Fall Landscaping, for Beauty and Profit

With the fall season fully upon us in the Bay Area, any landscaping projects that you haven’t already started will have to wait until spring, right?

Wrong. Landscape professionals say that autumn is the perfect time to plant bulbs and prepare your yard for the coming spring and summer. And if you’re thinking of selling your house in the coming months, you shouldn’t wait until spring to make sure the yard is in tip-top shape.
In fact, researchers at Virginia Tech found that upgrading a home’s landscape from “average” to “excellent” can raise its overall value by 10 to 12 percent.

A $150,000 home with no landscaping could fetch an additional $8,300 to $19,000 by adding a landscape with color and large plants, according to a report from the school’s Department of Horticulture. And the bonus increases exponentially for higher-priced homes.

“The most preferred landscape included a sophisticated design with large deciduous, evergreen, and annual color plants and colored hardscape,” according to the report. Adding different plant sizes to a front yard, for example, can boost curb appeal, as can mixing fruit trees and flowers for added color.
Design sophistication is the most important consideration, followed by plant size and diversity of plants.

“Survey results showed that relatively large landscape expenditures significantly increase perceived home value and will result in a higher selling price than homes with a minimal landscape,” the report noted. “The resulting increase in ‘curb appeal’ of the property may also help differentiate a home in a subdivision where house styles are similar and thereby attract potential buyers into a home.
“This advantage is especially important in a competitive housing market,” the report concluded — as if it had been written especially for Bay Area homebuyers and sellers.

Looking for more landscaping tips? Check out the website of the Professional Landcare Network, the national trade association for landscape professionals. It offers a full page of fall landscaping tips.

(Image: Flickr/Andrea_44)
 

San Francisco-Area Annual Home Price Growth Slackens in April

The San Francisco metro area boasted the second largest monthly home price gain in the country in April, themost recent S&P/Case Shiller Home Price Indices show. But for the first time in more than a year, the pace of annual appreciation dipped below 20 percent.

Home prices in our region increased by 2.3 percent month over month, down slightly from March but still twice the rate of appreciation measured across the Indices’ 20-city composite. The report says San Francisco-area prices have risen for the past six months straight.

But prices are slowing on an annual basis, Case Shiller’s data shows, with 19 of the 20 metro areas seeing smaller gains in April than in March.

Year over year, the 20-city composite posted a price increase of 10.8 percent, but past reports indicate that annual appreciation has been declining each month since November 2013. The report says April’s 20-city composite price was back to levels recorded in the summer of 2004 but remains nearly 20 percent short of its 2006 peak.

“Although home prices rose in April, the annual gains weakened,” David M. Blitzer, chairman of the Index Committee at S&P Dow Jones Indices, said in a statement. “Overall prices are rising month-to-month but at a slower rate.”

Slowing price gains across the country might actually benefit the housing market in the long run, columnist Neil Irwin writes in The New York Times. Irwin contends that if double-digit price gains persist, homes could become heavily overvalued.

Home prices in the San Francisco region were up 18.2 percent year over year, second only to the Las Vegas metro area. The rate of annual appreciation in our region has dropped each month so far this year and was the lowest in April since January 2013.

A look at MLS data as of June 25 shows that year-over-year single-family home price gains slowed from March to April in seven of Pacific Union’s eight Bay Area regions.

In March four of our regions showed annual returns of more than 20 percent, with Sonoma Valley posting 42 percent year-over-year price hikes. But in April, gains ranged from 15 percent in Contra Costa County to 6 percent in Sonoma Valley.

San Francisco was the lone Pacific Union region where yearly price appreciation was higher in April (10 percent) than in March (8 percent).

(Photo: Flickr/Images Money)

Real Estate Tops Gold as Best Long-Term Investment

Real estate ranks ahead of gold, stocks, bonds, or savings accounts as the best long-term investment today, according to a nationwide poll by the Gallup organization.
Thirty percent of Americans named real estate their best investment option in the poll, which was conducted earlier this month. Real estate has been rising steadily in Gallup’s annual investment polls since 2011, when only 19 percent of Americans viewed it favorably.
Rising home prices and growing stability in real estate markets are credited for much of the change in perception.
Gold was the No. 1 investment option in 2011, when 34 percent of poll respondents named it their favorite. Gold was at its highest market price at the time, but prices have dropped significantly since then.
In the latest poll, gold and stocks tied for second place behind real estate, at 24 percent, followed by savings accounts (14 percent) and bonds (6 percent).
Real estate has ranked first among investment options in previous years — 50 percent of poll respondents picked it as their top choice in 2002, as markets boomed — but it fell out of favor during the subprime mortgage crisis and recession.
Real estate’s recovery has been underway for more than a year, with Bay Area markets at the national forefront. The San Jose and San Francisco metropolitan areas were recently identified as having the highest home equity levels in the nation, and another report named the metro areas the No. 1 and 2 best markets for home sellers.
Pacific Union’s just-released Real Estate Report for the first quarter of 2014 provides detailed summaries of activity in each of our nine Northern California markets. In March, median single-family home prices reached yearly highs in most regions and topped $1 million in San Francisco and Marin County. Farther south in our Silicon Valley region, home prices surpassed the $2.5 million mark.

(Image: Flickr/Micky Aldridge)