Berkeley stats are also interesting.  Sales volume from Q1 2008 to Q1, 2009 for Berkeley shows a 21% decrease, while median home prices have declined only 15%. The Q1, 2009 median home sales price in Berkeley was $610,500. Talk about a Tale of Two Cities!

Check out all Alameda County cities here, and the Bay Area as a whole here.

Want more? Check out my website at www.dougfuller.net, and feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

1. Upscale fiber cement siding (86.7%)

2. Midrange wood deck (81.8%)

3. Midrange vinyl siding (80.7%)

4. Upscale foam-backed vinyl (80.4%)

5. Midrange minor kitchen remodel (79.5%) 

6. Upscale vinyl window replacement (79.2%)

7. Midrange wood window replacement (77.7%)

8. Midrange vinyl window replacement (77.2%)

9. Upscale wood window replacement (76.5%

10. Midrange major kitchen remodel (76.0%)

Another interesting bit of information found in the study is that home improvements are actually holding their value better than home prices overall.  From 2007 to 2008, home prices have fallen an average of 7% nationwide.  The value of home owners’ investment in remodeling projects, however,  has declined only 3.86 percent on average over the same time period.

The full text of the Realtor Magazine article can be found here.

1. It really IS like $8,000 in your pocket!  Many people are unsure about the difference between a tax deduction and a tax credit.  This is a TAX CREDIT, so it is subtracted directly from your Federal Tax bill.  And it is a refundable credit so if $8,000 is more than the tax you owe, you can get the difference in cash

2. You need to move quickly: The tax credit is limited to purchases that close between January 1 and November 20, 2009.

3. You can be a first time homebuyer a second time: As long as you have not owned a home in the last 3 years, you qualify as a first time homebuyer.

4. You can get the cash this year: The tax credit can be claimed on your 2008 or 2009 tax returns.  If a buyer is likely to complete a purchase in the next few months, they can defer filing their 2008 taxes until they close escrow on the new purchase so that the $8,000 can be credited this year rather than next.

5. This tax credit is targeted to moderate income buyers: The credit begins to be reduced for single buyers above $75,000 in gross income and couples who earn more than $150,000 in gross annual income.

6. Property flippers/ investors need not apply: To realize the credit you have to buy a primary residence and live in it for 3 years (otherwise you will have to pay the credit back).

In short, this is a GREAT tool for new homebuyers to extend their buying power.  For more details, you can point your browsers to:  http://www.federalhousingtaxcredit.com/

Have questions?  I am happy to do my best to answer them… just drop me a line.

This situation is a complex one, and while I may not agree with all of the tactics employed by these groups, I do feel for the people they assist.  It will be interesting to see how this situation plays out in the future.

01-21) 10:16 PST SAN FRANCISCO — Fully half of all existing homes sold in the Bay Area in December were foreclosures unloaded by banks at fire-sale prices. Those sales sent median prices tumbling to new lows and attracted droves of buyers, according to a real estate report released “If you are OK with a little bit of work or a Class-B neighborhood rather than Class-A, you can get a smoking deal,” said Stephen Bloom, a Realtor with Lawton Associates in Berkeley. “The banks understand if they want to move these things, they have to be quite aggressive on pricing. They’re not fooling around anymore. They want to get them off their books.”

Both investors and first-time home buyers are avidly pursuing foreclosure bargains.

Chai Chanthapak, 37, of San Ramon is one such investor.

“It is incredible what value you are getting now,” Chanthapak said Wednesday as he walked through a foreclosed Oakland triplex he is in escrow to purchase for $106,000. It sold in May 2007 for $557,600.

While the Bay Area median price didn’t plunge as precipitously as that, it is just over half of what it was a year ago.

The median for existing single-family homes in the nine-county region sold in December was $330,000, down 46.8 percent from a year ago, according to research firm MDA DataQuick of San Diego. For all homes, including condos and new homes, the median was also $330,000, down 46.8 percent. That was the lowest median since March 2000 and about half of the $665,000 peak reached in June and July 2007.

A total of 5,171 existing homes changed hands in December, about two-thirds more than in the previous year, DataQuick said. The fact that half of them were foreclosures stood in stark contrast to figures last December, when just 14 percent of sold homes were bank-owned.

“There is a lot of foreclosure activity flushing through the system,” said Andrew LePage, a DataQuick analyst. “A significant share of what’s selling is distressed in one way or another, whether it is actually a foreclosure or being sold under the threat of foreclosure. It has a big impact on the median sales price.”

Double-digit declines

Every Bay Area county experienced double-digit declines in the median price. The annual drops for existing homes ranged from 11.8 percent in San Francisco to 48.4 percent in Contra Costa County.

The median marks the point at which half the homes sold for more, half for less. It reflects the composition of homes sold rather than an across-the-board change in all home values.

“It would be wrong to say that Bay Area home values are half of what they were a year and a half ago,” John Walsh, MDA DataQuick president, said in a statement. “Maybe half of the decline in median is a market mix issue and the rest a drop in value.”

