Hello My Favorite People!

The market continues to be a little nutsy. I spoke with an agent this week who had an offer in on a nice big Victorian condo in upper Cole Valley. It was listed for $835,000 which seemed like a fair price, but his client went ahead and bid a notch more, just to be safe. However, with multiple offers, it looks like it’s going to go for close to a million. And as predicted, we are seeing a frenzy of activity around smaller apartment buildings.

If you’re thinking of selling this year I recommend moving your time table up (if you can) to take advantage of current market conditions. With fewer properties for sale, the competition is intense for whatever is available and prices are going up—a condition that may not exist in the spring when there will probably be many more properties on the market.

Even if you’re not selling, a ‘real estate financial check up’ on the value of your property may still be in order. I actually think this kind of evaluation should be done annually. So don’t hesitate to call for a ‘no pressure, no charge’ opinion of value. My expertise and the support of Paragon is always available to you.

Parking is one of San Francisco’s most precious commodities—and if you’re like me finding enough change to feed a San Francisco meter is a challenge–, especially when 25 cents only buys you 15 minutes of time at the most. My own ‘modus operandi’ has been to have $10 rolls of quarters with me at all times. So far it’s worked out pretty well, although it makes my purse heavier. But I learned recently that a better solution has been available.

Since Christmas, San Francisco parking meters have been able to accept prepaid cards that enable you to replace coins with a quick swipe of plastic. Available in $20 and $50 increments, they can only be bought at a few places right now, but the City plans to ultimately sell them at more than 25 locations. A list of current vending locations is at the end of this email. Caveat—meters owned by the Port of SF (on the Embarcadero and at Fisherman’s Wharf) still don’t take cards.

Another time and effort-saver is a FastTrak Pass, which you can order by mail (forms are at www.bayareafastrak.com.) FastTrak can add significantly to the quality of your life even if you don’t go in or out of the city much. Bridge back-ups happen at all hours and there’s nothing like sailing past the “cash only” crowd and saving 20 minutes on the drive back home from Marin or the East Bay.

See you next week!

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 26th, 2006 at 12:00 pm and is filed under Miscellaneous, Market Conditions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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