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RISMedia, August 2008 -- These are pockets of wealth where “New Low Price” or “Price Reduced” signs are seldom seen, where seldom is heard a discouraging word, and where foreclosures, short sales and lender-owned houses, also known as REOs, are the exception. To the law of supply and demand, add another critical factor: Wealth. And not just income but assets, and, often, access to family money that finesses any financing issues.
RISMedia, August 2008- Pity the plight of the hard-working real estate broker in Berkeley, California. In these hard times, listings may generate only five offers, compared to a dozen at the height of the housing boom. Days on market? Forget about it. On a desirable property, one open house or two at most and these babies are going, going, gone.
“It all comes down to the fact there are buyers and sellers,” says Eugene Millstein, a Berkeley broker for more than 30 years. “A house I just listed, three bedroom, two baths, old kitchen, old bathroom, very old kitchen, no garage, no off street parking, no driveway, no garage. But a pleasant house, nice sized rooms. I listed it at $1,075,000 and there were five offers and it sold for $1.3 million.” In this particular neighborhood, Thousand Oaks, five of six homes that closed in a recent two-month period sold for more than the listing price.
Nationally and within the Bay area, Berkeley is one of the few still hot markets in an otherwise cool real estate climate. Similar sizzling markets include some neighborhoods in San Francisco and the Silicon Valley; the Hamptons on Long Island’s East End; and, of course, the mother of all markets, Manhattan.
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