Author Archives: Misha

Beautiful Wreck: 587 Jersey, Noe Valley

Posted on September 6, 2009 by Misha

Walking my dog, yesterday afternoon and I was brought up short by this beautiful wreck around the corner from where we live. Light and shadow from the rafters seemed to make the windows glow like cardboard cut-outs. Here’s the scoop:  … Continue reading →

Posted in Listings | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Update on What $2.1 Million Buys in Noe Valley — (now it’s under $2 million)

Posted on September 2, 2009 by Misha

Back in February I posted about two $2.1 million homes offered for sale in my ‘hood. 731 Douglass had 3,000 square feet of good, livable space and the sorts of finishes and flourishes  you’d expect.  But it had no back … Continue reading →

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San Francisco’s Luxury Home Market

Posted on August 28, 2009 by Misha

Every time there’s a housing slump, there’s discussion about whether the top end or the bottom end is fairing better or worse.  Here’s a June 2009 article from The Examiner, declaring that luxury home prices in SF are picking up.  … Continue reading →

Posted in Market news | Tagged | 1 Comment

Homes vs. Condominiums: How much extra do you pay?

Posted on August 9, 2009 by Misha

Recently, I blogged about the fact that condominiums seemed to be holding up better than single family homes in terms of their decline from their all-time highs. At the same time, I noted that there was only about $100,000 difference … Continue reading →

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Heat Map of San Francisco Foreclosures

Posted on August 6, 2009 by Misha

There’s been a fair bit of discussion on various real estate blogs about the state of foreclosures in San Francisco.  Here’s a picture of SF, courtesy of Hotpads, on our little patch of heaven. Core SF neighborhoods seem to be … Continue reading →

Posted in foreclosure | Tagged | 1 Comment

The Worst May Be Over According to Big Brain, Ken Rosen

Posted on August 5, 2009 by Misha

Ken Rosen, Chair of the Fisher School For Urban Economics over at UC Berkeley, has good news for San Francisco home owners.  “The recent rise in home prices and sales activity lead us to believe that the worst part of … Continue reading →

Posted in Economy, Market news | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Case Shiller Chimes in With Good News: US Down only 17%!

Posted on July 29, 2009 by Misha

Case-Shiller published its closely watched indices yesterday.  Hooray! The broadest CS index shows that the rate of decline in the nation’s largest housing markets has reversed in recent months.  Now we’re only going down 16% year over year instead of … Continue reading →

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Surprise! Condos are Holding Up Better Than Homes

Posted on July 22, 2009 by Misha

For the quarter century (gulp!) that I’ve been involved in real estate, the conventional wisdom has always been that condo values generally do worse in down markets than homes.  Why?  To be honest, I’m not sure, but I think it’s … Continue reading →

Posted in Condominiums, Data, Market news | Tagged , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Went Fishing

Posted on July 1, 2009 by Misha

For the three-and-a-half readers who may have wondered what happened to me, I’ve been up in the Sierras near Yosemite with my family at the wonderful San Francisco treasure, Camp Mather, a 9 mile bike-ride from Hetch-Hetchy reservoir, where San … Continue reading →

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Cole and Noe Valley Go Head to Head

Posted on June 2, 2009 by Misha

It seems only fitting that since my last few posts have focused on Cole Valley and Noe Valley, we should take a look at them head to head. Since Cole Valley has relatively few monthly sales, I’ve compared median values … Continue reading →

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