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The latest real estate-related
information |
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| Davis,
CA, Market Conditions |
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Mortgage Rates |
| Price Range |
Market Condition |
| Up to
$300,000 |
Buyers'
Market |
| $300,001
to
$400,000 |
Buyers'
Market |
| $400,001-$500,000 |
Buyers'
Market |
| $500,001-$600,000 |
Neutral
Market |
| $600,001-$700,000 |
Buyers'
Market |
| $700,001-$800,000 |
Sellers
Market |
| $800,001-$1,000,000 |
Buyers'
Market |
| Over
$1,000,000 |
Neutral
Market |
| Income
Properties |
Buyers'
Market |
| Estimates
reflect Whitcombe & Co.'s subjective assessment of
Davis real estate market conditions based on sales and listing data, general
market activity, and buyer and seller attitudes. Updated
09/08/06.
* A
sellers' real estate market is indicated when homes sell quickly at
or above their listing prices, and/or when inventories are
low.
* A
neutral real estate market is indicated when homes sell at or just
below their listing prices within a reasonable period of
time, and/or
inventories are moderate.
* A
buyers' real estate market is indicated when homes tend
to sell for
significantly less than their list prices, remain on
the market for longer periods of time, and/or inventories
are high.
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| Latest
Davis Area Real Estate News, by Whitcombe & Co. |
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| Housing
Materials Costs Rise, 09/08/06 |
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Investors
Business Daily reports that the price of building
materials has increased by eight percent in the
last year. It writes:
"Costs
rose 27 percent for gypsum boards, 20 percent for
plastics, 11 percent for cement, and 6 percent for
sheet metal siding. According to the Consumer
Price Index, housing costs edged up 4 percent for
borrowers from July 2005."
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| National
Housing Sales Fall, But Davis Sales Strong, 08/23/06 |
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National
home sales fell significantly in July. Here
is a story about it.
In contrast,
in Davis, sales were the highest since early 2004,
with 75 escrows closed.
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| Regional
Home Prices Fall Year-Over-Year, 08/16/06 |
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The
Sacramento Bee has a story about falling home
prices in the Central Valley region here.
If you want specific information about Davis
housing prices, subscribe to my email newsletter
(by registering for the MLS on this website).
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| Davis
Rental Market Loosening, 08/15/06 |
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Vacancy
rates for rental housing in Davis have increased a
bit, and will likely top 5.0% this year.
Still, my family's property management company
Tandem Properties, which operates about 1800 units
in Davis, doesn't have any vacancies for next
year. The Sacrament Bee has a story about
this subject here.
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| Renting
Becoming More Attractive, 08/10/06 |
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Renting
is becoming a very attractive option for young
people, as they have been increasingly priced out
of the market for homes and condo. Indeed,
some twenty-somethings I know claim they have
accepted the fact that they will never be home
owners, and have resigned themselves to being
renters, while investing their money in other
things. USA Today has an interesting article on
this subject here.
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| Remodel
Pitfalls?, 08/05/06 |
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With
Davis home prices so high, many buyers are
considering remodeling an older home as an
option. Yahoo has an interesting article on
this subject here.
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| Davis
Market Update, 06/19/06 |
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Almost
everyone I talk to is interested in real estate
market conditions in Davis. The Enterprise
published an article on this subject today.
The Enterprise article is a bit out-of-date, but
generally accurate.
The most important point to grasp currently is how
the Davis market appears to be distinguishing
itself from the Sacramento market, and the rest of
the Central Valley in general. Just across the
Causeway, the market appears poised to drop
substantially in places like Natomas and Elk
Grove. In those areas, inventories continue to
climb every week, and the time homes sit on the
market is rising. Inventories levels in some
areas are approaching 1 year.
In Davis, the time that sold homes sat on the
market was 43 days in May 2006, up from a ridiculously
low 20 days in June 2005. But 43 days is not
exactly a long average time on market. Further,
after peaking in May, inventories in Davis have
been gradually falling for about the last month.
After reaching a high of about 260 homes on the
market, there are now 243 in the Davis area.
