Most California Homeowners Expect a Price Correction Within Two Years

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  • Seventy-nine percent of California homeowners believe there will be a price correction by 2020.

  • Sixty percent of U.S. homeowners think that buyers in their neighborhood are currently paying too much.

  • Nearly two-thirds of Americans think that people who buy a home today will have buyer’s remorse within the next year.

 

 

California’s median single-family home price reached a new high in May, but most owners in the state believe that the rapid appreciation seen over the past few years will not last much longer.

That’s according to survey results from ValueInsured, which found that seven in 10 Americans believe that a housing correction will occur by 2020. Seventy-one percent of homeowners believe that the current price run-up is not sustainable compared with 65 percent of those that do not own a home.

In states that have seen robust price appreciation, homeowners are even more certain a correction is looming. About 80 percent of owners in California and Texas predict slowing prices over the next few years.

Similarly, 60 percent of homeowners said that people who were buying in their neighborhood now are overpaying. About two-thirds of respondents felt that they themselves would be paying too much if they were to sell their home now and buy again, which ValueInsured says is dissuading many prospective sellers from putting their properties on the market.

High prices and the prospect of slowing appreciation mean that most Americans — 62 percent — expect that people who buy a home in the current market will have buyer’s remorse within the next year. One-quarter of those surveyed believe that the buyer’s remorse will mirror that of those who purchased before the housing crash began 10 years ago.

Speaking of buyer’s remorse: Paying too much for a home is not the only regret that homebuyers with children might have, according to a new realtor.com blog post. While most prospective buyers who have or are planning to have kids likely consider school districts when making a decision, there are some aspects of a home and neighborhood that parents often overlook, including:

  • Master bedroom placement for easy access to a nursery
  • Sidewalks to buffer children from traffic
  • An open floor plan and a clear view of the backyard to make it easier to monitor children’s activities
  • A flat lot and street so that kids can easily ride bicycles
  • Safe heating systems to protect children from burns
  • A walkable neighborhood to minimize time spent packing a car with strollers and bags
  • Good neighbors

Bay Area Is High on List of Best Beach Towns, Led by … Mill Valley!

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Quick: Name the best, most livable oceanfront beach town in California. If you picked Mill Valley, you would  be correct, according to the number-crunchers at the personal finance website WalletHub, who count Marin County‘s Mill Valley as the fourth most livable beach town in all the United States — and No. 1 in California.

 

Wait a minute, we hear you protest. Mill Valley a beach town? Stinson Beach, sure, and Moss Beach, but — Mill Valley? It’s a wonderful place to live, but …

Well, Mill Valley does have shoreline on Richardson Bay, so technically it is a beach town, and Richardson Bay does connect to the Pacific Ocean via San Francisco Bay, and there’s no question that it is a fabulous place to call home. And anyway, it is one of nine Bay Area communities on WalletHub’s new list of Best Beach Towns to Live In.

WalletHub counts 205 communities across the United States on its 2018 list of most livable beach towns. It compared them on 58 indicators of livability grouped in six categories: affordability, weather, safety, economy, education and health, and quality of life.

Mill Valley places high in all categories, scoring second in economy, fifth in safety, 31st in quality of life, 35th in affordability, 41st in education and health, and 49th in weather. The only beachfront towns that ranked higher on the list were Lahaina, Hawaii, and Naples and Sarasota, Florida.

Other Bay Area communities on the 2018 list of most livable beach towns:

Additional facts gleaned from the WalletHub data:

  • Daly City has the second-lowest foreclosure rate among the 205 communities on the list.
  • Mill Valley has the third-highest percentage of insured residents.
  • Richmond has the lowest percentage of for-sale waterfront homes.
  • Alameda has the third-lowest water temperature, while Richmond has the fourth-lowest.

Happy Independence Day From Pacific Union

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All of us at Pacific Union would like to wish you a very happy Fourth of July and wish our great nation a happy 242nd birthday. Whether you took the holiday as an opportunity to squeeze in a vacation or you are simply sticking around the Bay Area to catch the fireworks displays and hit a backyard barbecue, we hope your day off is relaxing and safe.

We will return later this week with more news and exclusive content from the always exciting world of Golden State real estate!