Oh, that's right:
BOLDSF.COM | insights, observations, commentary | San Francisco Bay Area real estate
Tuesday, May 13, 2014
Monday, May 12, 2014
New Listing Activity
New listings of single family homes took an uptick over the past two weeks with condos holding steady.
The percentage of them that went into contract within that same time period is also up, reversing a downward trend we had seen during the last month.
You can see the full report here.
Only four of the new single family home listings (less than 3%) has posted a price decrease along with 15 of the condos (8.4%).
We're talking about listings in the San Francisco MLS. As such they do not include private sales that do not involve a broker representing the seller, nor do they include some/most new construction condos since most developers list only a handful of examples of their units. This allows them to keep close control over the speed at which units are seller and sales prices.
The percentage of them that went into contract within that same time period is also up, reversing a downward trend we had seen during the last month.
Only four of the new single family home listings (less than 3%) has posted a price decrease along with 15 of the condos (8.4%).
We're talking about listings in the San Francisco MLS. As such they do not include private sales that do not involve a broker representing the seller, nor do they include some/most new construction condos since most developers list only a handful of examples of their units. This allows them to keep close control over the speed at which units are seller and sales prices.
Saturday, May 3, 2014
Warren Buffet / Berkshire Hathaway's Real Estate Brokerage
I noticed two articles recently about the real estate brokerage business including
quotes from Ron Peltier, chief executive of HomeServices America, owned by Berkshire Hathaway:
The second is a more general article in conjunction with the Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholders meeting:
Some interesting quotes from the articles:
"The single most-challenged
sector of the market is the first-time home buyer," he said.
"Historically, they make up 40 percent of the existing home market. In the
last 18 months to two years, it has been 27 to 28 percent. Twelve percent of
the market has been missing. It's troubling."
----
HomeServices is the second-largest
U.S. independent real estate brokerage, and part of a Berkshire unit that was
on Wednesday rechristened Berkshire Hathaway Energy.
----
U.S. home resales in March fell to
a 1-1/2 year low, dropping to an annual rate of 4.59 million units according to
the National Association of Realtors.
[In our market there was a drop in
the number of sales for March this year compared to last year, 439 vs.
489. That's the lowest for March since 2009. For the first quarter
of 2014, the number of sales was 1090, just slightly lower than the first
quarter of the previous two years.]
----
In the first quarter, Berkshire
reported a $24 million pre-tax loss from "real estate brokerage and
other" items within Berkshire Hathaway Energy, as spending rose on
employment and marketing. Revenue rose 21 percent to $405 million.
Some of that extra marketing was to
rebrand local brokerages as Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices. That puts the
Berkshire name on "For Sale" signs, and Peltier said it is helping
business.
"The brand is golden," he
said. "We have received an incredible number of comments from every market
we've launched in that the values associated with the Berkshire brand translate
into values that consumers look for: integrity, honesty, trust, value."
----
As he sometimes does, Warren
Buffett likes to welcome the 40,000 visitors to the Berkshire Hathaway
annual meeting today with a last minute deal, this time a $2.8 billion
acquisition of an electric transmission company in Alberta, Canada, that will
further build out the holdings of Berkshire Hathaway Energy.
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