Further, the $300,000 to $500,000 price range
continues to exhibit signs of a sellers'
market. And after some significant but not
radical downward price adjustments, a spurt of
activity this month has moved the $500,000 to
$600,000 range into sellers' market territory (all
of this is based on my humble though educated
opinions). In many parts of Sacramento, these
market segments are deteriorating.
That said, Davis has already seen some modest
downward price adjustments, in the range of 7 to 9
percent down from the price peak last summer, but
has recently stabilized. Will the Davis market
remain stable as the Sacramento market falls? Only
time will tell, but one thing is clear: As of now,
the fundamentals in Davis are far, far, better
than those in many parts of Sacramento.
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| Would
you care if someone died in your new home?, 04/30/06 |
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I
recently gave a listing presentations to the
executor of an estate charged with selling the
former home of two recently deceased
gentlemen. The home was a remarkable example
of classic late 1960's California
architecture. The house was in need of major
cosmetic renovation. But it also had another
problem, the gravity of which has long been a
topic of debate in the real estate
community. In one of the home's four
bedrooms, one of its former long-time inhabitants
recently died.
An
interesting and contentious issue in the history
of real property law has been: Under what
circumstances must a seller disclose the
occurrence of a death in a home placed up for
sale? In a famous case read by every
first-year law student, a court concluded that
where a home's previous owner had been the victim
of a violent murder, potential buyers must be
advised of this fact. In a similar vein,
another court held that a seller was required to
disclose that his home was widely believed to be
"haunted."
At any rate,
the NY Times has an interesting article on this
general subject today. Here
is a link to it.
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| Fed
to Stop Raising Rates?, 04/27/06 |
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Ben
Bernanke, the new Chairman of the Federal Reserve,
indicated at a hearing of the Congressional Joint
Economic Committee today that the Fed may hold off
on further interest rate increases for at least a
while. While he did not indicate precisely
when rates would stop rising, this is the first
sign we've seen that the end of the rate cycle may
be near. We can now see the proverbial light
at the end of the tunnel. Here
is a story about it.
The end of
interest rate increases would be good news for
both the housing market and the stock
market. I have been concerned for several
months that the Fed would (once again) overdo the
rate increases, and push interest rate sensitive
sectors of the economy, the housing market in
particular, into a steep downturn. If rates
stabilize now, before housing prices have seen a
serious downturn (only about 10% from the peak in
Davis so far), the mythical "soft
landing" in the housing market, followed by a
period of slow but steady appreciation, could
become reality.
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| Yolo
Immune to Big Earthquakes?, 04/18/06 |
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The
Daily Democrat has an interesting article about
the relatively low risk posed by earthquakes here
in Yolo County. The only major fault in Yolo
is in the extreme North-western part of the
county, far from Davis. Here
is the article.
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| Spring
Listings Coming Online, 04/06/06 |
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Every
Spring, we see a flood of new listings as sellers
seek to take advantage of the Spring "nesting
instinct."
This year is no exception. There have been
24 new listings placed on the MLS in the last 6
days.
Normally, we
see a concomitant flood of Spring buyers.
But this year, the record rainfall has slowed
buyer activity significantly. However, I am
cautiously optimistic based on the increased sales
activity in March, and solid leading indicators
such as website traffic and buyer contacts to my
office.
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| Davis
School Enrollment Plummeting, 04/03/06 |
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Enrollment
in Davis public schools is going to drop every
year for the next nine years, according to a
report released by School District consultant Vern
Webber. The number of students will begin to
rise again in 2015, according to the Webber.
Here
is a story about it.
The main
practical issue this gives rise to among average
Davis residents is: "Which elementary
school is going to be closed?"
On a more
philosophical level, one is tempted to ask,
"What type of community is Davis
becoming?" And it is hard to miss the
irony of the situation: The support-system
for kids in Davis (schools and otherwise) has
contributed to extremely high home prices, which
in turn has priced-out the vast majority of people
with school-aged kids.
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| Middle
of Davis Market Heating Up?, 04/01/06 |
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It
appears that two segments of the Davis real estate
market are beginning to heat-up.
Specifically, activity was quite robust in the
$500,000-$600,000 and $700,000-$800,000 ranges
during March. A surge in pending sales
followed listing price decreases by about
half the sellers in the former category. The
March surge in buyer activity occurred in spite of
a record number of rainy days in March.
