A Friday Thought: Cleaning Up San Carlos.

Bans on Bad Things.

Perhaps you’re already aware of this, but a few weeks ago the City Council of San Carlos voted 4-1 to adopt a ban on carry-out plastic bags, citing environmental concerns.   The ban will take effect on July 1 of this year.  Bonnie Eslinger of the Daily News did a great job covering the details of the council meeting and the subsequent vote, so I won’t rehash them in this post.  You can check out her article here.

Whether or not you believe that those evil plastic bags are indeed the scourge of the earth is probably a personal opinion, but I understand the Council’s intention of at least trying to do right by the environment.  After all, there’s no arguing that these bags take about a trillion years to break down in our landfill — the only two things that take longer to decompose are McDonald’s Cheeseburgers, and….

Cigarette Butts.

Hmmm…  OK, now that the 800 pound gorilla has been let out of his cage, let’s at least acknowledge his presence.    As I walk around downtown San Carlos, I see way more crushed cigarette butts on the sidewalks and in the gutter than I do those aforementioned evil plastic bags.    Maybe because the bags have the gift of flight is the reason we don’t see more?   But if we’re on the topic of monitoring what goes down our storm drains to the pristine waters of the San Francisco Bay (ahem),   one would think that there are far more butts than bags in the bay right now.

Banning smoking downtown is probably not the answer.  I don’t smoke, but that doesn’t mean others shouldn’t have the right to do what they want to their bodies.   We live in a free country.  That’s not the point.

But as I drove down Laurel Street yesterday and watched the driver in front of me fire a lit cigarette out the window, it dawned on me that I’d just like to see a more concerted effort by our smoking population, and perhaps the city, to find a way to fix a problem that we’ve ignored for too long.

Especially if we’re truly concerned about cleaning things up in City of Good Living.   Just a thought…
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Market Casualties.

Passed By.

Any time you have a market run up as fast as the San Carlos real estate market has in the past few months, there are going to be some casualties in the buyer ranks.  This recent market swing is no different in that respect.  In the past couple of weeks, I have had two different buyers tell me that they’re “throwing in the towel” and pulling out of the market to wait for a more favorable conditions before they will consider buying a home on the Peninsula.  I’ve had several other agents share similar stories, too.

The sentiment that seems to emanate from all of these now-former buyers is that the market has simply passed them by.  While they were patiently waiting for right house to come up in this inventory-depleted market, prices just rocketed out of their range.   After all, the price you would have paid 6 months ago for a 3-bedroom house in San Carlos will  only get you a nice 2-bedroom one now.  And that’s if you can even find it in the first place.  That kind of compromise simply doesn’t work for many buyers.

The Numbers are Numbing.

There’s one certainty in a market like this:  Just when you think you’ve seen it all, something else comes along and knocks your frame of reference completely out of whack again.   Just two weeks ago, we were stunned by the shockwaves of the $1.3M sale on the 3-bedroom home on Chestnut Street.    It was very difficult to wrap our heads around a 3BR home pulling down $1.3M.  Fast forward to today, and there were two 3BR sales on Orange Avenue  that make the Chestnut sale seem like old news.  999 Orange Avenue ( at $1,378,000), and 1124 Orange Avenue ($1,360,000) both raised the distinct possibility that the $1.3M mark was not just an anomaly, but may indeed have become the barrier to entry for a decent sized 3-bedroom homes in San Carlos.    That’s pretty mind-numbing.  At least for this week, it is.  Who knows what next week will bring.

This reality has sent many first-time home buyers reeling.   Compared to places like Menlo Park and Palo Alto, San Carlos has always been considered a relative bargain. But many of the things that make those other cities attractive also exist in San Carlos – location, schools, downtown, etc..  So we’re starting to see buyers who pulled the rip-cord from these escalating markets parachuting into San Carlos.

It’s probably not a coincidence that in both Orange Avenue transactions above, the buyer’s agents were from Palo Alto.

Play or Sit?

For every buyer that has made the decision to sit this market out, I can guarantee you that many more are thinking about it.  There are several key questions that they have to consider — Will the market continue on a tear like this, or will it eventually settle down?  When it does settle, where and when will it be?  And finally, is there a risk that pulling out of the market now means they’re out of the market for good?

