Our new listing at 435 Del Sol Avenue in Pleasanton represents a fantastic opportunity for any contractor, handyman, or anyone who’s been binge-watching HGTV® shows and wants to try their hand at the “house flipping” craze. It’s a three-bedroom, two-bath house, built in 1975 in a quiet Pleasanton neighborhood. According to public record, the house is 1,514 square feet sitting on a 6,507 square foot lot. The house itself seems pretty solid (our termite inspection shows approximately $7,700 in Section… read more →
When I was told that I would be running the staging and marketing of 3692 Calafia Avenue by myself, I was certain that I would grow tired of being in one of our for-sale properties relatively quickly. Staging a home before putting it on the market can be stressful — at least for me, that is, since I’m a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to the details — but this house ended up being one of my favorite… read more →
207 Seaview Drive is our most recently rehabilitated property listing. This 4 bedroom, 3.5 bath is located just up the hill from the Brickyard Cove Marina and the Richmond Yacht Club and Sailing School. The location provides commuters and explorers access to the entirety of the Bay Area —- the Richmond Terminal for the San Francisco Bay Ferry goes directly to The City, the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge to the North Bay, and Interstates 80 and 580 to everywhere else. A… read more →
Often times, homeowners ask a specific question when selling a home: “Should we stage it?” And more often than not, the answer to staging a home is “no” or “only if we think it’ll be hard to sell.” In fact, fewer than 2 out of 5 agents regularly stage the homes they list. So does that mean that staging is just… window dressing? An unnecessary service that the homeowner might pay thousands of dollars for prior to selling a home?… read more →
If you live in Northern California, it’s probably no surprise to hear that Bay Area home prices continue to climb, seemingly with no end in sight. For homeowners, that’s great news, but for prospective buyers, that means the search for their next Bay Area home is often an overwhelming journey… but not only because of prices. Thanks to the fact that fewer homes are being sold, there’s less inventory and more competition between buyers. So why is it that when… read more →
There’s been a lot of talk lately about fraud of all kinds. We now have chips in our credit cards, two-step authentication to make sure our accounts aren’t hacked, and lately my email has been blowing up with notices about a new kind of fraud that’s been happening in real estate transactions — wire fraud. Here’s what’s happening: criminals are hacking email accounts and finding out the individual is involved in a real estate transaction. They then send emails that… read more →
What makes Bay Area homes “tick”? Countless factors influence housing prices: Interior elements like upgrades, number of bedrooms and bathrooms, and staging; exterior factors like location, inventory, and buyer demand. In fact, there are so many variables that it’s overwhelming to think about how they can make every sale different. That’s why, when Lifestyle Real Estate Services began a summer marketing plan for a home on Del Oro Circle in Antioch, we were excited to discover that several identical homes… read more →
Now here’s a familiar trend in the Bay Area real estate market: Prices are up, while sales and inventory are down, down, down. And amidst a dwindling supply of homes for sale, many parts of the Bay Area have yet to feel the chill of a cool down in local housing prices. We here at Lifestyle Real Estate Services felt that market “heat” when we were given the opportunity to sell several homes in Antioch this year. The moral of… read more →
If you’ve lived in the Bay Area for any length of time, you might have noticed that the roads are getting busier, the homes are getting taller, and the demand for real estate is higher than ever. So when we got the chance to work on 2370 Scout—a beautiful home tucked away in the verdant Oakland Hills — and proudly present it to homebuyers just like yourself, we were more than a little excited. 2370 Scout Road is a lot… read more →
Every now and then we get the opportunity to breathe new life into a home, using our combined knowledge and visions to transform it into something truly special. The update of 715 Slater is one such example. The Design and Property Marketing Team at Lifestyle Real Estate Services was able to pull out all of the stops for a top-to-bottom (or rather “roof to tile”) makeover, culminating in some of our best work to date…and we’re confident you’ll feel the… read more →
