Berkeley Hills Agents Don't Spill the Beans

"If the end is right it justifies the beans!" ~Stephen Sondheim

Did you know? Every time you buy or sell a house with a Realtor from Berkeley Hills Realty, part of the proceeds from your transaction goes to a local charity. That donation is made wisely, too. 

For example, at Alameda County Community Food Bank, every dollar donated is worth five spending dollars to buy food for hungry families. Here’s agent and broker associate Nancy Mueller taking a break from packing beans with other volunteers to present Charles Beyer, Volunteer Manager at the Alameda County Community Food Bank, with a check from Berkeley Hills Realty agents and clients. 

Nancy volunteers monthly with the food bank and she invites you to come along! You can contact Nancy at 510.524.9888 ext. 20 or email her at nancy@berkhills.com . You can also contact the Alameda County Community Food Bank at (510) 635-3663 to volunteer or donate.

How my Coffee Shop Increased the Value of my Home

Fifteen years ago, Buyers looking for the Bay Area "dream house" were likely to tout a bay view as a must-have. In today's market a view is nice, but more and more buyers are willing to sacrifice a fleeting glimpse of the Golden Gate Bridge for the more practical ability to walk to a local coffee shop.

A new study, Walking the Walk, came out in August 2009 with a subtitle; "How Walkability Raises Home Values in U.S. Cities." The research shows that homes in walkable neighborhoods are worth more money in nearly all metropolitan areas. And yes, coffee shops count. The Walk Score algorithm used in the study looks at 13 categories; coffee shop, grocery store, movie theater, park, bookstore, drug store, clothing/music store, restaurant, bar, school, library, fitness and hardware store. The study author, Joe Cortright, states, "An additional one point improvement in average Walk Scores adds between $700 and $3,000 to the value of a typical house, holding all other factors constant" (Remind me to tip my barista.) Berkeley Hills Realty Agents know from anecdotal experience that this is true, and now we are happy to have direct data to point towards.

Local amenities not only support the value of our housing stock, but also add to the joy of our daily lives. It just feels good to live and work in a vibrant community with diverse offerings. Not so good, however, is watching this marathon recession take its toll on our local treasures.

Noticing too many vacant tables at our favorite restaurants, impassioned Bay Area Realtors have recently taken up the cause. Via twitter and facebook a couple of Berkeley agents with the handles @berkhills and @serkes have started a proactive campaign. The first Realtor Feedup happened last night in support of our local restaurants. Realtors met at a local British style pub, the Kensington Circus, to start a weekly movement in direct support of our local eateries. The intent is to support a new local restaurant each week-- by arriving in mass and paying by cash.

Support your favorite walkable businesses and protect the value of your own home while you're at it. Better yet, form your own dinner club and pay in cash. It doesn't cost you any more to pay cash, but it does save the restaurant on bank charges.

To find out your homes walkability rating via the algorithms used in the "Walking the Walk" study, go to WalkScore.com. If you wish to participate in the next East Bay Realtor Feedup, we are headed to Bistro 1491 this next Thursday at 6:00. To get breaking Realtor Feedup updates, follow @berkhills and @serkes on Twitter.

Introducing Our New Agent - Auggie Wilms

“We’re very happy that Auggie decided to join our company,” says BHR co-owner Tracy Sichterman. “I’ve rarely met an agent with so much energy and drive. Auggie has a great work ethic, and I think his clients will be delighted with his results.”

Auggie Wilms is an agent who really knows how to combine the ingredients of a good real estate deal. A former chef, Wilms has spent two decades combining interesting ingredients with the same talent and skill that he now brings to his real estate activity.

It almost sounds like the setup for a joke, right? “A chef walks into a real estate office... ” But it’s no joke, and it actually began a quarter century ago with the chef’s mother. In 1985, Berkeley Hills Realty co-owner Nancy Mueller helped Wilms’s mom Barbara Clark buy a house on Pine Street in Berkeley. In 2006, Nancy did the same for Auggie, helping him buy a house on Monterey Avenue. Wilms says the experience was so positive that he decided to go into real estate himself.

Aside for a brief foray to Los Angeles, Wilms is Bay Area born and raised. But after graduating from Berkeley High, he set his sights on the Big Apple and enrolled in New York’s famed French Culinary Institute. Along with slicing and dicing, Wilms learned a valuable life lesson: the importance of doing the job right. “They were very strict at the school,” he says. “You follow a classic recipe, and you don’t mess with it.”

