Prices continue to rise briskly in Marin

We've seen various editorials about the strong Marin housing market recently. Today, the Wall Street Journal reported on the U.S. housing recovery and talked about demand in the Bay Area, Marin County in particular, holding up much better than the overall market.

Prices in Marin continue to rise rapidly. The median price in Marin County hit a new record high of $1,155,000 in June, and Marin is the first California county to break the $1MM threshold.

> The Wall Street Journal...

In the San Francisco Bay area, prices have continued to rise briskly in Marin County, a posh area with fairly short commutes to the city, and Santa Clara County, buoyed by hiring at Silicon Valley firms, says Scott Kucirek, general manager of Prudential California Realty. But prices generally have fallen in Solano County, which is a longer commute and has more new construction and entry-level homes. Read More >>

Hot New Listings | July 27, 2007

Weekly feature highlighting the top new listings in Marin. We preview every new listing in the county and post the hottest new properties on the market. Here is the best of the week...

$1,349,000 Greenbrae, CA 3 Beds, 2 Baths More Info >>

$1,325,000 Mill Valley, CA 3 Beds, 2 Baths More Info >>

San Francisco second least affordable real estate market in U.S.

Los Angeles was just ranked the least affordable real estate market in the U.S. by Forbes Magazine. And, of course, San Francisco came in second place.

> Here's the article from Forbes…

Forget coffee when it's time to sober up. Instead, check out the real estate listings in New York or Los Angeles. There, buyers pay $1 million for a property that might fetch half that elsewhere. The disparity illustrates how affordability has been spiraling out of control in places on the East and West coasts.

For example, in the first quarter of 2001, 42.3% of homes sold in Los Angeles were available to the median earning household. But in the first quarter of 2007, only 3% of homes sold there were affordable to those households earning the median income. This is based on data from the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) and Wells Fargo that assumes a 10% down payment, a 6.1% mortgage, and tax and insurance costs calculated by the Federal Housing Finance Board.

Given those numbers, it's no surprise that Los Angeles tops our list of the nation's least affordable real estate markets. Read More >>

Hot New Listings | July 20, 2007

Weekly feature highlighting the top new listings in Marin. We preview every new listing in the county and post the hottest new properties on the market. Here is the best of the week...

$2,295,000 Corte Madera, CA 3 Beds, 2 Baths More Info >>

$1,749,000 Mill Valley, CA 3 Beds, 3 Baths More Info >>

$1,325,000 Sausalito, CA 3 Beds, 2 Baths More Info >>

Marin's median hits record $1.125MM

The Marin IJ reports a new record median home price of $1,125,000 for June. Our numbers tally the median price at $1,155,000. Nevertheless, this is the third consecutive month Marin's median surpassed the $1MM mark.

> From the Marin IJ...

After falling back into the stratosphere in May, Marin's real estate market shot through the ozone layer in June.

The median price for a detached home in Marin County hit a record $1,125,000 last month, up 16 percent from June 2006, according to figures released Wednesday by DataQuick Information Systems, an industry research firm. The median is the point at which half the homes cost more and half cost less.

It was the second time Marin crossed the $1 million threshold. In April, the county's median single-family home price hit $1,010,000 - the first time any California county broke the seven-figure barrier - before slipping back to $925,000 in May. Read More >>

Marin schools best for the buck

Forbes magazine examined 97 counties and found Marin’s schools the best deal in the country. Study shows that there is a big difference in the quality of education relative to spending among counties. Here are the top 10 winners below...

> From Forbes Magazine...

More spending doesn’t necessarily buy you better schools. With property taxes rising across the country, we took a look at per-pupil spending in public schools and weighed it against student performance--college entrance exam scores (SAT or ACT, depending on which is more common in the state), exam participation rates and graduation rates.

Winners in this rating system are counties whose schools deliver high performance at low cost. The losers spend a lot of money and have little to show for it.

Marin County, Calif., provides the best bang for the buck. In 2004 Marin spent an average of $9,356 ($6,579 adjusted for the cost of living relative to other metro areas in the U.S.) per pupil, among the lowest education expenditures in the country. But in return Marin delivered results above the national average: 96.8% of its seniors graduated, and 60.4% of them took the SAT college entrance exam and scored a mean 1133 (out of 1600). The others in the top five are Collin, Texas; Hamilton, Ind.; Norfolk, Mass.; and Montgomery, Md. Read More >>

Hot New Listings | July 13, 2007

Weekly feature highlighting the top new listings in Marin. We preview every new listing in the county and post the hottest new properties on the market. Here is the best of the week...

