Intero Real Estate Services, Inc. the obvious choice for industry icon

Alain Pinel, the renowned real estate entrepreneur whose name is on the façade of a leading national real estate company, has returned to Northern California and will serve as Senior Vice President and Managing Officer of Intero Real Estate Services, a premier real estate brokerage company headquartered in the Silicon Valley.

In his new role, Pinel will use his experience and past success in facilitating Intero’s Estate and Luxury markets, nationally and internationally.

“I have a passion for this business”, said Pinel, “I am excited to begin a new project with an outstanding brokerage and a progressive leadership team. I look forward to joining forces with Intero and working with their Luxury Brand.”

Pinel’s 30 years in the real estate business have made him a leader with a solid track record for success:

•   In the ’80s, while EVP and General Manager of Fox & Carskadon, then the largest residential real estate firm in the area, the firm tripled its volume of sales (over $3B) and emerged as one of the top companies in the country as well as a regional high-end real estate leader.

•   In 1990, as founder, chairman and CEO of Alain Pinel Realtors, he reinvented the marketing of high-end properties around international advertising and state-of-the-art technology, before selling the firm with his two partners to spend a few years in Europe.

•   Through the end of 1994, Alain Pinel was in Paris, in charge of the commercial activities of Sefimeg, the largest real estate entity listed on the French stock exchange with a portfolio of over 9,000 apartments and 3 million square feet of leased commercial space.

•   In 1995, Coldwell Banker brought him back to California. As SVP for the San Francisco, Peninsula & Silicon Valley region until 2002, Pinel put incredible new records on the books for the company with a sales volume of $13 billion in 2000 and 14,000 closed residential sales.

•   In 2002, together with three partners, he founded Imminence, a start-up that changed the way real estate is done in France and neighboring countries.  With a core business built around the MLS system, he provided a menu of marketing, financial and productivity tools to the industry.

•   From 2008 to the Fall of 2011, while SVP & General Manager in Massachusetts for William Raveis, the 10th largest real estate firm in the U.S., the company saw its market share jump 50%. It was voted “Best real estate company in Massachusetts” four years in a row.

Mr. Pinel is also a former VP of FIABCI, the International Real Estate Federation in Northern California, and former VP of the French-American Chamber of Commerce.

“We are thrilled to have Alain Pinel as part of the Intero team”, said Intero Real Estate Services Founder, President & CEO Gino Blefari. “Alain is a seasoned real estate veteran with tremendous knowledge and experience in the industry and we look forward to having his expertise added to our Estate and Luxury market strategy.  His extraordinary level of professionalism will continue to lead and expand the Intero brand as a household name locally and abroad.”

Recently, Governor Jerry Brown signed into law all of the five natural gas transmission pipeline safety bills passed this year by the Legislature. The new laws place California in the national forefront of pipeline safety awareness. In addition, the laws bring into sharper focus the lessons learned from the deadly gas transmission pipeline explosion one year ago in San Bruno that killed eight people, and destroyed 38 homes and damaged 61 others. The laws protect California communities by:

• setting new standards for emergency preparedness and communicating pipeline hazards to emergency responders
• placing automatic shut-off valves in vulnerable areas on gas pipelines that run under highly populated areas or over earthquake faults, and
• ensuring that gas companies pressure test transmission lines.

The five bills signed by the Governor are Assembly Bill 56 and Senate Bills 44, 216, 705 and 879. That only one of the bills faced any opposition in the Legislature is a measure of the broad public interest in pipeline hazards and support for pipeline safety in California.

In August 2011, the National Transportation Safety Board unanimously agreed that the San Bruno accident was caused by a “litany of failures” by the pipeline’s owner, Pacific Gas & Electric Co. (PG&E), as well as weak oversight by regulators.

PG&E Notification May Create Actual Knowledge Liability for Sellers

Responding to the public outcry for information about pipeline locations after the San Bruno explosion, PG&E earlier this year notified the owners or occupants of 2.5 million California addresses that they are located within 2000 feet of a PG&E gas transmission pipeline — which could make this fact material to future Buyers of those properties.

Four words a seller never wants to hear. And a message that we, as realtors don’t enjoy delivering to our clients.

However, it must be said, time and again, that this is a market of supply and demand. Influenced by economic factors, the job market, mortgage rates, and buyer attitude.

