Selling A Palo Alto Home In Probate or Trust With or Without Tenants

This is a question I get asked all the time. When an owner has passed and has rental property should the heirs sell the Palo Alto probate or trust home with the tenants in place, or wait until the lease is up?

While most years I would say wait until the tenants are gone but with the uncertainty of how interest rates will affect prices and what will happen to a Palo Alto market that has already shown signs of slowing, even with very tight inventory, the answer is not clear cut.

Sell Palo Alto Probate or Trust Home With Tenant: Pros:

1.      Palo Alto school Priority 1 Registration goes from Jan 12 thru Feb 15th. That is the best chance of getting your child in the school closest to you. There is always a space in a Palo Alto school for a resident, but getting the one closest to you is best obtained if you are a resident during this period. Selling with tenants in a  Palo Alto probate rental may allow the buyer to get a leg up on school registration for the next year.
2.      Interest rates are lower now than they will be next summer, or even in March and maybe Feb. A 3 million dollar Palo Alto probate home has a very good chance of having a loan on it so the less a buyer has to pay for the mortgage the more they can afford for the home. For every 1 point increase in interest rates there is a 10 % increase in payment.
3.      The inventory is very low and the Palo Alto housing is market still active. It is unknown what will happen as the year goes on. The market could go down as interest rates go up, or if there is a natural disaster, a world event, or terrorist attack.
4.      Some people who buy Palo Alto homes in Probate or Trust early are happy to rent the house out until the end of the school year because they do not want to move until school is out if they are relocating.

http://www.marcymoyer.com/trustandprobatesaleshttp://www.marcymoyer.com/trustandprobatesales With a Tenant Cons:

1.      Harder to show house
2.      You will not be able to make interior upgrades or stage with a tenant in place so it may depress the price somewhat
3.      The tenant may be messy or say inappropriate things to potential buyers which could depress the price.
4.      If the tenant does not have beautiful furniture the professional pictures will not look as good.

Sell Palo Alto Probate or Trust Home After Tenant Lleaves Pros:

1.      You can have the interior painted, wood floors refinished, new carpet, and any other cosmetic upgrades you want that will help bring in more money.
2.      You can professionally stage the property and the photos will look much better.
3.      Much easier to show the house and have open houses which bring in more people and help bring in a better price.

Sell Palo Alto Home in Probate or Trust After tenant leaves Cons:

1.      Interest rates will be higher which will depress the price. It is unknown by how much because it also depends on how the stock market is doing, most likely for Apple, Google, Facebook, and Linkedin.
2.      If there is a trade war with China tech stocks could be hurt more than other sectors. This would make less money available for down payments for most of the buyers in the area.
3.      If the dollar continues to be strong foreign investors will be much less likely to be buying homes in Palo Alto.
4.      The best time to sell a home in Palo Alto in from Jan thru early June. The second best is the fall. If the tenants are out in June and the home is prepared in July and Aug and on the market in Sept you have missed the best time, but may get the second best time, but only by waiting until Sept to put home on market.

So as you can see the answer is not clear. No one can say for sure what will happen to the real estate market in 2017. If you are in this situation now it is probably a good idea to add your own Pros and Cons to this list to get a feel for what may work best in your situation.

If you have any questions about selling a home in Probate or Trust please feel free to contact me.

Marcy Moyer

Keller Williams Realty

Specializing in Probate and Trust Sales

650-619-9285

marcy@marcymoyer.com

www.marcymoyer.com

Why Is A Palo Alto Escrow Like a Teen Romance?

The beginning of a Palo Alto escrow is like the beginning of a teenage romance, everything is perfect. You have found your soul mate and all promises are meant to be kept.  You never dream that your heart will ever be broken. It doesn't matter that one party is a jock and the other an intellectual, one is a Democrat and one a Republican, or one likes to party and the other is a vegan. And then reality sets in. I don't think I have to go into gory detail.  Well, sometimes an escrow is like that but hopefully your escrow will have a better track record than a teenage romance.

One way to help things along is to not set yourself up for failure. If you are a buyer or buyer's agent do not expect to get a loan approval in 15 days if you do not have every document into the lender a head of time. If you are a seller or seller's agent and accepted an FHA loan do not try to make the buyer get approval in 15 days.  If the seller does not get inspections a head of time do not tell the buyer they have 7 days for property contingencies and then start yelling because the property inspector says there is something wrong with the foundation and they need more time for an engineer to look at it.

Bottom line, do not set yourself up for failure by blowing a gasket over unrealistic time frames. Try to make them realistic to begin with so that the parties can succeed rather than fail.

