Individual TIC loans coming soon?

An article in the San Francisco Business Times (dated July 22nd) discusses some advances in the TIC loan market, and some of the efforts by tenant activists to stop lenders from making it any easier to get into a TIC.

This is something that has been coming for quite a while, and appears to be imminent. It just remains to be seen what, if anything, the Tenant's Union and/or the Board of Supervisors can do to prevent what seems inevitable.

The San Francisco Examiner also has an article dated July 13th on this topic.

Home Depot approved by SF Planning Commission

Ouch. This is not what I hoped to be discussing in my first week of posting this blog...

Just when you think that San Francisco has found a way to keep the community-ruining big box stores out of our neighborhood-friendly city, the Planning Commission has approved the plan four votes to two as reported today by SF Gate.

The site is just at the bottom of Cortland Street in South Bernal Heights, right on Bayshore Blvd., and right off of Hwy 101, in the former Goodman Lumber site. After a ten year battle, it appears that the adjacent neighborhoods stopped fighting this just long enough for Home Depot to push it through...

I'm speechless. Was anyone really that inconvenienced by a 5 minute drive down to Colma?!? Can anyone walk to this new store location? No. Once they're in their cars, let 'em drive for five more minutes... Other than cleaning up a site that has been vacant for years, there's no reason for Home Depot to move into Bayshore...

This is ultimately subject to a vote by the Board of Supervisors, so you still have a chance to voice your opinion to your supervisor prior to their final decision.

Beyond Chron has an article on this topic as well, and they state that "The proposal is widely thought to have a good chance of approval with the Board of Supervisors." Let's hope not...

Real Estate Gems Abound During Late Peak-Season Sales

Robert Bruss writes a good piece about how there are deals to be had after the Spring and early-Summer crush.

I agree with this wholeheartedly, although I also think that August will provide very low inventory in San Francisco (when many of the agents go on vacation) leaving sellers with a distinct advantage. For some reason, buyers don't have the same vacation schedules as their agents... Buyers will likely see the inventory flood back into the market on the Tuesday after Labor Day and stay strong for about a month before tapering off again into the holidays.

If you're a seller, August appears to be a great time to sell. If you're a buyer, wait till late-September, October, November, or December. That inventory glut of early-September is going to get old by the end of the month and what's left over will be where you find your bargains.

As an aside, I'm obviously not a doomsday prophet, either. Smart buying decisions paired with smart upgrades/remodeling is the key to staying ahead of this market, no matter what the climate.

Stats for July 12th-26th

For the two weeks between July 12th and 26th, the San Francisco market saw a total of 240 residential sales (single family homes, condos, TICs, 2-4 unit buildings). Of this, we see the following:

193 properties sold over their asking price
21 sold at asking price
26 sold under asking price

As you will see over time, this is very common for the San Francisco market, regardless of what might be printed in the press lately.

As you might deduce, this comes from properties that were ratifed (went into contract) between two and four weeks prior (mid-to-late June or even early July).

This information comes directly from the San Francisco Multiple Listing Service and applies only to those sales that were reported to the MLS.

Two SF Neighborhoods elect to tax themselves

This is a great idea, IMHO... Two neighborhoods, Fisherman's Wharf and Mission Street between 21st and 22nd Streets, have decided to tax themselves (via taxes to businesses) for basic upkeep and neighborhood services. The San Francisco Business Times has a great story on this. They also note a few other neighborhoods that appear to be headed in the same direction.

When city funds fail, the neighborhoods might need to help take care of themselves...

Site feed available for RSS/XML/Atom

Rather than checking back on your own for new stories, just add the site feed (from the Links list on the right) to your RSS/XML/Atom reader. If you don't have one yet, try Pluck (for Internet Explorer) or NewsFire , NetNewsWire, Pulp Fiction for the Mac, or even Opera, Safari (Mac OS 10.4 only), or Firefox. Whenver I add content, you'll see it show up on your reader and you can link right back to the blog.

The BBC News web site has a great page on how to use RSS and how to get started using a news reader.

Happy reading!

Welcome!

Welcome to a new blog on San Francisco Real Estate....