Living Large with Less

by Rebecca Nemeth

  
Anyone who’s looked for their first home in Albany, Berkeley, El Cerrito, or Kensington (or wants to downsize into something more manageable) has noticed that we have homes in an array of sizes. While most homes here begin at 900 square feet and go up from there (typically up to about 3,000 square feet), we do have a few that are teensy. I’ve seen a few as small as 500 square feet.

Why would someone build something so small?
Sure, its possible that people just had less “stuff” in 1920 than they have now, but have you noticed that even smaller “tiny houses” are getting increasingly popular now?

The historic precedent – Why Albany has some Relatively Tiny Homes
In Albany, for example, the city subdivided some lots into parcels of 3,800 or 3,300 square feet, and even as small as 2,500 square feet. Fortunately builders like Charles MacGregor took on building nice quality homes on these small scale lots in the 1920′s and 1930′s. This allowed people who were probably then “blue collar” homeowners to afford a nicely built home with details like dining room built-in cabinetry, curved archways, recessed niches, and beautiful fireplaces. The layouts follow a typical Craftsman style, with logical layouts that don’t waste space, and that integrate the kitchen, living room, and dining room into more open public spaces than Victorian homes did. These single story homes were usually 850 to 1,000 square feet, huge compared to today’s 65 (yes, 65) to 500 square foot Tiny Homes.

Urban planners and environmentalists will tell you, small is beautiful. Here are a few reasons why.

Smaller homes make it easier to have strong, interconnected communities. Smaller homes can be built closer together, on smaller lots (such as the semi-urban lots that are common in Albany and Berkeley), making it easier to support something like Albany and Berkeley’s Solano Avenue, an old school type of Main Street with locally-owned businesses, and an array of city parks. You’ll find many neighborhood shopping districts and parks like these throughout the 1920′s era parts of the East Bay.

Smaller homes make it easier to have good public transit. Because more people can live closer together, the community can support an excellent, robust public transit network with features like our BART trains and AC Transit buses.

Smaller homes are better for the environment. From an energy conservation standpoint, smaller homes use fewer resources to build, require less energy to heat and cool, and the owners will be using furniture and items that serve double or even triple purpose (so they’re buying less furniture, etc.).

Smaller homes are easier and more affordable to build yourself (vs. a larger new home).
Plans for many smaller homes are readily available online, especially if you’re interested in the micro-size Tiny Homes that have become more popular in recent years. Cheap building plans, designs with an eye to energy efficiency and easy of use, fewer materials needed, and fewer “man” hours needed to build a home = a less expensive home.

Smaller homes more affordable to own. A smaller home = a smaller purchase price. That means you may be able to pay all cash and not have a mortgage, or have a very small mortgage. A smaller purchase price = smaller property taxes. And smaller homes also = smaller utility bills. Every heating and lighting dollar can go into usable space instead of that huge atrium or “living room” people don’t actually live in.

Smaller homes may be the best fit for the available empty lots and suit what city building codes will allow. In our area, any lot that could be built on in conventional ways has been built on. But you may find some smaller lots, or some that would accommodate a smaller home in part of the lot. Also, most cities limit the amount of living space you’re allowed to have relative to the size of a lot (for example, in Albany that ratio is 55% of the lot size). Many cities also have set-back requirements, which state how far from a house must be from the lot line or the neighbor’s house.

For more information check out these articles and blogs on Tiny Homes. Many include plans for building your own tiny house.

Yahoo article on “Five Tiny Homes You’ll Love”: http://realestate.yahoo.com/promo/5-tiny-homes-youll-love-big-time.html
Tiny House blog: http://tinyhouseblog.com/
Tiny Green Cabins: tinygreencabins.com/
Tiny House Design: www.tinyhousedesign.com/
Tiny Texas Houses: tinytexashouses.com/

Service With a Smile, Your Smile

by Tom Knight

There seems to be a trend these days: everything costs more and what you get is less.  OK, I know I’m just another “old guy” who remembers the “good old days”  when things like this were taken for granted: 

Fresh cold milk was delivered to your doorstep. Butter and cottage cheese too.

The gas station attendant not only pumped the gas, but cleaned the windshield, checked the oil and gave you a free map. Oh yeah, forgot to mention, gas was 35 cents per gallon.

Postage stamps were 5 cents, except for air mail: that was 7 cents. Mail never got lost and there was no such thing as “junk mail” to clutter up the mailbox. The mailman was a friend.

People actually used words like “please” and “thank you.” If you gave a gift, you could reasonably expect to receive a handwritten thank you note.

Everyone nowadays seems to be stressed out, in a hurry, and pissed off. That’s why it’s such a shocking experience to encounter old-fashioned service, so extraordinary these days. And that is why I wish to briefly acknowledge the outstanding service I recently received.

