San Jose Real Estate * REALTOR ® * Richard Gonzalez

Silicon valley Bidding War is Back

This mercury news article takes a tour of  the Silicon Valley housing market and affirms what all full time real estate brokers have been experiencing over the last 90 days. “The bidding war is back”  states the headline in this article and to say the least is a true  statement that describes the current housing environment.

Buyers beware; low ball offers will only end up in one frustration after another because of cash coming in from overseas investors and low interest rate loans.

Other buyers are doing their best to time the market and have been in the trenches for months on end. My suggestion to those of you caught up in this market is stay positive and be persistent.

Read Article Here

Click Here to enlarge  County Assessor map for Santa Clara County

Although most of our county has seen some improvement Santa Clara County assessor Larry Stone has expressed concerns about the lack of tax dollars in this San Jose Mercury News article.  The concern is that city and County services are feeling the impact even with a recent jump in the affordable home sale activity. Read the article

HVCC guidelines backfires on buyers during the appraisial process causing unnessisary apprasial costs. As a result the California Association of REALTORS has been lobbying for a Moratorium to address this issue. Its already bad enough as it is working through underwriting delays in the pipeline and now HVCC appears to be affecting a buyers ability to perform in some cases leading to unnessisary fees from lenders.I agree that we need to protect the consumer but this may be overkill.

I am attaching a FAQ published by Fannie Mae Download Document

C.A.R.  Supports  HR 3044
“California Congressman Gary Miller has introduced H.R. 3044, which would place an 18-month moratorium on the recently imposed Home Valuation Code of Conduct (HVCC). The HVCC was worked out through an agreement between Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the New York Attorney General’s Office (NYAG) in response to an investigation by the NYAG into Fannie and Freddie.

The purpose of the HVCC was to try and insulate the appraisal process from undue influences. The HVCC attempted to do this by placing tight controls and restrictions on the ordering of the appraiser, as well as purposes for communicating with the appraiser during the process.  However, the implementation of the HVCC, which came about by neither regulation nor Congressional statute, has resulted in appraisals that cost more, take longer to perform, and are inaccurate.  C.A.R. has heard from members throughout the state of similar difficulties with the HVCC and its negative impact on the California real estate transaction. C.A.R. is supporting H.R. 3044, and is asking California’s Congressional Delegation to sign onto the bill as a cosponsor.”

Over the weekend I was out in the East Valley showing homes to my clients and was astonished by the level of activity in an area that was hard hit by the subprime market. A year ago time on the market for this area was in upwards of 300+ Days and is has now diminished to a mere 38 days.

Bank owned properties are quickly moving into pending status, some in just 24 hours. Yesterday I took my video camera to one of the homes that we previewed and videotaped to give perspective buyers a glimpse of the types of properties available but most importantly to show you the conditions you may find in a bank owned home in our market place.

This particular property was on the market for a week and had 20 offers. We are also seeing cash offers playing a pivotal role in the winning bid for many of these properties. California Association of REALTORS has pointed to the bay area as one of the leading market indicators and historically speaking the bay area has always led by six months when recovering from a down real estate market.

One of my agents came to me who has buyers looking for an affordable home in the San Jose area only to find that they are competing with multiple offers and dealing with frustration. The price range tends to be between $250,000 and $300,000.

Our buyers are making a competitive bid in some cases $40,000 over asking price only to be blown out of the water by a competing bid with an all cash offer. Apparently there are buyers and investors with access to large quantities of cash.

My suggestion to any buyer would be to be persistent and vigilant when looking for a home. Rumor has it that by the middle of the year we should experience a flood of bank owned properties (REO) in these affordable areas and as such may end up either stabilizing the need for affordable homes or continue to impact the values in these affordable areas.

One last thought is that there will be a deliberate low ball listing price to generate the multiple offer frenzy we experienced in 2005 at the height of the market. This is a listing technique that is frowned upon by the real estate community but ultimately difficult to control let alone police.