For July, I decided to put myself in an investors shoes for a few minutes and scout the Davis real estate market to see what kind of deals are out there.  I pictured myself as an investor that wants to find an investment home to use as a rental. But, a few parameters -

First, I would want to make the purchase, and close, in time to rent it out before the University starts it's fall session. That means a property that can close quickly. So I'm not going to look at any property that is a short sale. I can't be waiting around to hear from a bank. It could be months before they respond.

Second, it has to be in good condition. I don't have time for a lot of construction and rehab, and I want this home generating some sot of revenue by fall.

So I narrow my search and look for good buys in Condo, half-plex, and single family home. This is what I found.

Property #1 - The Single Family Home

Here's an investors dream. 4 Bedrooms and the price was just reduced, so we might have a motivated seller. The home has a large backyard already fixed up for the vegetable gardener. At just $379,000, that's just $94,000 per bedroom for a single family home. For a four bedroom home in east Davis rents currently run from $1,700 to $2,000 per month.  You do the math. This could be a winner.

Property #2 - The Half-Plex

This is a sweet halfplex in a great location, right across the street from a large park, and down the street from a great shopping center. This beauty is just made for the universty rental market. No problem finding renters here. It's a clean 3 bedroom, 2 bath unit with off street parking. It has vaulted ceilings, newer appliances and roof so your maintenance costs should be minimal. It was built in 1990 and looks sharp. It's priced at $379,500.

Property #3 - The Condo

This is the cheapest property in Davis, that's not a short-sale. It's only one bedroom, so it would be better suited for the first time buyer, a couple or single person. This is a large one bedroom, One bath condo in Stonegate and includes Stonegate country club priviledges (Tennis, Pool, Workout room, Lake with picnic area). Close to shopping, too. There is the matter of quartery dues of $121. Okay, maybe not an investment rental, but at $229,000 still a great buy.

Summertime in Davis is the time when a lot of rental properties change hands. Students graduate, people leave town and move on. The next batch of students arrives looking for housing. If you are an investor looking for property in a University town, Davis is the place for you. I have more detailed information about Investing in Davis Real Estate on my website.

For July of 2010, these are three of the better buys in Davis right now. If you would like to see any of these homes, give me a call today at 530-219-7653 and we can set an appointment for you to see them, or any other Davis property.

The Davis, California real estate market has always had a seasonal component in that sales increase in the spring until late summer and then they tail off until the following spring. The weather and the University school year are two factors that contribute to this cycle. This years financial stimulus tax credits and low interest rates are two other factors. To see a three year graph that illustrates the cyclical nature of the Davis real estate market, check out my Davis real estate market page.

It's no surprise then that sales in April 2010 are up. The good news is that April 2010 is much better than April 2009.

To summarize the graph below, the number of homes sold in April 2010 is 25% higher than the year before, while the median price of homes sold is up 8% from last year.

In addition, homes are selling faster than they did last April.

Best of all, the average price per square foot is holding firm. While other markets have picked up, because home values have dropped, the Davis market has been able to hold onto value better than most. The average price per square foot for homes sold is nearly the same as it was last year at this time.

Good news on all fronts !

The graph below provides the details;




If you are thinking of selling your Davis home, it is wise to get in front of the wave of buyers that appears in the spring and then goes away in August. More buyers means more people interested in seeing and buying your home. This translates into a faster sale and a higher price for you. Don't wait until fall when the market slows down. Call me today to find out how much your home is worth in todays market. I'll be happy to meet with you, provide you a free Comparative Market Analysis of your home, and also give you some tips on how to prepare your home for sale to get the most for it. Call me today at 530-219-SOLD.

Google Maps has recently released a new feature that will be of particular interest to Davis residents and bicycling
enthusiasts. As you know, the town of Davis, California is all about bikes, bike paths and bike lanes.

Now when you use Google maps, you can get bicycling directions from one location to another that incorporates the citys bike paths into your trip.

In the "Get Directions" area of Google Maps, there is now a drop down menu (see graphic at right) which gives you the choice of directions by car, walking, bicycling, or by public transit.

I decided to test the Bicycling directions by choosing two locations in Davis and seeing if Google would know the bike paths in Davis and lead me from the Davis Farmers Market to El Macero golf course on a bike.

From experience, I know that you can avoid almost all city streets and the Richards Blvd. overpass by using the bike path that crosses under Highway 80 behind Borders books and then follow the bike path along Putah Creek that takes you almost all the way to Mace blvd without travelling on a city streets.

