By Don Dunning | April 29, 2009
Statewide figures from the California Association of Realtors (C.A.R.) for March 2009 show a 64 per cent increase in the number of sales and a 39 per cent decrease in median price. Both of these factors are tied into the large amount of bank owned properties and short sales in California. A possible encouraging sign […]
Read MoreBy Don Dunning | April 26, 2009
A recent CNN story “Folks Losing Homes Dial 1-800; No One Answers,” describes the heartache people are going through trying to save their homes from foreclosure. They call the lender, hoping to speak to a real person who will help them, only to spend wasted hours in an endless, useless automated loop. Unfortunately, this has […]
Read MoreBy Don Dunning | April 22, 2009
Oakland is too often maligned for its high crime, when, in fact, it has much less crime than many other cities. I stay informed about what is happening in the area by using the Oakland Police Department’s “CrimeView Community Incident Map.” This is a really cool web site that allows anyone to search for various […]
Read MoreBy Don Dunning | April 19, 2009
When I was growing up in Brooklyn, we got our local news from talking to neighbors on our stoops – New York-ese for the steps in front of our apartment building or home. Today, with our speedy lives, for many, community comes mainly from online listserves and sites like Facebook. My stoop has become the […]
Read MoreBy Don Dunning | April 16, 2009
As if the ineptitude our state legislators has not caused citizens of California enough headaches, a bill, AB 33 (Nava), was just approved in the Assembly Banking Committee to abolish the Department of Real Estate (DRE), the Department of Corporations, the Department of Financial Institutions, and the Office of Real Estate Appraisers. This legislation would […]
Read MoreBy Don Dunning | April 12, 2009
According to the California Association of Realtors (C.A.R.), “The director of Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies predicts continued price declines in California, but at a slower rate, which generally indicates the end of price drops.” Further, “C.A.R.’s Unsold Inventory Index stood at 6.5 months in February, compared with 15.3 months in February 2008.” In […]
Read MoreBy Don Dunning | April 7, 2009
Real estate today is a tangle of blind alleys and bewildering inconsistencies. Almost every day, buyers and sellers ask my opinion of the present market and what I expect in the future.
Market data provides useful, albeit sometimes conflicting, information. National or state reports, which appear almost daily online and TV, do not shed light on local patterns. In order to do so, I looked at Multiple Listing Service (MLS) data for five popular Oakland zip codes (94602, 94610, 94611, 94618, 94619) to get a snapshot of single family home sales, excluding condos, in our local market.
Read MoreBy Don Dunning | April 2, 2009
California Association of Realtors Creates New, First-time Buyer Program The California Association of Realtors (C.A.R.) announced a new program today for first-time buyers who purchase a California property using a Realtor. Note that not all real estate licensees are Realtors. The idea is to provide peace of mind and protection against job loss. The purchase […]
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