Men’s Wearhouse: I bought some good sports coats and dress shirts for work several years ago. The coats get heavy use with all the stuff I carry in my pockets, such as my real estate electronic key, my iPhone, business cards and my wallet. Recently I put my wallet in my coat pocket and it went right down to the bottom corner of my jacket. Something’s wrong with that! I decided to go back to the store with my coat. They said, “if you can wait just five minutes, we’ll have that fixed for you.” Indeed they did. The pocket was sewn back together, my coat was good as new, and there was no charge. Prompt, courteous, efficient service. Kuddos to the Men’s Wearhouse. I will return again and again.

Pastime Hardware:  It’s a crowded and busy place, and easy to see why. They have everything you could ever need or imagine and much more. But so does Home Depot. The difference? Pick a number, just like Baskin-Robbins. Your number will come up quickly and a well-informed employee will escort you to wherever it is in the store you need to go to find the item in question. Sometimes you might not even know what you need to solve a home repair, but never fear, they know the answer! In my case, I have an old swamp cooler up at my country house. The belt which drives the fan was starting to fray. The clerk took the old belt, measured it on a wall device, looked up the number, got a long pole and fetched the replacement belt from high on the wall. A couple of minutes and I was out of there. Kuddos to Pastime Hardware. They’ve got it all, including the best customer service anywhere.

I am a real estate agent at Berkeley Hills Realty. Nothing is more irritating to a buyer or seller than having to wait hours or worse yet, days for a return call. Not with our agents and not with me. I will answer your e-mail or phone call right away. It’s about “old-fashioned” customer service. Courtesy, caring, efficiency and professional expertise are the services we provide. Sometimes it’s good to be “old-fashioned.”

Tom Knight
Broker Associate
tom@berkhills.com
vm 510-524.9888 x56

DRE #01441406

Memories From El Cerrito’s Blake Street

by Tom Knight

In 1948 my parents bought a new 2 bedroom 1 bath house at 7210 Blake Street in El Cerrito for $9,000.

I was three and very eager to explore the rural neighborhood which seemed to me like a vast land.

There were a few older homes in the hood, but no sidewalks, curbs or gutters, and lots of puddles and streamlets in the winter. Much of the area was still open fields punctuated by an occasional barn. Across the street were row upon row of glass greenhouses marching up the hillside, inside of which grew roses and hot house tomatoes. As boys, we used to take small Leslie salt shakers, sneak into the greenhouses and sample the tomatoes for quality. They were good, very good! Another attraction was a huge pile of brilliant yellow sulfur which was apparently somehow important in the greenhouse operations. We used to combine some of this sulfur in old discarded wine bottles to concoct strange mixtures which would layer out in different colors after being shaken. I cannot tell you all of the other ingredients which were added to these bottles, though I do remember some of them. At the top of the hill above all the greenhouses was a large open concrete water reservoir full of big bullfrogs. Only a very tall fence topped with sharp wire kept us out. Those frogs were really big and very loud, especially at dusk.

Also across the street was an old horse ranch with barbed wire fences, piles of sawdust, old barns and buildings, and a creek running though the middle. Just recently I discovered that this was the fading remnant of the Poppy Hill Creamery. I never knew the hill we climbed had a name, but I do remember poppies and lupine growing there in the spring. In the summer the long grass turned brown and dry, becoming very slippery, making a terrifying downhill run on large piece of cardboard, at least until the El Cerrito Fire Department burned it as they did every year, supposedly to prevent wildfires. Clearly, this was prior to the era of air pollution control. Actually, the fire department in those days burned lots of things just for practice or to get rid of stuff, things like old barns and even the remnants of the Hutchison Quarry rock mill where the recycling center is now located. That was one HOT fire.

There were no trees on the hills. We planted those later when I was a Boy Scout. In fact, a motorcycle club used to conduct an annual hill climb race up the face of the hill, a dusty, noisy, raucous event, very impressive to a young boy. There’s nothing quite like watching a full size Harley cart-wheeling 300 or 400 feet downhill without the rider. It’s amazing no one got killed, although I’m not sure about that. The top of the hill was relatively flat and a truly great place to fly a kite, particularly in the summer when the fog would blow in though the Golden Gate. It was also a place littered with broken glass bottles, evidently from many late nights of drinking. It had the fabulous view of the twinkling lights of San Francisco across the bay in the distance, so must have been the perfect party spot. Unfortunately, I was too young to know about or participate in those sports.

Creeks were open, had banks of slippery gray-blue clay and often grew watercress which tasted peppery. In the winter after heavy rains the creeks were fascinating attractions and in places formed deep pools upon which we floated makeshift rafts. We also floated boats and sticks down streams, especially during fierce storms when the action was fast and muddy. Later, as creeks were put underground in large diameter cement pipes and culverts, we used to adventure down them on Flexies, dangerous sleds on wheels which were later outlawed due to so many gruesome and sometimes fatal accidents. These dark tunnel expeditions became less interesting as they filled with spiders and webs.

