Howard Sobel

First Republic Bank produces the Prestige Home Index each quarter. They report California luxury home prices declined in the third quarter of 2008 from a year ago.

1. Los Angeles area values fell 1.9% from the second quarter of 2008 and 4.2% from the third quarter of 2007. The average luxury home in Los Angeles is now $2.33 million.

2. San Diego area values dropped 2.1% from the second quarter of 2008 and 7.5% from the third quarter of 2007. The average luxury home in San Diego is now $1.98 million.

3. San Francisco Bay Area values declined 0.7% from the second quarter of 2008 and 3.0% from the third quarter of 2007. The average luxury home in San Francisco is now $2.99 million.

It seems that the indexes all tell different stories, so its hard to come up with a definitive understanding of what is really going on. The Case-Schiller index, which is looking at homes sold in all price categories, show us that San Francisco homes have decline by 31% year over year.

If these idexes can be trusted, its clear that a high end home, by far, has been an outstanding investment, losing only 3% of its value in roughly the same time period. Clearly, people willing and able to buy a 3 million dollar home are not concerned about bank solvency or interest rates. Nice place to be....

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Howard Bell

www.yourpropertypath.com

A web site of over 450 articles related to real estate focused primarily on property management.

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Quiet Enjoyment

Is now a service included with ones rent. Quiet enjoyment includes untimely repairs, refusal to accept lawful rent. It defines varoius kinds of harassment that landlords have sometimes been guilty of. Most of this was already illegal. but now you can take these issues to the rent board for a rent reduction rather than to a civil court. What is newly defined as harassment is holding a tenants rent check. No longer can a landlord refuse to cash checks for any length of time. I know of one owner who is harassing a tenant by not cashing her checks for almost one year. If the landlord were to cash them all at once it would be a real problem for the tenant. Prop M makes that illegal now.

Here is the new definition of tenant harassment

Sec. 37.10B Tenant Harassment direct from the sfgov site:

(a) No landlord, and no agent, contractor, subcontractor or employee of the landlord shall do any of the following in bad faith or with ulterior motive or without honest intent:

(1) Interrupt, terminate or fail to provide housing services required by contract or by State, County or local housing, health or safety laws;

(2) Fail to perform repairs and maintenance required by contract or by State, County or local housing, health or safety laws;

(3) Fail to exercise due diligence in completing repairs and maintenance once undertaken or fail to follow appropriate industry repair, containment or remediation protocols designed to minimize exposure to noise, dust, lead, paint, mold, asbestos, or other building materials with potentially harmful health impacts;

(4) Abuse the landlord's right of access into a rental housing unit as that right is provided by law;

(5) Influence or attempt to influence a tenant to vacate a rental housing unit through fraud, intimidation or coercion;

(6) Attempt to coerce the tenant to vacate with offer(s) of payments to vacate which are accompanied with threats or intimidation; (7) Continue to offer payments to vacate after tenant has notified the landlord in writing that they no longer wish to receive further offers of payments to vacate;

(8) Threaten the tenant, by word or gesture, with physical harm;

(9) Violate any law which prohibits discrimination based on actual or perceived race, gender, sexual preference, sexual orientation, ethnic background, nationality, place of birth, immigration or citizenship status, religion, age, parenthood, marriage, pregnancy, disability, AIDS or occupancy by a minor child;

(10) Interfere with a tenants right to quiet use and enjoyment of a rental housing unit as that right is defined by California law;

(11) Refuse to accept or acknowledge receipt of a tenant's lawful rent payment;

(12) Refuse to cash a rent check for over 30 days;

(13) Interfere with a tenant's right to privacy;

(14) Request information that violates a tenant's right to privacy, including but not limited to residence or citizenship status or social security number;

(15) Other repeated acts or omissions of such significance as to substantially interfere with or disturb the comfort, repose, peace or quiet of any person lawfully entitled to occupancy of such dwelling unit and that cause, are likely to cause, or are intended to cause any person lawfully entitled to occupancy of a dwelling unit to vacate such dwelling unit or to surrender or waive any rights in relation to such occupancy.

Thanks for Reading Howard Bell

www.yourpropertypath.com

A web site of over 450 articles related to real estate focused primarily on property management.

Your Property Path news Brief

http://yourpropertypath.blogspot.com/

Snap News updates real estate markets and all things of interest to property owners and real estate professionals

Your Property Path Amazon Store

http://astore.amazon.com/yourpropertypath20-20 super deals on agent open house tools We hand picked Amazon for the tools you need

San Francisco Housing Trends

Compared to bay area markets we should feel blessed. Many of the bay area communities are seeing price declines of close to 45% from 2007-2008. DQnews.com reports:

The median price paid for all new and resale houses and condos combined in the nine-county Bay Area fell to $350,000 last month. That was down 6.7 percent from $375,000 in October and down a record 44.4 percent from $629,000 in November 2007, according to MDA DataQuick, a San Diego-based real estate information service.

My personal take on this is that Google, Apple, Ebay and Genentech and others have created a reverse commute by busing employees free of charge from neighborhoods in San Francisco to work and back to the city. Our relative housing stability and high rent rates relies on the health of the bay area tech industries. We see Ebay and Yahoo firing and Google says it will lay off some of its 10,000 contract workers. That coupled with the credit crunch which is hurting startup funding and smaller tech companies. Many clients are preferring to go with the bigger companies because they are afraid that these small newly minted companies may not be around to service their contracts.