Marcy Moyer

Keller Williams Realty

www.marcymoyer.com

marcy@marcymoyer.com

650-619-9285

Do You Care About Your Children?

I am not a lawyer or an accountant so please do not construe this as legal or tax advice. However, friends do not let friends leave their estates to probates, so let’s just say I am your friend.

Trust Sale in Palo Alto

As a realtor who specializes in Probate and Trust sales, it does not matter to me whether the estate is being probated, or passed down through a trust.  But it does matter to the heirs, especially now that the estate tax will kick in after a million dollars starting in January, unless Congress  and the administration change it. How likely is that?  They can not even agree to have dinner together so changing the estate tax exemption any time soon is unlikely.

So as of Jan. 1, 2011 when you die your heirs can get the first one million dollars of your estate tax free, but anything above that will be taxed at 55%.  So let’s say you have a home that is worth 1.2 million and a mortgage of $700,000. The estate will be valued at 1.2 million not $500,000 which is the equity. If you have your estate in trust you can set things up to help reduce the taxes owed. Even if you do not have a mortgage on your home, if you have a home in Palo Alto you are very likely to have an estate worth over a million dollars because of the value of your home.  You will probably benefit by talking to an estate lawyer to help structure things to get the most tax free money for your heirs.  I can give you names of some excellent estate attorneys if you need a referral.

Marcy Moyer

Keller Williams Realty

www.marcymoyer.com

marcy@marcymoyer.com

650-619-9285

D.R.E. 01191194

Palo Alto Ca Market Update, August 8th: Single Family Homes

Who is Selling in Palo Alto This Week?

Active listings:  95

Pending Sales:  50

Our ratios are pretty good again with less than 2 homes for sale for every pending sale.  I decided to do another post on who is selling. I did this once last year and thought it was pretty interesting.

Here is this week’s breakdown:

Owner occupied:  32

Bank owned: 1

Short sale: 0

Tenant occupied: 9

Probate: 0

Vacant: 29

New: 16

Lot value: 3

Stanford affiliates only: 3

In foreclosure but not there yet and not a short sale: 1

This is just a generalization and each situation is different, but generally owners with vacant properties (especially trust and probate sellers) are more flexible on price than owner occupied sellers, who often do not have to move if they do not get an acceptable offer.  Homes with tenants are the hardest to show and often do not look so great so you may be able to get a better deal there.  Also, if a home is in foreclosure but not a short sale you will probably have a very motivated seller.

Happy house hunting!

If you're interested, here's the market update analysis I wrote last year, around this time. 

Marcy Moyer

Keller Williams Realty

www.marcymoyer.com

marcy@marcymoyer.com

650-619-9285
Twitter

I Have Learned More Than I Want To About Second Story Additions

I have never been a huge fan of expanded homes. There are a number of problems that can come with these properties. The expansion could have been done in a way that destroyed the original charm of the home.  The addition could have been done without the needed permits. And then there's what I am dealing with right now: the extension was done in a way that enhances the look of the home, and was done with architectural drawings, an engineering stamp, and a permit that has a final from the city, but there are still problems.

When a home is built the foundation is poured first, and all of the bolts, rebar, hold downs, and all the other hardware with technical names are put in where they belong without any problems.  The home is built on top of it, and if it has a crawl space there are often areas with good access and other areas that are harder to get to.

All is fine, until you add a second story. To do that properly you will need an architect and an engineer to do the calculations of what's needed to shore up the foundation in order to support the second story.  In California we require extra seismic upgrades in case of earthquakes. I assume in tornado, hurricane, or blizzard prone areas there are specific upgrades as well.  There are things which need to be done underneath the house that are not always so easy, especially if access is limited. 

The city will come and inspect the work, but may not go all the way under the house and count every bolt and check every nail.  If they sign off the inspection then the permit is issued. There may be some missing bolts, nails, plywood, hold downs, or other things missing.

I learned today that if the city signs off on the inspection, then that is that. At least in California the building code says the city is not liable if they make a mistake. If that happens whoever owns the home at the time of discovery is left holding the bag.

So, my lesson here is that if you are listing or helping a buyer purchase a home with a second story addition it is a good idea to get an engineer to make sure the work was done correctly, and do not depend on the fact that it was done with a permit.  The permit does not guarantee accuracy of construction, only that the drawings were done to code.

Did you know that?

Marcy Moyer

Keller Williams Realty

www.marcymoyer.com

marcy@marcymoyer.com

650-619-9285

D.R.E.  01191194

Follow Me On Twitter! 

