Does the need for more housing that is affordable mean simply low-income housing? Projects that are being proposed focus on building small condos as the path to creating more affordable housing. That does not address what most residents want. If you look at the Santa Clara house prices vs. Santa Clara condo prices, you will see that the price of houses has been growing faster than condos. In fact, the price of condos has been essentially flat since 2018. The increase in mortgage interest rates would imply that recent condo buyers have higher payments but the demand vs. supply for condos is less than the demand vs. supply for houses, judging by price trends.Reducing government fees and regulations is rarely done. Adding more fees and regulations is unfortunately the path our different governments take. Making housing more affordable is about removing costs, not adding them.If our governements simply changed regulations…
The roughly two-year-long pronounced difference in house price growth between Santa Clara County and cities near San Francisco invites us to examine other trends.The volatility of "days on market (DOM)" makes it a trend that is harder to use when looking for changes in real estate trends. DOM is an important attribute to look at, however. It is what sellers, buyers, and agents feel. DOM is also widely available for Silicon Valley cities because our local MLS's publish it and when listing agents begin listing a new home for sale, they will almost always look at it and share it with their home seller.DOM has been quite low for Daly City houses since the beginning of 2023 up to the present (Dec 17, 2024). Even the median DOM shows significant volatility during this period, varying from about 11 days to almost 20 days.Now look at DOM for a Santa Clara…
Many cities have enacted ordinances to protect various trees within their city. A long-time Palo Alto homeowner recently achieved a court ruling forcing his neighbor to remove Coast Redwood Trees whose roots were damaging his house. The legal actions were made more difficult by a real estate agent who indemnified the buyer of the house in order to get the house sold.A short summary by the long-time owner: In 2021, I sued my neighbor, with a one-sided result in my favor. I claimed for damage under state law #3479, and my neighbor’s ONLY defense was: “I was complying with PA’s tree ordinance”. The PA ordinance will not win against superseding state law. The 7-page opinion of the state judge never even mentioned the PA ordinance because it’s irrelevant against state law. But I still was forced to sue and pay my (winning) legal fees. My neighbor chose foolishly to go…
Although JLee Realty does not handle rental properties for clients, we watch what is happening in it to better understand Santa Clara real estate. On Sept 17, 2023, the San Jose Mercury News published an article titled “Bay Area rents see biggest drop in 27 months“. The article presents the ease of finding a one-bedroom apartment near Lake Merritt. The article cites ApartmentList.com as a source for the trends they cite, including a 3.1% year-over-year decline for the San Jose/Sunnyvale/Santa Clara metro area.The housing rental market has weakened, but the headline could create a misleading impression. The sky is not falling for the rental market. Look at the graph below created by Zumper.com.The peak rental price for a 2-bedroom apartment was reached in Aug-Sept of 2022. The “biggest drop” is being calculated from a price peak and isn’t a good choice for judging long-term trends. I’m looking at two-bedroom rental…
A 1031 exchange is used to defer taxes on the sale of your investment property when your proceeds are invested in a new investment property. Although you probably consider a house you bought with the intention of flipping to be an investment, it is not considered by the IRS to be a property that was bought for investment purposes and thus does not allow it to be used in a 1031 exchange.Tax professionals recommend keeping an investment property obtained in a 1031 exchange for two years as a rental property. Some professionals will say that one year plus one day is sufficient for the 1031 exchange to avoid an IRS challenge.In 2008 the IRS issued a safe harbor rule saying it would not challenge the 1031 exchange because of the sale of your replacement property if:You rent the dwelling unit to another person at a fair rental price for 14…