From Altos Research:

Housing Market Conditions: With a Market Action Index as of December 14 2008 at 19.46, SAN FRANCISCO is currently a buyer's market.

Real Estate Price Trends: The median single family home price as of December 14 2008 for SAN FRANCISCO is $888,321 Home Sales and Demand Trends

Days on Market: The average property in SAN FRANCISCO as of December 14 2008 has been on the market for about 81 days.

Thanks for Reading

Howard Bell

www.yourpropertypath.com

A web site of over 450 articles related to real estate focused primarily on property management.

Your Property Path news Brief

http://yourpropertypath.blogspot.com/

Snap News updates real estate markets and all things of interest to property owners and real estate professionals

Your Property Path Amazon Store

http://astore.amazon.com/yourpropertypath20-20

super deals on agent open house tools

We hand picked Amazon for the tools you need

FDIC Proposes to Guarantee 2.2 Million Modified Loans

The idea is to help borrowers with weak credit or small down payments. Borrowers would get lowered interest rates or longer loan terms to lower payments. This program can last for a period of time, giving owners some breathing room. The program would attempt to keep monthly payments under 31% for weak borrowers.

According to the FDIC site: The pace of loan modifications continues to be extremely slow (around 4 percent of seriously delinquent loans each month). Basic Structure of the Proposal 1. By paying providers $1,000 to cover expenses for each loan modified according to the required standards 2. Sharing up to 50% of losses incurred if a modified loan should subsequently re-default The FDIC says its plans should apply to an estimated 4.4 million loans that are likely to become delinquent though the end of next year.The FDIC expects the plan to apply to 4.4 million loans that are likely to become delinquent though the end of next year.

Fannie and Freddie have their own plans to help their borrowers and the banks, however slowly are beginning to step up. B of A will help renegotiate 400,000 loans and Citi is doing a similar work out program. The trend will take some time to show results because we have so many defaults and it will get worse this year because the credit crunch is beginning to show in terms of jobs. But I think we are beginning to get serious.

I am a property manager and we recently chose to use an online rent collection company. I found this to be such an exceptional service, I chose to represent the company. Their property management software makes rent collection easy and saved us time and money. Tenants pay the bulk of the fees and we found most were happy to sign on. I have developed some tenant marketing materials for the program. If anyone has interest in learning more about how to limit the drudgery of rent collection and lower operating costs, please reach me here or at payrentonline@sbcglobal.net

Thanks for Reading

Howard Bell

www.yourpropertypath.com

A web site of over 450 articles related to real estate focused primarily on property management.

Your Property PathSF

http://yourpropertypath.blogspot.com/

Trade talk for the San Francisco real estate industry. Your source for property management tips, policies and market trends.

Your Property Path Amazon Store

http://astore.amazon.com/yourpropertypath20-20

super deals on agent open house tools We hand picked Amazon for the tools you need

National Association of Realtors in Orlando

Lawrence Yun, economist for NAR at the Orlando conference notes that the depth of the current recession depends on the housing market’s recovery, and that will depend on stabilizing prices and inventory absorptions Home sales showed their first increase in three years during the last quarter. Yun “We are beginning to come back, but recovery won’t happen until inventories are reduced from their current 10-month levels back to a more normal six months. Even more critical to a housing recovery are stabilizing home prices. Only then will new buyers get back into the marketplace and underwater buyers be able to consider moving up, he added" via the Palm Beach Post. NAR had some proposals for the next administration: 1. NAR to urge Congress to create a housing-specific stimulus package. Its chief component, Yun said, would empower the government to "buy down" mortgages to as low as 4.5 percent. 2. A one-year program in which the federal government would cover the mortgage fees or points, enabling borrowers pay to lower interest rates. 3. NAR also proposed that the $7,500 tax credit be made permanent. 4. Yun said a buydown of 1 point, "might be sufficient to absorb 800,000 homes in the marketplace". That would cost the US Govt about 100 billion. With as many as 4 million homes thought to be late or in default nationwide, this would help a great deal. To date, the focus has been on the banks. The $25 billion given to the top banks will not go towards new loans as intended. They have already indicated that this money will go toward bonuses and mergers. New tax law favorable to banks that merge and take on bad debt is already in place. The housing crises is now in the steepest price declines since the great depression. Housing is the key cause and the solution. These proposals will help soak up available supply and halt the onslaught of many homes on the market. Keeping people out of foreclosure and bankruptcy and able to pay bills is the key to stabilizing the economy.

Thanks for Reading

Howard Bell

www.yourpropertypath.com

A web site of over 450 articles related to real estate focused primarily on property management.

Your Property PathSF

http://yourpropertypath.blogspot.com/

Trade talk for the San Francisco real estate industry. Your source for property management tips, policies and market trends.

I am a property manager and we recently chose to use an online rent collection company. I found this to be such an exceptional service, I chose to represent the company. Their property management software makes rent collection easy and saved us time and money. Tenants pay the bulk of the fees and we found most were happy to sign on. I have developed some tenant marketing materials for the program. If anyone has interest in learning more about how to limit the drudgery of rent collection and lower operational costs, please reach me here...