All about Life & Real Estate in Silicon Valley – Broker Michael Koo's Blog.

The bidding wars are back. Seemingly overnight, many of the nation’s major housing markets have gone from stagnant to sizzling, with for-sale listings drawing offers from a large number of house hunters.
In March, 75% of agents with broker Redfin said their clients’ offers were countered by rival bids, up from 56% who said so in late 2011.
The competition has been most intense in California, where 9 out of 10 homes sold in San Francisco, Sacramento and cities in Southern California drew competing bids during the month. And at least two-third of listings in Boston, Washington D.C., Seattle and New York generated bidding wars.

“The only question is not whether a new listing will get multiple bids but how many it will get,” said Kris Vogt, who manages 14 Coldwell Banker offices in the Sacramento area. One home in an Elk Grove, Calif., subdivision recently received 62 separate bids. The final sale price was for more than $150,000, well above its $129,000 asking price.
In Cambridge, Mass., two condos that could be combined into one large home hit the market two weeks ago for $800,000 each, according to Pat Villani, president of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage in New England.

By Les Christie @ CNNMoney

For the first time in over six months, the supply of homes for sale is beginning to rise.

While inventories are still down nearly 20 percent from a year ago, they did rise more than the seasonal norm in February from January, according to a new report from the National Association of Realtors.

The raw number of for-sale listings rose 10 percent month-to-month, and when seasonally adjusted, they were up 2.6 percent, the biggest jump in over two years.

“Tight inventory has been a critical issue for the housing market: The limited supply of homes has fueled bidding wars and has meant that buyers have little to choose from and agents have little to sell,” said Trulia.com’s Jed Kolko. “Inventory has been tightening because construction levels are still low, adding little new housing stock, and homeowners are waiting to sell until they have more positive equity. This inventory spiral been especially severe since prices bottomed.”

(Read More: Map: Tracking the US Real Estate Recovery)

Tight supply has pushed the nation’s home builders to ramp up production far faster than they expected. That has increased costs, as they must now pay more for less available labor and for materials. Miami-based Lennar this week reported a 34 percent jump in new orders.

“We’ve been producing homes at about 5-600,000 a year, we probably need a 1.25 million to keep up with normalized household production and population growth,” Lennar CEO Stuart Miller told CNBC. “There’s no question we are in recovery.”

Diana Olick by CNBC Mar 21, 2013

MLSListings® reports median single-family home price down -4.2% in Jan-13 over Dec-12, sales fall to 1,286.

Click here to view additional Market Reports

Jan-13 Quick Facts:

The median price of existing single-family homes decreased to $575,000 down -4.2% vs Dec-12.
Existing single-family home sales decreased -32.6% from Dec-12 for a Jan-13 total of 1,286 sold units.
Condos increased in price to $399,000 up 2.3% vs Dec-12.
Existing condo sales decreased -35.1% in Jan-13 over Dec-12 for a total of 357 sold units.

MCLEAN, VA–(Marketwire – Jan 15, 2013) – Freddie Mac (OTCBB: FMCC) released today its U.S. Economic and Housing Market Outlook for January showing that despite the fiscal uncertainties facing the country, consumer confidence has remained fairly resilient in recovering from its Great Recession lows, buoyed by improving labor and housing market news. Unfortunately, business owners and managers are more sanguine about the nation’s business outlook than consumers seem to be.

Outlook Highlights

December registered 155,000 job gains and November’s payrolls were revised up 24,000, bringing the employment increase for 2012 to 1.86 million, the best since 2006.
Assuming the uncertainty of the fiscal policy debates during the first quarter fails to derail the economic expansion, the U.S. will likely see about two million new jobs created in 2013, gradually nudging the unemployment rate lower.
Over the first 11 months of 2012, home sales were up 9 percent from the same period of the prior year; similar gains are projected for 2013.
With the unemployment rate in December holding at an elevated 7.8 percent, it’s likely to ensure a continuation of an accommodative policy stance by the Federal Reserve through the coming year. Therefore, relatively low interest rates will continue to be a feature of mortgage lending and the broader capital markets in 2013.
A short preview video and the complete January 2013 U.S. Economic and Housing Market Outlook are available here. Freddie Mac compiles data on major economic and housing and mortgage market indicators and offers forecasts based on those indicators.

Quotes
Attributed to Frank Nothaft, Freddie Mac vice president and chief economist.

“As we begin 2013, the economy is undoubtedly at a better place now than at this time in 2012. And despite the clouds of fiscal uncertainty facing the country, positive jobs reports and the strengthening housing market continue to be the bright spot as we begin the New Year.”

Get the latest information from Freddie Mac’s Office of the Chief Economist on Twitter: @FreddieMac

Freddie Mac was established by Congress in 1970 to provide liquidity, stability and affordability to the nation’s residential mortgage markets. Freddie Mac supports communities across the nation by providing mortgage capital to lenders. Today Freddie Mac is making home possible for one in four homebuyers and is one of the largest sources of financing for multifamily housing. www.FreddieMac.com.