Returning to the Bay Area in 1987, Wilms started his two decades of pleasing local palates. Among other places, he worked as a sous chef at Masa’s in San Francisco and at Lalime’s in Berkeley. In 1994, he started a business smoking seafood for local restaurants, the Ohlone Smoke Company in Emeryville.

Ohlone Smoke scored a major hit in a taste competition in December 2001 sponsored by the San Francisco Chronicle. “We beat everybody,” says Wilms, “including companies much larger than ours.” Wilms says he still hands out samples of smoked fish to his present-day clients. “I give them a small package with my card stapled to it.”

The next few years brought a series of momentous turning points for Wilms. He sold Ohlone Smoke Company, got divorced, bought his Monterey Avenue home, and hung up his chef’s toque for good. “It was time for a change,” he says simply.

But why go into real estate? How does a person move to escrows from escargots?

Wilms argues that his career switch isn’t as strange as it seems. “I’ve always been interested in building and architecture,” he says, “and I’m a hands-on kind of guy. I’ve done a lot of work on my own house, everything from attending zoning meetings to nailing up sheetrock.” In addition, Wilms has lived and worked here all his life, and has a wealth of knowledge about the local real estate scene. “I’m good with people, and I bring tremendous energy to my work,” he says. “As in cooking, my focus is on getting the job done, and doing it right.”

Auggie Wilms can be reached at Berkeley Hills Realty at 510-524-9888 x44, 415-948-6323 (cell), and by e-mail at auggie@berkhills.com.

Multiple Micro Markets

By Arlene Baxter

A month ago in this space we reported on a jaw-dropping example of over-bidding in what the mass media still describes as a “buyers’ market.” A two-bedroom, one-bath home in Rockridge, listed for $799K had received 17 offers. It sold this week for $930K, 16% over list. Yesterday I was one of six agents presenting offers on a property in North Oakland, and I routinely hear of colleagues who are presenting one of three to six offers on homes. That’s unremarkable for those of us selling in Albany, Kensington, North Berkeley, Elmwood or Rockridge. What was a bit unusual in this case was that the house was just one block off a part of Telegraph Ave. with fairly high crime statistics. And only a few blocks away several homes are in foreclosure, and others have had several price reductions.

The home I presented an offer for was very charming with lovely period details and a tastefully updated kitchen, a feature that often translates into considerable interest. The overall charm, plus a full basement, tantalized my clients, despite the fact that the price seemed quite high for the location. A dozen other buyers were attracted as well. And so, to be as competitive as possible, my clients decided to do a pre-inspection. At the high-point of the market this was one of several practices used to gain some advantage in the bidding. Some other aggressive practices were pre-emptive offers, and relative offers, both of which have re-emerged this spring. Conducting inspections in advance of presenting an offer allows buyers to go in without an inspection contingency, as they’ve already truly inspected the property. It means they have also spent around $600, and they and their agent have spent another four hours or so bonding with a property that they may not be able to buy.

Within the written disclosures, items may be mentioned as “possible areas of concern.” That’s a very different perspective than when a highly knowledgeable inspector points to a roof with missing shingles and says “this roof is shot: it needs replacing.” That was the recommendation for our charming bungalow. We also were shown a leaking, rusting water heater and an ancient boiler for a radiant heat system. It needed earthquake retrofitting, demolition of a chimney and various other smaller fixes‑-some inexpensive to deal with, some that could lead to a domino effect of other requirements. So my clients backed off from what they had anticipated offering. That put them in third place out of six, evidently well behind the first two offers.

The question on everyone’s mind is Why? Why, in a general atmosphere of doom and gloom regarding the lending industry, and when increasing numbers of short sales and foreclosures are appearing on the market, are there still pockets of such strength here in the East Bay? I believe it’s a combination of factors:

1). Sub-prime loans never were much of a factor in the hotter locations

2). We have no room here to build new developments, the property types that have suffered the most in many parts of California

3). This is an area of intrinsic desirability. It is physically beautiful. It has interesting topography. Within minutes we can be in the woods of Tilden or at the Bay. And we are surrounded by mostly attractive, and in some cases positively gorgeous homes. As Realtors we have the opportunity to represent beautiful architecture, including the works of some true masters. That gives our jobs, as well as our clients, a kind of satisfaction that does not exist in the areas where foreclosures now dominate.

