Could You Find Your Next San Francisco Home While Grocery Shopping?

photo credit: SparkCBC

The real estate technology market has been flooded in recent years with “location-based” applications to help buyers find properties in their area. With little variation, they all work in about the same way:

• Start an application on your mobile phone
• Utilize your phone’s GPS to determine your location and
• Have the application retrieve location-based real estate data

But, what if you’re searching for San Francisco real estate and don’t even have to initiate an application to get real time real estate data?

What if while you were out and about, shopping or running errands, the home of your dreams just showed up on your phone automatically?

Sound like something from the Jetsons? Well it isn’t.

Advertising company Placecast has developed a service called ShopAlerts and there might be some cool uses for the real estate industry.

ShopAlerts allows users to opt in to receive marketing messages on their phone from retail stores that are nearby. For instance, a person would sign up for alerts from Tartine and would automatically receive tailored text message marketing notifications each time they were close to Tartine. 

It could work the same way for a house hunt.  You could opt in to receive alerts about specific types of properties – say 3BR’s in the Outer Sunset with Ocean Views.  Or properties in Pacific Heights between $3-5M.  And when you get close to one of those available properties, you cross a “geo-fence” which prompts an automatic notification to be sent to cell phone.

Essentially, a person lives their life and in the meantime, receives notifications about properties they’re close to that match what they want.

Question is, how many of you would use it if it where available? 

Feel free to leave comments below – and for more info on potential uses, read the full article here.

1896 San Francisco Firehouse For Sale!!! (And a Tour Business and Memorabilia to Boot!)

**UPDATE** 

We’ve determined pricing for the Firehouse and the Tour Business!!!! 

The Firehouse is $975,000

The Tour Business is $249,000

And if you are interested in grabbing the torch and taking over the complete lifestyle, then make a reasonable offer for both!!!  For once, the sellers are not JUST interested in the price (though money DOES talk), but more than anything, they would really love to see someone carry on the legacy they created.  And frankly, I’d like to see the dream kept alive as well! 

(And ideally, I’d like to reserve the right to slide down the firepole from time to time, but that’s not a deal breaker. )

I’m giving you a fair warning – this video is addictive, amazing and has a jingle you may not be able to get out of your head for days!!!  It is NOT your typical property listing video.  TRUST me. 

And thanks to the video, I’ve been singing the “The Big Shiny Mack Truck Fire Engine!” for DAYS now!  I haven’t had anyone complain yet, and may have been the cause of people all over San Francisco singing that jingle now too!

But the video and the song are just bonuses…. along with the song, you get over 4000 square feet where you can whirl around the firehouse which, to my knowledge, is one of the last San Francisco firehouses (if not THE last one) that has still maintained it’s historical integrity. 

The couple that owned it lovingly restored it (a before & after pic are below), and fell so much in love with the place and the lifestyle that they added a “Big Shiny Mack Truck Fire Engine” to their collection and used it to create a profitable tour business that had made kids (of all ages) from ALL over the world smile!!! 

But as many stories go, it’s time for the current owners to move on.  Which means you can pick up this HOT (badumpum) piece of real estate for yourself.    As a fellow colleague joked, it would make an especially “HOT” Valentine’s present. LOL!

Though the price is still not yet determined, numbers are being crunched and the list price will be announced in the next few weeks.  The building, business and historic collection will all be for sale – together, or separately. 

In the meantime, email me at luba@zephyrsf.com or call me at 415-307-1392 for more information. 

30 Days of Sold San Francisco Real Estate

Want to know know what sold in San Francisco in the last 30 days? Sign up for The City Update(TM) – San Francisco’s Friendliest Newsletter. You’ll get the details, and then some, in your inbox (almost) every Friday.

If you just want the round numbers, you can check them out below.

Sold Listings 12/25/09 – 1/28/10

You’re Smart if you Buy a Home in San Francisco

As I’m browsing the blogosphere, I caught a glimpse of yet another article saying something positive about San Francisco real estate. 

Realtor Magazine quoted Forbes Magazine as saying SF is one of the 10 smartest places to buy a home NOW!

Why?

Well, according to them:

For people who want to own a home, the premium to buy—the spread between what they’d spend to rent and what they’d pay for a mortgage—is much lower than the 15-year average in many cities.

To determine what cities are smart buys, Forbes magazine computed the premium and also identified locales where economists predict home prices will go up the most over the next five years.

Click here for the rest of the “smart” cities for purchasing real estate. 

Oh, and give me a holler when you’re ready to make that SF home purchase. 

30 Days of Sold San Francisco Property Listings

Want to know know what sold in San Francisco in the last 30 days? Sign up for The City Update(TM) – San Francisco’s Friendliest Newsletter. You’ll get the details, and then some, in your inbox (almost) every Friday.

If you just want the round numbers, you can check them out below.

Sold Listings 12/07/09 – 1/07/10

Single Female in Search of Home for Sale

The title of the post almost sounds like a personal ad, right? 

Well I was taking a look at my list of San Francisco clients that are looking for a home or have recently purchased a home and I realized that about 35% of them are single women.

While it does appear that I tend to work with more single female home buyers than national averages, across the country, I did find some interesting statistics while searching the net:

Not bad for girl power, eh?

The demographic includes all women, including never married, divorced or widowed.

Each person’s motivations for buying a home is, without a doubt, different.

Past generations waited for Mr. Right to come along and give the poor helpless female financial security.

But TODAY’S woman is ready to take her financial destiny into her own hands. According to an older article from USA Today:

The trend is striking, because in 1981, the number of single women and single men home buyers was virtually the same. Since then, the percentage of buyers who are single women has almost doubled, while the percentage of single men buyers slipped 1 percentage point to 9% last year.