The million
dollar-plus range is another story. There
were no sales over one million in March, while
several new listings in that category emerged.
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| New
Educational Requirements For Agents?, 03/18/06 |
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The
Business Journal has an article
about a bill that would increase the educational
requirements for getting a real estate license in
California. The Journal writes:
"[A real estate agent's license] is a quickly
attained license compared to the seven years or
more of training required for doctors or
attorneys, or the two to four years -- plus
internships and externships -- for nursing
licensees.
"And while a real estate agent isn't
potentially dealing with life and death, the agent
is handling the most valuable asset many people
will ever own...
"The bill would require would-be agents to
complete three classes -- one of them in real
estate law -- before taking the test and getting
the license."
The average consumer might be surprised to learn
that real estate agents are not required to have
any formal education regarding real estate law.
Given that a residential real estate transaction
is essentially a complex legal transaction, that
has always struck me as odd. In essence, quite
often there will be no person involved in a real
estate transaction who actually understands the
transaction on anything but a superficial level.
I would go further than the current bill, and
require that current agents that have never taken
a real estate law course should be required to do
so, and impose continuing legal education
requirements on all agents.
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| Davis
Prices Near Highs, Sales Volume Way Down, 03/03/06 |
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Median
per square foot prices for Davis real estate rose
to almost $357 per square foot for sales closed in
February 2006, up from about $339 the previous
month. This is close to the high of $364
seen during the blistering market of July
2005.
Still, this
median price increase is not to be blindly taken
as a sign that the hot market is back. For
one thing, February 2006 sales volume was down
almost 50% from February 2005, with only 24 sales
of residential non-investment units. For
another, the time on market has increased from an
average of 22 days in both February 2005 and July
2005 to 55 days now. Generally, the time on
market figures appear to have leveled off for the
time being. The next few months will tell us
much about how 2006 will shape-up for the Davis
real estate market.
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| CFHA
Offers 40 Year Loan, 02/21/06 |
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The
California Housing Finance Agency (CHFA) has
decided to offer a 40 year fixed rate loan.
This will make it slightly easier for first-time
home buyers to qualify for a mortgage loan.
The CHFA loans are generally about a full
percentage point (100 basis points) below market
rate loans. However, these loans are only
available for homes under a specified price
ceiling. In Yolo and Sacramento Counties
the ceiling is currently $429,620. The Bee
has a story about this issue here.
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| Middle
of Davis Market Picking Up? 02/15/06 |
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The
middle of the Davis real estate market has heated
up a bit over the last week, with an average of
more than two pending sales per day. The
$500,000 to $600,000 range has moved solidly into
sellers' market conditions. This rate is
similar to last February, which was the beginning
of a red-hot spring and summer market in
Davis. Then again, the weather over the past
week has been decidedly non-winter-like, and the
market may cool again with the outdoor
temperature.
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| Men
Fear Commitment, Loan Defaults Up, Posted 02/12/06 |
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The
NY Times has an interesting
article about the trend towards single women
buying homes, and single men not. That has
been my experience. I see a fair number of
single women looking to purchase houses or condos,
but very, very few single men.
In other
news, loan defaults in the Sacramento region are
on the rise. This problem could get
worse if home values continue to fall, as they
have since about July, according to my
analysis. Aside from homeowners' pure
inability to make payments, defaults also occur
when people conclude that the amount of money they
will save by defaulting on a mortgage exceeds the
cost of the negative credit consequences
associated with that action. For example, if
someone owes $100,000 more on their mortgage than
their home is worth, and is living a poor
lifestyle in order to make payments, they may quit
the mortgage. The bank takes the house, but
the loan goes away. If this set of economic
incentives becomes prominent, we may see more
foreclosure sales.
