Danielle Lazier

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

Per Inman News – Google drops real estate listings – Search giant cites low use, proliferation of search sites

Kind of interesting. More for us in the industry than the consumer but hey, maybe you’ll like it. Reminds me of the ongoing battle between full-service and discount brokers. Even though Redfin and ZipRealty deliver a great online experience, when it comes to the actual transaction, most San Francisco home buyer and sellers realize that they benefit from a real estate agent with full-time experience who will answer their calls, emails and meet with them in person and who has day to day, in the trenches exposure to the local San Francisco real estate market, contracts, other agents, etc. (I just had 2 interesting experiences around this and will post about it soon.)

It’s not that Google isn’t great as a search engine but it’s just a bit tough to supply accurate, real time MLS data for local markets. Even San Francisco’s own Trulia, as good as it is, supplies some data that just isn’t up-to-date or correct (particularly the foreclosure stuff).

From our friends at Inman News:

Google drops real estate listings – Search giant cites low use, proliferation of search sites
By Inman News, Wednesday, January 26, 2011.
Inman News™

Search giant Google will no longer support real estate listings uploaded to its classifed listings site on Google Maps, the company announced today.

Consumers will no longer be able to find for-sale, foreclosure, or rental properties through the search function on Google Maps, and real estate professionals will no longer be able to upload their listings to Google Base, the company’s classifieds site, which is being replaced by Google Shopping APIs and will not support real estate listings.
Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: google, inman, inman news

Follow SF Real Estate? Keep Your Eyes On the Valley. More VC Dollars Flow to Bay Area.

For a glint of positive news, look south. According to the Wall St. Journal, “Local (San Francisco Bay Area) Start-Ups Snagged a Bigger Slice of the Venture-Capital Pie in 2009.”

“But even as the overall amount of venture-capital money they pumped into companies declined from 2008, Bay Area start-ups got a bigger slice of the dollars that were deployed. According to research firm VentureSource, start-ups in the Silicon Valley region saw their percentage share grow over the first three quarters in 2009.”

“…venture capitalists say they paid even more attention to local start-ups last year because the recession weeded out weaker ideas elsewhere, while Silicon Valley’s longtime ecosystem of entrepreneurs and start-ups meant that new companies continued to launch.”

Who knows when we’ll see the next Google but rest-assured that those big, shiny, black buses are good for real estate. Where the luxury Google bus travels (or Apple or Genentech or…), so goes the increasing value of your Noe Valley Victorian listing, Mission loft, Bernal Heights home, or Mission Dolores condo!

Tags: google, venture capital, wall st. journal