Bay Area Premiere of New Beulah

Don't miss the Bay Area premiere of New Beulah, an exciting new play written by my son.  Hope to see you there. Here's a link to New Beulah in the SFGATE. The play was a featured listing in the theater section of Datebook too!  Shelby Company Presents The Bay Area Premiere of New Beulah!   The  award-winning play that put Shelby Company on the NYC Theatre scene...  New Beulah is a small place with big characters.  Nine actors play over twenty  characters who struggle with the simple but overwhelming problems of daily life: love, loss, family, threatening  conglomerates and Greenland.   A clever and heart-breaking  tale about a town on the brink of quiet disaster.   "Dynamic, intriguing, and downright hilarious... tears of laughter would seamlessly flow into those pulled from the heartstrings." -Laura T. Dalton, CD Insight "A beautifully tragic comedy." -Kristen Salazar, Chapman Panther Founded by bay area natives, Shelby Company is an NYC based theatre group dedicated to fostering new work for the stage.     "The writers, actors and directors who will be shaping the future of NY Indie Theatre." -Michael Roderick, Broadway World "Moyer and company have the ability to rejuvenate off-off-Broadway as a place where splendid things are possible." -Mark Peikert, Backstage Join us for the show this July, which features a cast of some of the most talented actors from the Bay Area and the Big Apple.   New Beulah July 13-18, 2010 The Pear Avenue Theatre 1220 Pear Avenue,Unit K Mountain View, CA 94043 tickets written and directed by Dan Moyer with Peter Albrink, Siobhan Doherty, Candice Goodman, Shannon Harney, Roselyn Hallett, Carl Graham Howell, James Kennedy, Nathaniel Kent and Emily Scott Tue, July 13 @ 730pm* Wed, July 14 @ 730pm Thu, July 15 @ 730pm Fri, July 16 @ 730pm** Sat, July 17 @ 2pm Sat, July 17 @ 730pm Sun, July 18 @ 3pm Sun, July 18 @ 730pm General Admission $20 Under 25 $15 *Preview--$5 **Benefit/Gala $40, includes the play and reception with wine, food and music New Beulah, Shelby Company’s flagship production, premiered in NYC in February of ‘09. It then transferred to the Planet Connections Theatre Festivity where it won five Festivity Awards including best ensemble. www.shelbycompany.org Marcy MoyerRealtor®Direct: (650) 619-9285 Cell: (650) 619-9285 Fax: (650) 560-6290DRE License Number: 01191194 marcy@marcymoyer.com http://www.marcymoyer.com Keller Williams

I Completed a Marathon and Raised $1800 for Breast Cancer.

Avon Breast Cancer Walk is now over! It was quite an experience.  

Here are my highlights.

   1. Raised $1839 for breast cancer research and treatment for those in need

       2.The walk on Sat started at Fort Funston and the opening ceremony was very touching.  I learned that every three minutes a someone is diagnosed with breast cancer. Not great news.

       3. There were 3800 walkers registered for this event and as of Sat they had raised 5 ½ million dollars.

       4. I walked over the Golden Gate Bridge twice without vomiting (I am afraid of heights).

       

      5. My favorite team was one called Save Second Base.  I also liked Hookers for Hooters and Dudes for Boobs.

        

       6. The markers were off. My Garman which is uses a GPS for measuring said I walked 27.75 miles. The markers for the walk said it was 26.2 miles.  The problem is that at 26.2 miles I was still ok. At 27 miles I was kind of pissed off and the last .75 miles were a killer!!  But I did it, and now I have accomplished my 30 year dream of completing a marathon, and did it for a great cause. Plus, instead of being in the back of the pack like I always am when I run, I was in the first 150 out of 3800 walkers to finish. 

      7. I'm not going back for the 13.1 mile second day walk. I don't want to blow my knees out!

Palo Alto CA Market Update, June 28th: With a Neighborhood Twist!

Active Listings: 110

Pending Sales: 49

There has been a jump in inventory this week ahead of the fourth of July holiday. Since there will not be a lot of new listings this week due to the holiday some of this inventory may be sold off, or maybe not. I will keep my eye on it.

