We’ve written over and over again about the importance of knowing the local real estate market. There can be significant differences between neighborhoods within the same community. One neighborhood can be experiencing flat sales with appreciation increasing while another neighborhood can see increasing sales and declining values.

Look at this graph reflecting housing appreciation. Parts of the East Bay have been hit very hard – dragging down the rest of the area. But, historically we see that the East Bay supports home value increases.

This graph shows you the last two major corrections in the California housing market. Note how home values remain fairly stable even in a down market.

While the media continues to sensationalize the housing market correction, interest rate increases and the clean-up in the mortgage industry – interest rates remain at historic lows.

The subprime meltdown in the mortgage industry has received wide coverage in all media venues, including the blogosphere. California as a whole is having it’s problems, but many local real estate markets are seeing very little impact from the subprime blues.

In general, the I-680 corridor from Walnut Creek to Pleasanton is experiencing a normal market. Inventories are still in the 2 to 4 month range. The result of all of the various influences on the East Bay housing market have resulted in a “Value Conscious Market.”

Buyers know the deals are out there. They’re looking for resonable sellers who are willing to deal with the realities of a correcting market.

If you follow real estate news, you read a lot about national trends and forecasts, but what really matters is what is happening in your neighborhood or the neighborhood you are looking to call home. In addition, perspective counts a great deal.

We had a good year of “the bubble is bursting, the bubble is bursting” followed by general doom and gloom. Reading the 70 blogs and news sources we follow is enough to… well, it can be a real bummer at times if perspective isn’t kept.

A 1%  isn’t much in the normal fluctuation of the housing market. Your average homeowner looking for appreciation will moan about a 1% increase over a year. That same homeowner might breathe a sigh of relief if their property got through the last year with only a 1% decrease in valuation. One percent sounds like - one, not a very big number.

Looking at percentages is one thing, but what if you’re looking at dollars? Losing $2000 on the value of a $200,000 home may not rock our boat because most of us can think of terms of earning back $2K in a short amount of time. But losing $10,000 on a million dollar property might be another story especially in an area that has seen housing values rise 50% or more in a few years while income earning did not.

Local market data matters. Even though we have seen some value erosion in the East Bay, the Bay Area in general, Including the East Bay, is faring better than the national averages. National trends can affect local markets, but not necessarily. One of the major influences is how news affects the mood or mindset of a person. With the media bombardment we all receive these days, it’s more important than ever to come up for air.

Get a reality check on your local market. You can look at the graphs we provide weekly and see that there are fluctuations between communities. You can break those communities down by areas or housing price points and find more variation.

This is one of the key values in having a real estate professional that knows their local markets and follows the trends.

Thinking of selling your San Ramon, Dublin or Pleasanton home? I found two great posts today that all home sellers should consider reading.

Dear Ms. Seller: Why Would You Sign a Six-Month Contract?  by Toby Boyce

Here is the comment I left on Toby’s post:

Great questions and points to wrestle with.

We offer our sellers two guarantees - One is that we will sell their home in a specified amount of time or we take a hit in the pocketbook. The other is our cancellation guarantee - they can cancel at any time if they are not happy with our service.

We can offer these guarantees because we know our business and we conduct our business with integrity and attention to the clients needs.

We Can Always Reduce the Price Later by Athol Kay

I have a firm belief that sellers stand to make the most money possible from a sale when a house is priced right, from the first day it comes onto the market. Plus it will usually sell quicker and easier.

One of the most difficult, yet greatest services a real estate agent can provide a client is a realty check on current “market value” of the property. The market value is what someone is willing to pay for the house which is often vastly different from the “utility value” of the house. The utility value is the value the property has for the owner which includes history and emotional investment.

Knowing the local market and the market trends is a must for good service. If your agent does not show up with graphs, statistics and other information to help explain the local market to you and how this affects the pricing of your property – keep shopping for an agent.

ALSO – lose the attachment to seeing a nice big ad of your house in the newspaper. Statistics show that only one percent of homes sell from an ad. The number one influence on selling homes remains the network of Realtors® in your local community and the national referral networks they have built.

The communities of Alamo, Danville, and San Ramon, CA are served by the Realtors Marketing Association. The communities of Dublin and Pleasanton are served by the Valley Marketing Association. Every week real estate agents present new listings to hundreds of local agents at these events. There is also a lot of networking that happens where people keep your property in front of these professionals.

Number two in influence is the Internet. In their marketing presentations, many agents still focus on the print ads they will use to feature your house. They do this for you, not because it is effective, but because you expect it (or they are stuck in the past). Having your home all over the Internet will do more for you than that big Sunday ad. Effective posting on the Internet takes time and skill many agents will do one or two things on the net, but comprehensive exposure of your property on the Internet is not something the average agent understands or can do. Question your agent about their Internet marketing and promotion skills.

And then I found this interesting post:Does money make you mean? by Jay MacDonald   

We all know that money can't buy love or happiness. But could just thinking about money actually make you mean?

A new behavioral study finds that folks with money on their minds are less helpful, less considerate and less willing to ask for assistance or engage with others than those who have not been preconditioned to money. On the bright side, the money-minded tend to be more independent and focused and they tend to work longer on a task before asking for help.

