Do you live in the San Francisco Bay Area, are planning to sell your home in the near future, and are wondering what some of the costs are that you may be responsible for when selling your property?
Are you planning on buying a home in the San Francisco Bay Area, and are wondering who pays what when it comes to your title and escrow costs and city and county transfer tax amounts?  Well, wonder no more.  The following is a quick guide to closing costs for title and escrow and city and county transfer taxes.  You can estimate the amount that you are going to pay if you have a ballpark figure of what the property you are buying or selling is worth.

Find Your San Francisco Home’s Value

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Broker’s Tour today revealed a new listing that just came on the market.  And what a deal- A studio apartment in the San Francisco Richmond District for only $399,000!  And the best part is that the studio needs absolutely no work.  The kitchen is beautifully remodeled, There is a gas fireplace, huge closet space, and the carpet is either brand new or was kept in pristine condition and no paint is required.

On top of that, the studio is very open and it never makes you feel confined.  With ample light for all of the space, the windows look out onto 20th Avenue just a short distance from shops and restaurants of Clement Street.  And lets not forget that all of this comes with a deeded parking space, which according to our discussions with the listing agent, isn’t shoved up against another parking space which usually leads to surprising dings.   Lastly, it does have access to a washer and dryer, so you don’t have to worry about going to the laundromat.

Honestly, if you are interested or know of someone who is, HURRY up and call us as this property will not last long on the open market.

195 20th Avenue #6

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Going through the loan approval process can be tedious, overwhelming, and mostly boring.  It is definitely one of the most time consuming and frustrating tasks that you may ever have to do.  However, it is the most important thing that you should be doing right now if you are even remotely considering buying a home in the near future.

The worst thing that can happen is that you find the perfect home, only to realize that everything regarding your financing is not in place, and the house is gone before you can put everything together.  Believe it or not, contrary to the media hype, there are homes out there receiving multiple offers and getting sold quickly.  You do not want to be in the position of not getting the home you want because you are not pre-approved yet.  Talk to your lender and make sure that you have given him or her everything that has been requested from you.  The following is a very brief list of documents that you should be starting to gather for your lender in the beginning stage of the pre-approval process:

• Paycheck stubs or printouts for the last three months
• Tax return information for the past two years
• 401k and/or any other retirement account information
• Any other income from other sources besides your job

This brief list is meant to start getting you prepared if you are planning on purchasing a home.  You should speak to a qualified mortgage professional to get more information on preparing yourself to obtain a home loan.

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In the month of August, there were four single family homes, thirteen condos, one TIC, and one stock coop that sold in Pacific Heights. This data is directly pulled from the San Francisco Multiple Listing Service. The following are the statistics for the averages of the sold properties for the month of August in Pacific Heights:

The following is the Average DOM (Days on Market) Breakdown and Average % of List Price received on Solds by market time.

If you have any questions regarding a particular property, or would like more information pertaining to your specific information, feel free to contact me. If you are in the market to purchase a property in Pacific Heights, you can search the SF MLS here. Note that Pacific Heights is District 7B. If you currently are a Pacific Heights homeowner, and would like to find your homes value, click here.

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It is a strange phenomenon. I don’t at all consider myself an expert in the field of Psychology. I am more of a numbers person with a background in Economics. The idea for this article comes from a member of my team and husband, Matthew Roybal. He’s the psych major, by the way. The question is, “Why was everyone frantically buying when it was a sellers’ market? Now that it’s a buyers’ market, people are watchfully waiting.” (more…)

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What neighborhoods are safe to buy a home in? I cannot begin to tell you how many times I get this question as a Real Estate Professional. Sometimes people are moving to San Francisco for a job or other reasons, and are not familiar with the city at all. It can be quite overwhelming for someone who does not know the city well. People ask me what neighborhoods have a lot of crime. My answer. I cannot give you an opinion of where you should live based on the crime, but I can definitely provide you with the resources that can help you make that decision on your own.

Resources for Searching San Francisco Crime Data

There are a few tools that I have found useful when searching for crime data in San Francisco. The San Francisco Police Department has a system called CrimeMAPS where you can actually enter your address and find incidents of crimes that have occurred near that address. You can search using an address, a specific landmark, or within a boundary. This is by far the most comprehensive tool for crime statistics in San Francisco that I have come across.

San Francisco Chronicle has some cool databases that can provide you with some quick crime stats. You can find out the frequency and type of robberies that occur in your area by clicking here. The search is done by police district. You can also view a map of homicides that have occurred in San Francisco as well.

Are there any other resources that I have not listed here that you believe would be useful for obtaining crime stats for San Francisco? Please add your comments.

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If you are in the market to purchase a home, and you are waiting for the market to hit rock bottom, then keep reading.

Two questions should linger in your mind:

How much more will the housing prices fall?

What will happen to the interest rates?

Let’s assume that prices will drop for another 6-12 months. If you are planning on purchasing with all cash, you can afford to wait. But what if you must finance your purchase? The following are hypothetical numbers.

Scenario 1:

• $50,000 down payment
• $500,000 purchase price
• 6.25% interest rate
• Monthly Payments = $2770,73 per month

So, you wait for the prices to drop. Check this out: (more…)

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