This time of year, the spring, a certain war game was played using readily available bombs: dirt bombs. These were only available when the grass was tall and green and the soil was still moist after spring rains, so large clods could be easily pulled from the earth. These “dirt bombs” could be hurled rather long distances with considerable accuracy and resembled comets with green tails of grass streaming behind lethal dirt balls. Usually the only damage was to pride and clothing, though once in awhile a rock embedded in the dirt could draw blood with a direct hit. There was plenty of motivation to aim well, but duck often. Makeshift forts of plywood were hastily erected for protection, and with a good neighborhood turnout, sides were taken and skirmishes turned into battles royale! Free fun for all.

Trees were always of interest. Large groves of Eucalyptus trees had peeling bark which was useful for various projects. Sometimes paper wasps would build large hanging pods high up on a outward extending branches, obvious targets for our slingshots. There seemed to be many more bees and beehives in those days and getting stung was a mark of courage in battle. Slingshots became of less interest once we were old enough for bows and arrows. I shudder to think now of how reckless and dangerous these “toys” were. One favorite was shooting an arrow straight up and dodging the arrow when it returned to ground at the same high velocity with which it was fired. Most of us survived.

Other trees on our mental map included neighbors’ fruit trees, particularly at harvest time. Mrs. Tingley next door had a green gage plum which was fabulous, well worth the climb. Yards were not fenced, so it was pretty much open picking season when things were ripe. Obviously part of the fun was stealing without being caught. We were actually rather innocent and didn’t take anything we didn’t eat. The Lauenroths had good apricots. Even the honeysuckle was sweet at the right time of year. There was a big bush on Navellier just north of Gladys I would sample every day on the way home from Castro School. For fragrance, it was hard to beat the knarly old pepper tree on Blake just below the Hackbarth’s house. Trees were landmarks, rope swings over the creek in some places, fresh fruit in others.

Snakes. You had to be quick, because they moved so fast through the grass. Once in awhile you could get lucky and find a pretty good dead one on the street which worked sufficiently well to scare the neighborhood girls. Actually, anything dead was of great interest and could be put to some use. This was an age of transition, from rural to urban. Fields gave way to sub-divisions. All aspects of construction held interest. You could put your initials in the wet cement of foundations and sidewalks. You could find lead from plumbing projects to re-melt into sinkers for fishing. Sand piles for chimney construction were perfect for jumping into from the second story window openings. Paint can lids were instantly transformed into flying saucers long before Frisbees were invented. Any open field would do for football or baseball. For basketball there was the Castro School playground, or if it rained, the Chung Mei Home had a real gym with the most amazingly shiny hardwood floor. They were so generous to share such a treasure. It was always a fabulously good day to play there.

Roller skates were quite different then. They were all metal and had metal clips which you would tighten down with a skate key over the soles of your shoe. These were the toy of choice to make use of the all new sidewalks going in. Those metal wheels on the cement sidewalk were loud! Bicycles were a heavenly invention. I didn’t have one for awhile, but realized that an older girl across the street had one she never rode. It didn’t bother me in the least that Carolyn Bowman’s bike was a “girl’s bike.” The first thing I would do after I got home and changed clothes was to go across the street and politely ask if I could ride Carolyn’s bike, which I rode until dark and dinner time. I could never thank her enough for that great privilege. When I got my first bike the next Christmas, the Bowmans were probably quite relieved. My biggest ride: on I-80 out to Hercules and back before it opened to cars. I also used it every day to deliver the Berkeley Daily Gazette. I can still fold a paper into the throwing triangle.

In retrospect, it is easy to see from this perspective that I witnessed the very last days of rural El Cerrito and its transformation into the suburban town it is today. I was a kid who heard the shrill whistle and ran out into the street to see a steam locomotive pass at the bottom of Blake Street, the orange fire flickering in the firebox and smoke billowing from the smokestack. The tracks were located where BART is now. We had to wait in long lines of cars to get on the ferry boat to San Rafael for a day at the beach, usually out at Drakes Bay long before it became a National Seashore. We had Sunday picnics after church on the hills overlooking the construction of the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge. Walking to school meant traversing fields and snaking through barbed wire fences.

The land was still just a little wild, full of streams and frogs, lots of mud, water and fire every summer. You could find blackberries and watercress to eat, and hiking in the hills was an adventure for a young boy with a sense of curiosity and wanderlust. There were the cuts, scrapes and bruises, poison oak and bee stings, but it was a good life, and at the end of the day being tired meant a sound sleep in a warm bed after a good home-cooked meal eaten with parents, brother and sister at the dining table. Dad liked to joke, because the table was round and his first name was Arthur, that he was King Arthur and we were the Knights of the Round Table. Such was my life on Blake Street in the late 40s and early 50s.