Supply and demand. Supply and demand. Supply and demand. Let’s face it, if no one comes forth offering you the price you want …. your chances of getting your price are slim. The only person who feels it’s worth that price…is you.  And hence, your home is overpriced.

Would it have been overpriced if you tried to sell it in 2004? Probably not, but guess what, the market (and world) has changed, and those “good old days” are long gone.

If your agent is a good agent, he/she will tell you what you NEED to hear, not what you want to hear. An agent who purposely overprices a home just to get the listing is doing the seller an immense disservice. It’s what we call, in our industry, “buying a listing.”

“But my agent sold more homes in this area than anyone else”.

That should only be the beginning. What’s more valuable — an agent who listed 32 homes and sold 25 – or an agent who listed twelve homes and sold all twelve.  So you need to ask yourself some questions: how many of his/her listings did not sell? How many were reduced over and over before they were sold? How long were the houses on the market?

It’s all about supply and demand.  And pricing your home right the first time is key.

File this under the Alannis Morrissette “isn’t it ironic” category.

Founder and former CEO of ForSalebyOwner.com, Colby Sambrotto listed his 2,000 square foot New York condominium on his own through online classified ads and FSBO sites, but after six months, he opted to hire New York broker Jesse Buckler who immediately advised a price change as the listing was not attracting the right buyer.

After giving up on the DIY route, Sambrotto’s decision to hire a broker led to attracting multiple offers, closing for $150,000 over the original asking price. The Wall Street Journal reports the listing sold for $2.15 million including a 6% commission.

The news stands as an enormous validation of the real estate profession and while some may tease, it is no laughing matter and the former FSBO CEO made a good financial decision.

AGBeat columnist Herman Chan said, “If people want to take a stab at For Sale By Owner (ie FSBO), go for it. But well over 80% of FSBO’s eventually have to list with an real estate agent to get their house sold. It’s harder than it looks!”

Marlow Harris, Seattle Residential and Investment Consultant at Coldwell Banker Bain Associates told AGBeat, “The ForSaleByOwner.com founder’s dilemma is one we see quite often and is not unusual. Trying to sell your own property yourself or using a discount brokerage, is not the solution for everyone. Unusual properties, properties in the higher price range, these are more difficult to sell and often require specialization.”

Harris continues, “We see these choices across the board, from single family homes to huge housing developments. For instance, Vulcan, one of Paul Allen’s companies which has invested heavily in Redfin, does not use Redfin to market their many condominium projects. They use traditional real estate firms such as John L. Scott, Williams Marketing and Matrix Real Estate, finding that the do-it-yourself approach to real estate just doesn’t work for these types of sales.”

House-hunting can be exhilarating and simultaneously cumbersome. Let’s say you’re offered a job here in Silicon Valley, but are completely unfamiliar with the multitude of local neighborhoods, of which there are hundreds. You may feel in over your head. One way to lighten your load is to use the process of elimination and prioritize housing by neighborhood. The neighborhood, after all, will heavily effect how you live your life or enjoy your house.

Surroundings

First, get in your car and take a joyride around the block. Check out the demographic. If you have kids, you might scope the scene for children playing in yards or a nearby playground. Also take a look at the yards and the appearances of the homes surrounding your house.

In the spirit of exploring your surroundings, visit a local coffee shop or restaurant and mingle with the locals. There is no better way to get to know an area than to get to know the people living in it.

If you’re unable to visit the neighborhood in person until much later, research it using Google maps or ask your realtor to send you pictures of the area.

Commute

Unless you desire a daily headache, try choosing a neighborhood near your place of work and away from the trials of rush hour traffic. Consider public transportation and you surrounding amenities. Where is the nearest grocery store? Post office? Mall?

Safety

The most important aspect of any neighborhood is its degree of safety. You don’t only want to know that you’re safe, you want to feel like you’ve chosen a neighborhood that will keep your family out of harm’s way. Research areas before you take the time to visit. You can research neighborhoods by using various websites like Family Watchdog which pinpoints sex offenders, Spotcrime.com which gives you the exact locations of crimes reported within the area, and Everyblock.com which specializes in the crime rates of larger, urban areas.

There a many ways to go about narrowing down your housing options, definitely don’t ignore the neighborhood as one of the criteria. More important than buying a great house is feeling a part of the community that surrounds it.

James Kim writes for Austin Real Estate service Homecity.com. HomeCity combines powerful online Austin MLS search technology and other online tools with personalized real estate services to provide clients with the knowledge they need to make the right buying and selling decisions.

