Real Data SF

Among the scions of the real estate industry presenting at the Fisher Conference (see my previous post) was none other than Frank Nothaft, Chief Economist and Vice President of Freddie Mac.  He had a doozy of a slide set.  Here’s one my favorites.  More to follow.

The chart shows that nominal (ie. not inflation-adjusted) prices hadn’t [...]

[Read more →]

Just back from the Fisher Center for Real Estate and Urban Economic’s semi-annual symposium on all things real estate.  (FCREUE is the real estate department within UC Berkeley’s Haas Business School.)
Ken Rosen is the Center’s oft-quoted co-chair and quietly advises real estate investment funds with over $300 million in assets.  Most of the time these [...]

[Read more →]

Back in the still-uncertain days of September 09, every market pundit had his or her own letter for what shape the recovery would take. I blogged about Ben Bernanke’s “U,” Liz Ann Sonders‘ “V,” and Nouriel Roubini’s “W” here. Though one could argue the jury is still out, I think it’s fair to say that [...]

[Read more →]

As if one new home buyer tax credit weren’t enough, the State of California recently re-enacted and extended the scope of its own version, originally passed in 2009.   As a result, some California buyers can take advantage of both — but only if all the stars align, and only for a short period of [...]

[Read more →]

And now for something completely different. What’s even closer to my heart than real estate?  Food.
A hanger steak is a cut of beef steak which is said to “hang” from the diaphragm of the steer.[
That’s a meaty description. There’s only one per steer and since it “hangs” close to the kidneys, it’s said to [...]

[Read more →]

Last week, Case-Shiller released January data for its closely watched national housing index.  Nationally, things are looking up – well, make that flat.  And that’s good news. In the wonderfully backward language of the report, the index’s year over year rate of decline “improved.”  Basically, we are back to where housing values were a year [...]

[Read more →]

At long last, here’s the promised data on Noe Valley condos and TIC’s.
First, a look back (in anger?) at the make-up of Noe Valley sales in 2009.

Note that there were more than twice as many condos sold as TICs, and more homes sold than condos and TICs put together. (What’s a TIC?  — Check out [...]

[Read more →]