Airbnb Plays Ball

From the latest Marina Times:

REAL ESTATE INVESTOR
Airbnb goes legit?
Home-sharing service begins collecting mandated hotel tax as city clarifies regulation
BY JOHN ZIPPERER

Short-term residential rental companies such as Airbnb, VRBO, and HomeAway might be the biggest disruption to hit the real estate market since public online listings took away the Realtors’ MLS exclusivity. But recent developments in San Francisco show that both regulators and the new market entrants are learning to work with each other.

David Owen, Airbnb’s regional head of public policy, announced in late September that beginning in October ...

Read the entire article

San Francisco's Bad Deal for TICs: Same Old, Same Old

My latest real estate rabble-rousing from the current edition of San Francisco's Marina Times:

Real Estate Investor
City knocks homeowners with TIC deal
by John Zipperer 

On June 11, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted to change the tenants-in-common (TIC) condo conversion system. But they took a bill to enable a larger-than-normal group of TIC owners to become condo owners and turned it into a bill that will all but kill condo conversions for the foreseeable future. 

KQED News headlined its report “San Francisco Supervisors Pass TIC Condo Conversion Expansion,” and that’s certainly how the veto-proof eight-vote majority of the board would like it sold. But what the majority, led by Board President David Chiu, did was play opposites ...

Read the entire article ...

Building up not out

My final article from the May 2013 issue of the Marina Times:

The way forward is up. Photo by John Zipperer

REAL ESTATE
Everybody Can Win the LotteryBy John Zipperer 

One of the laziest and most clichéd phrases in business is when something is called a “win-win solution.” With that caveat, we have a problem in this town that can be solved by investment in lots of new multifamily housing units and produce (ugh) a win-win for everyone.  

Anyone who has ever been stuck in a tenants-in-common (TIC) housing arrangement, forced to wait a decade before converting to a condominium, knows the havoc that can ...

>> Read the entire article 

Values in the Sky

Better to build up than over wetlands and forests. (Photo: John Zipperer)

In which I brush off the slow/no-growth crowd. From the April 2013 issue of the Marina Times:

REAL ESTATE INVESTOR
Values in the SkyBy John Zipperer 

Someone commented to me recently that he didn’t see where much more new building could take place in San Francisco. The City, already heavily built up and undergoing still more construction, seemed to be full to bursting. Certainly this city – one of the most densely populated in the country – couldn’t get any more dense, could it?  

It can, it will, and it must ...

Read the entire article

We're Number 1 – in Housing Unaffordability

Don't bother telling me "unaffordability" isn't a word. That's unpossible.

Here's a quick real estate market report I wrote in the April 2013 issue of the Marina Times; and my apologies to any kind souls in Ogden-Clearfield, Utah, whose hearts are I'm sure pure and families shine like gold.

REAL ESTATE
We're No. 1 – in Housing UnaffordabilityBy John Zipperer 

Consider it the price you pay for not having to live in Ogden-Clearfield, Utah. By the end of last year, San Francisco became the metro area with the lowest percentage of its households earning the median income able to purchase a home, according to the National Association of Homebuilders (NAHB).

Technically, NAHB rates the city in the category of “San Francisco-San Mateo-Redwood City, California,” which is a rather large stretch of land. But ...

Read the entire article

Micro-Apartments Come to the City

38 Harriet's micro-apartments get a lot into a small space. (Image: Panoramic Interests 2011)

In which I let out my inner commercial real estate and urban planning geek. From the April 2013 issue of the Marina Times:

REAL ESTATE INVESTOR
Micro-Apartments Come to the City
By John Zipperer 

Micro-apartments. Twitter-apts. Mini-flats. There are many descriptive names one could come up with for the small apartments that we will soon be seeing more of in San Francisco. But judging from the opposition, you would think they were named like the media names disastrous East Coast storms: Apartmogeddon, Frankenapt, Apocalyptment.  

Scary thoughts aside, in November 2012 the Board of Supervisors passed legislation by Supervisor Scott Weiner ...

Read the entire article

All the World's a Stage

If this is the inside of your home, you need a
home stager. Photo: Irving Rusinow, Dept. of
Agriculture / wikimedia commons

I can't imagine who would have written this unsigned article, but here's an interesting article on home staging from the latest edition of San Francisco's Marina Times.

MYSTERY HOUSEBUYER
All the World's a Stage
By Anonymous 

On the HGTV series Buying and Selling, families simultaneously try to sell their homes and buy new ones. It’s a high-stress process, but they get help from the show’s hosts — Jonathan and Drew Scott, well known from their other show, Property Brothers — about how to find new homes and, more important, how to get their current homes ready for sale. In short, they get schooled on staging their homes to create the best impression for potential buyers.  

Home staging is quite an industry. Just go to ...

Read the entire article

The Season Is the Reason

Agent Kevin Kropp.

I can't imagine who wrote this anonymous article in the new edition of the Marina Times:

REAL ESTATE | The Mystery Housebuyer
The Season Is the Reason
By Anonymous 

Sometimes it can be very profitable indeed to be out of step with everyone else. Just like heading to your favorite restaurant or shop during off-hours can get you a good selection with little hassle, shopping for a home during slow times of the year can have a big impact on whether you find many homes or even have many competing buyers.  

 “Slow times” is a relative phrase, ...

Read the entire article

Northside San Francisco: Oh, Give Me a Home

My latest column from Northside San Francisco magazine:

COMMON KNOWLEDGE COLUMN
Oh, Give Me a Home
By John Zipperer 

In the midst of a tough fight for the GOP nomination, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney recently decided to tear down and replace his 3,009-square-foot beachside home in La Jolla, Calif., with an 11,062-square-foot property. It might be less of an attempt to tell the American people “I’m one of you” and more to let them know “I might hire you to paint my garage.” This led Vanity Fair to run a list of things that would fit inside Romney’s new house, including “the Diane Von Furstenburg flagship store in New York’s meatpacking district” or “the world’s largest whale.”
Read the entire article

Bank of America Home Loans president Barbara Desoer says the recovery is slow but real. Photo by Ed Ritger.

A Lot Is for Sale in Downtown Green Bay

Shoppers could always count on finding stuff to buy in downtown Green Bay when I was growing up there. The giant Port Plaza Mall had book stores, music shops, video arcades, restaurants, and a ton of clothing stores. The grand old Prange's (Green Bay's locally owned version of Macy's or Marshall Field's) offered upscale shopping and was later replaced by Younkers and Boston Store. The mall was ringed by the classic shops and offices you'd find in any downtown: barber shops, piano stores, luggage stores, magazine shops, banks, etc.

On my visit to Green Bay last week, I walked downtown and saw there was still a lot of stuff for sale, such as, well, downtown. The mall is closed and partly demolished. "For Sale" signs are to be found on almost every block, and many buildings were empty or at least looked deserted.

The signs of desertion were somewhat misleading. Green Bay isn't one of those dried-up rust-belt cities that started dying out in the 1970s and never recovered. In fact, Green Bay has done fairly well for itself over the years, and there are thriving (and constantly spreading) commercial districts on the city's outskirts. It's downtown is responding by turning into a venue for condos (not sure how big the market is for downtown condos in a city where land is relatively cheap and driving conditions are easy – good luck with that). But I do miss the downtown that was walkable, where you could do your banking, catch a movie, have lunch (probably not in that order), buy a book and get your new pair of pants without getting into your car four different times.