I thought the neighborhood breakdown was interesting so I am going to do it again.  So here is the neighborhood breakdown:

Downtown:  5 Active  2 Pending                                      one less pending

Professorville:  3 Active  2 Pending                                 exactly the same

Community Center:  6 Active  3 Pending                       more listings

Crescent Park:  5 Active   4 Pending                               one more pending

Green Gables:  9 Active  8 Pending                                one more active one less pending

Old Palo Alto:  11 Active   3 Pending                             one more pending

College Terrace:  Active 8  Pending 4                           two less listings

Ventura:  6 Active  1 Pending                                       two more listings one less pending

Midtown:  15 Active  3 pending                                   six  more listings

South Palo Alto: 23 Active  14 Pending                       five more listings and one more pending

Barron Park:  Active  10   Pending   0                         one more listing one less pending

Green Acres:  4 Active  2 Pending                              two less listings

Palo Alto Hills:  5 Active  1 Pending                           one more listing

So what does this mean?  Still better ratios in north than south. Barron Park is still slow.  Crescent Park is better and Community Center worse than 2 weeks ago.  I will keep this up for a while, so we can track the neighborhood trends.

Here's a link to last week's neighborhood-focused market update, so you can see how things have changed: Palo Alto Market Update, June 15th: With a Neighborhood Twist!

And here's another link to a market update I posted a year ago--it's really interesting to compare! Last June the number of pending and active sales were almost identical to this week's.... Palo Alto Market Update, June 27th (2009): Single Family Homes.

Marcy Moyer

Keller Williams Realty

marcy@marcymoyer.com

www.marcymoyer.com

D.R.E. 01191194

650-619-9285

Palo Alto CA Market Update, June 15th: With a Neighborhood Twist!

Here's the latest update on the single family home market in Palo Alto, with a neighborhood twist! 

Active Listings: 98

Pending Sales: 50

The market seems to be holding pretty steady, with a ratio of one pending sale for every 2 active listings. So this time, instead of breaking the numbers up by price range I did a neighborhood breakdown. 

Are some neighborhoods more popular than others? If so, which ones? 

So here's what I found when I crunched the numbers by neighborhood: 

Downtown:  5 Active  3 Pending

Professorville:  3 Active  2 Pending

Community Center:  3 Active  4 Pending

Crescent Park:  5 Active   3 Pending

Green Gables:  8 Active  9 Pending

Old Palo Alto:  11 Active   2 Pending

College Terrace:  Active 10  Pending 4

Ventura:  4 Active  2 Pending

Midtown:  9 Active  3 pending

South Palo Alto: 19 Active  13 Pending

Barron Park:  Active  9   Pending   1

Green Acres:  6 Active  2 Pending

Palo Alto Hills:  4 Active  1 Pending

So what does this mean?  Well, after a year and a half of looking at PA by price range it is very interesting for me to look at things from a different angle.  Intuitively it has felt to me like the Community Center has become the “it" place to be, and this week’s stats definitely support that.  It is one of only two neighborhood with more pending sales than active listings. The other is Green Gables.   

What I find most fascinating is the Barron Park stat. 9 active listings to 1 pending sale is the worst neighborhood in Palo Alto.  Why? I have some theories.  It was the most popular for a while and perhaps was more over inflated than others so needs a bigger adjustment.  Or is it the 900 pound gorilla in the room that no one wants to discuss:  suicide. Did the rash of Gunn suicides send buyers to the northern end of Palo Alto?  If you look at the active to pending ratios of all the neighborhoods they are uniformly better in north Palo Alto than south Palo Alto.  

Now, this is only my first look, and the numbers for each neighborhood are small, but it is definitely a trend I want to follow.

Marcy Moyer

Keller Williams Realty

marcy@marcymoyer.com

www.marcymoyer.com

D.R.E. 01191194

650-619-9285

The Facts About Palo Alto Short Sales and Foreclosures

There's a lot of chatter on real estate blogs about the steep increase in foreclosures and short sales in Palo Alto. Unfortunately many sites post stats from a company called Realty Trac which tracts everything from a Notice of Default through a listed bank owned property.  Many things can happen before a home with a Notice of Default actually gets to be sold by the bank, but unless you read the fine print carefully it is easy to confuse a house that is behind a few months in payments with an actual bank owned property on the market for sale.

Most bank owned homes as well as short sales (where the seller owes more than the home is worth and the lender/lenders have agreed to accept less than the amount of the mortgage to release the debt) are sold through the MLS.  So to see how many of these distressed sales have hit the market in the last year I went to the MLS and looked.  

