Coastal Real Estate and Lifestyles

I managed to get in RE BarCamp for a few hours on Tuesday.  It was an informal gathering of social media/technology thought leaders… and those interested in learning about real estate technology trends.  A tremendous networking opportunity…and it was free!

I met a lot of people, here’s a couple to share with you now:

Alex Neth of cribQ.comcompiled a mashup of Craigslist rentals with Google mapping, neighborhood info, and Walk Scores for each rental.  He developed this site to manage his own rental search.

I’m fortunate to already know Kevin.  Kevin Boer of Domus Consulting Group and 3 Oceans Real Estate lead a discussion about whether there was business value in the use of Twitter.  That was one of the largest groups.  What does that tell you?  If you’re on Twitter also, you can follow me at @mariansbennett.

Theresa Boardman of St. Paul Real Estate lead a conversation about photos, Flikr and photo management for websites.  Because of the open and casual nature, discussions veered into cameras, lens choices, other online photo filing systems, how to get the best interior shots, and more.

Looking for home in New Zealand or north Lake Tahoe?…I met Alistair Helm of realestate.co.nz from Auckland, New Zealand.  His company provides one of the largest (or did he say the largest?) real estate web portals in his country.  Also Tracy Saunders, Sotheby’s came to SF from Incline Village, NV. 

Yesterday was the first day of Connect. More about that and last Sunday’s web-cam experiment in Healdsburg to come.  In addition to my clients and family…the priorities!… I’m fitting in these activities this week. 

A few days ago Pam Buda announced in our Homescopes meeting that her Healdsburg listing will be featured LIVE on Trulia’s Blog via webcam.  When our Sonoma County colleague and owner of wine country real estate blog, WineCountryandHorses.com, invited me to join her at her Open House this Sunday, July 20th, I jumped at the opportunity to witness this cutting edge listing tool in action.  As with any listing, most agents will plan a marketing strategy to maximize exposure to the most likely potential buyers.  When an opportunity like this . . . Trulia offering to do a live webcam of your open house . . . is added to the marketing of the home, it opens up even more possibilities to powerful online exposure.  WOW.

Pam has taken another terrific step by involving her Homescopes associates.  When I write a blog post about an Associate’s listing, my readers are exposed to new information they may not know about otherwise.  For example, my readers span San Mateo County, all of California, and beyond.  My Google Analytics report shows the top worldwide visitors to my site:  United States, United Kingdom, Norway, India and Canada.  Pam’s Analytics report may show her readers come from other places.  In any case, it’s additional exposure for her listing - more exposure means greater chances of the right buyer.

The perfect buyer for this adorable vintage craftsman bungalow in the heart of the wine country may come from anywhere.  If you have ever thought of exploring Sonoma County, or Healdsburg in particular, for either a second home, a vacation rental property, a legacy home, or a ’downsize’ home, what better way to attend an open house if you can’t physically be in Healdsburg?!  Check out this online open house tomorrow, Sunday, July 20 between 1-3;30 on Trulia’s Blog.  The home is located at 414 Piper Street, Healdsburg, CA and will be physically open from1-4 p.m.

The use of these 2.0 real estate technology and social media tools are at the heart of an exciting and transparent trend for our industry that will benefit buyers and sellers.

To view the invitation, either click HERE or go directly to the main page titled *Limo* on the header bar.

Highlights:

• See parts of the San Mateo County Coast that only a local would know.
• Complimentary tour in private, stocked limo (air-conditioning if needed, but, remember, this is SF!).
• Gifts from local businesses that you can use for yourself or as client gifts once you return home.  No extra paper to have to fit into the suitcase.
• Views, stops, fun, sights, comraderie, fully stocked limo, gifts, fun, pizza…hope to see you.
• Make the most of your trip to SF for RE Connect.

To my contacts on Homescopes, WCR Blogs, Twitter and Active Rain:  I would sure appreciate your help in passing this one-time offering on to those who you think may be interested.  There is room for 5 people, so if anyone is interested, don’t wait.

Thanks!

