Tracey Taylor
Tracey Taylor is a freelance journalist and writer who moved to Berkeley, California from London, England in July 2005. She writes regularly for the Financial Times newspaper as well as for East Bay Magazine Diablo, among others.
Recent posts
July 1, 2008
Berkeley has its fair share of architecturally distinctive buildings, but the majority of them are historic—or at least pre-1960s—so it’s exciting to see the designs for the unapologetically contemporary Berkeley Art Musuem designed by Japanese architect Toyo Ito.
With its 3-inch concrete walls pressed to a two inch-thick steel plate it has been described by the Chronicle’s John King’s as an “easygoing egg carton.”
Curbed SF has a good post on the building which is slated to open in 2013.
The site next to the new museum has been set aside for a hotel and conference center. This will be the second new hotel for the city. The Berkeley Charles Hotel, a 19-story hotel and conference center in downtown Berkeley (entrance on Center Street) is being planned by the same people behind the upscale Charles Hotel in Cambridge, Ma.
The developers, Carpenter & Company, have recruited architects including Cambridge Seven Associates, Donlyn Lyndon of Berkeley and San Francisco’s SMWM for the project for which so far only concept designs have been released (below).
It’s about time we had some choice where hotels are concerned. At the moment Berkeley has just one multiple starred hotel and that is The Claremont Resort & Spa, a slightly eccentric place whose rooms often leave a lot to be desired.
Hopefully some competition will be good news for punters looking for good-value, quality accommodation with a little oomph.
June 28, 2008
We all have our pet subjects. One of mine — you may have noticed — is “walkability”. So I was delighted to read that the wonderful Walk Score is soon to launch “America’s Most Walkable Neighborhoods”, a ranking of the 40 largest cities in the U.S. Can’t wait to see it.
In the meantime, it is revealing to see how Walk Score defines a “walkable neighborhood”. The parameters are much broader than I would have imagined and encompass demographics as well as proximity to useful resources.
A walkable neighborhood is, according to them, a community which has the following characteristics:
- A center: a discernible center, whether it’s a shopping district, a main street, or a public space.
- Density: The neighborhood is dense enough for local businesses to flourish and for public transportation to be cost effective.
- Mixed income, mixed use: Housing is provided for everyone who works in the neighborhood: young and old, singles and families, rich and poor. Businesses and residences are located near each other.
- Parks and public space: There are plenty of public places to gather and play.
- Accessibility: The neighborhood is accessible to everyone and has wheelchair access, plenty of benches with shade, sidewalks on all streets, etc.
- Well connected, speed controlled streets: Streets form a connected grid that improves traffic by providing many routes to any destination. Streets are narrow to control speed, and shaded by trees to protect pedestrians.
- Pedestrian-centric design: Buildings are placed close to the street to cater to foot traffic, with parking lots relegated to the back.
- Close schools and workplaces: Schools and workplaces are close enough that most residents can walk from their homes.
I would be interested to hear from readers which neighborhoods they think fit some or all of these descriptions. Central and South Berkeley? Rockridge? Montclair Village? El Cerrito?
Walk Score have also devised a couple of very cool maps which clearly demonstrate the difference between a walkable area and its opposite:
To me, these maps bring to mind the difference between taking a one-mile walk in Berkeley and in Piedmont.
Previous posts that have addressed walkability issues:
On San Leandro (or why it’s tiresome to buy underwear in Berkeley)
Montclair: is this the new hot spot for savvy Bay Area buyers?
Notes on a neighborhood: Chabot
Rockridge duplex offers price and fixing potential
Berkeley: can’t get enough of those views
Mapping the walkability factor
June 25, 2008
It’s always good to find fellow real-estate groupies out there in the blogosphere.
Recently I made the virtual acquaintance of My East Bay Agent, a site run by Andy Kaufman, Glen Bell and Norman Gee, three real-estate agents in the East Bay (well, there’s a surprise).
