Aziz Khatri, Keller Williams Agent, Elected Board President!

Our own Aziz Khatri, Real Estate Agent Extraordinaire and Real Estate Investor Guru, was elected 2010 Oakland Association of Realtors President. We are honored to have the OAR President-Elect on our team here at Keller Williams Oakland/Piedmont. Aziz is a phenomenally dedicated, professional and knowledgeable Realtor who will elevate the real estate community's image among the public as well as fostering consensus-building and forward-thinking among OAR's members. Congratulations Aziz! Shown here are a few shots of some of our agents celebrating with Aziz at the office.

Having Fun Together after Work!

Just as important as serving our clients and taking care of business is spending time with one another engaged in fun activities where we really get to know and build deep relationships with our KW "family" as well as colleagues in the profession. Adesso was our gathering spot this month and we enjoyed some delicious food and refreshing beverages while we chatted and laughed. From top (left to right): MaryLou Martin, Tabetha Gibson and David Carriello; Patty Flores, Susan Robards and me; Nanette Barrie, Michelle Williams and Patty Flores.

Short Sale Listings and Public Service Opportunities

Short-sales are the next wave of properties to hit the market. Look for a big increase in short sale listings in the next few months. Better educated agents understand how to properly and effective service the sellers and better communicate with the banks. Plus, great support services like Short Sale Pro (www.shortsalepro.biz) are providing administrative and informational support to agents who don't have much experience on the listing end of short sales. This is lowering the fear level and allowing agents to embrace rather than avoid these listings.
I personally feel very strongly that it is incumbent upon agents to support property owners who are facing financial difficulties and trouble maintaining their mortgage payments by being a great resource for information and services. The real estate community greatly benefited from the highly lucrative sales market of the early-mid part of the decade and needs to step up to the plate and accept these requests for help. Agents should not only understand the options that exist to foreclosure, such as loan mitigation and short sales, but also provide lists of resources such as non-profit support and counseling organizations (e.g., ACORN), CPA's, attorneys, and other professionals whose expertise is needed by most homeowners before they choose their course of action.
Coming from this perspective of service, expertise and support, agents will continue to earn the privilege of serving struggling clients while earning a living doing so. What a great combination!

Keller Williams Oakland/Piedmont R.E.D.* Day at the Blood Bank!

In spite of one fainting (the O.P.), one rejection for low weight and one rejection for iron-poor blood (Geritol anyone?) our day of "Giving Where We Live" was a huge success! Our market center enlisted agents, team and family members, clients and colleagues to donate about 40 pints of blood to the Alameda/Contra Costa Blood Bank. Plus, we had a terrific time and introduced a number of folks to this really important, life-giving contribution. Here are some photos of the day (from top: Dennis Blyth, Ellen Lynch and Allen Moore, Liza Badar, Theresa Ordonez, Derrick Debose). We had such a good time, we're going to do it again in the Fall!

*R.E.D. (Renew Energize, Donate) Day is a nationwide Keller Williams day of service where our 73,000 agents take time to give back and serve the communities in which we live and work.

Haas Alumni Meeting - Real Estate Update from Nancy Wallace

At last night's Haas Alumni SF Chapter meeting, speaker Nancy Wallace, Co-Chair, Fisher Center for Real Estate and Urban Economics at the Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley (is that a mouthful?!), provided the 150+ audience an update on the myriad issues affecting the real estate sector and the overall economy. According to Wallace, the mortgage-backed securities derivatives (for a quick overview of derivatives go to: http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/d/derivatives/index.html) that Warren Buffett famously called financial Weapons of Mass Destruction, are here to stay, because they provide the massive international trade/financial fluidity that the world economy has come to depend on in the past two decades. She sees more government oversight of these instruments and the firms that trade them. Coincidentally, as I was driving home after the talk, I heard that Tim Geithner had announced new regulations that day giving the Commodities Futures Trading Commission a new (and leading) role in oversight of the derivatives market.
She said that Fannie and Freddie need billions more in bailout assistance (no surprise there).
One interesting issue she talked about was the lack of a national database of housing values. She said that the government does not have a good handle on the distinctions among geographic markets further broken down by loan type. She pointed out that California is being hurt more by the lack of liquidity in the jumbo market than by the collapse of the sub-prime market and until jumbo market lending recovers, neither will California's real estate market.
I talked with a couple of brokers and real estate attorneys last night and they both talked about being contacted by property owners facing foreclosure on multiple properties but having other assets the banks can go after. I encouraged them to call me when they encounter these cases because we have a number of agents in our office specializing in working with property owners in these situations, and having the resources/contacts/expertise to provide them their options and assist them in making the best decisions for that individual case.
Last, this was the first Haas alumni function I have attended and it was terrific and I'll be attending more!

