Danielle Lazier

Archive for the 'Home Buying' Category

We don’t take clients for the money and all of the listings are online!

But seriously, if we don’t take clients for the money and if the listings are all online, what are we doing here?

Pondering more on the value of a real estate agent over at daniellelazier.com, I can summarize the main value of today’s Realtor by saying that we take all of the information, much of which is either overwhelming, inaccurate, misleading or all of the above, and put it into context. We break it down, organize it and make it transparent. We help you clarify what you want and help you make good decisions. We translate, decipher and save you time. Or at least we should be doing that if we want to remain relevant in today’s real estate world of online-everything.

Much of real estate can be automated or outsourced through technology but the role of the Realtor as the “in the trenches, on the street advisor” cannot. I should clarify that I am speaking specifically about the type of Realtor who is a consultant or advisor rather than the typical salesperson of days past.

Do your research. Know your stuff. Don’t trust blindly but do align yourself with an experienced real estate professional who will help you sort through the crap so you can make an easy, informed decision about when to sell your home or what home to buy. Maybe that’s why this For Sale By Owner sign was on clearance at the Office Depot San Francisco?

Tags: fsbo, value of agent

HGTV House Hunters – Sticking to a Budget in San Francisco is Tough But We Had a Blast!

Recently, I had the opportunity to shoot an episode of HGTV’s House Hunters. So fun!!

Sadly, they haven’t posted the episode online…just yet…and I flaked about the blog post prior to the air date but hopefully, you can catch us in syndication. It was such a blast to film and my clients, Karine and Sheila, have such a lovely story.

Plus, they increased their budget $150,000 during the episode! You know, the folks in the Midwest think we are absolutely nuts with our home prices but like they say on KFOG, we are quite proud of our “San Francisco values” & happy to spread them world-wide.

Tags: hgtv, house hunters

Low Down Payment Home Loans are Back for Buyers of San Francisco Luxury Real Estate Listings

Low Down Payment Jumbo Home Loans for San Francisco Real Estate Listings are Back!

For the last couple of years, if you wanted to buy a million dollar home in San Francisco, you needed to come up with 20% down payment plus to get a home loan for the purchase. Actually, anyone wanting a loan amount above the current super-conforming limit of $729k needed to have a full down payment. Not anymore. It is again possible to purchase a luxury San Francisco home with 10% down payment. Okay, okay, maybe a million dollar home in San Francisco is not exactly a castle but it can be a gorgeous, spacious home or condo in a nice neighborhood like Bernal Heights, Noe Valley, Inner Sunset…

You can buy a home that costs up to $1,088,000 with 10% down payment. Right now, the historically low interest rates are very attractive – about 4.875% for a 5/1 ARM (5-Year Fixed Rate Loan). We’re told that this is a very selective loan program only offered by a handful of local San Francisco mortgage companies. We got the scoop from Team Z @ Guarantee Mortgage (Nastasha Lovas, Dean Rizzi, Stephen Barber, CJ Kerls, Pete Elting, Sergei Andruha, Phillip Cannon, and Jane Glendinning).

If you are buying a luxury home or condo in San Francisco (plus/minus $1,000,000), you may want to check this out because the difference between putting $200,000 and $100,000 into your down payment is substantial. For those of you with high income and great credit, it could be a good fit to maximize your tax savings and minimize your risk. (Keep more money in your reserve account or towards retirement savings, etc.) Okay, I am NOT a CPA so please consult with your tax advisor.

Tags: jumbo loans, low down payment, team z

Got Cash? Just how many San Francisco real estate sales are ALL CASH?

Got Cash? Just how many San Francisco real estate sales are ALL CASH?

A colleague of mine at Zephyr Real Estate recently polled the community to ascertain approximately how many deals sell with “ALL CASH”. ALL CASH means that the home buyer buys the single family home, condo, loft, building, or what have you, without a loan…i.e. they pay ALL CASH.

In San Francisco with all of our dot-coms, start-ups, IPOs, LPOs, and so forth, there is a lot of cash in the real estate market. But just how much?

Our friend and excellent escrow officer, Charles Richards, of Chicago Title Company had this to report:

Using March 2011 as a sample : 13-14% of San Francisco home sales were all cash and additional 20-25% were 50% down or more

This means that last month, 13-14% of home buyers in San Francisco bought their property with all cash (no loan) and 20-25% of SF home buyers had a down payment of 50% of more.

Got cash? Er, it seems, we do!

Tags: all cash

Don’t Buy a Home in San Francisco Bay Area Until You Check These 5 Factors!

What are the 5 most important factors to watch in order to see if it’s the right time to buy a home in the San Francisco Bay Area real estate market?

Per the Wall Street Journal, the 5 signs that say ‘buy’ a home are jobs, recent sales activity, construction, mortgage availability, and anecdotal evidence.

