most sellers get it together in late winter and launch their homes for sale in any of those four go-months. They then have the summer to unpack in their new house, travel, whatever. But effectively half our home sales happen in less than half the year. That doesn’t mean nobody puts their house on the market in August, but savvy agents often advise their sellers to wait and put up the For Sale sign just after Labor Day if they’re getting close. We then have a fairly active fall market, which slows to a crawl by Thanksgiving.

So buyers, it’s pretty clear: prices aren’t dropping, given everything we are all reading and as you are too, so if you see something that’s remotely close, go for it.

Sellers? Well if you want to sell, now’s the time. The buyers are out there in droves, motivated mainly by my paragraph above. Kidding. Smart buyers know that under $1 mil, it’s usually cheaper to pay a mortgage than it is to pay rent. With our supply basically fixed and our demand to live here only increasing, you’d be wise to lock in a low mortgage rate now. Long term you’ll always do better paying a little more for your house, but a little less for your mortgage.

More to follow, let me know of any questions. Thanks and enjoy April wherever you are!

TS

Text or call 415.377.5222 or ted@gomarin.com

Filed under: Marin Real Estate Blog by Ted Strodder

Winter is here in Marin and the rains have been relentless. Cold too, so the snow pack in the Sierras is 125% of normal, yay. You can see now how they wisely opted to use “Climate Change” instead of Global Warming.

Speaking of change, the talk around the real estate offices and with home buyers has been, “Will this be the year more inventory hits the market?” While nobody knows for sure, suffice to say that most signs point towards higher mortgage rates by year end, with The Fed raising 2-3 times. But interest rates are expected to increase from 4% now to roughly 4.5% by Q4. The question is, what will that do to the supply side with inventory and what will it do to prices. Okay, that’s two questions, but the answers are simple if we use recent history and a bit of common sense.

First, nothing is going to make Marin home prices shoot up, or down. Recent global economic news, wild stock market swings, mortgage meltdowns–none of it impacted home values here. Not instantly, anyway. The mortgage implosion brought home prices down 25% – 40%, depending on the town. But that was a nationwide drag-down and was roughly 8%-9% a year on average over a 3 year span. Nothing changed here with the quality of life in our bucolic county of 255,000. Home prices just dropped like they did across the country, though much less than in most areas. So a tiny 1/4% increase in rates every few months isn’t going to do any damage to home values, we are told by the big brains, anyway. In fact, if history is any guide, it may actually work in the opposite direction.

Because the increase in rates was signaled well in advance and is well-documented, we suspect more buyers will rush to lock in over the first six months of the year, than those few who will wait. On the average home price here of $1.4 mil and a loan of $1 mil, the difference in monthly payment is approx $400. Nothing to break the bank, but over ten years, that’s $50,000 in savings, which may be a reason to get off the fence and get the checkbook out.

Now anybody who DOES want to wait it out, by choice, may be hoping that the average home price declines by at least $50,000, due to the fact that, technically, fewer buyers can afford that $1.4 mil. This could happen, but there is a very high risk factor. We haven’t seen this occur before and the only way that would happen is if a LOT more homes flooded the market suddenly, which is also unlikely.

Right now, there are only 152 total single family homes for sale in Marin. That’s the entire county. If you wanted to jump in my car and go tour homes for sale in your price range and target area, we might look at one or two. Or even none. There are so few houses for sale, a client this week said, “There aren’t any good homes for sale right now.” I said, “There aren’t even any BAD homes for sale.”

Will that change, who knows, but if you’re looking to buy, I wouldn’t wait. If you have to wait, you’ll be okay over the next 12 months, but after that, it’s anybody’s guess. Any questions, let me know. Otherwise, please stay warm and dry. Enjoy February wherever you are.

TS

Text or call 415.377.5222 or ted@gomarin.com

Filed under: Marin Real Estate Blog by Ted Strodder

What a difference a year makes, at least with our unpredictable Marin County weather patterns. Early rains filled reservoirs and brought snow to the Sierras, allowing most ski resorts to open by Thanksgiving. We haven’t seen that in five years and the much-anticipated El Nino isn’t even here yet.

For Marin County home sales, we saw another year like the last. Average home prices were up again another 8% to $1,481,000 with the median up 10% to $1,101,000. Sales were down again as demand outpaced supply with only 2251 homes being sold in our county of 255,000.

With more residents pouring into the state, we suspect a good portion of those will want to enjoy the quality of life here, so there’s nothing to indicate 2016 will be anything but a repeat of 2015. So if you’re looking to buy, each passing month will only force you to dip into the bank account a little further. If you’re a seller, the most active months are February to July, no question. Get your home fully prepared and as near-perfect as you can, do NOT overprice it, and you will be rewarded. Price your home with “room to negotiate” and you will find yourself chasing the market and “On Sale” instead of “For Sale”.