So I put these two location into "Get Directions", selected "bicycling" as my option and clicked.

Google returned with a map showing my path to get from Farmers market to El Macero, along with step by step written directions. Google did in fact keep me off many city streets, avoided the Richards blvd. overpass and kept me on bike paths most of the way.(see below)

Google chose to take a different, less scenic bike path that winds through south Davis, than I as a native would choose. I would have stayed along Putah creek rather than wander through South Davis neighborhoods, but why quibble.

The fact is that Davis has so many bike paths that there are many ways to get from one place to another. Choose the quickest route or the scenic route.

You can even modify the route that Google chooses for you by dragging and dropping the path to a new location. Google will automatically re-calculate your path.

This is a great new Google tool and can be particularly useful to new UC Davis students that arrive in town with a bike but don't have the knowledge of the Davis bike path system. To learn more about the bike paths in Davis, you can visit Bicycle Friendly Davis.

Thanks Google! You have added a tool to your search engine that seems to be custom made for Davis residents.

I'm providing this latest update to show that home prices, as measured by price per square foot, have held firm in Davis over the last three years. The graph below shows the price per square foot of homes sold from January 2007 to January 2010. Notice the prices started 2007 at about $300 per square foot and have remained fairly steady. Smaller homes will sell for more than this average and larger homes usually sell for less than this price per square foot. If you are wondering what your home might be worth, the $300 per square foot is a general rule of thumb as a starting point.

This next graph show the inventory for sale vs. the number of homes sold over the same three year period. Notice the cyclical nature of the Davis real estate market. Every July the number of homes sold peaks as the school year ends, rental homes become empty, and landlords put them up for sale. Also, in a University town like Davis, students and employees are moving in and out of town to other colleges and buying or selling their homeas the case may be.

If you are thinking about selling your home in Davis this year, get ahead of the curve. You can see that homes will be coming on the market in higher numbers by April, so call me today for a free market analysis of your home. I'll review with you my marketing plan for your home, have you meet with my expert on "staging" your home so it shows well, and give you an accurate assesment of what your home will sell for in todays market. I hope you are encouraged by the numbers above. Call me today at 530-219-SOLD and let's get started. - Vicki

Saturdays’ Incredible Open House


Just as I was setting up my signs for the open house in West Davis last Saturday another strong shower passed right over head.  Setting up the signs is by far the least favorite part of any Open House and setting up the signs in wet weather just makes the whole experience that much more fun… not! 

Open Houses can be and are usually a great way to spend a Saturday afternoon.  What Realtor doesn’t love talking real estate to a new audience. 

There are however those Opens that drag on with little or heaven forbid, no visitors.  Those Opens when your hoping you’ve brought a long a good book to read  or spend a few hours scanning your Blackberry for new messages.

If last Saturday’s Open House activity was any indication of the Davis market this spring, it should be a great year. 

My Open was absolutely packed; with visitors lined up at the front door waiting a turn to go in.  I assumed my traffic cop role, moving potential buyer’s up the stairs with one group and into the kitchen with the second to avoid a buyer’s jam.   Almost everyone seemed enthusiastic about the possibility of purchasing. 

I think the fact that the tax credit for new and/or move-up buyers is ending soon, combined with very low interest rates and a low inventory of homes for sale in Davis, had everything to do with this incredible turnout… over twenty five groups of people! 

If you are thinking about selling your house this year, don't wait until spring. The buyers are out there now and want to close on a home before the $8,000 tax credit goes away.  Call me today!

The summer real estate season is over in Davis and the students have come back to town to fill up the rental homes and apartments. The number of homes sold in Davis was down in the summer quarter compared to the same period in 2008.

Why are sales down? One reason might be the change in lending standards that have occurred since the financial “meltdown” that took place last fall. With tighter credit standards, it’s harder to get home loans, so less people are qualifying as prospective buyers. Fewer buyers can mean fewer sales, and usually lower prices. The median price is also affected by the simple fact that entry level homes and first time buyers are moving faster than the rest of the market due to the $8,000 first time buyer tax credit currently in place. So more low end and entry level homes are selling.

The numbers below provide the details:

There is one silver lining. Homes are taking less time to sell. Last year the average days on the market for a listing was 59 days, in 2009 it took 51 days, on average to sell a home.

If you are interested in selling a home in the Davis area, contact me for a free home value estimate and check out my tips for Davis Home Sellers  for some great tips on how to sell your home in a tough real estate market.

source:  Metrolist MLS

The Woodland, California real estate market continues to see the effects of a slow economy and the tight credit markets. Sales of homes in Woodland slowed to just 147 in the 3rd quarter of 2009, while the median price fell to just $215,000.