1. Jobs – Forget the national reports. Are local companies hiring? Are start-ups going public? Is the mood generally positive or negative about the San Francisco job market?
2. Recent Sales Activity - Check local neighborhood-specific real estate data, using the Zephyr Real Estate website where you can check stats by MLS sub-district. Be careful to avoid analysis by zip code or tax record as they information will be too broad and not up-to-date. When we have our initial home buyer strategy session, we look at the CMA (Comparative Market Analysis) for the specific neighborhood of interest to the home buyer. Lately, I’ve noticed more recent sales than active listings.
3. Construction - This is tough in San Francisco because frankly, there isn’t much land left and yet, is construction happening? Are new condos selling? What’s the local scoop?
4. Mortgage availability – How easy or difficult is it to get a home loan? In San Francisco, it’s important to pay attention to the jumbo home loan market which, according to our Lender partners, seems to be loosening up albeit slowly.
5. Anecdotal evidence - This is the one time I recommend you actually listen to the talk at the water cooler! What’s the general vibe? Are your friends and coworkers feeling good about the economy? In San Francisco, our world kind of revolves around technology, right? My friends in tech are feeling positive, how ’bout yours?

Tags: 5 factors, 5 signs, wall st. journal, Wall Street Journal, wsj

Insider Tips for San Francisco First Time Buyers

Insider Secrets for San Francisco Bay Area First Time Buyers – A Must-Read for ALL Prospective Home Buyers

Trulia published a very helpful blog post about the process of buying your first home. I devote a lot of blog-time to first time home buyers in San Francisco because helping you is a particular passion of mine. My impression is that the more information and insight you get up-front, the more you understand what to expect and when, the more enjoyable and successful your home purchase will be.

Here are the highlights but please read the entire post on The Suprising Insider Secrets for the 5 Stages of Buying Your First Home.

The 5 Stages of Buying a Home per Trulia Advice that, of course, we agree with! (Note my personal emphasis in parenthesis. Kind of rhyme intended.)

Stage One: Deciding Whether It’s The Right Time to Buy.
Insider Secret: (Whether you are in Bernal Heights, Noe Valley, or Pacific Heights,) the market is the least important factor you should consider when deciding whether and when to buy a home.

Stage Two: Getting Pre-Approved (at the beginning of your house hunt).
Insider Secret: Working with a mortgage broker referred by your real estate broker or agent may save you money.

Stage Three: House Hunting
Insider Secret: “Distressed” doesn’t always equal “discounted” – in some cases, a “regular” sale can be a deeper deal. (And to this that the majority of so-called short sales will never close escrow. We work in the distressed home market & have negotiated plenty of short sales, foreclosures and bank-owned REO properties. We can spot the situations with the best and worst chance of working out for the buyer.)

Stage Four: Negotiations
Insider Secret: Your family and friends can cause you to lose your dream home.

Stage Five: Escrow, Inspections and Underwriting
Insider Secret: It’s critical that you attend your home inspections. (And have them! With very few exceptions, we recommend that a buyer have their own professional home inspection.)

More posts related to San Francisco first time home buyer tips & advice:

• 10 Things to Remember When Buying a Home
• The Process of Buying a Home in San Francisco, Specifically
• 2011 Home Buying Resolutions
• Loan Preapproval Process – What documentation is needed for a home loan application
• How Many Homes Should I See Before Making an Offer?
• Loan Preapproval Before Open Houses
• A Brief History of the 30 Year Fixed Rate Mortgage

Tags: 1st-time buyer, First Time Buyer, first-time home buying, trulia

Local Techies Predict Increased Home Prices Upon San Francisco Bay Area IPOs (LinkedIn, Zynga, Facebook)

Last night, I had dinner with a couple of friends at Local Mission Eatery. One of my friends works for a super popular local San Francisco start-up.

He casually mentioned to me that he’s been hearing from friends and coworkers that the local techie community expects home values to increase in San Francisco and Silicon Valley in the near future because some of our most successful local start-ups have either just had or are about to have their initial public offering (IPO), making many of the employees capable of buying a home here in the Bay Area. (This is not to mention that Google is hiring.)

His friend was telling him that the word on the street is that if possible, you should try to buy a home before this happens.

I know, I know, this sounds like Realtor BS. But really, this is what he told me and hey, who am I to argue with the SF technorati?

Tags: facebook, google, ipo, linkedin, technorati, zynga

Featured Property – 360 Guerrero Street 404 Mission Dolores Top Floor Condo Listing For Sale

Brand-new Mission Dolores San Francisco, CA top-floor condo listing for sale – 360 Guerrero Street #404- Asking $539,000.

Dolores Plaza Condos is a condo complex in an uber-cool & convenient location with entrances at 360 Guerrero Street between 15th and 16th Streets and 1839 15th Street between Dolores and Guerrero. Yup, it’s an 80s building but wait, this place is modern, hip, spacious, and just totally fabulous.