$1,100,000 Greenbrae, CA 3 Beds, 2 Baths More Info >>

$1,685,000 Mill Valley, CA 3 Beds, 2 Baths More Info >>

$1,850,000 Mill Valley, CA 4 Beds, 3 Baths More Info >>

Mill Valley housing market doing just fine

Today, our little town of Mill Valley was recognized as having one the best housing markets in the nation by the New York Times. Not a bad little piece of press from the largest metropolitan newspaper in the country.

> Here's the article from NYTimes...

Given that the real estate market is supposed to be in free fall, some strange things have been happening recently in Mill Valley.

It is one of the expensive suburbs of San Francisco just over the Golden Gate Bridge, and much of the housing market there seems to be doing just fine. One three-bedroom house sold for $1.4 million last month without ever being officially put on the market. The seller accepted a pre-emptive bid — $20,000 above the asking price — from somebody who had heard that the house was about to be listed for sale.

“The homes that are having a hard time selling are the average-priced homes,” said Vanessa Justice, a real estate agent with Pacific Union in the Bay Area, where the median house price is about $750,000. For upper-end homes, she said, “it’s actually pretty crazy right now.” Read More >>

Marin population expected to grow 23 percent

A new report by the state Department of Finance forecasts that the population of Marin will grow to more than 300,000 by 2050.

> From today's Marin IJ...

Latinos will become the state's majority ethnic group by 2042, according to new population projections that portray a future California whose fortunes will increasingly depend on the skills of a predominantly nonwhite workforce.

Population numbers released Monday by the state Department of Finance predict that 52 percent of all Californians will be Hispanic by 2050, when whites will be just 26 percent of the population.

Even in Marin - where the population will swell to 307,868, some 60,000 more than today - over half of residents will be Hispanic. The majority of those 181,087 residents will be under age 40, while the majority of Marin's non-Hispanic whites will be elderly, with the largest group - 14,292 - over age 85. Read More >>

Hot New Listings | July 6, 2007

Weekly feature highlighting the top new listings in Marin. We preview every new listing in the county and post the hottest new properties on the market. Here is the best of the week...

$1,649,000 Kentfield, CA 3 Beds, 2 Baths More Info >>

$2,895,000 Mill Valley, CA 4 Beds, 3 Baths More Info >>

$2,745,000 Stinson Beach, CA 3 Beds, 3 Baths More Info >>

Ross Valley narrowly approves flood control fee

As anticipated, the Ross Valley flood control fee passed. The Ross Valley Flood Control District’s 15,000+ property owners will pay an average of $125 a year. The fee will raise about $40MM over the next 20-years.

> From the Marin IJ…

A new fee designed to implement flood control in the Ross Valley squeezed out a narrow victory Friday, winning by just 65 votes - after 1,708 ballots were judged invalid.

The fee will raise about $40 million over the next 20 years for flood control. Passage of the measure represents a victory for Supervisor Hal Brown, who spearheaded the campaign after 1,200 homes and 200 businesses were damaged by flooding that occurred across much of Marin in the early morning of Dec. 31, 2005.

The Ross Valley was hit the hardest. The Corte Madera Creek Basin has flooded 14 times over the past 50 years. Read More >>

Neighborhood Homes Sold | June 2007

Every month we review the recent sales in Marin and spotlight the most surprising transactions in the marketplace. Here are a few hot buys in June that caught our attention...

212 N Almenar Dr, Greenbrae 4 Beds, 3 Baths, 1861 sqft, 1951 year $1,249,000 (list) $1,495,000 (sold) 14% above asking!

38 Woodbine Dr, Mill Valley 4 Beds, 2.5 Baths, 2252 sqft, 1950 year $2,139,000 (list) $2,250,000 (sold) 5.19% above asking!

6 Venus Ct, Tiburon 4 Beds, 2 Baths, 1824 sqft, 1950 year $1,069,000 (list) $1,150,000 (sold) 7.58% above asking!

Market Summary | June 2007

June was yet again another record-breaking month for the Marin housing market. The median price for a single-family home hit a new record high of $1,155,000. This marks the third month in a row above the $1MM threshold.

Here's a quick snapshot from the MDH Newsletter with a summary of the market trends for June...