Here is a snapshot of Q3 for Woodland:

 

There are buyers out there, but the market seems to be dominated by first time home buyers and investors looking for homes below $200,000 that may cash-flow.

The first time home buyer is being spurred by the $8,000 federal tax credit. Many have expressed an interest of closing quickly in order to take advantage of this offer by the November 30th deadline.

Bargain hunters and investors are looking at homes in the $130,000 to $180,000 range and fixer-uppers. 

It is also taking a little longer to sell a house in 2009 than it did in 2008. But a well priced home can still attract buyers and sell quickly. A friend of mine just put his 3 bedroom north side home, built in the 1950’s, on the market for $220,000. It was sold in just 8 days and received multiple offers.

If you are a seller in Woodland, get a realistic estimate of your homes worth. Don’t try to over price you home in hopes of finding a naïve buyer that will pay more than it’s worth. They don’t exist anymore. It’s not 2004, it’s 2009 and it’s a buyers market. Savvy buyers know a good priced when they see it. They also can spot a home that is overpriced and they stay clear of it. Why should they bother dealing with a seller of an overpriced home in today’s market, when there are so many motivated sellers, short sales and bank owned properties to choose from?

The answer is……. they don’t.  If your home has been on the market for seven days and it has not been shown to a prospective buyer, it is overpriced. The buyers are out there, but they are focusing on well-priced homes. 

If you are ready to sell, give me a call. 80% of buyers are using the internet to find their next home. I have the internet presence to bring buyers to you through my websites www.WoodlandHomes2sell.com and www.DavisHomes2sell.com . They are top ranked by Google and get thousands of visits each month from buyers all over the world.

If you have been in touch with the real estate industry in the last week or so, I'm sure you are aware of the predatory activity of the Metropolitan Indianapolis Board of Realtors (MIBOR) toward their own members, namely Paula Henry http://www.hometoindy.com and her Broker, Mike Taylor http://www.reddoorindy.com.

You can read all the details of this issue at Agent Genius or Real Estate Webmasters, but the short version is that MIBOR has gotten confused as to the difference between the indexing of web pages and the scraping of web content. MIBOR has come to the conclusion that Google is a Scraper site because MLS data from an Agents website IDX was being indexed by Google and other search engines.

Mibor issued a cease and desist letter to the agent and her broker for allowing Google and other search engines to index the detailed information about properties in the MLS via their IDX that are not their own listings.

Since MIBOR seems to be unclear about the difference between Indexing and Scraping, I thought I would illustrate.

I made a posting on the REW forum a couple of weeks ago. The title of the post was "Davis CA Real Estate Prices Hold Up Well 2005 to 2009" It was indexed by Google within a few days. Below you can see the results from Google when I searched for the Title of the Post. It shows up in the #1 spot, right where I posted it, at Real Estste Webmasters.

When you click on the Google result, it takes you right to the page where I posted my original content. You can see the original content by clicking here .

This is called INDEXING !!

But just two results down the page you will see the same title post that is attributed to a URL that is "our-footprint.com/real estate". You can see what my content looks like on this scraper site by clicking here .  (I hate to give this scumbag any link juice, but if it will help clarify things for MIBOR, I'll hold my nose and do it.)

THIS IS A SCRAPER SITE !!

I don't know anything about this site, I didn't write content to be posted on this site. I certainly did not join a "Multiple Listing (type of) Service" with the full knowledge that others would have access to my content (Like MIBOR members do, I presume.)

If you click through and look at the resulting page you will see that the creep that runs this site just "scraped" the information I posted on REW and pasted part of it into his own website/blog on a page with no relevancy, for the sole purpose of having soemthing to advertise around. I can't seem to find a way to read the whole post, just the first paragraph. But there are plenty of ads.

Okay, MIBOR, now that you have seen the difference, repeat after me:  Google is an Indexing Search Engine. On the other hand "our-footprint.com", whoever they are, is a Scraper site. 

There is a difference. 

MIBOR, you're not helping your members, you're hurting them.

The first question local friends and neighbors ask when the subject of real estate comes up is "how much are prices down"?, which is a simple question that can lead to complicated answers.

The answer could be different depending on the type of home you are talking about.

Conventional wisdom says that the high end homes have taken a bigger hit because the volume of buyers at that level has fallen off.  Conventional wisdom also says that lower priced homes have held up better because there is still demand at the low end (more so now with first time buyer tax incentives).

