Bargain hunting picks up as Southern California home values fall further

Southern California home values keep spiraling down, but sales volume is picking up in the Inland Empire and other areas where bargain hunters are snapping up foreclosed properties at steep discounts.

Home prices plunged 29.3% last month from a year earlier, to a median of $355,000 in six Southern California counties, a real estate information service reported Wednesday. That’s about where prices were in 2004.

The number of homes sold in June was down 13.6% from a year earlier. But Riverside County posted an 11.8% jump in sales, thanks to repossessed homes being sold at fire-sale prices, according to DataQuick Information Systems.

Low prices are luring both first-time buyers and full-time real estate investors such as Kurtis and Cindy Squyres of La Quinta.

The couple have been buying two to four houses a month, most of them foreclosures in the Coachella Valley and Inland Empire. They look for the cheapest properties they can find, aiming to buy and quickly resell for a modest profit of perhaps $10,000.

“That’s the new market,” Kurtis Squyres said of foreclosures, which made up 62% of all home sales in Riverside County last month.

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I know this goes on in the Bay Area, but it makes no sense to me…

The idea of letting a potential buyer spend the night in a house to help close the deal is nuts…

But then again, I’m not selling my house….

More Home Buyers Seek… Sleepover ‘Test Drive

In most markets, home buyers have the upper hand these days. That often means they have greater negotiating power when it comes to price or the ability to squeeze out extra perks from sellers.

But on occasion, they will ask a seller for even more, a request that will help get to know the home better. They will ask to sleep over.

As reality programs such as TLC’s “Date My House” and HGTV’s “Sleep On It” show buyers spending a considerable amount of time — and sometimes an entire night — in homes they are considering, some buyers in the real world are getting the chance to do the same.

It isn’t something being agreed to by droves of sellers, but it is a new tactic that some are considering, said Pat Skiffington of Keller Williams Classic Realty in Orlando, Fla. He is arranging for a prospective buyer to stay overnight in a downtown Orlando condo.

Mr. Skiffington wouldn’t recommend it for every home. The Orlando condo is a good candidate because the prospective buyers don’t live in the area, and experiencing what the downtown is like at night might sway them to make an offer, he said.

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Chris Lim Listing - San Francisco from Jeff Brooks on Vimeo.

Click here for Chris’ website

This same video can be upload to Realtor.com, passed around as email link or download to a cell phone or iPod.

The video was produced by Real Estate Convergence 415.465.0555

More Homeowners Taking in Boarders

BALTIMORE — When Barbara Terry fell behind on her mortgage payments earlier this year, she did the previously unthinkable. Through a local housing organization, she and her daughter, Imani, 9, rented part of their single-family house to a stranger.

“I had to do something,” said Miss Terry, 46, who helps formerly homeless people move into new housing. “I said, I am not going to lose this house. Thinking about having a stranger was not a pleasant thought. I have a daughter. But the positive part was that I needed extra help, and I wanted to help someone.”

With residential mortgage foreclosures still on the rise, more homeowners nationwide are considering Miss Terry’s choice: whether to take in a boarder to keep their homes. Modest but growing numbers are turning to agencies nationwide like the St. Ambrose Housing Aid Center Homesharing Program in Baltimore, which screen boarders to find appropriate matches and relieve some of the fear of strangers.

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Back when I was a kid we use to say sex sells…. now it appears it’s food that sells

the idea of offering chocolate chip cookies or sodas at an open house is not original, but agents in Seattle are convinced it’s getting clients in the door…

Real estate agents use food treats to lure home buyers

A piece of paper taped to Lake Real Estate agent Kirk Griswold’s open house sign promised cold lemonade one Sunday when Seattle’s temperature hit 92 degrees.

“I’ve never offered lemonade before, but it’s so hot,” Griswold said during the June open house in Greenwood.

Another motivation was Seattle’s cooling real estate scene, he said. “We’re trying a little harder in a slower market.”

Sellers and their agents are trying harder these days, through food, financial incentives, gimmicky sales offers and personal letters.

The motivation is clear: The number of homes on the market in King County was up 29 percent in June from a year earlier, while sales were down 32 percent, according to the Northwest Multiple Listing Service.

June actually had the smallest inventory increase since February 2007; most recent months have been up by 50 percent to well over 60 percent.

The seller of a Bothell home is holding a “reverse auction,” where he’s promising to drop the price each week until it sells.

Other sellers are offering furniture, cars, special financing and cash bonuses.

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For those of you who didn’t see the Wall Street Journal’s piece titled, “How to Sell a House, When You Have to Sell It Now” it touched out a round of calls from agents looking for advice. One of my 22 daily jobs is helping agents build out and understand social networking. In the Journal article it makes reference to the must have sites for getting your home sold…

The Journal referenced Trulia, Zillow, Cyberhomes, Eppraisal and Realtor.com

Seems that more than a few clients were disappointed to find out their homes weren’t on those sites after reading the story. Needless to say it was a long time of helping agents get their listings online.

Enough said…

Seven tips for homeowners who can’t wait until the market turns around

By DAVID CROOK

So you say you’re selling your house?

Hey, it could be worse. You could be selling a Hummer.