Video Home Tour of 8379 Terrace Drive, El Cerrito

Presented by Bill McDowell and Tracy Sichterman
More at www.8379Terrace.com

Front Row Seats to the 2013 America's Cup in San Francisco!

Sharing our spectacular sunsets is one of the joys of selling real estate in the San Francisco Bay Area. In 2013, the view of the Bay will offer something even more thrilling: The America's Cup yacht race!

Staplenews.com reports, "Rather than holding the races miles off shore, which was the case in Valencia and in Newport, where the Cup was held from 1930 to 1983, San Francisco Bay offers a natural amphitheater."

We couldn't agree more. Like a Greek theater, the East Bay's naturally sloped topography will make many of the view homes feel like luxury box seats overlooking the main event.

In the current market, some of these luxury view homes can be purchased at a relative bargain. Berkeley Hills Realty currently has a panoramic view home listed in El Cerrito for under $700,000. 8379 Terrace Drive in El Cerrito is a custom built home with an exceptional vantage point for the 2013 America's Cup; binoculars included!

Looking forward to 2011 in the East Bay!

As local real estate agents, we enjoy sharing everything we love about living in the Bay Area. If you are interested in obtaining a complimentary 2011 Calendar of East Bay Events, please contact Berkeley Hills Realty at (510) 524-9888, or email broker@berkhills.com. Or, tweet us at @BerkeleyHillsRE. Here's to fond memories from last year, and to all the new memories waiting to be discovered in 2011!

Sep 2009 Median Prices for Alameda and Contra Costa Counties

This chart depicts statistics for median home prices in Alameda and Contra Costa counties. Median home prices for additional California counties can also be found on the CAR website. This data is a reflection of a general year-to-year trend based on an analysis of limited inventory. This is not an automatic indication of the depreciation of your individual home. Our area contains many unique geographic pockets and real estate is still acting in a hyper local manner. To get a comparative market analysis that reflects the true value of your Berkeley, Albany, Kensington, El Cerrito, Richmond, Oakland, Piedmont, Emeryville, Lamorinda or Alameda home contact one of Berkeley Hills Realty's experienced agents.

County/City/Area	Sept 2009	Sept 2008	Y-T-Y % Change
Alameda County	357,000.00	385,000.00	-7.3%
Alameda	502,000.00	564,750.00	-11.1%
Albany	480,000.00	694,000.00	-30.8%
Berkeley	581,000.00	660,000.00	-12.0%
Castro Valley	449,000.00	476,250.00	-5.7%
Dublin	415,000.00	460,000.00	-9.8%
Emeryville	265,000.00	315,000.00	-15.9%
Fremont	515,000.00	500,000.00	3.0%
Hayward	265,000.00	310,000.00	-14.5%
Livermore	434,000.00	445,000.00	-2.5%
Newark	337,500.00	405,000.00	-16.7%
Oakland	219,750.00	275,000.00	-20.1%
Pleasanton	616,000.00	737,000.00	-16.4%
San Leandro	294,500.00	350,000.00	-15.9%
San Lorenzo	320,000.00	337,000.00	-5.0%
Union City	340,000.00	410,000.00	-17.1%
Contra Costa County	259,500.00	300,000.00	-13.5%
Antioch	200,000.00	221,000.00	-9.5%
Brentwood2	285,000.00	353,500.00	-19.4%
Concord	242,000.00	317,000.00	-23.7%
Danville	852,500.00	905,000.00	-5.8%
Discovery Bay	312,000.00	362,500.00	-13.9%
Hercules	311,500.00	335,000.00	-7.0%
Lafayette	765,000.00	899,000.00	-14.9%
Martinez	305,000.00	335,000.00	-9.0%
Oakley	220,000.00	250,000.00	-12.0%
Pinole	293,000.00	350,000.00	-16.3%
Pittsburg	180,000.00	200,000.00	-10.0%
Pleasant Hill	494,000.00	449,500.00	9.9%
Richmond	135,000.00	180,000.00	-25.0%
San Pablo	175,000.00	220,000.00	-20.5%
San Ramon	568,000.00	755,000.00	-24.8%
Walnut Creek	495,000.00	580,000.00	-14.7%

Median home prices contained in this chart were generated from DataQuick Information Systems.The price statistics are derived from all types of home sales -- new and existing, condos and single-family. Movements in sales prices should not be interpreted as changes in the cost of a standard home. Median prices can be influenced by changes in cost, as well as changes in the characteristics and size of homes sold. Due to the low sales volume in some cities or areas, median price changes may exhibit unusual fluctuation.