The article goes on to say:

“For the first time in history, women have access to the same resources men have always had — money, social status, power,” says Donald Hantula, professor of organizational psychology at Temple University in Philadelphia.

“Women can go and acquire them on their own rather than searching for a mate to provide them. These demographic and social changes are not in line with how we adapted in the hunter-gatherer era.”

In SF, women have a number of options when it comes to buying a home. My clients’ searches have included houses, condos, TIC’s, lofts, fixer-uppers, new construction, Victorian architecture, modern design and so many other variables that there’s just too many to list.

And now that we are seeing some better deals in the San Francisco housing market, I’ve been getting more calls from single women ready to take the plunge and buy a home. In fact, now that the real estate prices have softened in SF, I’ve gotten calls from some past single female clients that are ready to jump in and buy investment property, with a big enough down payment, they are actually able to see a positive net gain on a rental property in San Francisco.

If you’re a single woman and you’re thinking about buying property in San Francisco, whether for your primary residence or for investment purposes, give me a holler – I’m happy to help you decide whether now really is the right time for you to buy.

Oh, and the embedded video???  Just a gratuitous baby dancing to the Single Ladies song because who doesn’t like to watch babies boogie!

San Francisco Real Estate Fast Facts: November 2008 vs November 2009

For those of you that like your SF real estate market data without commentary, here ya go.  Take a look, check it out, come to your own conclusions. 

Or – you can always ask me questions. 

Fast Facts

Single-Family Homes

Condos

2-4 Units

NUMBER OF UNITS is the equivalent of number of sales/transactions. For condominiums, each unit is treated as a sale. For 2- to 4-unit buildings, the “building” is treated as a sale.

NUMBER SOLD is the number of properties in the market segment that closed escrow during the month.

NUMBER FOR SALE is the number of active properties on the market for one day or more during the month.

MEDIAN PRICE (SOLD) reflects the “middle” price point of a group of properties that have successfully closed escrow on a monthly basis, i.e. half sold for more and half sold for less than the median price. Tracking the movement of median prices over time provides a good indicator of the direction market forces are moving.

If the percentage change is positive between the two periods then there is upward pressure on prices in that market segment. If the percentage change is negative between the two periods then there is downward pressure on prices in that market segment.

AVERAGE DAYS ON MARKET (DOM) reflects how long it has been taking (on average) to draw an offer on a reasonably priced property exposed to the market. The AVERAGE DAYS ON MARKET is defined as: The average number of days it took all of the properties that went under contract during the period to accept a first position offer.

MONTH’S SUPPLY OF INVENTORY (MSI) is a measure of how long it would take, in months, to sell the existing inventory at the current sales rate for the specific neighborhood and property type. The MONTH’S SUPPLY OF INVENTORY is defined as: The number of active properties on the market for one day or more during the month, less the number of properties that have been withdrawn or expired, divided by the number of properties that have gone under contract during the month.

* * * * *

Data provided by Terradatum.

San Francisco Real Estate Forecast Looking Good for 2010

Another day of good news in the San Francisco housing market!

San Francisco’s Polaris Group has released it’s San Francisco Residential Development Report for December 2009.  The report analyzes new and resale condominium market trends and the performance of new condominium communities.

And the report highlights look like this:

• The resale market is showing positive signs with closed transaction volume increasing for the first time in 2009. During September-to-November 2009 sales were up 36.0 percent from the previous year. However, the median price for the same three month period was $641,000, a 9.5 percent decrease from the prior year.

• Radiance, a 99-unit community, sold out this month at an average absorption of three homes per month. Sales at Radiance began in March 2007.

• Two communities – 188 King & Cubix – recently returned to the for-sale market. 188 King is a 44-unit community located in South Beach that was repositioned to rentals in 2006. Cubix, composed entirely of 98 micro-units, had sales suspended in the Spring of 2009 when the original developer was foreclosed upon by his lender.

• There are a total of 21 new home communities on the market with a standing inventory of 1,036 condominium homes.

It does indeed look like 2010 will be bringing some positive momentum to the SF real estate market!

November 2009 San Francisco Housing Sales Data is Here!

Yet again, Luba’s San Francisco Real Estate Blog brings you the latest San Francisco Real Estate market report right here. (You can also view previous market updates by selecting the archives on the upper right portion of the screen). Heres’s a little glimpse of the report:

Median Price for Homes Goes Over $800,000

The median price of single-family, re-sale homes in San Francisco saw prices up, year-over-year, for the second month in a row. The median price also went over $800,000 for the first time since August 2008.

The median price rose 7.2% from October, and it was up 9.2% compared to last November.

Sales of single-family, re-sale homes fell 15.4% last month compared to October, but were up 34.5% year-over-year. That’s the fifth month in a row year-over-year sales have been higher than the year before. Year-to-date, home sales are up 1.4%.

Condo/loft sales were off 2.8% month-over-month, but up 103.9% compared to November 2008. This is the fourth month in a row condo/loft sales have been up year-over-year. Year-to-date, condo sales are off 5.1%.

The median price for lofts/condos in San Francisco dropped 0.5% from October, and was down 6% year-over-year. The average price gained 6.9% month-over-month, and was off 7.9% compared to November 2008.

Read on for full details.

San Francisco Real Estate – Sold!

Want to know know what sold in San Francisco in the last 30 days? Sign up for The City Update(TM) – San Francisco’s Friendliest Newsletter. You’ll get the details, and then some, in your inbox (almost) every Friday.

If you just want the round numbers, you can check them out below.

Sold Listings 11/04/09 – 12/04/09