If you or your agent is only focused on “the money in it for me” – what’s being ignored or lost?

On the home page of our site, after the title, are the words - It’s All About You (The Client). That’s the focus of our business. We realize that every client is bringing us a unique situation.

I mention this because this morning I read this great post by Terri Murphy - Listing Loser - Missing the Big Bucks  In this post, Terri gives us a great example of what happens all too often in the initial client/agent interview.

The interaction that Terri describes is not an experience you will have with The Harper Team. When you list your home in San Ramon, Danville, Dublin or Pleasanton with us, you get a team of people working to aggressively market YOUR home. While including what traditionally works, we step outside the box as much as possible, and we stay on the leading edge of the change the real estate industry is going through. And we stay on top of the real estate trends in our market (Danville, San Ramon, Dublin and Pleasanton, CA). At least, twice a week you can find postings on our blog of those local real estate trends and other news affecting the local housing markets.

Greg over at The Blue Roof gives us this post today

It’s interesting to me how much the industry has evolved in the last 14 months, but it’s also all relative. There are hundreds of thousands of Realtors out there who don’t know anything about Zillow or any other “New, Innovative Real Estate Model”.

They, and their clients, just go on day to day buying and selling homes and it’s business as usual.

Sometimes I forget that most real estate agents really don’t know or care about any online models. For many, the only website the even know of is their company site, if their company even discusses it with them, or even has a site at all.

The Harper Team sees this everyday in our office (Keller Williams Danville CA) and in our local marketing association (San Ramon Realtors Marketing Association). We are amazed at how the constant stream of links and info we mail to other agents on the evolving nature of the real estate industry and technology fall on deaf ears. The most common reply is – I can’t keep up with it all. Our response – is there any choice?

WebHome USA addresses this issue in their post - Agents In Real Estate 2.0. Will We Be Like Travel Agents, Accountants, Used Car Salesmen Or Lawyers? The Agent's role in Real Estate 2.0 is rapidly evolving.  Real Estate 2.0 is all about the Internet and an Agent's ability to quickly establish and develop a virtual relationship with home buyers and sellers searching the Web.  It's less about the Home, and more about the Home Page.

Our site, our marketing, and our knowledge of technology and the industry are constantly evolving. Just yesterday we added Instant Messenger capability to our blog. If we're online you can contact us immediately through the Plugoo widget in our sidebar. There is much more to come as we continue to evolve our business to address the needs of our clients in helping them to buy, sell or invest in our local real estate markets - Danville, San Ramon, Dublin, Pleasanton - California.

The Harper Team monitors over 50 Real Estate and News Feeds daily to bring you information pertinent to the San Ramon Valley & TriValley real estate market including the communities of Danville, San Ramon, Dublin and Pleasanton. We welcome suggestions.

Search our blog articles via the Tag Cloud - just click on a word that interests you.

Contra Costa & Alameda MLS

San Ramon - Dublin - Pleasanton, CA

The weekly figures are in for San Ramon, Dublin and Pleasanton California. (blue = Active Listings; green = Pending Sales; purple = ClosedTransactions) No surprises here. The end of the year historically shows a significant drop in active listings as many 6 month listing contracts expire.

The first meeting of the San Ramon Realtors Marketing Association will be on Jan. 11. We expect to hear positive reports from our hundreds of members on activity in local real estate markets.

Feel free to contact us for more stats on real estate trends in San Ramon, Dublin and Pleasanton. We're happy to give you our interpretation of the data and what other professionals are reporting.

Today's News Items

Rates on 30-year mortgages were unchanged in the first week of the new year after posting three consecutive increases to close out 2006. Mortgage giant Freddie Mac reported Thursday that 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages averaged 6.18 percent this week, the same as last week.

Dan Greene, from the Daily Mortgage Reports,  is a regular participant in the Bankrate.com Mortgage Rate Trend survey and this week's survey is now available.

• 30% of participants predict rates will increase
• 20% of participants predict rates will decrease
• 50% of participants predict rates will remain unchanged

He is predicting that rates will increase over the next 30 days, but that doesn't mean you should necessarily follow my advice when choosing whether to lock a rate, or float it.  His advice may not be appropriate for your individual situation.

From the Bankrate.com survey:
"Housing is not slowing down and neither is consumer spending. Richmond Fed President Lacker may have been right all along — the Fed may need another rate hike."

Considering a reverse motgage?
Read - Making Your House Pay in Retirement by Jeff D. Opdyke -  The Wall Street Journal Online. A reverse mortgage could help you pay for retirement — or it could cost you and your heirs a lot of money.

There’s a great post by Jonathan Miller over at the Matrix on the stabilizing market = The Electric Kool-aid Seller Test For Buyer Friction

The Harper Team monitors over 50 Real Estate and News Feeds daily to bring you information pertinent to the San Ramon Valley & TriValley real estate market including the communities of Danville, San Ramon, Dublin and Pleasanton. We welcome suggestions.

Search our blog articles via the Tag Cloud - just click on a word that interests you.