Marian

The Half Moon Bay Coastside Limo Tour, available on a first-come-first-served basis, is open to all Real Estate Connect participants.  The limo will depart Friday afternoon following the conference from the Palace Hotel.  The short, entertaining excursion into Half Moon Bay will include a scenic drive over Devil’s Slide to view the beautiful new bridges and the now famous tunnel work in progress, through local neighborhoods, a coffee and snack stop, and a return trip over Hwy 92 to view some local flower, tree, pumpkin, and horse farms.  Guests will be returned to the Palace Hotel by mid afternoon.

I thought of this idea because Half Moon Bay is about 30 minutes away from SF and this will give visitors a unique hyper-local look at my real estate market and community.  The official invitation will be posted in the next couple of days and linked to my Active Rainblog also.

Charise and Michele of the Half Moon Bay Chamber of Commerce greeted me a few days ago in in their new digs at 235 Main St, HMB.  It’s one of the older Main Street bungalows transformed into a welcoming business space.  The two friendly golden retrievers and colorful backyard completed the charming effect for which Half Moon Bay is so loved!  Charise and Michele’s input was very valuable as I outlined my tour for them.  They quickly gave me names and contacts of local businesses that I could include in my “gift bag” for each tour guest.  Since I expect out-of-area agents who may have relocation clients interested in my community, we thought of gifts that the agents could use once they got back home; i.e. referencing businesses with a good online presence who already service clients all over the country.  If you know of a local business who would like to be included, simply comment or email and let me know - soon.

 These are just a few of the businesses I will be contacting for gift pack gift ideas. . .to pique your curiosity!

Harley Farms

Elegant Cheesecakes

Savvy Skirts

Dayle Dunn Gallery

* * * Look for the Connect participants Limo invitation shortly!  * * *

This is the pre-invitation heads up…and a special thanks to the HMB Chamber for their assistance!  Also, please forward this to anyone who you think may be interested and send a comment so I can add interested parties to the first-come-first-served list or send a private email.  Since I’ve never done this before, and am sponsoring this myself, I really don’t know if there will be lots of interest or none at all.  So let me know what you think!  What I do know is this will be a one-of-a-kind trip for a lucky few.

Just learned about this very handy tool yesterday from our Advertising Coordinator, Gene Wilkins.  She was the first to broadcast that Highway 92 had been closed yesterday afternoon within seconds of its happening.  She had gotten a notice from SMCAlert, a system that broadcasts road, earthquake, weather, and other emergency situations.  Here’s a snippet from the FAQ…

Emergency Situations:

• Notify employees, and/or citizens of the location of the nearest emergency shelter, available bed space, hours of operation during a crisis;
• Notify employees/citizens of available evacuation routes during an emergency;
• Activate special teams within the community, based upon an event

Precautionary Warnings:

• Severe weather warnings;
• Change in the Homeland Security Advisory System terror alert level
• Pre-cautionary evacuation order if on high alert  

So I signed up too.  You can activate your notices on up to two cell phones and two email addresses.  It’s free, however, standard text messaging rates apply here.

This can be a huge time saver for those of us who travel Highways 92 & 1 on a regular basis - especially in our line of work!  Up until now I would turn on KCBS AM radio to wait for the traffic report “on the eights”.  You can configure how you receive these notices, but I set it up so that I received them on my Treo since I’m in the car so much.

Meeting someone for dinner or a property showing?  Picking up kids from school?  Medical or other appointment over the hill?  Now you can get the quick “heads up” to take another route if necessary.  For client meetings that may be delayed, this is a very useful, professional tool.

Note:  Just added this link to my website under “Emergency Preparedness”.

Since the new cell phone laws go into effect on July 1, I’ve been keeping new technology, Twitter, on the horizon ready to jump on - at least in some minor capacity - at some point.  Now may be that time.  However, I guess I’m not alone…as I tried to log in a minute ago, here’s the message I received…

Now I know why, having just scanned one of my favorite sites, Transparent Real Estate.  I can usually find what’s really going on at TransparentRE.  Here’s apparently why Twitter may be down now from Pat Kitano’s post of 5/26/08:

“Twitter.com isn’t actually the primary recipient of its web traffic, Larry Dignan @ ZDNet says 90% of Twitter traffic are its API calls. On the negative side, Twitter now has famous network down times because too many users are accessing Tweeter via those applications.”

