Woodside Luxury Estate Auction: Was $21 Million Dollar Property

Something kind of exciting will be happening in Mid June – the auction of a luxury home in Woodside.  The home was originally priced at $21 million dollars, but the auction will have a starting bid of $7.9 million or you can do a “buy it now” before the auction starts for $12.95 million.

The home is named “Le Soleil” and is a spectacular estate on five acres that has almost 13,000 square feet with 7 bedrooms, beautiful pool, gardens, terraces etc.  Basically, everything you would expect for a 21 million dollar home. This is luxury real estate at its finest.

The cool thing is that the auction will take place entirely on line with potential bidders from around the world.  The entire bidding process will take less than two hours to complete and somebody will then have a luxury home worth millions of dollars more than they paid for it.  Not quite like a Facebook IPO, but still a potential to make millions.

If you are interested to sign up as a bidder or get more information, shoot me an email or phone call and I can connect you with the auction company.  It should be interesting to watch as I have never seen an on line auction of a home at such a high price.

Facebook IPO Update

Shelley Palmer gives a nice overview of the Facebook IPO and what is happening.

Friday saw the long awaited IPO of Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) and it failed to live up to the hype they got over the past year.  Shares of Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) closed up only 23 cents after hitting $40+ mid-day.  Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) did set a record for trading volume but the huge share float combined with huge retail investor presence, made institutional investors pass on the stock.

During this IPO, there were certainly winners and losers.  The winners were Mark Zuckerberg, Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (NYSE:GS) and the brokerage firms.  The losers were NASDAQ OMX Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:NDAQ) and Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS), and retail investors.

Lets start with Mark  Zuckerberg first.  This past week has been huge for the Facebook founder.  First, he celebrated his birthday, Facebook’s IPO and his marriage to long time girlfriend, Priscilla Chan.  Zuckerberg has received some criticism over his wedding, which was the day after the IPO, because of the “lack of sensitivity” for shareholders.  The bottom line here is that the Facebook CEO is not only a lot more rich but he is married now also. We hope he signed a pre-nup agreement.

The brokers made a lot of money on the trading. According to TD Ameritrade Holding Corp. (AMTD), Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) made up 22% of all the brokerage’s trading volume on Friday. This means a lot of money for the firms from traders buying and selling of the stock.

Goldman Sachs is rarely a loser, it seems, when it comes to IPOs and other funding ventures.  According to the SF Gate, Goldman made $1.09 billion from selling its stake on the IPO date.  Goldman was an underwriter for the deal which made them stand to make a lot of money.  If the investment bank sells its remaining 4.3 million shares, they could be looking at an additional $1 billion in profits.

Moving on to the “loser” side of the spectrum, the Nasdaq embarrassed itself on Friday, after the IPO was delayed due to mechanical failure.  Unfortunately, the system was overloaded with orders of Facebook and it simply just stopped confirming orders.  This certainly played a role in the IPO’s failure as a number of high-priced orders never went through by the time the closing bell sounded.  The SEC has said they will be looking into more details of the software failure that occurred last Friday.

Retail investors were also losers. Even though the IPO price was $38 the stock opened at approximately (different numbers) $43 a share. Any retail investor who bought Facebook shares on the open at the time of this writing have a 23% loss in less than a full day of trading, not a great annualized return.

Last but not least, Morgan Stanley.  The main underwriter of the deal certainly got the worst of the deal as the investment bank bought sizeable amounts of Facebook towards the end of the day to keep the price from falling through the IPO price of $38.  Luckily, the $38 level held and Morgan Stanley successfully completed its job.  Unfortunately, Facebook is down 11% today which gives Morgan Stanley a hefty loss on the trades.

The bottom line, Facebook’s IPO was a failure and continues to get worse today as the price was in full free fall.  Zuckerberg and Goldman made it out on top but Nasdaq and Morgan Stanley especially have some new problems that need to be dealt with fast.

530 Irven Court in Palo Alto Sells 5% Over Asking Price

530 Irvin Court in Palo Alto was listed on February 20, 2012 for $1,598,000 and sold for $1,680,000 on March 12, 2012, a 5% gain in sales price from asking price.   The Barron Park home features 5 bedrooms, 4 1/2 baths, a gourmet kitchen with large island, full basement with media/game room, granite counters and a private yard.  The home is approximately 3,624 square feet.  Palo Alto real estate is continuing a robust first quarter of sales that are over asking price.

Open House in Atherton Today at $6.7 Million Dollar Home

Gary Kurtz is holding an open house today at 9 Atherton Oaks Lane in Atherton from 1:30pm-4:30pm.  The house is listed for $6.7 million dollars and has 8,190 square feet plus 200 square foot pool house and 880 sf 5 car garage. It’s located on 1.09 acres and is very quiet and peaceful. The home is located next door to where Joe Montana lived when he was still with the 49ers.  The home has 5 bedrooms, a library, guest suite, huge living and family rooms plus a master bedroom that is very spacious.  A four car garage that has a car lift for a fifth car.  Beautiful hardwood floors throughout the downstairs and a massive entry that must be seen.  Come out to say hello or give me a call if you have any questions about the home.