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| Whitcombe
& Co. Has Highest Average Sale, Posted 02/02/06 |
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Whitcombe
& Co. had the highest average transaction
value for Davis residential properties of any
agency with 5 or more sales in Davis in
2005. The numbers, according to the MLS,
were as follows:
| Agency |
Average
Davis Transaction Value In 2005
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| Whitcombe
& Co. |
$688,888 |
| Coldwell
Banker Davis |
$631,760 |
| Lyons
Davis |
$630,439 |
| Hearth
Stone Properties |
$532,700 |
| RE/Max
Gold Davis |
$525,939 |
| Century
21 Davis |
$469,750 |
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| Tandemonium, Posted
01/12/06 |
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Tandem
Properties of Davis has responded to the
tougher rental market in Davis with a new event
called Tandemonium. During the event, students are
whisked around town on busses, fed, and generally
entertained while apartment managers showcase the
selling points of the various rental units. Here
is a story about this year's event from the
California Aggie.
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| Inventories
Rise, Buyers Get Deals, Posted 01/01/06 |
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It's
no secret that the inventory of homes for sale has
been rising in the Central Valley. There are
recent articles about this subject here
and here.
Davis still has relatively low inventories,
however.
Interestingly, Davis home buyers have been driving
harder bargains than buyers in North Natomas, at
least based on sales closed in December 2005. In
Davis, many sales were executed significantly below the list
price. In
Natomas, where inventories are sky-high, fewer
sales occurred below list price, and when they
did, it was almost always a token about (say $5000
or so below list). There may be good reasons for
this, but I would guess that Sacramento buyers'
agents are just too eager to close a sale, and are
thus hesitant to risk loosing a sale by advising
clients to play hardball in negotiations. The
flood of agents into the real estate profession
means that many agents are very hungry.
In this environment, approaching a listing agent
may be a big mistake. I would advise buyers to
hire an independent buyers' agent that will push
sellers to their limit.
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| Building
Materials Prices Up, Raised Foundations, Posted 12/03/05 |
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The
Sacramento Business Journal has an interesting article
about the dramatic rise in the cost of building
materials during the last year, and particularly
since hurricane Katrina.
Concrete has risen quite a bit, along with most
other building materials. Perhaps because of this
price increase, some builders in the Springlake
development in Woodland are constructing homes on
raised foundations, instead of concrete slabs.
Interestingly, the original push towards concrete
slabs in the 1960s was motivated by the desire of
builders to lower building costs. This change was
considered by many to be a step down in terms of
home quality. In new home construction, a raised
foundations can offer aesthetic and practical
advantages when compared to concrete slabs. (When
dealing with older homes, a raised foundation
gives rise to the potential for foundation
deterioration from water damage, dry rot and
termites, which potentials are not present in
concrete slabs).
At any rate, the increases in building materials
costs are likely to come mostly out of the
builders' bottom lines, at least until the market
price of homes adjusts upward to reflect increased
materials cost.
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| Housing
Price Futures On The Way, Posted 11/23/05 |
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The Chicago Mercantile Exchange will begin trading housing price futures
contracts this Spring. The contracts will track housing prices in 10 major U.S. Cities, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, San Diego, San Francisco
and Washington D.C., or a composite of all of them. For property owners in these cities, this will be a valuable tool, particularly for investors. If a homeowner thinks real estate prices are going to decline, they could purchase a futures put option to hedge against that risk.
Likewise, someone worried about being priced out
of the market could buy futures contracts or call
options. Generally, there are a number of strategies that could be employed to make money in any market. Hopefully, a contract will be created for the Sacramento region.
Here is an
article about it.
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| Buyers'
Market In Sacramento Region, Posted 11/19/05 |
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The Sacramento Bee is
acknowledging that the Sacramento
regional market has made an abrupt shift from a strong sellers' market as recently as July, to
a buyers' market now. Regional inventories, at
about 4000 last quarter, are over 11,000 now, and
more inventory is added each week. Regional
sales volume is down 20% from this time last
year. As usual, the quoted real estate agents are predicting merely a moderation in price
increases. I, as usual, make no prediction, as the factors involved in housing price movements
are complex and many. I will say that after the sellers' market of recent years, almost six months
of inventory does not feel like a "neutral market."
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| Voters
Reject Covell Village, Posted 11/09/05 |
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Davis
voters soundly
rejected Covell Village in yesterday's
election. The margin was almost 20%.
That is a very large margin of loss, especially
when you consider that the Yes on X campaign was
very well run, and had the support of the vast
majority of community leaders.