I was led to the site via Felix Salmon’s Portfolio blog, via Mike Simonsen’s Altos blog, both of whom paused to consider a fascinating Altos graph which shows what’s been happening over the past year to house prices in Berkeley and Oakland (below).
Simonsen believes the chart is indicative of the real-estate pricing phenomenon being experienced across the nation, namely:
- Demand is off everywhere and everyone knows it.
- So if you’re a home buyer in the East Bay with good cash and good credit, you get your pick. In this case, Berkeley has generally better schools, more cachet, etc., so the buyers go there first.
- There’s enough demand to keep the market afloat.
- If you don’t have good cash and good credit, you get nothing. There is literally no spillover demand for Oakland.
- A few years ago, a home buyer might look to the nicer neighborhoods in Oakland for additional inventory or a lesser school-premium price. Not the case any more.
Salmon, interestingly, sees one overarching reason for the disparity on display: “Berkeley is like Manhattan,” he writes. “It is one of the very few areas of the country where marginal house prices are set by what people are willing to pay, rather than what they are able to pay.” Read his argument here.
Commentators on the sites raise pertinent issues such as the difference in inventory, crime stats and the always significant existence of micro-neighborhoods. Sometimes it seems making any generalization about real estate — or life for that matter — is fraught with problems.
June 22, 2008
A listing caught my eye a couple of weeks ago because it mentioned that the Berkeley home was located in the “Bateman neighborhood”. This was news to me — I had never heard of this area, so I decided to investigate.
Turns out Bateman Street (zip 94705) is one I know fairly well having driven down it a couple of times under the (false) impression I would be able to make a nifty short cut through this maze of leafy residential streets west of College Avenue near to The Elmwood district.
For the fact is this is more what I would call “Lower Elmwood“. Bateman Street itself (mapped above) is quite special. It is narrow and pretty and slightly disheveled in a chic-shabby way, and very much reminds me of an English country lane — and I know agents use this description with some abandon, but I really mean it here — or perhaps even more so of a quiet street tucked away in one of London’s former “garden suburbs” such as Hampstead.
I would question how a street, particularly one this short, could constitute a neighborhood — unless one embraces surrounding streets such as Regent Street and Hillegass Avenue. But something tells me the residents of these streets would not consider themselves residents of the Bateman area.
Bateman is what in England we refer to as a “dead-end”. This doesn’t reflect how we feel about the place — just that it’s a no-through street, although I’m pretty sure this fact isn’t advertised (hence my mistake of opting to drive down the street only to have to ignominiously turn around and come back).
3020 Bateman Street, the 3/2 “story book English country style” home (right) went on the market for $799,000 in early June and was pending very quickly — which suggests this is a popular neighborhood.
The house scores a whopping 97/100 on Walk Score and its crime rate looks reasonable if not wildly encouraging (but do they ever?). It’s also very close to Alta Bates Hospital, which could come in handy.
There are no other homes on the market in the “Bateman neighborhood” right now. But I’ll be keeping my eye out from now on. After all, it’s not every day you discover a whole new neighborhood in your own backyard.
June 19, 2008
This week’s crop of homes recorded as having sold to June 15 (sourced here) is a story of success for buyers—in contrast to my last post on sales data when sellers seemed to in the winning court with closing prices of between 9-18% over asking.
1314 Dwight Way, a 3/2 “Eichler-style oasis” with entertainment spaces and large yard went on the market for $675,000, but sold for 6% less at $636,000.
1620 Josephine Street, a 4/2.5 house in north Berkeley with “tons of space” that needed to be “decluttered and repainted” sold for $785,000, 13% less than its $900,000 asking price. Maybe the owners wish they had done some of that decluttering themselves now.
2208A Derby Street, a 3/1 Craftsman condo with original details, was priced at $630,000, but sold for 5% less at $598,000.