Even though inventory is typically low in mid winter, it tends to be a good time to buy as most buyers are off doing other things. So if you’re willing to jump in the car on a cold and rainy day, it could save you big $$$ after the spring run up in pricing that we always see.

For investors, the best place to invest remains to be the low end in any of our twelve towns, including condo’s and townhomes. With rents also projected to continue up another 9% and mortgage rates still stupidly cheap, we are seeing owners rent their properties out at break even with just 25% down on anything under $1 mil in purchase price. We also don’t see rents dropping anytime soon, but it’s still cheaper than SF where $3,000 a month might get you a 1 br apartment if you’re lucky.

That’s it for now. Please stay warm and enjoy January wherever you are. Any questions, let me know how I can help. I’m around all month.

TS

Text or call 415.377.5222 or ted@gomarin.com

Filed under: Marin Real Estate Blog by Ted Strodder

December is here in Marin and it looks like a chilly and wet winter, at least if the last few weeks are any guide. Cold temps (by California standards) greeted residents nearly every morning last month with more on the way, along with quite a few storms, so they tell us. Snow fell on the sierras early also, with nearly a foot at lake level, which we haven’t seen for awhile. Most Tahoe ski resorts were able to open the week before Thanksgiving, which we also haven’t seen in quite a few seasons. Let’s hope it’s a great year for skiers, much like it’s been a great year for homeowners pretty much throughout the state.

For the year, we have seen only 2083 homes sold, totaling $3.1 bil. That’s down 100 homes from this time last year. The average price climbed to nearly $1.5 mil with the median being $1.1 mil. Both of those numbers are up slightly, $100k. None of this is any surprise to anyone keeping track and we are well-positioned to see the same market next year as more people want to live here than don’t.

Even though inventory is typically low in mid winter, it tends to be a good time to buy as most buyers are off doing other things. So if you’re willing to jump in the car on a cold and rainy day, it could save you big $$$ after the spring run up in pricing that we always see March-July.

For investors, the best place to invest remains to be the low end in any of our twelve towns, including condo’s and townhomes. With rents also projected to continue up another 9% and mortgage rates still stupidly cheap, we are seeing owners rent their properties out at break even with just 25% down on anything under $1 mil in purchase price. We also don’t see rents dropping anytime soon, but it’s still cheaper than SF where $3,000 a month might get you a 1 br apartment if you’re lucky.

That’s it for now. Please stay warm and enjoy December wherever you are. Any questions, let me know how I can help. I’m around all month.

TS

Text or call 415.377.5222 or ted@gomarin.com

Filed under: Marin Real Estate Blog by Ted Strodder

November is here and a wet winter is already here. Early storms brought an inch of rain to Marin, but more importantly, snow to Tahoe, allowing resorts there to open at the earliest date in recent memory. Something about the “Little Boy” seems to be in the headlines nearly every other day: It’s going to be a lot of rain, possibly warm rains, possibly a lot of warm rains, maybe even no rain. Whatever, at least they’ve got something to talk about at Peet’s.

Homeowners need to keep gutters and exterior drains clear of debris, for starters. Just don’t plan on getting a decent roofer out in the next 30 days. We hear they’re booked solid. The water could fall from the sky starting this month, we’ll see.

The other (not so big) news is the Fed finally signaling they WILL hike rates sometime soon. Okay…yawn…thanks. Back to the rain. I’m kidding, but the consensus there is that the upcoming small hike will do nothing to the housing or stock markets. It’s all “built in” whatever that means, though it reminds me I wanted to get some of those cabinets for my garage, instead of shelves. You know, built-in’s.

As far as Marin’s housing inventory, it will remain ultra low. Like last November, we saw 14 homes Withdrawn from the market on the 1st, with only 11 new listings. This pattern will continue for the month as more sellers start to focus on Thanksgiving, pulling their homes from MLS for the winter, just as they do every year, like clockwork.

The buyers will also start to fade, mostly dissuaded by low or picked-over inventory. So if you’re thinking of selling, maybe get that baby on the market and grab a willing, able buyer before year end. If that same clockwork clock rolls around in a few months, watch for our market to take off again beginning February 15th, with no slowdown until July 1st.

That’s it for now. Please enjoy November wherever you are. Any questions, let me know how I can help. I’m around all month.

TS

Text or call 415.377.5222 or ted@gomarin.com

Filed under: Marin Real Estate Blog by Ted Strodder

October is here and fall is in the air: cool nights and mornings, warm sunny afternoons and Halloween being marketed already all over the county. The weather is early this year, perhaps a precursor to the El Nino rains they are predicting that may be on the way. It would be a welcome respite from the four years of drought in the state, though Marin reservoirs are still well-stocked for the season as you may recall from this blog over the summer.