No Reductions Allowed by Fannie Mae in Short Sale Agent Commissions

TWO IMPORTANT UPDATES:
1. I've run into a number of agents who are not aware of Fannie Mae's new policy for their servicing companies that prohibits a reduction in agent commission below the listing agreement level, unless the total commission is above 6%. This went into effect March 1, 2009. For details, here's the link: https://www.efanniemae.com/sf/guides/ssg/annltrs/pdf/2009/0903.pdf
2. Since the home owner/borrower often doesn't know if Fannie Mae owns their loan, direct them to Fannie Mae's web site: http://www.fanniemae.com/index.jhtml. Then click on the button "Does Fannie Mae Own Your Mortgage?" which takes them to a page where they type in the property address. I tested it for one of our investment properties and it's a snap.

Jeffrey Woo - Unparalleled Legal Education Regarding Rental Properties

Right now there are a lot of investors in the market scooping up the great investment opportunities available. So, to help agents be better prepared and skilled at serving them, I invited Jeffrey Woo, who runs the "Complex Rental Property Group" at Sedgwick... in SF, to come educate us about the legal issues surrounding residential rental property ownership, disposal and purchase. This man is an amazing resource, with tons of hands-on experience working with property-owner clients over many years in the heavily regulated cities of San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley, as well as pretty much all of the other cities in the Bay Area. He kept a roomfull of agents (both Keller Wiliams and outside agents) completely engaged with his exceptionally useful, clear and timely information and advise on working with and guiding clients buying/selling residential investment properties. He shared so many actual stories of situations he's had to help clients get out of, as well as those he's helped structure properly up front. He's helped several of our agents and they can't say enough about his great accessibility and the value of his advice. Plus, he offers a free 20-minute consultation with their clients, so it's a great resource to be able to offer to buyers and sellers.
So, now all of us who attended understand what the Ellis Act really does, when it makes sense to use it, the difference between rent control and eviction control, and lots of other really helpful insights that make us more valuable advisors to our clients.
If you need this type of help, I recommend that you call Jeffrey at 415.781.7900 or email him at mailto:atjeff.woo@sdma.com

Oakland Duplex Sales and the Next REO Wave

Checking out the current sales stats in the West Oakland and East Oakland zipcodes of 94601, -03, -07 and -21 we find that sales have skyrocketed this year over last, due to plummeting prices ($180,000 median Mar '08 v. $138,000 Mar '09). The result is that there is only a TWO months supply of duplexes on the market in these hot areas. So, although inventory is currently low, another REO wave is about to break. The various moratoria are about to be lifted, sending a large inventory of new properties to the market. Look for this in early to mid-May.

Whole Lotta Deals Goin' On!

Our office is buzzing with deals! We're #2 YTD in Oakland in closed transactions and you can feel the energy and positive vibes in the office. Patty Flores closed NINE transactions this month (and no, she's not an REO listing agent!) We had another brokerage (AlphaUrbanHomes) join our market center this week and welcome Dan Coffman and Tim Ryan and their two assistants. Not only do they have a fluorishing investor practice, they run a super property management service and are adding short-sale listing services. Agents here know there is a lot of business out there to be had and they're going after it!
Photos from top: Claire Martin, Taylor Sublett, Derrick Debose and Libby Fraser

Tonight, Nannette Barrie, an experienced real estate investor and agent, educates new and experienced investors at our Keller Williams Oakland/Piedmont training center. Nannette invites clients and members of the public to learn about investing in real estate so that they can capitalize on the incredible investment opportunities available right here in the Oakland-East Bay area. Call our office for our upcoming real estate investment classes! Many are free and all are open to the public and other agents and brokers. 510-899-8100.

