Spacious contemporary TOP FLOOR condo in a great location! Triangulated between Duboce Park, Lower Haight, and Market Street, this home is really in the center of it all, yet on a quiet street away from the fray. A wonderfully laid out one bedroom with remodeled bathroom, updated kitchen with never been used appliances, hardwood floors throughout, and great closet space. The light filled living/dining room is perfect for entertaining, and the views to downtown and the East Bay hills are remarkable. Deeded parking, additional storage and best of all – the very reasonable HOA dues ($346/month) for this unit have been PRE-PAID by the Seller through July 2013!! Walk Score of 91, but it should be 100 with every amenity within a few blocks.

Including a balacony with a view!

This new listing at 14 Macondray Lane is on the market.

The views are amazing!  Call us for details or request a link to the property website.

(PS, It is expensive!)

Many great housing options and great central location with easy access to downtown.  Let us know if  you would like to see what’s available today!

Here is a re-post from SF Gate’s “On the Block”

Back in October, we wrote about the lack of homes for sale. Despite what one would think about a still very weak housing market where prices continue to trend down, the supply of available homes for sale is following suit.  In December, the number of homes for sale in San Francisco hit a 12 month low.  Digging into the raw data, our analytical friends over at Redfin found that given the relatively sparse number of homes on the market, it’s becoming more of a – surprise! – seller’s market out there.

In a balanced market, we’d see five to six months of supply, which is the time it would take to sell all the homes on the market given the pace of sales. In San Francisco, December hit a 12-month low with 1.6 months of supply, meaning it’s even more of a seller’s market.

With less and less homes on the market, is it becoming a seller’s market?

The chart above, courtesy of Redfin, shows the continuous drop in the number of homes on the market since the summer season wound down in September.

Nationally, supply was also at its lowest at year end compared to the last 4 years.  As the Wall Street Journal writes, the lack of supply – while usually it means a good think for the market – could be a bit deceptive in today’s real estate environment.

But appearances can be deceiving, and it remains to be seen whether the drop is the beginning of a real recovery or if inventory is being held down by sellers waiting for prices to pick up and banks moving slowly on foreclosures.

The 1.89 million homes on the market at the end of December represented a 6% decline from November and a 22.3% decline from one year ago, according to data compiled by Realtor.com.

One thing is for certain – if you are thinking of selling, winter has typically seen better results , thanks in part to lower number of homes meaning less competition.  And this is even more true this winter.

 This foreclosed property (right) in the Mission had 15 offers and sold way over the (artificially) low asking price.

The property below was a ‘regular’ sale (not a short sale or foreclosure) in Noe Valley also had multiple offers…. Call us for details!

3 Bedrooms, 31/2 Baths in a great walking location.  Call us for details!

Custom owner-built new home–solar electricity, radiant floor heat, elevator from garage to main level, outdoor swimming pool! Bright home with open living area, large skylit central staircase, large windows. Kitchen open to semi-formal dining rm, granite counters and SS appls, incl Viking, Bosch, and Thermador. Ideal 3/2 on upper level, spacious master with partial Downtown views and Crema Marfil marble bath. Two other bdrms have partial Hills views. White with blue trim hall bath and washer/dryer complete this level. Large family room with full bath on lower level has multiple French doors that open onto urban oasis of a swimming pool with custom bench seating and outdoor kitchen.

Stunning San Francisco Views!

145 Gardenside #9  Listed at $549,000

Superb value for this 2bd/1.5ba VIEW condo! (It is NOT a short sale!!) Building is FHA approved! This TOP floor condo, on 2 levels, feels like a townhome. The Bay & Downtown views from both levels are magnificent! Excellent floor plan with two huge bedrooms on the top level and an open LR/DR/kitchen combo on the main level. Beautiful hardwood floors on the main level. Enjoy the views from your private deeded deck. Wood burning fireplace. Awesome closet space! 2 car side by side parking. Elevator building. Additional deeded storage room. Professionally managed, well-reserved HOA. Recently updated lobbies. Quiet, peaceful & safe neighborhood! This property is a gem!