Speaking of fall, a bit of chatter out there as to what will happen to home values here when mortgage rates ultimately rise late this year, or early next. A lot of us have been through this before and the likely scenario is this: either something will happen, or nothing will. I’m kidding, but also not far off. Some buyers will jump off the fence and lock in, figuring a 3.75% fixed rate is better than 4%. Others will just continue looking, knowing the payment difference isn’t that dramatic, but they will likely buy sooner with the knowledge that further rate hikes are on the horizon. Some buyers will just do nothing and continue to look, but we are hearing that none of them will be hoping for a drop back in rates in the near future. It’s a given that once rates go back up, they will stay up, though it’s unclear how much and for how long. Nobody is anticipating mortgages to go up a full 1% anytime soon. It will be slow, methodical and well-organized as in the past. At least according to the big brains out there.

Looking farther forward, watch for some sellers to start pulling their homes from the market in November and the same amount of buyers to retrench for the winter too. Both will pick up where they left off by March 1st of next year, which is when we are back to full swing here in Marin. Yes plenty of homes trade in December, but far less than in most other months of the year. Just know that nobody is expecting prices to fall. So if you’re a seller, great. But buyers, be nimble and be quick. If you see a property that has 6 out of 10 going for it, consider it strongly. If it has 7 or 8 positives, make a good offer, 9 out of 10, just buy the thing. There is no 10 out of 10, at least in my career of over 1,000 home sales here. People buy an “okay” house and make it their own version of a 10, much as they do in other areas of the country.

That’s it for now. Please enjoy October wherever you are. Any questions, let me know how I can help. I’m around all month.

TS

Text or call 415.377.5222 or ted@gomarin.com

Filed under: Marin Real Estate Blog by Ted Strodder

It’s mid September and the usual Indian Summer may or may not be around the corner. Who knows anymore, with this strange weather we’ve had the last 5-6 years. Four years of drought has resulted in voluntary cutbacks on water usage by 30% here, even though our five reservoirs are stocked full of water. Still, we’re a fairly environmentally aware, green county pretty much at the forefront of conservation, though not necessarily “conservative”. Let’s see what this upcoming rain storm brings us, they say maybe half an inch.

Speaking of not that conservative, the talk around town is of two recent big home sales: one for $47,500,000 the other for $8,125,000 remarkable mainly in that they posted on the same day. See them here, but the $47.5 mil sale in Belvedere was our highest recording ever, making the headline of the Independent Journal, see it here.

 

Locksley Hall in Belvedere

Besides closing escrow so close together, the higher one was also notable selling at 97% of the list price, even after a “short” (for the higher end) 207 days on the market (DOM). It was also the fifth home sale in 2015 here over $10 mil, something that’s never been achieved. The other “cheaper” home belonged to Giants pitcher Barry Zito and had been on the market over twice that, at 520 DOM. Both homes were done, with no work to do by the next buyer, or buyers as it were. And I certainly hope so at those prices.

This is a trend we’ve seen over the years, with buyers preferring to avoid fixer uppers and instead purchase homes that are turn-key or ready for occupancy. What is it: lack of know how, lack of time or patience that motivates this? Probably all three to some degree, but it certainly isn’t due to lack of money or a dearth of HGTV shows on how to fix up a home, cosmetically or otherwise. But with construction costs for labor and materials going up roughly 10% a year, along with rising home values, smart buyers are locking in to today’s value on both fronts, as evidenced here though to a much higher degree than our average price of approx $1.3 mil – $1.4 mil. And you think that number drifted before these sales. Look at these two stats:

The stats on the left shows the Average home sale price YTD before the $47.5 mil closing, the second stat after: a $38,000 jump.

For the month, let’s see where September goes, but traditionally, the back-from-vacation and back-to-school month of August real estate slowness tends to extend to Labor Day. From there, it’s anybody’s guess how much it will ramp back up. Given the economic uncertainty lately, it’s doubtful the Feds will raise interest rates, leading to further fuel for homebuyers to lock in a low interest rate for the long term. Smart buyers know that a lot of hard earned money can be saved over time by a half a point lower in mortgage interest, to say nothing of locking in a tax base at today’s prices as a hedge against tomorrow’s appreciation. Either way, none of us sees any reason why home prices shouldn’t keep slowly rising. Buyers remain ever optimistic in the Marin quality of life and many have taken a few acorns off the table with stocks, given the sharp declines that can damage their accounts. For a stable sleep-at-night factor, it’s tough to beat home ownership pretty much anywhere in the North Bay.

This front page article in the IJ this month also discusses our great schools here in the county. Read it here.

So enjoy September wherever you are. Any questions, let me know how I can help. I’m around all month.

TS

Text or call 415.377.5222 or ted@gomarin.com

Filed under: Marin Real Estate Blog by Ted Strodder