The search for Bay Area homes is pushing further into the suburbs—that’s according to a recent news report examining burgeoning buyer interest in “bedroom communities”. From homes in Castro Valley to plots in Sonoma County, the growing attention for commuter towns stems from soaring prices and shrinking inventories closer to work. The result might be a “warm” winter for inland real estate. But do the numbers support this? For the sake of argument, we’ve taken a closer look at homes… read more →
As we approach the holiday season, we watch the market and ask ourselves: Could Dublin Ranch homes be cooling off? It began with an intense summer performance where Dublin homebuyers bridged a $100,000 gap between asking and closing prices and drove the average home value to nearly $970,000. Calling the record-high figures “impressive” was something of an understatement. They were phenomenal. Yet every summer is accompanied by a fall and a winter (even if the thermometer disagrees), and these cooler… read more →
Livermore homes may continue to benefit from the Bay Area’s housing market in the near future — regardless of which direction prices go. Depending on who you ask, the Bay Area real estate market is either going strong or beginning to cool. That’s according to differing data recently collected by real estate researchers Redfin and Zillow, and it’s something that has caught the attention of everyone from housing economists to the star of Bravo’s “Million Dollar Listing, San Francisco”. In… read more →
The latest real estate data on the Dublin Ranch Housing Market (and Dublin in general) and its home prices is certainly encouraging for Dublin homeowners: Due in part to a considerable drop in the number of homes for sale since last summer (inventory is only 62% of July 2014’s) single-family home prices have appreciated significantly. Most recently, the median closing price soared to $967,500, which is the highest figure on record for the area. What’s more surprising, however, is that… read more →
If you’ve been following the news in Bay Area real estate, you might have heard that home sales have been dropping. A Pacific Union article attributed the root of this trend to inventory shortages and a lack of “move-up” buyers. The reasoning makes sense: Fewer homes are sold when there are fewer homes on sale, and there are fewer homes for sale because fewer homeowners are comfortable selling their current home and trying to find a bigger or better one… read more →
In June, I wrote about how the Dublin Ranch real estate market was outperforming a significant portion of the United States in home sales and market value. Now here we are, a month further into an especially hot summer wondering, “has anything changed?” The most straightforward answer is “not a lot.” Yet for most homeowners, those words are music to their ears. Here’s why: Dublin Ranch real estate’s median sold price barely budged in June… but that means it continues… read more →
In June’s National Housing Survey by Fannie Mae, the mortgage giant found that consumer attitudes on the U.S. housing market are signaling the approach of a “healthier purchase market” which, according to many real estate experts, may have an impact on the Bay Area housing market and its prices. Among those experts is Zillow’s chief economist Stan Humphries, who believes that an increase in mortgage rates and household incomes will trigger a transition from a “stimulus-driven housing market” to “one… read more →
The “Lifestyle Client Experience”. What does that mean to us? Well, in today’s fast-paced world, it seems like everyone has a smartphone permanently attached to their hand, everyone seems to have less free time than ever, and good customer service feels like a thing of the past. Most companies are trying to distance themselves from their customers, so tasks like checking your bank account balance or paying your electric bill involve complicated phone trees and customer support representatives who are… read more →
Wondering why it was so hot in Dublin, California recently? Instead of looking up at the sky, you might want to check out the neighborhoods. May was a sizzling month for home sellers and helped set an unambiguous tone for what to expect in local real estate this summer. Last month, the median sales price amongst Dublin homes, townhouses, and condos climbed to the highest point in recent years: $797,450, which is a 15-percent year-over-year increase from 2014 and an… read more →
Every once in a while, I have a client who references the Zillow “Zestimate®” of a property as an accurate estimator of its value. Zillow.com has become a popular internet destination, because it gives consumers a place to go to estimate a property value without having to do a thorough analysis themselves and without having to talk to a salesperson. Sometimes, though, I get worried about the level of significance folks place in websites like Zillow. I thought I’d write… read more →
