Why So Many Chinese Buyers in Palo Alto and Along the Peninsula?

Everybody reads about the large supply of Chinese buyers who are buying homes here along the Peninsula.  There are many agents, one prominent one who we all know and now has a plane to fly his Chinese buyers around, who target the Chinese buyers very heavily.  Buy, why are there so many Chinese buyers and why are they buying here?

We all marvel at the prices being paid and the recent appreciation of 30% per year for the past couple years.  For those of us who live along the Peninsula, you may be surprised to know that real estate in Palo Alto, Atherton and Menlo Park may be a bargain when compared with other international locales. Heck, we aren’t even as expensive as New York.  Who would have thought 10 years ago that an investor from Shanghai might find a Manhattan penthouse affordable? Of the 10 most expensive cities in the world, New York is the only one from the U.S., said a recent report from England-based real estate consultancy Knight Frank and researcher WealthInsight. Monaco, Hong Kong, London, Singapore and Geneva all outranked New York. Sydney, Paris, Moscow and Shanghai rounded out the list. San Francisco, Palo Alto and Atherton, not even on the list.

In Hong Kong, which saw double-digit real estate price increases from 2009 to 2012, the average luxury home was valued at around $11,000 per square foot, the global real estate firm Savills said in a 2012 report. Yes, $11,000 per square foot! London, with its own booming real estate market, averaged $5,300 per square foot, while New York checked in at $4,100. Atherton and Palo Alto generally sells for $1,500  to $2,000 per square foot, quite a deal compared to the big guys.

For the 12 months ended in February, 788 homes worth more than $10 million each were sold in the U.S., according to real estate website Zillow. Slightly more than half were in the Los Angeles and New York areas. San Francisco, south Florida and Colorado ski resorts Aspen and Vail also saw some of the most-expensive transactions. Chinese Buyers, in particular, Chinese homebuyers increasingly are buying up high-end property in the U.S., Realtors said. China’s strong economic growth has generated dozens of billionaires and thousands of millionaires in recent years. They are attracted to America’s stronger property rights and a relatively stable political and economic climate, according to the National Association of Realtors.

So, why are so many Chinese buyers scooping up luxury properties? Because they are rich and prices here are a deal and they have property rights that might be hard to come by in their own country.  Hard to blame them.

With the worldwide economy getting better, I can’t see much of a slowdown to the pace of buying from our overseas friends.  Gary Kurtz of Alain Pinel in Menlo Park has Chinese buyers that he has never met but converse with on a regular basis and are looking for investment homes here in the Atherton area.  I find lots of Atherton and Palo Alto off market homes and I know they will make a relatively quick decision and buy without seeing as they trust my word and insight into the market.  It seems to be a win-win situation for sellers, Chinese buyers, agents and all in the luxury real estate industry.

President Obama in Atherton

President Obama and the throngs of secret service will be here Thursday as the President visits our town of Atherton. He will start with a brunch at the home of Liz Simons and Mark Heising and then job on over to the home of Marcia and John Goldman for a lunch. Both stops are obviously to raise money for the democratic party so there will be Atherton’s finest paying top dollar for a meal with the leader of the free world.

Various roads will be temporarily closed around the Alameda de las Pulgas and Valparaiso areas, so I would definitely avoid those routes around Walsh Road and the Stockbridge/Selby lane areas.

The President will see some of the top real estate this country has to offer as well as lots of construction activity. There are so many homes being built, fixed and updated that driving through many streets in Atherton and Menlo Park will surely convince the President that the economy is surging and people are working. Atherton real estate as well as the area has had a surge in prices over the past year and ranks one of the highest priced areas in the country.

Los Altos Hills Real Estate Highest Price in Santa Clara County

Santa Clara County real estate showed gains across the board in numbers very similar to San Mateo County.  The key number to note is that the average price of a home was up in 2012 by 12% to an average of $839,000.  The biggest jump in prices came from the city of Monte Sereno where home prices were up 18% to an average of $2.031,000.  Los Altos Hills took the prize for highest average sale price with a whopping $3,077,000.

Homes For Sale Listing Not Accurate on Popular Online Websites

Home buyers and sellers often quote Trulia, Zillow or Redfin as their main source of real estate information. If they are out looking for a home, they check these popular online sites daily to see what’s on the market. All real estate agents know that the information definitely isn’t up to date for homes along the peninsula as there is so much off market activity and it’s kept between agents who work the areas a lot, so the online sites don’t have a clue to what’s really for sale here.

A new report by Redfin proves what we agents have known for a long time – the information on these sites isn’t accurate at all. I personally have received calls about listings that have sold months ago and have grown to find it fairly normal, but I never understood how bad the statistics really are. The study found that approximately 36 percent of the listings on the websites were no longer active.

Wow, 36%!

That’s a big margin of error. Do they do it so they can keep potential buyers and sellers on their sites longer and sell more page views and advertisements? Do they do it because there is a shortage of inventory in many areas and they don’t want to look like there isn’t enough information to keep home searchers happy? I’m not sure what the reason, but read the full article here.

This gets back to a plug for using a local real estate agent who has the latest information plus the off market listings.  I would estimate 20-30% of the business in this area if done off market, so if you really want to find a house, call a reputable agent.  I can help you with your real estate needs in areas such as Menlo Park, Palo Alto, Atherton and surrounding areas.  There are also plenty of other good agents as well who are professionals and take their jobs very seriously.  Working with clients to buy and sell luxury real estate is a demanding job as there are high stakes and very successful buyers and sellers who only accept the best agents to handle their transactions.  Relying on these websites seems like a step in the wrong direction and in an area of intelligent, successful people, this isn’t always the smartest choice.