I certainly don’t have a crystal ball, but based on the conditions of the economy and the San Carlos real estate market, combined with the recent behavior of buyers, there’s nothing to indicate that this freight train is going to lose steam any time soon.

After all we’re probably only a week or so away from yet another sale that will make the Orange Avenue shockers seem like old news.
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The San Carlos Real Estate Week in Review: 3-9-13.

San Carlos Real Estate Summary.

There wasn’t too much in the way of new listings to hit the market this past week.  And with 4 more homes going into contract, the net result is that our inventory of homes for sale is stuck in the low teens — again.  One effect that we have touched on in recent weeks (and will continue to monitor) is the strong uptick in home prices in San Carlos.  As home sales for Q1 are now closing escrow, we’re starting to see evidence of where prices are headed.  Just this past week, the average price for the homes that sold jumped to an incredible $739/sq foot, which is an astounding leap over the already high $669/sq foot that was set last week.  It used to be extremely rare for any medium-large sized home break $700/sq foot in San Carlos.  In the coming months as you see these sales being reported, it’s going to become commonplace.

Here are the numbers from last week:

By The Numbers.

Below is a high-level snapshot of the market performance for single-family residences in San Carlos. This data is for the week ending 3-9-2013:

>>> Click Here to Read the Full Post
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Are you ready to step up to the most comprehensive data available about the San Carlos Real Estate market? Then subscribe to the White Oaks Blog for free by clicking here. Be sure to follow the White Oaks Blog on Facebook at https://Facebook.com/WhiteOaksBlog , and on Twitter @WhiteOaksBlog.
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Friday Fun: San Carlos Has Talent.

It’s Not AGT, but it’s Close.

San Carlos Together is looking for contestants for the 3rd Annual “San Carlos Has Talent” event.  Contestants must be solo vocalists or instrumentalists, ages 7 to 18 years old. Contestants need to apply by today, March 8th, at Clock Tower Music — 676 Laurel Street.  The registration fee is $10.

Contact Susan at San Carlos Together by email at sancarlostogether@gmail.com for more details about the contest.

Who knows?  If they do well in this competition, they can audition with Howie Mandel and Howard Stern for America’s Got Talent and represent San Carlos on the big stage!
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Are you ready to step up to the most comprehensive data available about the San Carlos Real Estate market? Then subscribe to the White Oaks Blog for free by clicking here. Be sure to follow the White Oaks Blog on Facebook at https://Facebook.com/WhiteOaksBlog , and on Twitter @WhiteOaksBlog.
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What do the County Records Say About Your Home?

The Tax Profile.

I first wrote on this topic back in 2009, but I thought it would be pertinent to refresh the discussion since it goes hand-in-hand with buying and selling real estate in today’s market.

The San Mateo County Assessor’s Office maintains a database which contains a profile on every home that exists in the County.  In that profile, among other things, are the basic specs of your home:  The year built, location, square footage, number of bedrooms and bathrooms, lot size, etc…  The Assessor’s office uses this profile as its guideline to assess property taxes each year.   It’s a rather crude way to assess the valuation of a home, because like other automated estimation programs, it can’t really account for the subjective differences between homes.

But that’s not really all that important when it comes to buying or selling a home.  The County automatically re-assesses the house when it changes ownership at 1% of the new purchase price, plus any amortized voter-approved bonds, and any fees for special assessments or charges such as mosquito abatement or sewer fees.

What is important is the fact that the data that’s kept in the County profile is often times incorrect, and this can pose some headaches for you when you go to sell your home. >>> Click Here to Read the Full Post
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Landlocked in San Carlos.

Stuck.

In the last post, we discussed some of the factors that are in play in this white-hot real estate market that have given us all the impression that we’re suffering through a critical shortage of inventory.    In reality, the fact that homes are selling so quickly is as much of a factor as the below-average number of new listings in contributing to the uncharacteristically low inventory of homes for sale in San Carlos.

But there’s another element of the market whose sheer existence serves to keep the number of new listings below what we would see in a more typical year.  This is a quietly suffering group that we refer to as the “landlocked“, and their numbers are growing as the market continues to stay hot.

