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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
About six weeks ago, we presented several reasons why Dublin home sales, and the housing market in general, were on course to have another “hot seller’s market” in the coming months. Since then, we’ve been watching, working, waiting (and possibly hoping we wouldn’t be proven wrong). So with summer right around the corner, what’s the latest data show? The Bay Area’s housing market is on a healthy trajectory, according to Freddie Mac. The mortgage company’s most current “Multi-Index Market Indicator”… read more →
Good news for buyers and sellers of Livermore Real Estate! Amidst high housing prices and low inventories, an oft-repeated word of advice last summer was: “Look east.” Specifically, buyers who felt squeezed out of the hottest real estate markets—San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, etc.—found something of a compromise in places like the East Bay, where prices climbed slower and supply was more reasonable. A year later, it appears things haven’t changed: Many parts of the Bay Area still lead the… read more →
It might only be April, but it already feels like it’s summer in Dublin Ranch. That’s not just because of the heat, either—the hottest months are often host to the highest peaks in the real estate market. And the most recent data suggests that we could be pushing into an early (and hot) seller’s summer. We’ve assembled a list of several reasons to think this (and why this may be the perfect time to put your Dublin home up for… read more →
While the most recent Gallup poll indicates that the rising price of gas has impacted confidence in the U.S. economy, a February report by Fannie Mae shows that Americans are still growing optimistic about their ability to find a home, get a mortgage, and become homeowners. But in California — where inventory has been consistently low and many buyers have had a difficult time purchasing homes — a question arises: Is this optimism finding its way into Bay Area real… read more →
While an S&P committee recently published a report with a lukewarm outlook on parts of the U.S. housing market due, in part, to seasonal slowdown, the San Francisco metropolitan area maintains its position as the nation’s leader in the housing recovery. Across the Bay Area, virtually every county has exhibited promising growth that suggests 2015 will be another strong year for the local housing market. With that in mind, some of you Dubliners may be wondering, “What does this mean… read more →
It may come as no surprise that the latest news regarding the local real estate market concerns a significant drop in Bay Area sale numbers. This seems to be a combination of two things: The typical winter slump, and a relative lack of homeowners putting their houses up for sale. An effect of this shortage is that housing prices have been bolstered through the holiday season, benefiting homeowners in many parts of the bay, including the focus of this article… read more →
With winter drawing closer, experts continue to predict a slowdown of the Bay Area housing market. This is nothing new, of course: Historically, the winter season has served as the low-point of annual real estate sales due to a combination of bad weather and holiday distractions. But as demand — one of the key factors that has been driving sales sky-high — “cools” off, there’s a reasonable expectation that the housing market will stabilize. According to Freddie Mac’s Multi-Indicator Market… read more →
