Oakland Ca Real Estate's Blog: General News in Oakland Real Estate-New Developments and Rehabilitation Projects

Perhaps you live on the east side of town where orchards once dotted the hillsides and valleys of an early Oakland. The Greek, Italian and Portuguese families who planted these trees often included stay-at-home moms who harvested the fruit and turned out delicious jams, pies and other delights. However, residents today, as you know, live under different circumstances. People are too busy and too tired to pick peaches or peel, slice, core and stew apples. The problem is -- no one told the trees, which means -- the fruit still falls in the backyards. More often than not, it rots. But that is starting to change, because one homeowner has found a solution.

Several Oakland organizations are banding together for the second year to harvest your fruit and…

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    HOW TO CUT YOUR PROPERTY TAX BILL   Proposition 8 - allows a temporary tax reduction when a property’s market value on January 1st, is below the prior years assessed value.   Ask your Assessor - if your home is worth less than you paid, chances are you can get a temporary reduction in your property taxes. It’s free and easy to do yourself.   Assessors in some Bay Area counties hit hard by the housing downturn – Contra Costa, Alameda, Santa Clara and Solano – are automatically reviewing homes purchased in the past few years to see if the homeowner qualifies for a cut in assessed value for 2008-09.   Even in these counties, homeowners who think their home’s market value on Jan. 1 was lower than the assessed value on their last property… Read Full Post

It's great that the new FHA guidelines were rolled out last week, but it seems like the only way for that to make a real serious impact is if it is made permanent. It's just a fact that real estate in Oakland and the surrounding Bay Area cost more than in most other parts of the country. Therefore it makes sense for us to have higher FHA guidelines...and not just temporarily. We are already almost a quarter of the way through 08', and currently the raises in the guidelines are only in effect until the end of 08'.

I've been following sentate hearings on the economy and housing issues, and it seems many of our elected officials agree with me.

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Interestingly, a colleague in my office recenly listed THE lowest priced single family home Oakland! It might be in a rough area, it might be boarded up and bank owned, but there IS a single family home in Oakland for sale for $95,000 which is remarkable. It will be interesting to see how quickly it goes, and what price it sells for. It's the type of property that will most likely be bought by a contractor/investor who could rehab it and turn it into a rental home.

I was surprised to hear that there was a single family home in any condition for under 100k, but I guess it's just a sign of the times.

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Some may have a perception that when the Fed meets and lowers interest rates, then that means mortgage interest rates are going to go down too. However when you look at the dynamics of our economy you see this is not always the case.

A good example is the recent cuts that the Fed has announced in recent months. The last cut was a whopping 3/4 point, but as we see this did not cause mortgage interest rates to go down...in fact they went up. Just a month or so ago the 30 year fixed interest rate was around 5 3/8%, now it's about a full percentage point higher...which is a HUGE swing. To put it plain and simple, Fed rate cuts actually hurt mortgage interest rates much of the time.

Whats happening is that when the Fed lowers the prime rate, this causes the…

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San Francisco has just rolled out a new energy conservation program which rebates home and business owners for installing solar panels on their real estate. Home owners can get $3000-$5000 off the cost of the installation, and business owners can get up to $10,000. Combined with rebates from the state of California, homeowners can potentially get up to $15,000 of the cost of solar panels rebated to them.

This is a great program, and I have a feeling Oakland will be following suit in the near future.

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There is a glut of Bank Owned Properties in Oakland surrounding areas. It's interesting to see how almost every single bank-owned home is in need of some serious cosmetic TLC. I've seen some the weirdest paint colors, mysterious holes and missing appliances in Bank Owned homes. However if the buyer doesn't mind giving the place a little tlc then there are definitely some decent deals out there. It's not that every Bank Owned property is in disrepair, but I guess I've just seen a lot of them recently. Many times the Banks will have the buyer sign separate addendum forms to make sure the buyer knows that the Bank will not pay for any work that is needed and that it is an "as-is" sale.

 

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It seems that some of the developers in Oakland are not immune to the high inventory that is forcing people to slash prices. I was somewhat surprised to learn that the Olson Brothers, (developers of one of the largest and most luxurious new condo developments in Oakland) have postponed the second phase of the development. 

The obvious reason for the postponement is the fact that not many of the units in the first phase have sold yet. Financially, it can't make sense for them to keep building while there are still many of the first phase units available.

Sales at Broadway Grand-another new development in Oakland are also sluggish compared to their projections. Out of over 100 units, I believe only a dozen or so have sold yet.Hopefully the new year and…

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