I keep up to date on new technologies from my internet marketing gurus, Pat Kitano and Kevin Boer at 3 Oceans Real Estate.  Thanks to you both for helping us stay at the top of our game!  I plan on joining the Real Estate Connect 2008 Twitter group - which will be my first experience with real-time communication with colleagues while at a conference.  Talk about being connected.  Here’s some specifics from the Inman site:

Hope to connect with you at the Inman event next month.

CHP Wireless Telephone Laws FAQ - Effective July 1, 2008

As new online consumer-oriented real estate sites emerge such as Zillow and Trulia, it is fascinating for me to watch how Realtors and consumers respond to this segment of our industry’s growth.  For years Realtor.com was the primary real estate site that consumers used outside of individual Brokerage sites such as Californiamoves.com.

I’m a fan of transparency, which you already know if you’ve been reading this blog, so I’m excited that consumers have more resources.  However, along with new choices comes some confusion and growing pains.  Here’s a bit of clarification regarding some of Zillow’s data for my corner of the world - the San Mateo County coast including Half Moon Bay and nearby towns.

Zillow just posted Q1 results for 30 Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSA).  Look at the Quarterly Home Value Reports map to start.  Our San Mateo County Coastside area is included in San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont (called San Francisco Metro area).  For geographic reference, near us is San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara (called San Jose Metro area).  East Bay and North Bay communities are also included in the Bay Area’s general region.

Find San Francisco, CA on the list of cities on the left.  Zoom in a little and notice the colored icons near Moss Beach, Princeton By the Sea, and Half Moon Bay.  Note:  Montara is not on this map just a mile north of Moss Beach and Princeton By The Sea is also a neighborhood.  Princeton By the Sea is part of El Granada; Seal Cove is part of Moss Beach.

When you’re on the Zillow site, click on the green (the color refers to the amount of appreciation or depreciation) icon near Half Moon Bay to get this:

According to Zillow, the Half Moon Bay change is -5.2%.  The Zindex is $815,000.  Note:  this picture is of a recently sold - 3/11/08 - bank-owned house in the El Granada highlands - MLS # 768007 - for $615,000; not located in Half Moon Bay.  Zindex means median zestimate which is the current median price for a given Metropolitan Statistical Area, I think.

For a Big Picture tool, it’s not too far off…but as one would expect, not entirely accurate either.  They’re statistics - a tool… not the be-all-end-all of our homes’ value.  I’m looking for whether it’s in the ballpark.  Homeruns are only achieved with local expertise.

In my last post comparing Q1 2007 to Q1 2008 for Half Moon Bay see below.  Figures for El Granada, Moss Beach, and Montara are in the actual linked post.

Additional home value statistics are in my 2008 Coastside Report compiled in January 2008:  Coastside Market Report by Marian S. Bennett - January 2008

Just in from Susan O’Driscoll, our Half Moon Bay office in-house lender, Princeton Capital…

**Rates for our agency jumbos are down! Loan amounts > $417,000 – $729,750 today on a 30 year fixed are 6% - 0 points or 5.75% with 1 point.**

Shortly before Susan’s email, I got a call from HMB Branch of Bank of America’s Bob Zimmer with his update.  I hadn’t gotten to my newsfeed in the last few days to see for myself the Fannie Mae announcement.  Thanks guys for keeping the telephone tree alive and well so that we and our buyer clients can be the first to know about changes that may affect their rates! 

Their news to me coincides with Wednesday’s announcement by Fannie Mae, summarized here by an NAR press release that Fannie is…

“…working to reduce the cost to consumers of jumbo conforming loans (loans above $417,000, up to $729,750 in some areas) and make it easier for individuals and families to qualify for these loans. We expect this step will lower mortgage costs for many families living in high-cost areas. Additionally, Fannie Mae will allow many borrowers to refinance Fannie Mae-owned mortgages even where a home’s current value is significantly less than the existing mortgage.”

