I came across this little tidbit in the Mercury News this morning over my latte: 

“In Santa Clara County, the median home price rose to $749,000, an increase of 4% over the same time last year.” So much for a down market. . . . 

Reminding us that real estate is a local business, the Bay Area as a whole only rose 0.3%. The median price of a San Francisco condo rose 5.3% last year (fog compensation?), while the median new-home price in Contra Costa County was down 26.6% in 2006. Ouch! 

The big question on everyone’s mind is “Will the good times continue?”. I got an interesting answer from Carol Rodoni, former executive of Fox and Carskadon (acquired by Coldwell Banker in 1995) and Alain Pinel Realtors, and now a consultant to the real estate industry. 

Rodoni was the keynote speaker at the “Palo Alto Real Estate Expo - Real Estate for Real People” seminar in Palo Alto organized by Absolute Mortgage, a local mortgage banker. I was a moderator for one of the panel discussions, so I had an opportunity to hear her remarks firsthand. 

After echoing many of my comments in a recent post on Mountain View, saying how local housing prices are supported by supply and demand, and Silicon Valley’s ability to reinvent itself to remain a leader in technology development (agriculture, aerospace, semiconductor, PC, internet, biotech, web 2.0), Rodoni went on to prognosticate about the local real estate market in the coming years. 

She sees 2007 as being a strong year with significant increases in prices and the number of sales over 2006, but not matching the heyday / manic period of 2005. 2008 she termed a “breathing year” with stabilizing prices, followed by periods of steady growth in 2009 and 2010. Her crystal ball got fuzzy after that, so her closing points were: 

If you are thinking of buying, do it now! The only way to take advantage of the market is to be in it. 

If you are considering selling, take advantage of the currently high demand for housing, and low interest rates, but be realistic. Investing in cleaning up and staging your home to draw buyers, and price at 90-95% of fair market value. This will maximize the number of buyers who see and potentially place offers on your home, which drives up the likelihood of a sale with multiple offers. Her sound bite quote on this was “Be the comp, not the competition”, meaning that you want your house sold, as opposed to on the market competing for buyers’ interest. 

To call Rodoni passionate about her topic would be an understatement. If I can get some of her materials, I will post them here, as they were informative as well as entertaining. 

Thanks for reading . . . 

 

Tags: Real estate
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