Palo Alto Off Market Sales, Why Are They Increasing?

As you all know, off market sales are increasing in all cities along the Peninsula and especially in areas such as Menlo Park, Palo Alto, Atherton, Los Altos and Los Altos Hills.  There are many reasons and each seller and agent might have a different opinion on why they want to choose to sell their home off market instead of thru the MLS.  One reason that is being discussed frequently is the surge in popularity with the IDX sites, such as Trulia, Zillow, Red Fin etc.  Many agents are choosing not to syndicate their listings or even keep the home off market because of how those sites operate.  They are very informative for the consumer and have great information, however, the downside is that they are using our listings to sell advertising.  They are making millions of dollars off of agents advertising and hard work, while the agents typically don’t get anything in return.  It would be great to see some statistics on how many people actually buy a house because they saw it on Zillow or Trulia, but those statistics don’t exist.  So, the thinking is that 99% of the people who visit the sites aren’t making a purchase based on seeing the home on the site, but typically get the info from their agent.

Many agents don’t like it because the online sites charge other agents to put their picture/ad next to our listing so the consumer believes the advertised agent is really the listing agent.  So, agents who do a lot of business and get high end listings don’t always want somebody else’s picture next to their multi million dollar listing, so they are choosing to keep the home off market.

Is this the reason for the surge in off market listings in the area?  Who knows, but it’s one reason that the IDX sites are the center of discussion as the various MLS’s are hearing complaints from their members and the MLS’s are losing control of their listing data.  The future of these sights are unknown, but anybody who goes on them quite a bit also knows the information they provide is not always accurate nor up to date.  The only place buyers can get the real information is from their real estate agents, and that won’t change no matter what happens to the popularity of the online sites.  Do you use the various sites and have you ever made a purchase based on seeing it on Trulia or Zillow?

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.

Central Menlo Leads Sales Volume By Large Margin in Menlo Park

The Central Menlo area showed the most total sales volume by dollar amount compared to other areas of Menlo Park by quite a large margin. There was just over $122 million dollars in total sales for the last twelve month period. The results are based on 390 total sales for all of Menlo Park and 62 sales were posted in the Central Menlo area. Coming in second for amount of units sold was actually the east of 101 area of Menlo Park, however, the home sales prices are dramatically different than Central Menlo and the reason for the vast dollar amount difference. Luxury real estate sales are still strong as Central Menlo had an average sales price of just under two million dollars.

Area: Dollar Volume: Number of Sales
Central Menlo: $122,821,516: 62
County / Alameda Area: $67,163,500: 44
Allied Arts / Downtown: $50,725,625: 34
Willows / O’Conner Area: $47,499,890: 43
Menlo Oaks Area: $41,449,100: 21
Sharon Heights / Stanford: $35,012,600: 18
Middlefield to El Camino: $33,717,910: 28
County Area / Fair Oaks Ave: $24,399,875: 36
Flood Park Area: $24,246,275: 29
East of U.S. 101: $18,110,811: 61
Felton Gables: $9,250,000: 4
Alpine Road Area: $6,006,000: 6

Palo Alto Real Estate Takes a Breath

Palo Alto real estate is still hopping, however, the market has been cooling off a bit in recent weeks, as more homes are available and demand is less. Some prices even moved a bit lower as a result. Expect this trend to continue as more inventory hits the market.  Palo Alto has a lot of luxury real estate and is always an area in demand due to the tech executives and companies that call Palo Alto home.  In our recent reports, the median price in Palo Alto 94301 is $1,597,000 and average days on market is only 61 days.  Just a couple weeks ago, the median price was over $2.1 million so this shows the inventory in that sweet spot is fairly non existent.   The surprising number this week is the percentage of homes with a price decrease, which is 35%.  That’s a big number for such a strong area.  This means that the “in demand” homes have sold quickly and it’s probably the less desirable properties that are still sitting on the market.  It’s still a sellers market in Palo Alto and the average price per square foot is at $934 and I’ve seen homes that are asking way over that price per square foot, but are tending to sit if they go over $1,000.

High End Homes on Peninsula are selling.

In case you missed it, here is an excerpt from a recent article about the high end housing here on the Peninsula and how well it is selling.  Los Altos Hills  has had the big sale while Palo Alto is consistent and almost a sellers market.  Atherton and Menlo Park and moving along nicely with Atherton getting the high end sales.

Mark Zuckerberg buys in Palo Alto!

Mark Zuckerberg's New Home

Well, it’s only fitting that Mark Zuckerberg finally buys a house in Palo Alto.  After all, he has made billions of dollars while starting his company in Palo Alto, he might as well officially call it home and buy where he works.  Soon, he will be working in Menlo Park, but Palo Alto has the claim to fame on tech exec’s homes.

The king of Facebook’s home was purchases for just around $7.0 million dollars and the Palo Alto luxury real estate market continues to improve with this sale.  The house is nice, and within close proximity to his work and in a neighborhood where he won’t be bothered as the town is full of tech kings.  Let’s see how long he lives in it or if he calls this home his main residence, after all, a guy like him might just buy the house to keep the press/news world looking in one direction while he secretly buys a much bigger house somewhere else.

Here are some pictures of Zuckerberg’s home, it is very “Palo Alto ish” and nice.  If he wants to buy in Atherton, I have the perfect $6.9 million dollar home listed that he might want to look at due to the size, privacy and great yard for parties or hanging around the pool with the Facebook family.

Call me Mark!