Last but not least, our very own reader, Kim, whose Berkeley Housing Crash blog is always worth a detour, is the proud new owner of 1745 Allston Way, a 3/1.5 brown shingle within walking distance of downtown with lots of original features. He paid just $1,000 over the $799,000 asking price (a competitive $318/sq ft).
Kim wrote to us after closing: “We are very happy. Back to walking and bicycling like the old days when we lived in Copenhagen.”
Congratulations Kim. These are the stories we like to hear.
June 16, 2008
Today: price reductions — including the return of a house that is patently finding it very difficult to find a buyer — and a couple of “new” neighborhoods.
Prices are coming down on two 2/2 “green” condos and a cottage at 1532 Martin Luther King Jr Way in North Berkeley (pictured below left) . The cottage is down from $535,000 to $455,000, the garden flat is $669,000 and the upper flat $729,000. Visit the website here.
2354 Hilgard Avenue, a “sophisticated” 2/2 townhouse near UC, has been reduced from $550,000 to $530,000 after more than 70 days on Redfin.
The owner of 1535 Grand View Drive in the Oakland hills, a new custom-designed 5/4.5 Mediterranean style home, “needs a sale now!” The price has dropped from $2,698,000 to $2,295,000 after more than 400 days on Redfin.
Then there is the reappearance of 49 Evergreen Lane (pictured above right), a spacious 4/2.5 contemporary home which went on the market at the beginning of this year with a $2,275,000 sticker price; it went off the MLS at $1,695,000, and is back today for $1,545,000. That’s an impressive $730,000 — or 32% — drop.
Finally, I am always amused when I discover a “new” neighborhood — as in agents’ speak for a particular area of town. This weekend’s listings included mention of the “Left Bank” for a home on Matthews Street (not quite the Rive Gauche I fear); and “Gourmet Ghetto West” for a duplex on 7th Street. Brownie points for trying folks.
June 13, 2008
In my last post I focused on FSBOs, a sales method which takes real-estate agents out of the equation.
I want to put in a word for the sometimes maligned agent today, however, following the experience of two friends who recently put their homes on the market and asked a third friend — who happens to be a real-estate agent — to help them do it.
The first friend wanted to move fast. His house was in a pretty good location but he’s a busy guy and had little time for getting it ready for sale. The agent, whom we’ll call Bob, gave him his marching orders. “Move out and let me handle it,” he instructed him. The home was swept through by a team of cleaners and decorators, landscapers and stagers. It went on the market, 14 packages were sent out, multiple bids were put on the table, and it sold in four days for above asking price.
My other friends bought a home which they quickly realized was not for them. They bit the bullet and put it on the market less than a year after they had moved in. Again Bob took matters in hand. He guided them on pricing and timing and gave the place a makeover. “It’s so beautiful now we almost want to stay here,” said the owner. It’s just hit the MLS so there’s no knowing how fast it will sell or for what price, but I’m confident these friends would say they made the right choice not going it alone.
Whether you choose to engage the professionals or manage the process yourself is a purely subjective decision. There’s no right or wrong here. I would say selecting the right agent is key — as in any industry there are the great and the not so great practitioners. It’s also interesting to note that the vast majority of real-estate transactions still involve agents — even in the current climate which favors buyers.
Here are three newly listed homes I would guess have been given a sprinkling of agent magic dust:
1503 Posen Avenue, Albany (above): 2/1 bungalow with partial views close to shops and BART. Price: $769,000. [Update: maybe because the agent was that good, this house is off the market since I wrote this post just hours ago.]
6657 Colton Boulevard, Montclair: 4/2.5 1970s home with beamed ceilings and panoramic views. Price: $929,000.
699 Hilldale Avenue, Berkeley: 2/1 1930s home with inner courtyard and partial views. Price: $735,000.
June 11, 2008
Time to check in on homes that are for sale by owner (FSBO) in Berkeley and north Oakland.
The obvious advantage to a homeowner of handling the sale of their home is that they avoid having to pay real-estate agent fees. But there are potential benefits for a buyer too, so it’s always worth keeping an eye on these listings.