Um, hello, we’re talking hardwood floors, open floor plan, remodeled kitchen and bath, wood-burning fireplace, amazing closet space, shared laundry down the hall, gym facility, courtyard, deeded garage parking and GUEST PARKING a block from Valencia Street! 98% Walkscore

Perfect for San Francisco first time home buyers! As low as 3.5% Low-down payment available. FHA-APPROVED!

The seller put a lot of work and money into remodeling the top floor condo and it shows.

NOTES ON THE REMODEL:

Kitchen:

• Counters, back splash, shelving, cabinets, appliances in kitchen
• Opened up the wall between kitchen & main living area.
• Replaced florescence light with recessed lights in kitchen & entry

Bathroom:

• Bathroom shelving, marble in shower and associated hardware
• Light fixture, mirror, and counters/cabinets in bathroom

General:

• Build-in shelves in the nook beside the fireplace
• Resurfacing the walls & ceiling (previously “orange peel” texture)
• Solid wood floor throughout the unit
• Fan/light fixture in bedroom
• Dining area light fixture

And here’s a note from the Seller…

Living here has provided a great balance! It has incredibly convenient access to all the great things nearby, but also a wonderful place to host my friends for dinner parties and quiet evenings at home. I’ve taken advantage of the location near so many great restaurants and bars to easily lure friends over this way for a night out, and savored the convenience of my getting home at the end of the night. It’s been fabulous to walk up to Tartine to get treats for a friend’s brunch; to indulge in the fantastic food and service at Delfina; or knowing that I could skip the crazy line at the Bi-Rite Creamery by getting a pint in the Bi-Rite store when I headed to hang out in Dolores Park with friends on a sunny weekend.

Remodeling my unit created a beautiful home for cooking up meals with things bought from local farmer’s markets, a cozy place to watch a movie by the fire, or simply appreciate the beauty of the view – especially during the fireworks on the 4th of July or clear days when you can see over the neighboring buildings to the East Bay hills, Potrero, and Bernal Park.

This neighborhood and Dolores Plaza has been such treat to live in.  I was incredibly lucky to have fantastic neighbors.  We’d get together for wine and I loved when they’d enthusiastically stop by & mix with my other friends when I hosted events catering to neighborhood activities like the Dolores Park movie nights or the Sister of Perpetual Indulgence’s Easter craziness.

The location was convenient when I worked downtown via Bart and on the Peninsula with the quick access to 101.  And, it was a joy to come home & always know that I had a parking space waiting for me when I came back from socializing or even just a long day at work. I will dearly miss all the perks this home has offered and hope that it provides as much happiness to the next resident. And, did you see the bedroom closet… I can still remember day dreaming about it when I was buying the unit!

For the full scoop, check out our San Francisco real estate website for first time home buyers and/or the property’s website with full photo tour and showing information for Dolores Plaza condos.

Tags: dolores plaza, Featured Property

To Upper Haight or Lower Haight? Fab Top Floor Hayes Valley Haight Ashbury Condos Hit the Market

1439 Page Street – Haight Ashbury Buena Vista North Top Floor 3 Bedroom Condo Asking $899,000.

252 Waller Street – Hayes Valley Top Floor 3 Bedroom Condo Asking $895,000.

Gorgeous homes. Banging deals!

Tags: 1439 page, 252 waller, what's new wednesday

North Slope Bernal Heights San Francisco House For Sale Gets 17 Offers!

Last week, a north slope Bernal Heights San Francisco house for sale received 17 offers and is in contract for almost $100,000 over the asking price.

I have two things to say about this.

1. Perhaps, the list price was a bit on the aggressive (low) side. Ya think?!

(This strategy of listing low to generate interest works really well for home sellers but can be frustrating and upsetting for buyers. Keep in mind that the list price is NOT market value…it could be too high, too low, or just right. Learn the local market, work with an expert real estate professional, like us of course, and remember if it looks too good to be true…

2. All real estate is super local and in choice San Francisco neighborhoods like Bernal Heights, there is high demand for real estate.

So when you’re out buying a home make sure you understand the local market for your specific neighborhood of interest. How many active listings are there? How many have sold in the past 3 months? How many listings are act.cont. or pending?

If there are more homes in escrow and recently sold than there are currently available & on the market, then there is more demand than supply for local San Francisco real estate. This is not Las Vegas. We do not have miles and miles of new construction to choose from. This is San Francisco and in this case, Bernal Heights, and you gotta play to win.

But fear not…prices are still down from the peak (for now) and interest rates are extremely favorable. It is a great time to buy a home. This particular north slope Bernal Heights home will sell in 2011 for less than it did in 2006 (but not by much). The reality is that there is stiff competition but as a San Francisco first time home buyer you are still making a smart long-term investment move. Again, this is not Las Vegas.

One final word on this Bernal Heights listing that got 17 offers – this means that 16 home buyers are still on the hunt for that elusive single family home priced under $800,000. Yikes.*

* If you own a home in Bernal Heights and are thinking of selling, this is very good news. Research the local Bernal Heights real estate market.

Tags: bernal heights