If you’ve been waiting for a good offer to come through, this probably isn’t exactly big news to you: This is the worst home-selling market since Herbert Hoover was president. In much of the country, prices are already way down and probably heading even further south. Houses are sitting on the market for months longer than sellers expected.

And don’t think this is just a momentary lull, a short slowdown before the market recovers and then takes off again. What you see today is the market you have, for now and, quite possibly, for a long time to come.

“At best, I think we’re a year away from the bottom,” says Sally Bodmer, who has sold Tampa-area real estate for 31 years and has never seen a worse selling climate. She operates mainly in the newer suburbs on the far eastern edge of the metropolitan area. It was a super-hot area in 2005, when developers couldn’t build houses fast enough. “Now,” she says, “you can’t give them away.”

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If you’re a big fan of lists, and who isn’t?
One of my very favorite lists came out today… Money Magazine’s annual ranking of the best places to live in America… The folks at Money Magazine give plenty of insight into the selection process, but never explain how a top ten selection like Mill Valley suddenly falls off the chart… What’s a list without a little bit of controversy…

And the winner of the best city goes to…. Plymouth, Minnesota…

For all there is to know about the top ten, click here….

“Welcome to GottaPark!

GottaPark will help you find and reserve parking. We are reaching out to private residences, commercial businesses and other organizations interested in posting their parking for rent through our site. You can then use GottaPark to search through the available parking spaces and reserve and pay for the ones you want.

GottaPark is a privately held company with headquarters in San Francisco, California. Our goals are to reduce parking congestion and to simplify the process of finding parking. To reach these goals, we provide a simple online tool for individuals and organizations to rent out their parking spots, and for the general public to reserve and pay for them.”

Players Predict the Final Sales Price for MLS-Listed Homes in Boston, San Francisco and Seattle.

ZipRealty.com launched the online real estate game “Price Me Now” this week, awarding players an IQ score based on predicted sale prices of for-sale homes in Boston, Seattle and the San Francisco Bay Area.

Free to play at, “Price Me Now” players are shown for-sale homes and asked to enter their prediction of the final sales price based on each property’s current list price, comparable neighborhood sales and other details. Players earn a Property IQ score ranging from 0 to 200 once a prediction is submitted. Registered players’ IQ scores are updated every 15 minutes as more predictions are made. A player’s Property IQ is based on a number of factors, including the accuracy of the player’s prediction of the final sales price, once a home has sold.

Thousands of for-sale homes in Boston, Seattle and the San Francisco Bay Area are included in the ZipRealty.com “Price Me Now” game. Before entering a prediction, players are encouraged to review all photos and home details available through the game.

“With the market changing daily, everyone seems to have an opinion of the value of listed homes, and we’re excited to engage the growing ZipRealty.com community with this real estate prediction game,” explains Patrick Lashinsky, ZipRealty’s President and CEO. “This game also introduces players to ZipRealty.com features and tools to help them with their real world real estate decisions.”

“Price Me Now,” developed by the gaming company Realius, is both an easy-to-use real estate game and a prediction market for residential real estate. Players who register at http://predict.ziprealty.com have their IQ score saved and continuously updated compared to other players. Names of individual players who make ten or more predictions will be listed on the ZipRealty.com leaderboard for the community to review.

“We’re excited to introduce the ‘Price Me Now’ game for members of the ZipRealty.com community to help predict home prices in their local markets,” said Realius founder and CEO Chuck Teller. “Thousands of real estate enthusiasts, buyers and sellers can test their market knowledge and have fun predicting home prices, comparing their skills to other players and unleashing the collective wisdom of the crowd.”

To play “Price Me Now,” visit http://predict.ziprealty.com. “Price Me Now” is a trademark of Realius. The price prediction, including the home value prediction, is not a representation or warranty of a home’s value, nor ZipRealty’s opinion regarding the value of the home. All values and price predictions are merely part of the “Price Me Now” game and are not intended as an assessment of a home’s value, and should not be relied upon as such.

The Cost of Parking Rises: Manhattan, Boston, San Francisco Top List

It’s tough being a driver these days. Even with gasoline prices at $4 or more a gallon, parking costs are also climbing steadily. According to a parking rate survey by Boston-based real estate research firm Colliers International, parking costs have risen nationwide for the fifth year in a row and they aren’t expected to change much in the near term. The median monthly parking rate in the U.S. is $153.79, a 0.9% rise from 2007. (See sortable chart below for city-by-city comparison.)

According to Colliers, the rise in rates is due mostly to buoyant office occupancy rates. “As businesses occupy more office space, parking inventory in CBDs [central business districts] nationwide is increasingly tight,” says Ross Moore, director of market and economic research at Colliers, in a statement. In a recent article, however, the WSJ reported that companies are taking less office space across the nation amid the economic slowdown.

New York City’s midtown Manhattan topped the list of most expensive parking areas within the U.S. The median cost to park a car in midtown Manhattan is $585 a month – or $7,020 a year – close to the sticker price of a Nissan Logan, which costs $7,000 to $10,800. Parking rates in midtown Manhattan can go as high as $750 a month.

Other expensive parking districts in the U.S. include New York City’s downtown area, with median cost at $462 a month; Boston, at $460 a month, and San Francisco at $350 a month.

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