A place for residents of Marin County, CA and others to express their views regarding the real estate bubble and in particular the Marin real estate market
Wow, so what does that suggest? 1. Marin's prices are "stable"; prices finally reflect value? 2. People are less interested in moving to Marin than elsewhere in the SF BA? 3. Marin was pushed harder by the bubble than many other areas, i.e. it's currently way overpriced?
Or maybe those "intangibles" aren't that important anymore.
And you know...to be honest, if we're talking about 'small-town qualities' for Marin, there are plenty of other places that have those, without the hefty surcharge. However, Marin has been valued for these because a lot of SF BA towns lost that long ago.
Yup, the 'ol "it's not as bad here" argument in favor of Marin.
A co-worker of mine just got back from a trip to Oregon where he is thinking about moving to so as to escape California's insane cost of living. He found a 3000 sq ft house with "upgrades" that are above average by Marin standard, 20 mins from Salem on 10 acres for $380,000 which the realtor says is overpriced and should really go for $320K. It really makes you wonder.
I do have to say... you have better schools in marin than around these parts. There are also more choices of good schools to go to. Here there is one on the east side that everyone vies to get into, which accounts for why the average price is 200-300k higher in that school district than on the west side of town.
Also for high school if you want a private school education the only real options are in Santa Rosa or Napa.
I know that when I moved to Marin it was for a school- and I was perfectly fine with it at the time even though I doubled my outgoing monthly payments to be there. Though I only worked 15 minutes from the office while living there, so that paid for itself in time. My child ended up HATING thte school, the people and the teachers. She felt it was complete culture shock from what she was used to. So back to my own cave we went and put her in the same private school I went to and all was fine then.
Yes, like I said previously, it is only one month's data. You can see the whole series here:
http://tinyurl.com/ng4gn
It is interesting that Marin's appreciation rate periodically bumps up to that of the average for the Bay Area as a whole and then drops. Regardless, Marin's appreciate rate is now clearly trending below that of the rest of the Bay Area. I guess that would mean that Marin is not a good investment anymore as compared to the rest of the Bay Area.
First of all, Marin/SF will always command a large premium as long as it remains the cultural/financial center that it is. Look at any major world city and compare the prices to the rest of that country.
This graph I posted does not compare Marin to the rest of the country or even the rest of California. It compares Marin to the rest of the Bay Area which should be a fair thing to do as "the rest of the Bay Area" presumably enjoys the same benefit of being the "cultural/financial center that it is".
Your ratio-based argument is too muddled to be sure that I accurately understand the point you are laboring to make. But I will note that I find it interesting that to make that point you compare Marin to Sacramento and California at large.
Rember Marin has a small sample size.
Yes, Marin does have a small sample size which no doubt explains the variability in the data shown here:
http://tinyurl.com/ng4gn
But the trend in that data is quite clear. The only question should be how reliable is DataQuick's data?
"Marin/SF will always command a large premium as long as it remains the cultural/financial center that it is"
Excuse me if I poke a little fun at this comment, because while SF is certainly a cultural center, we cannot find enough culture here in Marin to compare favorably to Berkeley, Palo Alto, or Santa Cruz. Even Monterey/Carmel downtown has more to do than all of Marin co. combined. Aside from the local symphony, and a few clubs and theaters sprinkled around, we're hard-pressed to find that elusive culture here. That's not to say we don't enjoy living here, but high culture wasn't the draw for us.
Now it's totally cool to disagree with me, but I won't get into a flame war over which towns are better. But, one of these days, I'm going to make a list of cultural events for Marin and other area communities. I should be enough meat for an interesting article here.
Source.
10 comments:
Wow, so what does that suggest?
1. Marin's prices are "stable"; prices finally reflect value?
2. People are less interested in moving to Marin than elsewhere in the SF BA?
3. Marin was pushed harder by the bubble than many other areas, i.e. it's currently way overpriced?
Or maybe those "intangibles" aren't that important anymore.
It's only one month's data. Let's give it time.
But I am about ready to pack up this blog and sit back and watch the show.
Or maybe those "intangibles" aren't that important anymore.
And you know...to be honest, if we're talking about 'small-town qualities' for Marin, there are plenty of other places that have those, without the hefty surcharge. However, Marin has been valued for these because a lot of SF BA towns lost that long ago.
Yup, the 'ol "it's not as bad here" argument in favor of Marin.
A co-worker of mine just got back from a trip to Oregon where he is thinking about moving to so as to escape California's insane cost of living. He found a 3000 sq ft house with "upgrades" that are above average by Marin standard, 20 mins from Salem on 10 acres for $380,000 which the realtor says is overpriced and should really go for $320K. It really makes you wonder.
Dataquick's numbers on this chart are way off from Sonoma County's actual data.
March Sales (units sold)
Sonoma County: 454 down -14.50% (YOY)
Sonoma Valley: 30 down -38.60% (YOY)
I do have to say... you have better schools in marin than around these parts. There are also more choices of good schools to go to. Here there is one on the east side that everyone vies to get into, which accounts for why the average price is 200-300k higher in that school district than on the west side of town.
Also for high school if you want a private school education the only real options are in Santa Rosa or Napa.
I know that when I moved to Marin it was for a school- and I was perfectly fine with it at the time even though I doubled my outgoing monthly payments to be there. Though I only worked 15 minutes from the office while living there, so that paid for itself in time. My child ended up HATING thte school, the people and the teachers. She felt it was complete culture shock from what she was used to. So back to my own cave we went and put her in the same private school I went to and all was fine then.
Yes, like I said previously, it is only one month's data. You can see the whole series here:
http://tinyurl.com/ng4gn
It is interesting that Marin's appreciation rate periodically bumps up to that of the average for the Bay Area as a whole and then drops. Regardless, Marin's appreciate rate is now clearly trending below that of the rest of the Bay Area. I guess that would mean that Marin is not a good investment anymore as compared to the rest of the Bay Area.
mktmkr -
First of all, Marin/SF will always command a large premium as long as it remains the cultural/financial center that it is. Look at any major world city and compare the prices to the rest of that country.
This graph I posted does not compare Marin to the rest of the country or even the rest of California. It compares Marin to the rest of the Bay Area which should be a fair thing to do as "the rest of the Bay Area" presumably enjoys the same benefit of being the "cultural/financial center that it is".
Your ratio-based argument is too muddled to be sure that I accurately understand the point you are laboring to make. But I will note that I find it interesting that to make that point you compare Marin to Sacramento and California at large.
Rember Marin has a small sample size.
Yes, Marin does have a small sample size which no doubt explains the variability in the data shown here:
http://tinyurl.com/ng4gn
But the trend in that data is quite clear. The only question should be how reliable is DataQuick's data?
Thank you for that clarification mktmkr.
As for that request to plot that ratio...hmm, Marin normalized by everyone else... I'll give it some thought.
"Marin/SF will always command a large premium as long as it remains the cultural/financial center that it is"
Excuse me if I poke a little fun at this comment, because while SF is certainly a cultural center, we cannot find enough culture here in Marin to compare favorably to Berkeley, Palo Alto, or Santa Cruz. Even Monterey/Carmel downtown has more to do than all of Marin co. combined. Aside from the local symphony, and a few clubs and theaters sprinkled around, we're hard-pressed to find that elusive culture here. That's not to say we don't enjoy living here, but high culture wasn't the draw for us.
Now it's totally cool to disagree with me, but I won't get into a flame war over which towns are better. But, one of these days, I'm going to make a list of cultural events for Marin and other area communities. I should be enough meat for an interesting article here.
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