There was a headline in the New York Times recently saying that Phoenix is the first major real estate market to make a 50% drop from the market high prices of 2005 to current market values.

With that in mind, I thought I would review how prices have behaved in the Davis, California real estate market over a similar period to see how we compare.

I took the average sale price per square foot for home in the third quarter of 2005, which seems to be about the top of the market here.

The figures then are broken out according to the size of the home, from small 950 square feet up to home in the 3,000 square feet and above category. The data includes only single family homes, no condos.

Then we look at the same information for homes sold Year to Date through April 20th, 2009, to see how far home prices have fallen, when expressed in price per square foot.

The results show two interesting facts;

1) Davis has been spared the steep price declines that other markets have suffered. The biggest drop in home prices from 2005 to 2009 is just 21% for the smallest homes, while homes of most other sizes dropped in price in the 14% to 19% range.  This is not bad for a a 3 1/2 year price change.  There are many factors that contribute to the resilience of real estate prices in Davis, the lack of new home inventory being one of them, as Davis is a "slow growth" town without the sprawl development of other areas (... like Phoenix). I have written previous blog posts about the factors that make Davis a unique real estate market.

2) There is not a huge disparity between the price drop of large homes vs. the price drop of smaller homes. The common wisdom that higher end home prices were suffering more are not born out by these numbers.

There is one anomaly in the numbers. At the 2,200 to 2,500 square foot range the data shows that prices have dropped just 6%. But only one home  showed up in the 2009 data, so that price per square foot number is not necessarily an accurate representation.

Having seen this information, I feel relieved, as I am a Davis homeowner. It also makes me feel for those folks in Phoenix, Las Vegas, and Florida whose markets have not held up as well.

Davis is a vibrant community and a great place to live. As proof, I offer my previous blog about Davis being one of the Five Friendliest Cities in the US and also my Top Ten Reasons to Live in Davis.  And now we have reason #11...Davis has a relatively strong real estate market, when compared to other California cities and many markets nationwide.

The peak selling season has come to an end in Davis. Spring and Summer are the most active months for home sales in Davis for two primary reasons:

1. As a University town, most things in Davis tend to revolve around the school year calendar.  Many times new Professors, employees and staff relocate to town over the Summer. This brings an influx of buyers in the Spring looking to buy homes and close the sale over the Summer so they can move in and get settled before the school year starts.
2. As Students vacate rental housing in June, landlords find it a good time to sell rental homes over the summer while they are empty.

So sales of homes in October hit the lowest point since February, in regards to the number of units sold. Surely the recent problems with the financial "meltdown" also contributed to the slowdown in sales.

Here's the details on October home sales in Davis vs. the same month in 2007:

 Sales were flat in October vs. a year ago, but the rest of the figures a not so good.  The median price dropped 8% from a year ago. The price per square foot is down from $323 a year ago to just $304 today. The lowering of prices is the only reason the units sold were the same as a year ago. And sellers are getting 96% of their asking price vs. 97.5% of asking price last year.  Sellers have had to be more flexible in negotiating, ask lower prices, and still it is taking longer to sell a house now than a year ago.

This is the classic buyers market. One caveat though, with just 19 homes sold, the median price number may be skewed with such a small sampling. It could be that a few more low end homes were sold in October than normal, thus bringing down the median price. Look for more data over time that includes a higher sample to get a more accurate feel for the market.

In Woodland, on the other hand, you see a much more dynamic market. Prices have fallen much more than in Davis, and Woodland has a large number of Bank-Owned and pre-foreclosure homes. Take a look at the data for Woodland in October:

The number of homes sold in Woodland is up 138% from a year ago. While this may look good on the surface, the rest of the numbers tell the whole story.

The median home price has fallen from $355,000 to just $205,000, a whopping 42% in one year. As the number of homes on the market ballooned earlier in the year due to mortgage issues, sellers were cutting prices to get the home sold.

While it took nearly 6 months to sell a home a year ago, the time has been cut to just over 2 months. With prices falling, some sellers wanted to get their homes sold before the market slid any more and were more aggressive with their asking price. The good news is that aggressive pricing has brought in the buyers and they are paying 98% of the asking price vs. 94% a year ago.

The dynamics of the real estate markets in Davis and Woodland have many more reasons for their fluctuations than I have listed here. I'm just providing some basic highlights for those of you that follow the real estate trends in the area.

If you have any thoughts about other information you would like to see on a regular basis, just let me know and I will include it in my next post.

Let's see what November brings........