As a buyer you may also end up saving money as the seller often factors an agent’s commission into their asking price. This isn’t a consideration for a FSBO. Your questions about the house will be addressed to the seller, not a middleman, and subsequent negotiations will also be between the two parties. (Depending on how much you enjoy negotiating, this could be seen as a benefit or a disadvantage.)
Of course real-estate agents will argue that there are many reasons why it is preferable to have one of them on board when you are looking to buy. And I’m not one to disagree. It’s just horses for courses as far as I’m concerned, and if one of these homes grabs your fancy there’s no reason not to pounce:
1840 63rd Street (between Dover Street and MLK ) is a 1/1, 900 sq ft apartment for $415,000 ($461/sq ft).
17 Neva Court in Montclair is a freshly listed 4/3, 2,452 sq ft single family home for $1,395,000 ($569/sq ft).
6041 Fairlane Drive also in Montclair is a 4/1, 4,200 sq ft modern-Tudor home priced at $1,995,000 ($475/sq ft).
[Photo credit: http://commons.wikimedia.org]
June 9, 2008
There are the homes that people fall over themselves to snag, and there are those that just won’t budge and require some revisionist thinking on the pricing front.
I found five Berkeley houses with price reductions today, and it’s not always the first one they’ve had either:
2371 Virginia Street # 1: (pictured right) 1/1 1920s condo three blocks from the north gate of the UC Berkeley campus with private deck — down to $475,000.
2817 Woolsey Street #A: 2/1 condo in the Claremont. Reduced from $550,000 to $520,000.
2300 Prince Street: “mirror image” 1-bed and 2-bed duplex “ideal for TIC” with private patio and gardens. Down from $849,000 to $824,000.
960 Keeler Avenue: 3/2.5 traditional home with separate unit and bay views. Reduced a second time from original $1,100,000 to $985,000.
257 Hillcrest Road,: 3/3+, 4,000 sq ft home with au-pair studio and views in Berkeley’s Claremont neighborhood. Reduced for the second time from original $1,579,000 to $1,399,000
June 6, 2008
This morning oil prices hit a record high, at $139 a barrel, and yesterday The New York Times reported that General Motors had seen sense and is going to drastically cut back production of its gas-guzzling SUV models and concentrate on smaller cars. It is even — yippee — considering offloading the horrendous Hummer, once seen as “the pillar of its future growth” (just how short-sighted can these mega-corporations be I wonder?).
The point is that $4-a-gallon gas prices have finally forced a shift by American consumers towards more fuel-efficient cars and, yes, public transportation.
This has significant implications for all of us in the Bay Area. First off, we all know that we need to lobby for better public transit. And secondly, as reader Surveykid pointed out, we should all be thinking ahead to the location of our homes in relation to existing and potential transit options.
As he wrote in a recent comment:
“CA is highly, highly leveraged to the automobile–and while that is true for much of America – this paradigm shift is going to hit CA very hard. In the future, I am confident that CA will be among the first places in the US to make the transition. However, that will provide little relief in the interim. The result will be as follows: this real estate bust is going to be painfully prolonged by this issue.
… in general you are going to see real estate near public transport maintain its value more competitively, in the years ahead. Also, the municipalities will add more public transport, even as they are financially pressured.”
Thankfully, there are visionaries out there who are doing some long-range thinking. Have a look at this Subway Dream Map for the East Bay conceived by Transbay Blog:
And then put your sensible hat on and check out these three newly listed homes which are all within striking distance of public transportation and will therefore reduce — or even eliminate — your need for a car, small or otherwise:
1377 Francisco Street: 2/1 Craftsman very close to North Berkeley BART. Price: $550,000.
1740 McGee: 2/1 Craftsman also close to North Berkeley BART. Price: $579,000
5945 Chabot Crescent: 3/2 Mediterranean close to Rockridge BART. Price: $949,000.