4). We have easy access to interesting, colorful, delicious things that are hard to find in so many areas. The large population of immigrants attracted to the San Francisco area has produced remarkable cultural diversity in our part of the East Bay. In practical terms that has resulted in the broad availability of many types of ethnic music, phenomenal ethnic cuisine at reasonable prices and celebrations from many cultures that have become now part of our experience.

5). Berkeley especially, but other academic settings within the East Bay as well, have attracted huge numbers of people who are attracted to “the life of the mind.” And finally. . .

6). It’s the wisteria. I am only partly kidding. More to come. . .

All photos copyright © Arlene Baxter 2008.

We Are What We Eat

You gotta love a University town! Two days ago at UC Berkeley, The co-founder and CEO of Whole Foods, John Mackey delivered a multimedia presentation of the Past, Present, and Future of Food.

(Click here to watch the webcast.)

The presentation did a fabulous job of outlining our cultural trends in regard to food production. I love mapping trends. We can try to predict the economic growth potential of real estate investments based on such social influences. Property values tend to follow the ripple effects of basic city growth patterns. City growth patterns follow predictable trends. John Mackey outlined food production trends by mapping a time line of six different eras. What resonated in the lecture for me was the sixth era, Ecological. The ecological era is certainly upon us. In real estate this trend includes green architecture and building practices (both the construction and renovations of homes, see my post on historic renovations.) In the larger community, buyers are looking to shop locally and the availability of local ammenities has become more important than ever. (click here to read, A Hop Skip and a Jump in Property Values.)

The strength of the Bay Area economy can be measured by the luxury of choice when it comes to local food. Renowned restaurants and specialty markets not withstanding, choice is a privilege that can lead directly the better health of the population; specifically, through the availability of good local produce and quality packaged foods. In the Bay Area we have many resources beyond Whole Foods including; local farmer's markets, The Berkeley Bowl, Farmer Joe's Market (in the Laurel and Dimond Districts of Oakland), the The Food Mill (two locations on MacArthur Blvd. in Oakland), Lakeshore Natural Foods, plus Berkeley and El Cerrito Natural.

Local Flavor: A Bay Area Lifestyle Report

On KQED this afternoon, there was an interesting conversation on food (near and dear to my heart and stomach.) While driving, I caught a snippet of a conversation with Russ Parsons, author of How to Pick a Peach. The interview discussed the merits of seasonal eating. Specifically, how eating seasonally encourages a quarterly menu change (keeping your taste buds from being bored) and creates a cultural epiphany inspired by the miraculously great taste of produce, only to be experienced when it's eaten at its seasonal prime. I was touched almost palatably, in a way that had me instantly salivate and appreciate. First, I can't wait to buy a ripe peach. Secondly, I humbly thank our own local celebrity, Chef Alice Waters, who is largely responsible for the richness and availability of local produce here in Northern California. I can't do her justice so I feel compelled to quote Wikipedia here:

Alice Louise Waters (born 28 April 1944 in Chatham, New Jersey), one of the best-known and most influential American chefs since the 1970s, is credited with single-handedly creating a culinary revolution in America. She is the founder and co-owner of Chez Panisse, the original "California Cuisine" restaurant in Berkeley,
California, as well as the informal Cafe Fanny in West Berkeley. A champion of locally-grown and fresh ingredients, she has been credited with creating and developing California cuisine and has written or co-written several books on the subject, including the influential Chez Panisse Cooking (written with then-chef Paul Bertolli). She has also promoted organic and small farm products heavily in her restaurants, in her books, and in her Edible Schoolyard program in the public schools. Her ideas for "edible education" have been introduced into the entire Berkeley school system, and with the current crisis in childhood obesity, have attracted the attention of the national media.

Waters advocates eating locally produced foods that are in season, because she believes that the international shipment of mass-produced food is both harmful to the environment and produces an inferior product for the consumer.

It is hard to talk about seasonal produce, without shamelessly promoting our local Farmer's Markets. Our Farmer's Markets travel around the East Bay with a scheduled regularity, making it is possible to bring the freshest possible local produce to your dinner table for each night's dinner. (Last night I personally enjoyed to most spectacular mushroom ceviche; with fresh oyster mushrooms, heirloom tomatoes, cilantro, lime and a bit jalapeno pepper.)