“Agency jumbo” is the another term for “jumbo conforming”, the recently approved loan limit increase for high cost areas.  I know, we really don’t need more industry lingo, do we?

Related reading:

Fannie Mae Quarter 1 News Release

…embellishing the facts further along the spectrum does.  To say that the real estate media landscape is biased is no revelation by any stretch of the imagination.  There are the respective agendas and it’s just the way it is.  It will always be up to us as consumers to decide how we want to react to it and consider its validity.  It’s up to us as real estate professionals to stay on top of public perception AND help our clients understand how such news affects their personal situation and goals.  We all have a job to do. 

I was amused by last Sunday 5/4 SF Chron Insight’s little back page column titled: The Bottom Line.  The headings Good Week and Bad Week drew me in to see how my own week compared to what made it into the column.  (check, check, more good than bad, doing ok!)  I scanned until I drilled into the words “Fair and balanced”.  I thought - wow, we could use some of that in our industry.  So I searched “Fair and balanced” and found it to be one of the news network’s terms.  A search for “fair and balanced real estate” led me to a post written 4/8/08 on News Hounds blog highlighting a rather unbalanced approach to the current state of affairs in real estate.  That is, one day it appears we may be finally rebounding, and the next a new report shows that we’re not.  I must admit part of me was expecting to find a fair and balanced real estate story, but instead I found the writer’s opinion that the news show they were writing about was not fair and balanced.  That’s fine, but I wanted to read something that I thought would be really unique.

It may always be up to us to bring the fair and balanced; however, unless there is trust, our writing probably won’t be viewed that way.  It will be viewed as another biased opinion about the real estate market.  Real estate agents who blog have an opportunity to get the real stories in their local market out there.  If we can discuss the good and the bad in a consistent manner, we have an opportunity to gain trust.  And our readers will continue to…react and consider its validity.   Thanks for reading.

Every Tuesday is the Half Moon Bay coastside’s ”Tour Day”.  What that means for local SAMCAR members is starting the meeting at the Community Center, but today it was at the Oceano Hotel at Pillar Point Harbor.  If you’ve been reading my blog you know that I’ve gotten a sneak peak before today!  The local Realtors were treated to warm scones, fresh cut fruit, coffee and juice, in one of the harbor view conference rooms, followed by a tour of a few ocean view suites, the ballroom, and the shopping village…a fun change of pace from our normal weekly meeting location.

The meeting is typically led by one of the local Realtors.  We go over announcements, review the printed tour sheet (new listings entered into the MLS since the prior week) and agents announce any additions or deletions to the day’s tour.  Other important announcements are made also.  George Mozingo, SAMCAR’s Government Affairs Director announced that anyone is welcome to attend the public meeting in Sacramento tomorrow (4/30/08) on AB1991, a single-issue bill written by Assemblyman Gene Mullin in an effort to help resolve the City of Half Moon Bay’s Beachwood judgment.

If a Listing Agent has a home on tour, they leave to arrive at the home before the 50+ agents get there.  Some have food and some don’t.  Today, homemade focaccia bread wafted from Grant Walters’ Moss Beach listing.  Ina and Terry offered “to go” snacks at their El Granada home, and Bob McCahon spent hours rolling and dunking (kidding!) the infamous donut holes…but agents didn’t drive to his Pescadero listing for more sweets today!

This special country property is about an hour south of San Francisco.  Or land your private plane at the HMB airport and drive 15 miles down Highway 1.  With pastoral views to die for, plenty of outbuildings, beautiful swimming pool, hot tub, entertaining nooks around the property, caretaker’s cottage, and direct access to riding/hiking trails, it is waiting for one lucky family to create memories.  Thanks, Bob, for bringing us this great property to offer our clients!

One of the view scenes.

A trailhead and one of the outbuildings.

Caretaker’s Cottage.

5785 Pescadero Creek Road, Pescadero, CA