I saw the 906 Contra Costa place, it is still overpriced, they only reduced it 15k. Anyway, it has a basement that could easily be made into a 3rd bedroom/family room. It has a pretty bad yard, however.

On another topic, anyone noticed how many homes have gone up for rent on Craigslist that were/are for sale in North Berkeley?

The house right next to the one mentioned above, I believe 910 Contra Costa, has been stagnating for a long time and is now on Craigslist, and they have pulled off the double whammy of vastly over pricing it as a sale and as a rental. I believe they are asking $5500 a month to rent it.

There is another on Oxford that they are asking $5000 for rent, and has not sold and is also not reduced in price either. It is a close second for overpriced on both fronts.

Another place on Colusa that was for sale, now is not, went up and rented for a reasonable $3300 a month.

A place up on Florida near that foreclosure that was on the market forever finally went to Craigslist, and they had a sub 3k rental price if I remember correctly.

Anyway, there are more than those, but what astounds me is that people can’t sell the places at the prices they are asking, they don’t reduce those prices, and then put them on the rental market for ridiculously high rent. Eventually reality has to creep in.

Not to repeat myself, but Westminster was and is grossly overpriced. A new listing should not trick the average punter or sophisticated Bay Area buyer into thinking that there is some deal a foot.

On the North Berkeley rentals — I am not so sure that they are overpriced. Rentals in Berkeley may have been artifically low due to the ability of people to buy. Now that the easy money is no longer available and renters will not be buyers, rents are likely to rise.

Billy: Interesting that you have noticed this micro-trend. I can’t help wondering whether it’s a case of people being in denial, as you suggest. One day they are sitting on a nice pile of money (ie, their home), they blink and their house has plummeted in value. When they need to sell it, they just can’t believe that there isn’t someone out there willing to pay a pre-credit crunch price.

Curious: You may be right on the rental price point. SFH rentals have not been a significant market, so maybe people are just testing rental prices at the moment.

Back to the main post… i have to say it’s frustrating that Redfin doesn’t (as far as I can tell) track these re-postings. It seems like it should be pretty easy – am I missing something, is there some reason Redfin doesn’t do this?

BTW, 910 Contra Costa was for sale at the same price last year and didn’t sell then either.

I don’t think it’s Redfin’s job to track this kind of thing. It would be far easier and more appropriate for the MLS to do so. My understanding is that there are clear guidelines prohibiting this kind of thing, but that there’s no enforcement at all.

Industries generally need to police themselves. In this case, a handful of bad-acting real estate agents give the entire field a reputation as liars and swindlers.

I’ve seen several Alameda homes also migrate to Craigslist for rentals.

How about 77 Oakmont in Piedmont? Previously listed in this blog:
http://sfbay.redfin.com/blog/2008/03/is_piedmont_the_city_an_island_musings_and_price_reductions_.html

Just re-listed yesterday..Is it a short sale or an REO?

I have been looking at rental in Berkeley for almost a year now, and 5k per month is overpriced (unless it is a really special place). You may be able to get that in the city or down on the Penninsula where executive relocations are more prevalent, but that’s a tough sell in Berkeley, and even tougher for the particular homes I mention, they are nothing special.

I think Berkeley has an active rental market because there are more renter types that want to be there (visiting professors and grad students), so I would say that there has always been a pretty healthy rental market with good price support. But when you start to ask 5k or up for a SFH, you better have a family that makes about 200k per year or have multiple renters each paying a portion of the rent. In any case, we will see how long they keep sitting there.

It doesn’t help for 1050 Oxford that there is another nice rental just across the street asking 4k, down from $4200, and yet to rent after 3 weeks up.

As for re-listing places, it is the MLS that should be doing something about it, Redfin just aggregates data from the MLS. The MLS has rules against pulling and then re-listing to show 0 DOM, but nobody does anything about it, its commonplace.

On this topic… I still think Redfin would want to track this more clearly.

to the point from Frolic: “I don’t think it’s Redfin’s job to track this kind of thing.” Redfin’s ‘job’ like all realtors is to handle transactions. They’ve chosen to do that by driving internet traffic. Having accurate information about true price changes (as opposed to just what MLS shows) would be attractive (as shown by this discussion), so it seems like it’s in Redfin’s interest to track this.

To Billy’s point: “Redfin just aggregates data from the MLS” I think Redfin does more than that. If you look at a sold property (one no longer on MLS) it shows sales history, which I don’t think is on MLS, so Redfin is doing more. And technically it seems very possible for Redfin to track and show the multiple MLS listings for a given property.

That said – maybe MLS would prevent Redfin from doing this.

At present, Redfin uses an MLS data feed as its primary source for listings. It is rare that there is any mention of a previous listing in that data, hence the lack of that info on the Redfin listings page. Most realtors are knowledgeable about what has been on the market in a specific area, and should be able to advise you about repeaters. But I will also mention the interest of our readers to add this feature. Unfortunately the new update is releasing tomorrow, so it may be some time before it can be added (if it is even possible).

And, actually, the MLS does track the sales price of a home after it has closed.

Matt from Redfin here. You’re all having a lively discussion!

With regards to Redfin feature plans, we’ll be adding a feature that show’s a home’s listing history since it’s past sale in our next release. Look for it around October.

Matt

Lead Product Manager – Search

As a point of info, I live in a multi-unit apt building in n. berkeley. The rents for a 2bd/1ba unit in our “typical” building (older ugly box) have gone up 35% in the last six months: Someone who rented in this month paid apx 35% more than someone who rented an *identical* unit 6 months ago.

Matt – Thanks for the adding a listing history, that will make this much easier.

As for the earlier comments on rentals, the two most egregiously overpriced rentals have partly come to their senses.

910 Contra Costa now asking $4400 a month down from $5500 two weeks ago.

1050 Oxford went from $5000 a month to $4300.

People with high carrying costs (recent buyers) seem to think they are going to be able to pass those on to renters, that is not going to happen. I am seeing it not happen every day. Even those I mention above will eventually rent for less than that.

There is a reality in behavioral studies that shows people don’t like to sell below what they think the market bears, even if it is the smartest thing for them to do at the time. Some people just take longer figuring out what the market will bear.

suit, don’t dislike me. I by the skin of one’s teeth after to get some money… plea me by the skin of one’s teeth one more time.
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