The net
result of this vote is that Davis has removed
itself from the planning process. No
developer will bother talking to the City of
Davis, because there is no way any significant
project can be approved by voters, even if all the
Measure X opponents endorsed it. Davis
voters simply won't vote for development,
period. As a result, Yolo County is now the
forum in which growth on Davis' border will be
debated and planned. The Bee has an
interesting article about this issue here.
Hopefully,
the local real estate market, which has been very
slow as the election approached, will begin to
pick-up now that the uncertainty of the election
is removed.
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| Covell
Village Would Be Good For Local Housing Market, Posted
11/02/05 |
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I've talked to several potential home sellers lately worried that passage of
Covell
Village, on the November 8th ballot in Davis as Measure X, will negatively effect Davis home values. This notion is
probably incorrect.
The Davis housing market moves with the regional market. If Natomas homes increase or decrease in value 10%, Davis home values will do the same, more or less. The 60 market-rate units per year that would be built in Covell Village will have little if any effect on local home prices. In 1997, when there were more than 900 homes built in Davis, housing prices increased nicely, in lock-step with prices in the Sacramento region.
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| Media
Finally Acknowledges Market Cooling, Posted 10/19/05 |
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The Sacramento Market is cooling
off, as I noted in my August 19, post. There's
finally an article about it in the Bee today. The article
notes that inventories are twice as high as they were a year
ago. Actually, they
are twice as high as they were about 90 days ago. And inventories continue to build
at a very rapid pace in the greater Sacramento region.
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| Fed
Raises Rates, Posted 09/20/05 |
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The Fed
raised rates 0.25% today, even
in the face of the economic damage caused by Katrina.
This might not be as odd as it first appears given
that Katrina-related reconstruction will give rise
to inflationary pressures as building material
demand increases.
The Biz
Journal has an article
surveying the national housing market.
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| Sac
Bee Article, Posted 09/11/05 |
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The
Bee is running a three part feature on the
regional housing market. Here's the first
and second
part.
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| Regional
Real Estate Market Starts Down, Posted 08/19/05 |
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The Sacramento is Bee
reporting today what has been apparent watching the
regional housing market for a few weeks now. The market in the Sacramento area has started a price correction. The number of new listings has been exceeding the number of properties sold by about 30-50% for several weeks. The number of price reductions has picked-up substantially in just the last few days.
Davis is a different story, so far. Although there has been a leveling off of prices recently, and the number of sales is down significantly from this time last year, inventory in
the sub-$700,000 price range is still low.
Likewise, the average time on the market is still very
low, at 35 days for homes sold thus far in August.
The residential income market, regarding duplexes,
triplexes and such, is the only soft area of the
market, with high inventory and not many buyers.
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| School
Test Scores Rise, Posted 08/17/05 |
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Scores in Davis-area schools are on the rise.
Here is an article in the Enterprise about it.
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| Apartment
Vacancies Fall in Sacramento, Posted 07/20/05 |
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The
Bee has an article
on the latest numbers from the Sacramento
apartment market. The Davis rental market,
meanwhile, is weaker than in previous years.
I suspect the influx of investors purchasing homes
for their UCD students to live in has been the
main reason for the increase in Davis vacancies.
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| Covell
Village Goes To Voters, Posted 06/22/05 |
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The
City Council last night voted 4-1, with Sue
Greenwald dissenting, to approve
the Covell Village development proposal.
It now must be approved by a majority of Davis
voters in this November's election.
Covell
Village represents the most ambitious planning
effort I've ever heard of anywhere. It
provides the City of Davis with a roadmap for slow
(probably too slow) growth until at least
2018. I offer my complements to the hundreds
of the people who have worked so hard to bring to
project to this point.
I'm very
excited about this project. I think it will
usher in a boom-time for Davis, with thousands of
local craftsmen, engineers, business persons,
professionals, and artisans (among others) collaborating
to build a collectively-conceived and constructed
work of art. The project will surely garner
national and international attention once it's
complete. Here's looking forward to
November.
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| Foreclosure
Rates Drop in CA, Posted 06/22/05 |
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Those predicting that the "housing bubble" is going to burst base their reasoning in part on the notion that
over-stretched homeowners will begin defaulting on their loans in droves, causing foreclosures and a resulting flood of homes onto the market. If this is going to happen, there is no sign of it yet. The foreclosure rate in California dipped 16 percent in April and May of this year.