Easy to show, give us a call to set up a showing!  Michael 415-269-7719 or Christopher 415-235-9583

Friends of Dolores Park Playground is very pleased to announce that they are 50% complete in the construction of the new Helen Diller Playground at Dolores Park. Now comes the good stuff! For more information, read detailed information at this link!

http://www.friendsofdolorespark.org/renovation.shtml

We will go over the search process, sales contract, the escrow period, inspections, and closing costs.  We provide all the information you will need and double the focus on your real estate goal!

The seminar is complimentary, of course, and we are happy to schedule another time to better fit your schedule!

Please let us know if you plan on attending by calling Christopher at 235-9583 or email csharpe@zephyrsf.com.

Google drops real estate listings

Search giant cites low use, proliferation of search sites

BY INMAN NEWS™

Search giant Google will no longer support real estate listings uploaded to its classified listings site on Google Maps, the company announced today.

Consumers will no longer be able to find for-sale, foreclosure, or rental properties through the search function on Google Maps, and real estate professionals will no longer be able to upload their listings to Google Base, the company’s classifieds site, which is being replaced by Google Shopping APIs and will not support real estate listings.

“In part due to low usage, the proliferation of excellent property-search tools on real estate websites, and the infrastructure challenge posed by the impending retirement of the Google Base API, we’ve decided to discontinue the real estate feature within Google Maps on February 10, 2011,” the company said in a blog post.

Home seekers can still use “Google search results to find helpful real estate information and websites” as well as view local businesses, directions and transit times through Google Maps and explore neighborhoods through Google Street View, the company added.

“This does not come as a surprise to me. Even with Google’s huge audience, it shows having listing data is clearly not enough to deliver a good real estate search experience and build audience,” said Pete Flint, CEO and co-founder of property search site Trulia.

The company added that Google’s removal of listings data will not affect its mobile application, which uses the Google Maps API.

Though Google has touted the ability to upload and search for listings on its site, it has also denied that it seeks to create a “universal MLS” or take on real estate search sites.

“We are no more in the real estate business than we are in the cafe or the museum business,” said Carter Maslan, Google’s director of product management, at the July 2010 Real Estate Connect conference in San Francisco. “We view as key … to get (the information) right, but what we really want to do is show it in context.”

In a blog post about the decision, Joel Burslem of real estate marketing and communications firm 1000 Watt Consulting, commented: “Maintaining a national property database, and, perhaps more importantly, its concurrent accuracy, is a huge challenge that it looks like even Google realized is too big a pill to swallow.”

Inman News columnist Gahlord Dewald said Google’s announcement opens up more questions than it answers.

“For real estate, I don’t have data that supports the idea of humans clicking on maps as a search interface ever was real — the technology vendors of map-based search still don’t have adequate analytics baked in to give us that data. Google, I’m sure, has that data,” Dewald said.

“That they couldn’t sustain an interest in the project could mean a lot of things: Maybe Google lacks the imagination to develop a business around the service, maybe people don’t want to use a map as a search interface for real estate, maybe there’s no business there at all.”

Google launched Google Base in November 2005. The Houston Association of Realtors was one of the first industry associations to push members’ listings to the service, in December 2006.

In November 2009, Google added “place pages” to the service, making available on a single page all the information Google has about a property listing — including property details, photos, inspection times, videos, a street-view preview and nearby public transit information.

“This is an interesting move by Google. We saw big changes in leadership last week with Eric (Schmidt), Larry (Page) and Sergey (Brin) shifting their focuses and positions,” said Inman News columnist Tom Flanagan.

“I suspect more changes are coming. I’d really be surprised if Google completely retired real estate — it’s just too big for them to ignore!”

Article reprinted with the permission of Inman News.  The views, beliefs and opinions expressed within the article are those of the author(s) and/or Inman News and not that of American Home Shield.

American Home Shield is providing the information for general guidance only. Due to the general nature of the property maintenance and improvement advice in this material, neither American Home Shield Corporation, nor its licensed subsidiaries assumes any responsibility for any loss or damage which may be suffered by the use of this information.

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