Free Agent/Investor/Broker Downloads

Keller Williams makes so many incredibly helpful, informative and productivity-enhancing products available free to the public (not just Keller Williams) for downloading. Here's a link to a number of free downloads from 5 best-selling real estate books for agents, investors and brokers: http://www.millionairesystems.com/msys/FD.html

Melissa Handy-Williams, our Director of First Impressions and Agent Services Coordinator (like many others, in this economy our staff wears multiple hats!). It's easy to see from that smile why all of our guests, clients, agents and callers feel so warmly and professionally welcomed to our market center and into our Keller Williams family!

More thoughts about loans and buying now...

Wow! BofA has a 5% rate right now up to a loan amount of $625,000 for your best buyers. Not bad! That's just a $3355 monthly payment! Do you realize that if rates rise just 1%, that same monthly payment will only borrow $560,000!!! That's a $65,000 loss of buying power, or over 10% of the purchase price. So, if you are not convinced that prices are going to fall another 10%, make your offers now and lock in a fantastic property.

Here'a a quick rule-of-thumb:
Home prices have to drop 10% to offset a 1% rise in the interest rate (when calculated using 30 year amortized payments).

Super-Jumbo Loans and the Upper End Oakland/Piedmont Market

Bank of America and a few others have jumped back in to the "Super-Jumbo" mortgage lending in a very positive way for the over-$729,000 loans. This should really help the higher priced areas that have been really hard hit by lack of loan availability. These loans have very attractive interest rates - currently in the high 5's with no points! There are some signs that buyers are beginning to respond but unit sales in the over $700,000 segment are still very low in the Oakland/Piedmont area. For example, just half as many homes in this price range this February versus February 2008. In this same segment, the number of homes listed in February was about even with 2008 (28 v. 31) but the median price had fallen by over $230,000. This combination of more accessible loans, great interest rates and significantly declining list prices should result in better sales numbers for March and April. The big unknown is the jobs scene, which has not stabilized yet here in the Bay Area.

My husband and I have been renting since we moved back to California last July because we were living in a new area and wanted to get a feel for the neighborhoods before purchasing. We recently decided which neighborhood we wanted to live in and so I hand-wrote personal notes to the owners of the 17 homes that are not owner-occupied (using the owner's mailing addresses as opposed to the property addresses). One day after mailing them, I received 2 phone calls from owners. One wanted to sell, one to rent (he was looking to replace his current tenant with a higher-paying, multi-year tenant). Two days later, I got another call from a third owner, also wanting to sell. Four days later, I got a call from a fourth owner, also wanted to sell and expressing amazement at the timing of my letter because they had just that week decided that they would not be moving back to the Bay Area and would be selling the home they had been holding on to for that eventuality.

So, we've now toured the one house of the owner who had a reasonable approach to selling it (the other two had purchased near the top of the market and wanted prices above what they had paid at the peak!). It's a lovely home and we're thinking about how to craft an offer that might be appealing to the seller. Stay tuned for the next chapter...

For all of you looking for a truly qualified, ethical loan modification service, I recommend you check out Cary Silberman, J.D. His team will evaluate the borrower's situation first and tell them whether they have a shot at a loan modification. If Cary and his staff think there's no chance, they'll tell you that and not take a dime. If they are very confident that they can get the borrower's loan modified, they'll take it on and only charge a reasonable fee for it. To me, this is a great combination of a valuable free service (initial review of borrower's situation) combined with a well-priced loan modification negotiation service. Here's his blog: http://debtmagician.blogspot.com/

We had a great class with 5 experts sharing about short-sales: negotiation and marketing tips, industry contacts, related resources, pricing strategies, and so much more! We're having incredibly valuable classes several times a week so let me know if you want the calendar. Everyone is welcome (we always include non-KW agents and everyone benefits)!

Inaugural post!

So, I've got my blog up and running (thanks to my whiz of a son, Joseph) and inspiration from Patrick Woods, Keller Williams Team Leader in Sacramento. I'll be posting items of interest to folks who have an eye on the real estate market and industry, as well as professional networking for those of us connected to it. Stay tuned...!