Veena Grover, Fremont Realtor: Homes for Sale in Fremont & Union City

I’ve received a few requests for info from potential buyers of REO properties in Union City and Hayward on how to get started. In terms of where to start, luckily there are many websites which allow you to customize a property search and specify “REO properties”. For example, on my website, there’s a webpage titled “Find a Home“. Once you’ve selected the county you’re interested in from the drop-down menu, do the following:

• Select Union City and click “add”
• Enter the price range of the Union City properties you’re interested in.
• Next to “Special Conditions”, there’s a checkbox for “REO/Bank/HUD/Corp Owned”. Check that.
  

Email updates: Whenever a property becomes available that meets your criteria, you will get an automated email update providing you with a one-page summary on the property.

Use Internet Maps to get an overview of the property: Google Maps has a “Street View” button at the top right, which is imagery of an entire street taken by a car. You can get a real feel for the neighborhood this way. Zillow and Trulia provide previous sale price history on many properties. Finally, if you are looking at this from an investment (renting) perspective, you should check out HousingMaps, which is a map showing the various rental listings from Craigslist in whatever area you choose.

I had a buyer recently ask me about whether home prices in Fremont and Union City had declined to the point where they could generate positive cash flow right away. Except in rare exceptions, the answer is no. I wanted to at least highlight a scenario for you by looking at recent home sale prices in the Fremont and Union City area:

Example: Non REO property in Union City: 4BR, 2BA home in Union City; 2200 sq. ft, 4500 sq.ft lot, 10 years new: $700K

Assume a 6.6% interest rate on a 30-yr fixed rate, but tack on an additional 0.5% applicable as an investor. Total interest payment = 7.1%.

With a down payment of 20%, the loan balance would be $560K. Multiplying this by the 7.1% rate results in a monthly mortgage payment of $3750.

A glance on Craigslist and HousingMaps to view rental property prices in Union City tells us that a rental property of this size would rent for about $2800/month. (Note that I don’t see a rental home in the same community, so I’m looking at comparables). Net-net, there’s a delta of $950/month on the rent, or about $11K per year. Factoring in property tax of 1.2% would result in another $8.4K, or about $19K per year.

In the event you could get such a property at a 20% discount or more as an REO, then certainly the financials get more interesting and rent gets closer towards mortgage payment. But at current price and interest rate levels, as you can see, one would run a cash flow loss on a monthly basis and as an investor, would bet on an increase in home values in the future or a decrease in interest rates to re-finance at more attractive terms.

Now that the school year is underway, I was reviewing the website of Mission San Jose High School for announcements. Apparently, this is the first year in which students will be required to pass the California High School Exit Examination (CAHSEE) in order to graduate. Students must earn a score of 350 or higher on each part of the CAHSEE (language and math) in order to pass the exam. Students take the test in 10th grade – those students who don’t pass are allowed to re-take the sections of the exam that they failed when they get to 11th grade, and in 12th grade if necessary.

The CAHSEE is important due to the impact that a school’s pass rate will have on its all-important API (Academic Performance Indicator) score. These API scores can be found for any school on GreatSchools.net. API scores significantly influence home prices in Fremont and even more so in the Mission San Jose area. In addition, the CAHSEE scores will factor into a school’s Academic Yearly Performance (AYP) score, which is mandated by the federal “No Child Left Behind” act and apparently may impact the amount of funding that a school receives as well.

I wanted to pass along that the Fremont Unified School District (FUSD) board recently voted to reinstate bus transportation for secondary schools (Junior highs & High schools) for the 1st semester of the 2008-09 school year. In Fremont, this means that from the beginning of the school year through January 30, 2009, students will have the option to take the school bus. I'm glad to see the Fremont school board to decide this despite the budget shortfalls we've had at the state level. The time and money savings that the bus provides to most parents, not to mention the fact that it can be self-funding in many ways, makes it a worthwhile service, in my opinion.

Which students qualify? The criteria is simple: any junior high students living beyond a distance of 1.5 miles from the school and any high school students beyond a walking distance of 2.5 miles. Note, however, that there was talk of raising the annual fees from $350 to $700, given the massive increase in fuel costs. There was a meeting yesterday to discuss this, but I have not seen any update as yet. Will update this post when I do find out.

The latest test score results for Fremont indicate that the Mission San Jose area schools continue to outperform the rest of the Fremont Unified School District. Although this has rung true for quite some time with Fremont schools (and is reflected in price premiums for Mission homes), the internet provides us with more transparency on this. For example, GreatSchools.net obtains state test scores for each grade, in each subject (e.g., math, English) and then calculates a rating from 1 to 10 for each public school in the state. An overall GreatSchools rating of 10 for a school means that the percentage of students that scored at the “proficient” level (or higher) on the test is in the top 10% in the state. By contrast, a GreatSchools rating of 6 means that the percentage of students that scored “proficient” (or higher) on the test is in the top 50% in the state (but not the top 40%). Note that “proficient” is defined by the state education department, not GreatSchools.

You can see the full report for Fremont schools here. Note that you can get more information like parent reviews (and write your own reviews) for each school. A few highlights worth mentioning are that all high schools (Washington High School, Mission San Jose, Irvington, American High and Kennedy) are essentially the same when it comes to class size (30-33 students). On the API (the test performance), Mission San Jose comes in well ahead of the pack, about 15% ahead of Irvington. Irvington comes out ahead of American and Washington High School by about 5%. American and Washington High School come in 10% higher than Kennedy High School.

Note that this information does not necessarily mean that the highest scoring schools are “better”, as this does not factor in parent feedback, school activities, or teacher quality. Instead, its simply a quantifiable way of seeing test scores, which is just one way of assessing a school.