Starting this past Friday, July 1st, carbon monoxide detectors must be installed, consistent with new construction standards or according to the approved instructions for the detectors, in all existing single-family dwelling units. All other dwelling units (such as apartments) must have proper carbon monoxide detectors no later than January 1, 2013.

For home sellers? This means you need to make sure your home has a CO detector prior to closing escrow.

The new regulation also creates disclosure requirements with respect to carbon monoxide detectors. Currently, sellers of residential properties must provide the buyer with a Transfer Disclosure Statement (TDS). The TDS requires the seller to answer a variety of inquiries as to features of the property. The statute amended the TDS such that, effective January 1, 2011, the seller will have to verify whether or not the property contains one or more carbon monoxide detectors.

The “how and when did this happen?”: on May 7, 2010, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed into law Senate Bill 183 (Lowenthal), a bill that requires the placement of carbon monoxide detectors in all California dwelling units. The bill also requires that the presence or absence of these devices must be disclosed when residential real estate is transferred.

This law deals with existing housing. (New construction standards are set by other state agencies.) It covers every “dwelling unit intended for human occupancy” which means single-family housing, factory-built homes, condominiums, motels, hotels, dormitories, and dwelling units in “multiple-unit dwelling unit buildings” (apartment houses). It applies to every dwelling unit that has “a fossil fuel burning heater or appliance, fireplace, or an attached garage”.

“Fossil fuel” means “coal, kerosene, oil, wood, fuel gases, and other petroleum or hydrocarbon products, which emit carbon monoxide as a byproduct of combustion.”

The requirements are that such dwelling units will have to have installed a “carbon monoxide device” that is designed to detect carbon monoxide and produce a “distinct, audible alarm.” The device may be battery-powered, a plug in, or hard-wired with a battery backup. The carbon monoxide detector may be combined with a smoke detector, but, if it is, it must emit “an alarm or voice warning in a manner that clearly differentiates between a carbon monoxide alarm warning and a smoke detector warning.”

Got this great data from our CEO, Gino Blefari, in a recent email.  In short, come September 30, look for the Fed to lower our loan limits (again!).

There’s a new threat in town – a proposed move by the government that especially threatens the viability of some Bay Area housing markets, which tend to be high-priced compared to the rest of the country.

The race to figure out what to do with the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac the two “too-big-to-fail” mortgage financiers that historically have had a direct line to taxpayer’s pockets has landed on a debate about how to lower the loan limits that the government-backed entities will guarantee. In English? The fact that these two entities will back a loan for up to $729,750 in high-cost states like California enables lenders to make loans this large. Without it, lenders would likely skip the risk.

The $729,750 limit came about three years ago in order to help borrowers in high-cost areas get into loans. When you live in a place where the median home price is in the $600,000s, it’s a much-needed aspect to being able to buy a home. Without it, loans of this size and scale tend to be a lot costlier, carry higher interest rates, and can demand down payments of up to 30% – a sizable chunk of change that’s unrealistic for a lot of borrowers.

Well, folks, the time has come to debate lowering the limit once again. If the lowered amounts being talked about go through, it means that in a place like Monterey County, for example, the government would only back a loan for up to $483,000. (See Monterey County as an example in this New York Times story on the topic.)

Basically, it’s going to pull a whole bunch of buyers out of the market and put downward pressure on prices.

The two sides of the debate go like this:

1. Why should home buyers in high-cost areas be penalized? Moreover – why should sellers also be penalized by taking a large group buyers out of the market. This move would substantially slow down recovery efforts in the market. Private lenders will likely not be able to bear all the risk to keep these loans in the market at the same pace as previous years when they were backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.Vs.

2. Why should the government continue to back high-priced mortgages? The private market will still be able to make loans to this portion of buyers in high-cost areas. Tax payers don’t want the government’s role in the mortgage market to be as big as it has been. It costs them too much money.

The loan limits were $417,000 everywhere in the U.S. before the economy tanked in 2008. New limits would be determined by various formulas – so they’ll be different for each area.

The topic presents a difficult choice. I don’t think we should be kicking the market while it’s down and certainly lowering limits to the extreme noted in the Monterey County example would cause a hardship. But I also agree that the government’s role in the mortgage market should be minimized a bit to take the strain off tax payers when things go south.