Here is what I found for single family homes:

Bank owned properties sold in last year:              4

Current Pending sales of Bank owned:                 2

Short Sales sold in last year:                               3

Current Pending Short Sales                               1

Current Active Short Sales                                 1

For condo/townhomes the numbers are:

Bank owned sold:                                             2

Bank owned pending sales:                               1

Short Sales sold:                                              3

Short sales pending:                                         4

Short sales active:                                            2

As you can see this is not a huge number, especially since the total number of homes sold in Palo Alto in the last year is 369, making distressed sales account for less than 2%.  There have been 97 condo/townhomes sold in the same period making the distressed sales about 5% of that market.  These numbers are not enough to have any impact on the price of homes in Palo Alto at this point.  The percentage would have to increase several fold before Palo Alto prices are affected by distressed properties.  I am not saying that this is or is not going to happen, that is a discussion for a future post, just that it has not happened yet.

Marcy Moyer

Keller Williams Realty

D.R.E.  01191194

marcy@marcymoyer.com

www.marcymoyer.com

*Photo Credit: found this hilarious picture at the website for The Sacramento Bee. 

Palo Alto CA Market Update, June 6th: Single Family Homes

   As of today this is the snapshot of the Palo Alto single family home market:

103  Active listings

50  Pending sales

Breakdown of Price Points:

Under 1 million: 14 Active Listings / 10 Pending Sales

1 to 2 Mil:  48 Active Listings/ 28 Pending Sales

2-3 Million 27 Active listings/ 9 Pending Sales

3+ mil: 14 Active Listings/ 3 Pending Sales

What does mean? There is a pretty good jump in inventory for 89 to 103 active listings. Active to pending ratio is starting to increase in the under 1 million and 1-2 million dollar price points. It had already increased in the 2-3 million a few weeks ago.  Over 3 million is pretty much the same.  I am not saying the sky is falling, and there is always a increase in inventory right after Memorial week-end, but I think that there was a little appreciation in March-May, but I would be surprised to see more price increases this year. I do not expect a drop in values, I just do not conditions ripe for more appreciation until the job market and the stock market do better.

If you need anything else please feel free to contact me. I am here to help you. 

Marcy Moyer Keller Williams Realty

marcy@marcymoyer.com

650-619-9285

www.marcymoyer.com

DRE 01191194

American Spoon Foods Has a Blog!

Remember my last blog post, about the Palo Alto farmers' market, where I promised to speak at greater length about the amazingness that is American Spoon Foods and everything that comes out of their kitchen?

Well, I'm moved to speak sooner than I thought, because I just discovered something ridiculously cool---American Spoon Foods has a blog. A detailed, adorable blog, complete with pictures of the chefs at work and hunger-pang inducing close-ups of fruit in various stages of the canning (is that the right word? maybe preserving?) process.

It's called Spoon Blog. SPOON BLOG. Love it (as only a truly obsessive blogger could).

I'm getting a little ahead of myself here. Let me pause my rapture to explain to those of you who haven't yet tasted American Spoon's products what exactly this company does, and why it's so good.

American Spoon runs of out mid-sized kitchen in Petoskey, Michigan (a very small town in the northern reaches of the state). Their mission is (as stated on their website, which you must visit, credit card in hand):"to produce the finest fruit preserves in the world from Michigan fruit.

And that's exactly what they do, and have done, for going on thirty years.

Every year they harvest fruit from Northern Michigan farms and transform it into luscious, spoon-able preserves, with flavor so fresh local pie-makers refuse to use anything else as filling.

American Spoon's fruit alchemy results in an abundance of unique products. The most popular are the spoon fruits (my favorite flavor is Sour Cherries, an opinion shared by novelist Ann Patchett in a recently published article about Petoskey and American Spoon in the New York Times). You can also try fruit mustards, butters, relishes, and BBQ sauces.

I first learned about American Spoon when I received a sampler box as a gift from a friend who lives in Petoskey. I've been ordering them ever since, and would definitely recommend their boxes and baskets to anyone shopping for someone hard to please.

But even if you detest fruit preserves and have no interest in local farming or cooking/food in general, Spoon Blog is worth checking out. The blog is exemplary, a perfect manifestation of many of the techniques and tips talked about in blogging webinars on active rain and other guides for real estate marketing online. It uses pictures to tell a story and capture a reader's attention, is updated regularly, and presents information in an accessible and approachable manner. The blog's voice is clear and friendly--it's not selling, it's SHARING, and that gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling that's definitely more conducive to placing an online order than a stark list of products.

Here are some links backing up my rave review of American Spoon--

Ann Patchett's NY TIMES Article "As American as Cherry Pie"

A list of highlighted reviews from the Spoon website--even VOGUE loves this place.

A cherry shout-out in the the Washington Post!