Blog
State Farm Seeking Massive Rate Hike in California
State Farm is looking to raise insurance rates in a massive rate hike for some California customers by more than 50% as the insurance giant weighs its future in the Golden State. In a filing to the California Department of Insurance, the compan...
Lumber Prices Plunge: Good News for Home Building Costs
The twin-peaked lumber bubble of 2021 and 2022 that drove home building costs through the roof and exacerbated inflation is over. Lumber prices plunge 75% from their May 2021 record high of $1,514 per thousand board feet to just $366 this wee...
Home Prices at All Time Highs in Santa Clara County but NOT in San Mateo County
San Mateo and Santa Clara Counties Break Records- Home prices for San Mateo and Santa Clara Counties combined are at all time highs, surpassing the $2-million mark for the past consecutive months. The average single family (SF) home now sells ...
Cooling Labor Market Sets Up September Interest-Rate Cut
September Interest-Rate Cut. The July 5th job reports showed solid hiring in June, plus signs the US labor market gradually cooled in Q2. Unemployment edged up to 4.1% while increases in hourly earning are slowing down. This all could lead to ...
Buying a Home and RSUs in the Bay Area
I know that home prices seem like they are out of control; the average single family home in San Mateo County is selling for $2,700,000. While that may seem insane to most people, Restricted Stock Units (RSUs) make it possible. Homes in the r...
Dow Jones Index VS Home Prices : What’s Appreciating Faster?
When Bay Area clients ask me where are home prices are headed, I love to tell them to look to the stock market—where it goes, home prices will follow. This, of course, makes sense because majority of first-time homebuyers get their down payme...
How to Reduce Capital Gains Tax When Selling Your Home
2 Strategies on how to Avoid or Reduce Capital Gains Tax In our previous blog about avoiding Capital Gains Tax, we discussed how Bay Area single family homes have about quadrupled in value over the past 25 years. In 1999, the average single-fa...
How to Avoid Capital Gains Taxes When Selling Your Home
2 Strategies on how to Reduce or Avoid Capital Gains Taxes Bay Area single-family homes have about quadrupled in value over the past 25 years. In 1999, the average San Mateo County single-family home sold for around $600,000. Today the average...