Here is a story about it.
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| Sac
Rail Yard Development Proposed, Posted
06/18/05 |
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Millennia Sacramento finally filed a development application for old Union Pacific
rail yard. The development on 238 acres would include
10,000 residential units, along with mixed use areas, office, and retail. The developers have also left room for a new arena. The renderings show high-rise condo projects. This will be interesting to
watch, given the complexities of the project in
terms of toxics and politics. Here is a story about it.
Here
is another.

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| Covell Village In The News, Posted
05/17/05 |
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The Davis Enterprise has published two stories about Covell Village. The
first story is pretty good, discussing the general aspects of the project.
The second
story, supposedly addressing the fiscal impact of the project on Davis City government, is very poorly
researched and misleading.
The story states that the net fiscal impact of the project on the City's finances will be from a worst case scenario of minus $284,000 per year, to a best case of positive $344,000 per year. The problem with this analysis is that it fails to include the $1.7 million extra that the Covell Village developers have agreed to pay the City each year (an amount not included in the fiscal study, which merely looked at traditional sources of income from new developments), and the more that $25 million that the project will contribute to the City's Major Projects Fund, which will go to build parks, pools, and other community facilities across the City. Hopefully, the real story will get out before the citizens vote on this project.
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| Davis
Unveils Crime-Mapping Website, Posted 04/25/05 |
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The Davis Police Department has unveiled a website that will map criminal activity in and around the City.
Here is a link to it.
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| Commercial
Real Estate Finally Picking-Up, Posted 04/24/05 |
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Today's Bee has a
story about
a pick-up in the local commercial real estate market.
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| Yolo
County
Swamped With Development Applications, Posted 04/08/05 |
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The Yolo County planning staff has
announced that its small planning staff cannot
cope with the flood of development applications
now pending. Developers have filed applications with the County to build more than 3500 housing units
in unincorporated areas around the periphery of Davis.
Here is a story about
it.
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| Million
Dollar Ceiling Shattered?, Posted 04/07/05 |
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Between September 1, 2004, and the end of February 2005, a total of nine homes over $1 million were sold in Davis. That's nine in
six months.
Since the beginning of March 2005, there have been nine sales of $1 million-plus homes. I.e., nine in
the last 40 days. It certainly seems possible that the important $1 million price ceiling has been blown away in the Davis market.
Interestingly, today's edition of USA Today has an
article today about a nationwide increase in $1 million-plus home sales.
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| First
Stadiums, Now Parks, Posted 03/23/05 |
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The Gold Rush Park foundation has been presented five plans for a potential 1000 acre park in the Sacramento rail yard area.
Here is a story about it.
The plan is basically to promise a big park as a way to gain political support for a large development project. The Covell Village partners tried this back in the 1990s, when they presented a plan for the Covell Village site that included a huge new park complex. At that time, the community had seen a huge spurt of Sacramento-like sprawl, and was in no mood to approve any new development.
The Kings-Stadium-for-development proposal recently
faltered. It will be interesting to see if the park-for-development idea works any better.
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| Middle
Income Housing, Posted 03/16/05 |
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The City Council
has now set a 3 percent per year appreciation cap on homes bought by
low income people, and a 5 percent cap for homes
bought under the "middle income"
requirements for new developments. The idea
behind this new rule is to keep affordable homes
affordable. Here
is a story about it.
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| Negotiating
In A Sellers Market, Posted 02/28/05 |
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Anyone looking for a home in Davis in the below-$450,000 range will quickly come to understand the practical implications of home-shopping in a "seller's market." When modern homes come on the market in this price range, there are often multiple offers. This results in multiple
losers, and multiple mad clients. Buyers should prepare themselves to
lose a few bidding wars, and understand how to make
your offer stand out to the seller to minimize those
losses. Here is a helpful article on negotiating in a seller's market.
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| Sacramento
Housing Overvalued?, Posted 02/19/05 |
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A
study of the national housing market by National City Corp., or large mortgage lender suggests that the Sacramento housing market is overvalued by 25%, and Stockton 43%. In other words, this study asserts that there is a price bubble in Central Valley housing. We have heard this for years, but prices keep climbing. Why is it that newspapers always publish these predictions, but never do a follow-up story saying that the predictions and the predictors were wrong. If they did, we would see a story every week about how such-and-such economist predicted a housing crash last year, and how he or she didn't know what they were talking about. Empirically, these economist's predictions are no better
than a "stock-pickin'-chicken."