Indeed, the mix of sold properties skewed toward lower-cost homes. Mortgages of more than $417,000 used to account for 60 percent of Bay Area purchase financing, DataQuick said. In December, just one-fifth of homes sold in the area had loans greater than $417,000.

Experts said that banks increasingly are unloading foreclosed homes at bargain prices.

“The return is so good, you cannot pass it by,” said Chanthapak, the investor buying the Oakland triplex.

The Victorian building, which needs significant work, has a three-bedroom, a two-bedroom and a one-bedroom unit. Situated in an industrial-residential area near the San Leandro border, it is a stone’s throw from Arcadia Park, a new Pulte Homes development where single-family homes start in the upper $300,000 range.

He plans to spend about $30,000 on rehabilitation – some of the kitchens and bathrooms have no fixtures, for instance – and anticipates renting the three units for a positive cash flow of about $2,000 a month.

Chanthapak, who has a day job as a draftsman at an engineering firm, became a real estate investor by chance. He was browsing Craigslist in October and saw that an online auction of a house in Richmond was taking place at that moment.

“I took lunch, drove to Richmond to see the property, and then came back to work and bid on it,” he said. He didn’t win the auction, but he was hooked on the concept that there are great deals to be had.

Since then, Chanthapak bought another Richmond property with two homes on one lot for $90,000. He spent $30,000 on rehab, and now expects that property will have positive cash flow of $1,400 a month. He said renting out one of the homes will cover his mortgage, taxes and insurance, so rent from the other will be all profit.

Investor competition fierce

Ken Kho, a Realtor with Burlingame’s New Light Realty, which specializes in bank-owned properties, sold the Oakland triplex to Chanthapak and said he is working with several investors who are finding many properties with potential for positive cash flow among the foreclosures for sale. But competition is fierce, he said.

“This week I made four offers (for clients), and two went pending even before we submitted our offers,” he said. “Some of the deals are incredible. You can buy a three-bedroom house in Oakland for $60,000 cash and rent it for $1,200. That leaves you with $1,000 a month after property tax and insurance, so you would recoup all your money in five years.”

In fact, Realtors say many investors, particularly those who own more than four properties, are paying all cash. Those who own more than four properties find banks very reluctant to lend to them.

Chanthapak and his wife, who works as a finance manager, hope to buy a couple more investment properties.

“It won’t happen for many years, but I plan to keep on going (with real estate investments) and one of these days not have to work anymore,” he said.

Sales volume increased the most dramatically in foreclosure-ridden counties. In Contra Costa County, 1,384 existing homes were sold, almost two-thirds of them foreclosures. It was a 152.6 percent increase from 548 sales last December. In Solano County, 623 existing homes – 67.7 percent of them foreclosures – were sold, representing a 185.8 percent increase from 218 sales last year.

Conversely, areas with few foreclosures, such as San Francisco, also had far fewer sales. The 180 existing homes sold in the city was down about 20 percent from last year; only 12.4 percent of those homes were foreclosures. Marin and San Mateo counties also saw sales volume decline and had relatively low foreclosure activity.

Have questions about buying bank owned and foreclosure properties? Drop me a line: doug@dougfuller.net

People are bargain hunting these days, and there are definitely deals to be had.  One of the clients I represent just got into escrow yesterday on a 2 bedroom home for $175,000 less than the house sold for only 2 years ago. In the city of Oakland alone, there are currently 748 homes for sale priced under $200,000.

The median home price has not been this low since 2001.  However, the drop in prices reflects a swing to lower-priced homes in lower-priced areas where bank owned and short sale properties are commonplace, rather than an across the board depreciation of real property.

Counties with the most forclosures saw sales increase the most, and their medians decline the most.  In Contra Costa County, for example, 58.9% of all existing home sales are forclosures or bank owned properties.  The median there is down 48.8% over 2007 numbers. Conversely, in Marin County where only 17.2% of sales have been forclosures, the median was only down 13.1%.

In Oakland, most of these bank owned and foreclosure properties are in the flatlands, which, not suprisingly, is where home values have dropped the most.

If you want to search for homes for sale in the East Bay, I have just added a handy map search function to my website.  Check it out at DougFuller.net.

This morning I snapped pictures of three houses that I saw on broker’s tour.  I then posted them to my Radar.net account which also updates my Twitter account.  Thus, if you are following me on Twitter (you can do that here), you will get to see a quick picture of the houses that I saw that day.  I have included a small amount of info about each house… but for full details I would need to email an MLS sheet.

Thoughts?  I welcome your input/ comments.

In this economy, it can’t hurt to save a little money!  Check it out and get to saving.

Likewise, at my networking meeting this morning, the financial advisor of the group, Timothy Yee of Cathedral Financial posited that we have seen this situation all before.  In Timothy’s opinion, the Savings and Loan crisis of the 90s, the dot bomb explosion of the 00s, are just typical cycles that seem to repeat every so often.  Corporate greed reaches a pinnacle, and something has to give.

Food for thought.