The challenge with being involved in your government is having the time and energy to dig through the information to find the facts. Most of the time, the average citizen (like myself) only reacts to a public policy change when it lands on our doorstep. I have been following the debate regarding Governor Brown’s shutting down of the state’s Redevelopment Agencies. I have attended many functions over the last year where developers swore that this would have a huge impact on their ability to develop homes for “in-fill” areas. Simply put, without government subsidies it would not be cost effective to create new town homes in a transitional neighborhood of San Jose because affordability would be out of reach for the average resident. If you listened to the debates, why should property taxes go to big developers? Pet projects like parking garages in Los Angeles and high rises in San Jose, were considered foolish in a time of economic recession. Makes sense to stop providing subsidies to wealthy builders. Or so it seemed at first glance. But redevelopment money is not just for big developers.  Redevelopment money was  intended to rebuild neighborhoods by providing encouragement to builders to take a risk. Redevelopment money was meant to fuel jobs in areas of the county where there were very few jobs to be had. Redevelopment money was meant to provide an opportunity for lower income families to own a home. Redevelopment money was meant to support public servants like teachers and firefighters the ability to afford a home in Silicon Valley when their salaries alone where not enough. The Governor was successful at making sure developers did not get subsidies. But what he also did is gave teachers and other public servants no choice but to accept foreclosure. Why? If a teacher…

In a recent industry magazine I saw the word “resilence”.  It immediately sent my mind down a winding path thinking about its definition and my world. Indeed, this one word summed up the last three years of my career in real estate. re·sil·ience noun /ri?zily?ns/   The capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness. Truthfully, it summed up a majority of peoples’ lives over the last three years.  The capacity to recover has been and is being tested in every possible way.  In early 2008 we recognized the real estate world was changing.  Sometimes changing so fast, it was difficult to sit down at a kitchen table with a seller and explain that their house value had not only decreased but was actively decreasing at a rate of 2% – 5% per month. In 2009, the reality of AS IS became clear as REOs and short sales hit the market and buyers looked at me puzzled by the definition of this new market’s  affordability.  Yes, you may now get a deal but you have a ton of work to do before you can move in.  Furthermore, the return of FHA loans into the California market sent agents reeling into new requirements applied by appraisers and underwriters.  But, as professionals do, we recovered and quickly became experts at anticipating issues and added to our daily calendars meetings at homes to provide the out of town appraiser with comps and data related to our local market. Moving into 2010, buyers saw the tax incentives as a way to hedge their bets against predicting the bottom of the housing market but were still very surprised when their offer was 1 of 8 on the REO they found.  The “believe it or not” speech I gave over and over to first time buyers explained how…

I know you are interested in the housing market and I wanted to pass this article on for your review.  Lee Adler is a long time investor and wonderfully analytical in how he approaches his own real estate investments.  In this post he discusses how S&P Case Shiller Home Price analytics are a little behind the times on reporting.  Mr. Adler believes the true barometer the list price to sales price truly indicates current market activity and price strength/weakness.  He still warns of inflation and bank held inventory but believes the double dip market has passed. The current list price to sales price ratio average for single family homes in  San Jose is 98% (Based on Sales since January 2011 to now) Here is an excerpt from the article by Lee Adler: (or Complete article link) “There’s just one problem with that. Other price indicators that are not constructed with the Case Shiller’s large built in lag, passed the 2009-2010 low months ago. The FHFA (the Federal Agency that runs Fannie and Freddie) price index showed a low in March 2010 that was broken in June 2010 and never looked back. That index is now 5.6% below the March 2010 low. Zillow.com’s proprietary value model never even bounced. It shows a year over year decline of 8.2% as of February. Zillow’s listing price index shows a low of $200,000 in November 2009, followed by a flat period lasting 6 months. As of March 31, that index stood at $187,500, down 6.25% from the 2009-2010 low for data.” “Another weakness which the Case Shiller shares with all price measures is that they do not account for the false price reports resulting from the two home-buyers’ tax credit programs in 2009 and 2010.  Aside from the fact that the credits distorted the…