Landlocked sellers are those home owners in San Carlos who are looking to upsize (or even downsize) to a different home either in San Carlos or to another equally competitive market on the Peninsula, but can’t do so because of the extra challenges they face in buying that next home.   Thanks to the current market conditions, they’re essentially stuck (or landlocked) in their home — unless they want to move completely out of the area. >>> Click Here to Read the Full Post
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Are you ready to step up to the most comprehensive data available about the San Carlos Real Estate market? Then subscribe to the White Oaks Blog for free by clicking here. Be sure to follow the White Oaks Blog on Facebook at https://Facebook.com/WhiteOaksBlog , and on Twitter @WhiteOaksBlog.
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San Carlos Home Inventory: The Real Picture.

A Shortage of New Listings?

By far the hottest topic in the San Carlos real estate market today, aside from the eye-popping prices that homes are fetching, is the incredibly low inventory that buyers have to choose from.   This is probably the single most frustrating aspect for buyers in this market — they’re ready to spend the money and even stretch their budget if needed to get the house they want, but it seems like there’s simply nothing to buy.  The finger of blame for this historically low level of inventory has long been pointed at the lack of new listings to come on the market.  After all, when was the last time you saw 8 homes for sale in the entire city?  That’s exactly what we had for a good part of last week.

But is this really the reason why the inventory of homes for sale in San Carlos is so low right now?   Are we really seeing fewer listings than we have in past years?  Or is it because homes are selling so quickly that we can’t build up any appreciable inventory?

I did a little data mining, and what I found was a bit surprising, to say the least.    Take a look at the chart below:

This custom chart shows two key metrics for the combined months of January and February:  Number of New Listings, and Average Days on Market.   I also pulled this data for the exact time period over the past 6 years for the purpose of comparison.  There are some very interesting take-aways from this chart that should really reset some perceptions about this market:

1. Number of Listings in 2013.   Although we’re certainly below the historical average for new listings so far this year,  the 44 new listings that hit the market in Jan-Feb of this year is virtually the same amount we had last year at this time.  And it matches the total in 2010 as well.    So is there really a dire shortage of new listings?  Not really.
2. Average Days on Market (DOM).     So far in 2013, the average days  it took for a home to get into contract is 21 days — that’s a whopping 71% drop from this time last year, and the lowest figure for Jan-Feb in the past 6 years.    And the 21 days is a bit deceiving, because as we’ve discussed a number of times on this site, well-priced listings in good locations are  only taking 7-8 days to sell.  Sometimes less.

It’s a Combination of Both.

So contrary to what many of us have been thinking all along, the shortage of inventory of homes for sale in San Carlos is not caused solely by a lack of new listings.  While the number of new listings is still a bit below the historical averages, it’s not abnormally low compared to the past few years.   No, the big contributing factor is that everything is selling almost soon as it hits the market, and in the end analysis it’s a combination of both that makes it seem like there’s been nothing to buy this year in San Carlos.

And that’s the real picture of the home inventory situation in San Carlos right now.
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Are you ready to step up to the most comprehensive data available about the San Carlos Real Estate market? Then subscribe to the White Oaks Blog for free by clicking here. Be sure to follow the White Oaks Blog on Facebook at https://Facebook.com/WhiteOaksBlog , and on Twitter @WhiteOaksBlog.
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The San Carlos Real Estate Week in Review: 3-2-13.

San Carlos Real Estate Summary.

The good news is that the inventory of homes for sale in San Carlos rose by a whopping 63% this past week.  That bad news is that we only started off with 8 listings at the beginning of the week.  So the end result is that there’s still not nearly enough homes to choose from in San Carlos.   What’s interesting from the numbers this week is that we’re starting to see firm evidence of the abrupt increase in home prices in San Carlos.  There are two metrics this week that vividly demonstrate this:  The price per square foot jumped to a whopping $669/sq foot for homes that closed escrow this week, and they also fetched 11% above the asking price, on average.  I believe we’ll continue to see much more of this type of performance in the coming weeks.

Here are the numbers from last week:

By The Numbers.

Below is a high-level snapshot of the market performance for single-family residences in San Carlos. This data is for the week ending 3-2-2013:

>>> Click Here to Read the Full Post
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Are you ready to step up to the most comprehensive data available about the San Carlos Real Estate market? Then subscribe to the White Oaks Blog for free by clicking here. Be sure to follow the White Oaks Blog on Facebook at https://Facebook.com/WhiteOaksBlog , and on Twitter @WhiteOaksBlog.
Get the best coverage on the San Carlos real estate market delivered right to you!
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