Another story in the Bee relates to the ongoing attempts by Doug Ose
and his family, on one hand, and developer Angelo Tsakopoulos on the other, to develop huge swaths of farmland in North Natomas.
The Ose group is trying to secure entitlements through the normal County and City processes, while the Tsakopoulos group is trying to make an end-run around most of these processes by an
initiative. It will be very interesting to see if a well-funded anti-Tsakopoulos-development campaign organization forms. The Tsakopoulos proposal would be very vulnerable to any such campaign.
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| Nugget
Market Honored, Posted 02/08/05 |
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When I'm giving new clients a tour of Davis, I always point out the Nugget Market because
I think it is a great grocery store. Apparently, Progressive Grocer
magazine agrees. The magazine named Nugget, based in Woodland, as one to the top three "Outstanding Independent Grocers" in the United States.
The magazine writes:
"Having thrived for generations in a market chock full of aggressive national and local competitors, the entire Nugget Markets organization runs on a high level of passionate commitment -- not only to its people, but also to food, product knowledge, superior service, excitement and community..."
Here is a Sacramento Business Journal article on this subject.
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| CEQA
Lawsuit Seeks To Stop Tiny Townhouse Project, Posted 02/03/05 |
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A
group of Davis neighbors have sued the Cal Aggie Christian Association over a six-unit townhouse
project approved in their neighborhood. They want
the CA to prepare a full Environmental Impact Report for six
small units.
This case
demonstrates that lawsuits are going to be a major
barrier to small, high density "infill"
developments in Davis, as envisioned by some
slow-growth advocates. People simply don't
like having their neighborhoods redeveloped with
crammed-together town houses, and are likely to
sue anyone who tries to undertake such a
project. And small projects cannot shoulder
the astronomical legal and consulting fees
associated with preparing a full environmental
impact report, to say nothing of the costs of
defending against a CEQA lawsuit.
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| Vote
On Covell Village Delayed, Posted 02/03/05 |
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You heard it here first: The City Council has decided to delay the Measure J vote regarding Covell Village until November, rather than having it in June. This puts Covell Village on an "intermediate timeline," as I predicted in a previous post. I.e. we will probably not see the first new home at Covell Village until sometime around Spring 2008, if ever.
The delay regarding the election was related mostly to the
reams of public comments on the Environmental Impact Report regarding the project. As they do with every project, local zero-growth advocates are making various claims that the EIR is essentially worthless. However, their underlying goal is not to procure a perfect
EIR, but rather to kill Covell Village by delaying the project until a zero-growth City Council is elected, which can promptly scuttle the entire thing.
I believe that the no-growth advocates are misguided, if well-intentioned. Historically no-growth politics has had little if any effect on growth. Rather, it has simply resulted in a "boom and bust" cycle, characterized by the speedy approval of Sacramento-like subdivisions when the
pendulum swings to its pro-growth apex. In other words, it results in development by out-of-town developers (there are currently Sacramento and New York-based developers waiting to pounce as soon as the top blows off the pressure cooker) without serious community-focused planning. The political
pendulum is still swinging toward a pro-growth City Council, and will continue to do so until
enough development is approved to moderate the local housing crisis.
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| December
Home Sales Set Record, Posted 01/25/05 |
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The
number of existing homes sold were up 16% in
December over the same period last year.
This number represents the number of homes that
closed escrow, so it actually reflects increased
market activity in November (i.e. most of the homes
that closed escrow in December sold in late
October or November).
Home prices
in Yolo county were up, on average, 31% in the year-over-year
period. That is an increase of 2.58%
per month. Anyone thinking about buying a
home in the near future would be well-advised to
consider this number carefully, especially if they
have a fixed budget ceiling. Put simply, a typical
$500,000 home is quickly shrinking and its
condition rapidly deteriorating. If this
trend continues, a $500,000 home today will be a
$538,700 home this Spring, and a $655,000 home a
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