The National Association of Realtors is lobbying to extend the loan guarantees. I think this is the right way to go. Let’s at least let the markets ride out the rest of the downhill battle and deal with foreclosures. Then we can start to lower these limits to more reasonable levels for both sides. Doing it too soon, though, would be perhaps the riskiest move to come out of regulators thus far.

Did you know???….$737M of single family homes were sold in San Mateo County in Q1-2010, and in Q1 of this year, that number was $736.6M?   Or that the average price of a home in San Carlos was almost $75,000 more this past quarter, versus the same period last year?

Market stats, market stats, and more — plus, another esteemed guest!

Back for his 4th time visiting us in the sound studios of San Carlos is the always interesting Adam O’Donnell, from Guaranteed Rate…He again rejoins the first and longest running real estate podcast in the SF Bay Area, The Gory Details, for its April/May 2011 podcast.

As always, Adam brings useful information and perspectives on today’s mortgage environment.

Click away below, because the April/May 2011 edition of “The Gory Details Podcast” is now available!

(1) iTunes users, get it right here

(2) Or get it at http://edgory.podshow.com

(3) And, always available at http://www.edgory.com

Happy listening!

Today’s post comes courtesy of our very own Rick Soukoulis, Chairman and CEO of Intero Mortgage, who always has great ‘big picture’ perspectives.

I get asked quite often if the nightmare in Japan is going to bring about global economic problems that will halt our recovery and maybe even send us back into a downward spiral again.

Let me be very clear on this:  Nothing of the sort will happen!

The tsunami and the nuclear reactor disaster have been devastating to the Japanese, but in the strange ways that global markets work, it will most likely work to actually assist the U.S. economy.

The first thing to know is that during scary times, there is a so-called flight to quality.  Institutions around the world want to own only the safest bonds, and we are already starting to see huge inflows of dollars into our debt markets.

Some of it is institutions selling Japanese bonds and buying U.S. Treasuries, and some of it is money that wasn’t invested in Japan, but whose managers want the absolute safest place to put their money.

I’m not just speculating here.  History shows that this happens over and over again, that nervous money always finds its way into U.S. Treasuries and other debt instruments.

When the Southeast Asian Banks all started failing in 1997, tens of billions were moved to the United States markets, and all that buying drove our rates down.

In 1998 when Russia defaulted, the same thing happened. Money flowed out of Rubles and into dollars, and our rates dropped significantly again.

In 2007-8, virtually every country around the globe had massive financial problems, and despite our housing bubble bursting and Lehman failing, we were still perceived as the world’s number one safe haven.  Hundreds of billions of money flooded our markets, and as you recall, this drove rates down further than anyone had ever seen.

It was this move that created the unheard of level of 4.5% mortgage rates.

There was a book called “This Time It’s Different” by Reinhart & Rogoff which looked at financial crises going back over 800 years, and it’s always the same.  Nervous money always goes where it’s safest.

A secondary aspect will be new revenues for American companies involved in the rebuilding of Japan.  Caterpillar will be supplying earth moving equipment and cranes, Bechtel will be rebuilding bridges and dams, and GE will be working on their nuclear reactors.

There is always something to worry about, and housing is very sensitive to the slightest changes in the economy.

But the truly good news is that rates are not going to go up because of Japan, and they are more likely to go down.  This may be a slight stumble for the global recovery, but perversely, all the reconstruction might actually be the stimulus needed to advance it.

A Peninsula community meeting on agency responses to mountain lion incidents will take place this Wednesday evening, April 13^th, starting promptly at 7:30 PM.  The panel will be held at Sequoia High School’s beautiful Carrington Performing Arts Center in Redwood City. This will discussion will include both a wildlife presentation and a policy discussion.

Confirmed panelists:

• Linda Netsch (moderator), Lecturer in Stanford Law School’s mediation program and Founder, Align Consulting, Redwood City
• Marc Kenyon, California Department of Fish & Game Statewide Coordinator for Mountain Lions and Bears
• Zara McDonald, Executive Director, Felidae Conservation Fund (Sausalito)
• “Doc” Hale, consulting biologist to UC Berkeley and East Bay Regional Parks District
• Dan Mulholland, Captain, Redwood City Police Department
• Mike Wyss, Captain, Operations & Investigations, San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office
• Jeremy Dunbar, District Director to Assemblyman Rich Gordon

Parking for this community meeting is in the lot at 1201 Brewster Avenue, or on nearby side streets.  Carrington Hall is located several buildings due north from the lot.