June 2014 report by Paragon Real Estate Group The construction boom that ended in 2008 changed the city and its housing market. Condos now outsell houses in San Francisco. The South Beach-Yerba Buena zip code, previously a commercial area filled … Continue reading
Potrero Hill: Part 2
For well over 100 years, Potrero Hill’s real estate market was one thing; now it is another. Prior to the tech boom of the 1990s, Potrero was a place to find modest Victorian and Edwardian homes in various stages of … Continue reading
Real estate cycles from another angle
Over the past 30+ years, the period between a recovery beginning and a major "market adjustment" (or bubble popping) has run 5 to 7 years. We are currently about 2.5 years into the current recovery. Continue reading
Potrero Hill
In the 1700s, Spanish missionaries named the hill overlooking the new village of Yerba Buena “Potrero Nuevo,” in English “new pasture.” At the time, that’s what Potrero Hill was: a pasture, untouched except for the cattle using it as grazing ground. Plenty has changed about Potrero Hill since then. Continue reading
San Francisco Demographics by Zip Code
A statistical breakdown by household income, education, homeownership, foreign-born population, household size, age and other criteria. June 2014 Report The below charts and table are based upon U.S. Census surveys from 2010 – 2013. Please note that zip codes often … Continue reading
Who is San Francisco?
San Francisco Demographics & Rankings Who is San Francisco? Who We Are, Where We Come From, How We Live, What We Do, How We Rank How many San Franciscans: Trace their ancestry from China, Ireland, Mexico or the Philippines? Are … Continue reading
New Case-Shiller shows another jump in Bay Area home prices
The new Case-Shiller Index report for the 5-county San Francisco metro area , for March, is showing the same acceleration in home prices that buyers and sellers are experiencing in the market. The 2.4% increase from February to March 2014 is the largest since spring 2013, and further significant increases are expected in the Index reports for April and May when they come out in the next two months. Nationally, home prices saw only a .17% increase month over month, and Case-Shiller's 20-City Index showed a .87% increase, so San Francisco and the Bay Area is strongly outperforming the rest of the country in home price appreciation. Continue reading
Bay Area Home Purchase vs. S&P 500
We recently put together an analysis comparing the comparative investment returns of buying a San Francisco Bay Area house, gold, Apple stock, an S&P 500 Index fund or putting money into a bank CD in January 2012 (Of Real Estate, Gold & Apple Stock). Not unreasonably, the issue arose regarding returns over a longer term. Now, whatever time period is used will always be fundamentally arbitrary, and different periods will often generate dramatically different results. Twenty years is a round number, which allows a nice mix of recessions, bubbles, crashes and recoveries to be encompassed within our inquiry. Continue reading