CONTACT:
Chad Wandler
703.903.2446
Chad_Wandler@FreddieMac.com

Bay Area home sales continued a steady string of yearly gains in October, with middle to high-end homes accounting for the increased inactivity, according to a report Wednesday.
The nearly 8,000 sales of all types of homes in the nine-county Bay Area last month shows the market is continuing to recover from the worst downturn in decades, the real estate information service DataQuick reported.
Homes sales were up 21 percent from a year ago, and have increased over the previous year for 16 months in a row, the company said. But sales still are about 9 percent below the average October for the past 25 years.
There were 50 homes sold for $2 million or more in Santa Clara County in October, the most for an

October in DataQuick’s records going back to 1988.
“The middle and high end of the market are driving the increase,” said Andrew LePage of DataQuick.
“We’re seeing more and more people getting off the sidelines, drawn by low rates that have gotten even lower and improvements in consumer confidence,” LePage said. “More people feel more confident in their jobs and believe we’ve probably hit bottom with home prices, so they’re not worried about being underwater.”
The average rate for a 30-year fixed mortgage was 3.4 percent in the past week.

By Pete Carey at Mercury News.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Tuesday urged lawmakers to act as soon as possible to avoid the fiscal cliff.
“Coming together to find fiscal solutions will not be easy, but the stakes are high,” Bernanke said, speaking before the Economic Club of New York.

The Fed chief cited projections from the Congressional Budget Office that predict the $7 trillion combination of spending cuts and tax increases could send the U.S. economy toppling back into recession.
He also cited Europe’s debt crisis as an obstacle to U.S. economic growth.
“Currently, uncertainties about the situation in Europe and especially about the prospects for federal fiscal policy seem to be weighing on the spending decisions of households and businesses as well as on financial conditions,” Bernanke said.
“Such uncertainties will only be increased by discord and delay,” he added.
Bernanke said U.S. economic growth has been “disappointingly slow” and although the unemployment rate has been declining, it is still well above its pre-recession level.

By Annalyn Kurtz @CNNMoney November 20, 2012: 2:30 PM ET

Teachers, parents and administrators at Los Gatos and Saratoga high schools continually say their schools have some of the brightest students around. And the latest California Academic Performance Index scores show they might be right.
Saratoga High received an API score of 933, with Los Gatos High coming in with a score of 886. API scores range from a low of 200 to a high of 1,000.
“Our goal is to have our students graduate from our campuses as well-rounded citizens prepared for college and/or a chosen career. One component of that is academic achievement. This new API information validates the efforts of our students, teachers, classified staff and parent community to promote this success,” said Bob Mistele, superintendent of the Los Gatos-Saratoga Union High School District.
Saratoga High received one of the highest scores in the county. Its score ranked third in public high schools behind Monta Vista High (956) and Lynbrook High (946).
Saratoga’s score of 933 matched its 2011 score.

By Brian Babcock
bbabcock@community-newspapers.com

To review the API scores, visit www.cde.ca.gov/ta/ac/ap.

3 stages of Music, Wine, Beer, Food, Ten Scene, Action Day Kids Zone, Cinnabar Grape Stomp Challenge, Saratoga History Museum and More !

For more info www.celebratesaratoga.com
Sunday, September 16, 2012 from Noon to 7pm on Big Basin Way in Downtown Saratoga

SAN DIEGO (CBS/AP) — Home prices in the San Francisco Bay Area approached four-year highs last month as buyers snapped up more expensive properties, according to a San Diego-based research firm.

DataQuick said Wednesday that the median price for new and existing houses and condominiums in the nine-county region reached $421,000 in July, up nearly 13 percent from the same period last year. It is the highest median price since August 2008.

Sales rose 23 percent from last year to nearly 8,500 homes.

DataQuick said homes costing at least a half-million dollars made up a bigger part of the Bay Area’s sales mix, lifting the median price. Foreclosed properties, which tend to a sell at steep discount, were a smaller part of the sales mix.

Median sale prices in San Francisco, Alameda, Contra Costa, Santa Clara, Solano, Marin, Napa, San Mateo and Sonoma counties all increased in the past year with Napa County seeing the biggest price increase at a 32.6 percent jump.

Median prices in that county were at $281,000 in July 2011 and reached $372,500 this July, according to DataQuick.

The highest home prices in the region this summer are in San Francisco with $714,000 listed as the median cost, while the lowest can be found in Solano County at $188,000.

Statewide, home prices also approached four-year highs last month. DataQuick said the median price for new and existing houses and condominiums in California reached $281,000 in July, up nearly 12 percent from the same period last year.

It is the highest median price since September 2008 and the fifth straight month of annual gains.

Sales rose 14 percent from last year to nearly 40,000 homes.

DataQuick says properties foreclosed upon in the previous year accounted for 22 percent of existing-home sales, down from 35 percent a year earlier. www.cbslocal.com

Low inventory couple with limited number of properties for sale in Santa Clara County, multiple offers are common. On the last day of May, there were 1,663 homes and condos for sale in the county. That was up a smidge from 1,552 in April, but way down from the 3,167 properties for sale in May 2011. That is a 48% decline. There is no easy fix for the inventory problem. While this tough on buyers, sellers are very happy.