1382 Forest Avenue in Palo Alto selling price

1382 Forest Ave, Palo Alto in Crescent Park
List Price: $4,395,000
Sale Price: $4,400,000

New Construction 2 story home with 5 bedrooms, 4 ½ baths, +/- 3231 Sq. Ft. Home is East Coast style with Craftsman appeal. First floor has gourmet kitchen, family room, dining room, living room and guest suite/office. Second floor has the master suite, 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. Fully landscaped grounds with large deck in backyard. Listed on 2/8/12 and sold 2/17/12 and completed escrow 2/28/12. That quick of an escrow usually means the offer came from an all cash buyer as loans are taking 10-17 days just to get thru the system. Luxury real estate in Palo Alto is still selling well and homes in this price range don’t usually have the crazy number of offers that homes in the 1.2-2.0 range can receive.

Want to see the pictures of the home, click here on Sold Home Prices.

Open House This Weekend in Palo Alto

Everybody, don’t forget to come by the open house at 4105 Park Blvd in Palo Alto this Sunday from 1:30-4:30pm. It’s hard to find a home in the Palo Alto school district for under a million dollars, but we have it to show this weekend. 3 Bedrooms, 2 full bath, 1,450 square feet on a 7,000 square foot lot. It’s a short walk to the park and kids play area. Plus there is a large back patio with a huge hot tub. A great home for entertaining and families of all ages.

To see more about this property, click on the tour factory link

Thanks and I hope to see you there.

Palo Alto Real Estate Update

The numbers are strong for real estate in Palo Alto with this month’s sales figures.  Watch the video to see all key sales numbers for the month of January 2012 compared to January 2011.

Palo Alto homes sales going way over asking price in first month of 2012

Desirable Palo Alto started off the New Year with many home sales exceeding asking price by crazy amounts. The year began with a total of 21 sales in the first 3 weeks of the month compared to 17 total closings in January 2011 and, on top of that, many of the homes were sold significantly higher than the listing price.

Palo Alto luxury real estate is on fire right now and some of the homes were high double digits over asking and most had multiple offers.  I don’t believe this is a case of real estate agents under pricing the home with the hopes of multiple offers as all the homes have been priced very fairly for the size, location and condition.  I think it’s a case of buyers with pent up energy looking for homes and just not enough inventory out there.  Going back to my days of basic economics, high demand and low supply means… overbidding.

This is a good sign for sellers of Palo Alto homes, especially for the homeowners who have been sitting on the fence and waiting to get out from under water as now is definitely the time to sell.

There are more, but just a couple of examples of recent Palo Alto homes for sale with high ratios of sales versus asking price are:

185 Walter Hays listed at $1,398,000 and sold for $1,655,000 in 7 days (18.4 % over asking price)

769 Rosewood Drive listed at $1,050,000 and sold for $1,515,000 in 4 days (44.3% over)

971 Maddux Drive listed at $1,195,000 and sold for $1,361,000 in a week (14.1 % over)

I work on a lot of off market sales too and information throughout our offices are further verifying the asking price to sale price ratios listed above.  Off market, or off  MLS, are probably 20-30% of sales happening in Palo Alto, Atherton and Menlo Park, so make sure your agent is well connected to get you in the game, or call me.

Palo Alto Starts Off 2012 With A Surge of Home Sales

Palo Alto real estate is having a happy 2012!

Yes, I know it’s only been just over two weeks into the new year, but sales in Palo Alto have been very strong compared to the past couple of years.  The entire month of January 2011 had a total of 17 closed sales,  January 2010 had 23 closed sales and January of 2009 had only 12 closed sales for the entire month.  Well, so far in the first two weeks of January 2012, there has already been 19 closed sales as of  January 16th.  Obviously, it’s no guarantee that the rest of the month or year will stay on the same surge, but it’s definitely a good sign for real estate and the economy.

There is also a general buzz around our offices at the activity that is happening and the amount of buyers that are out there aggressively looking to buy or in the process of buying.  This hasn’t happened in several years so we are all working harder than ever to make sure our buyers don’t miss out on any opportunities, as they are going quickly! My guess is that this will cause prices to rise due to the number of buyers compared to the number of homes available for sale.  A good sign for sellers as I would suggest getting your home on the market within the next two months to take advantage of the situation.

If you are interested in listing your home for sale or finding a home, please give me a call.  The above numbers don’t include the very active “off market” transactions that are happening at a higher than normal rate as well.  We have a nice supply of those too!

Menlo Park Monthly Real Estate Sales Figures for October 2011

The average sales price of a home in Menlo Park fell 7.8% for the month of October 2011 compared to October 2010.  The total number of sales for both periods were similar, which is good news, but the home prices were a little lower than expected.  The surprise number is that the average price per square foot rose, so that means people are paying less, but also for smaller homes.

All other numbers for the month look healthy for both buyers and sellers.  Luxury real estate in Menlo Park, Palo Alto and Atherton is still in demand compared to the rest of the country and nothing to complain about.  See the attached short video for all the key statistics.