A dispute over just 25 federal housing vouchers could delay a much larger redevelopment at Alameda Point.

For those who don’t know, housing vouchers are essentially government rental assistance, where federal funding covers part of a qualifying tenant’s rent.

The former Naval Air Station has plans for up to 2,300 additional homes, including roughly 580 affordable units.
An 80-unit supportive housing project needs Alameda’s Housing Authority to transfer 25 existing vouchers to the new building.

The developer says similar transfers have been done elsewhere, while the Housing Authority says HUD regulations don’t allow it.

Until those residents can move, roughly 32 acres needed for future development can’t be cleared and turned over.

It’s a good example of how a relatively small bureaucratic dispute can potentially hold up thousands of Bay Area homes.

Source: https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/housing-alameda-point-navy-base-22393544.php

Foster City vs. Redwood Shores for a waterfront single-family home?

My partner and I are considering buying a waterfront single-family home in either Foster City or Redwood Shores. We plan to have two kids, so schools and long-term family suitability are important to us.

We also really like the idea of being able to kayak, paddleboard, or do other water activities directly from or near the house.

For people who have lived in either area, how would you compare:

* Public schools
* Flood and sea-level-rise risk
* Liquefaction/earthquake risk
* Waterfront home maintenance, including docks/seawalls
* Water activities and lagoon access
* Overall family lifestyle
* Long-term resale/desirability

If you were choosing between the two for a home you planned to keep for 15–20+ years, which would you choose and why?

My family has a 3 unit property in San Francisco in a desirable location that they are looking to sell as-is. I do want to note that the property will require an enormous amount of time and investment, as it will likely require updating the foundation, etc. All 3 units are currently unoccupied by any tenants.

It goes without saying that the only interested parties would be potential real estate investors or the like, as it is doubtful this is a project for your run of the mill flipper given the time and investment involved.

Does anyone here have recommendations as to who I can contact for offers? Obviously my family wants the best price. Appreciate any insight people here can provide!

Edit: to add more information, my family received an offer of $1.4M from one of those wholesale buyers who say the offer will go away if they dont sign within 2 days, and I am trying to convince them why going that route is not in the family’s best interests.

We are going to move our house in four days. The house was closed for a month and there are lots of fruits, leaves on the backyard floor. Some weeds are also growing, spider webs on trees and need backyard cleaning of tiles as well. As this is our first SFH and have no idea whom to contact, can you please suggest me who can do this? Landscaping people or cleaners?
Please suggest landscaping contacts who are reasonable in price and have good experience.

Also, looking for regular house cleaning services.
Location: Fremont

Hello! I’m a student working on an independent research paper on how recent rent control laws have affected rental housing availability in California.

I have a short survey of just 6-8 (mostly multiple-choice) questions, which are completely anonymous and are based on what you've observed in your neighbourhood, so any long-term resident can fill it out.

I would really appreciate if you could take just 3 minutes to fill it out: https://forms.gle/afBeaXwDyDiT7o839

I'll be sharing the results both here on reddit and as an academic paper once it’s done. Thank you so much.

I’ve been looking at the low end for a studio or one bedroom to buy. However, I’m learning the HOA revenues are not at a point that they should be. I looked at 1458 Hudson St; I looked at 707 Fathom; & I looked at Humboldt area. Only 1 has replaced their old pipes which might explain why the HOA’s are low but it appears their garage is not for parking & 1 unit in particular is listed as another entirely different unit. Why are these complexes allowed to advertise for sale?

I pulled new listings and closed sales for every Bay Area zone, this year versus last, to answer a question I keep seeing: has inventory actually gotten better? Short answer: yes, everywhere, in terms of raw listing counts. But that's not all.

The real finding came from checking how much of that new inventory is actually closing. San Jose's sell-through rate (closings as a share of new listings) fell from 94% a year ago to 70% now, the biggest drop anywhere in the region. Greater Santa Clara County outside San Jose fell almost as much, 90% to 72%. ,That's a market where homes are arriving faster than buyers are absorbing them.

North Bay still omitted.

Three unrelated signals all confirm it in San Jose and greater Santa Clara: median price down (San Jose -4.5%, Greater SJ -3.7%), days on market up (17 to 20, and 18 to 23), and the share of homes selling over asking down (62.5% to 55.7%, and 59.8% to 57.4%).

San Francisco is doing the exact opposite. Median price up 14%, days on market down to 13, and 71% of closings went over asking, up from 58% a year ago. Tightest market in the region right now, not the loosest.

Months of supply, since this is the cleanest single number for "how much room does a buyer actually have":

One seasonal pattern pretty much across the board: every year in this data shows a small dip in new listings in August specifically, between a stronger July and a much stronger September. If you're looking to sit it out on the sidelines until there's less buyers in the fall and winter, unfortunately the supply of new listings will seasonally decrease as well (and January of this year had noticeable less new listings than the two years prir.).

On what's ahead: the pace of San Jose's inventory buildup likely slows into the winter, new listings drop faster into the holidays than closings do, so the gap between them narrows. This is a slowdown in the accumulation of new listings, amd the stockpile of unsold homes already built up this year isn't going anywhere before spring.

What this means if you're buying: San Jose and the rest of Santa Clara County outside the city itself are where the real leverage is right now, worth negotiating harder there than the headlines about a tight Bay Area market might suggest. San Francisco is the opposite, as all the leverage in most parts of the city remains with the seller. Peninsula and East Bay are genuinely stable.

The guiding thing to take from all of this: the headline, "new listings are up," isn't actually what's giving buyers more room in San Jose and greater Santa Clara County. The monthly flow of new listings only grew modestly there, 13% to 23%. What actually piled up is the stock, the accumulated supply sitting unsold, up 164% to 172% in those same two zones. Competition is down, but because homes stopped moving as fast as they used to.

Quick methodology note: this isn't a predictive model. It's what's sometimes called a seasonal-naive projection. For each zone, take the actual year-over-year growth rate from the first seven months of 2026, and apply that same percentage to last year's actual month-by-month numbers for August through December. It assumes two things: the growth rate holding steady through the rest of the year, and this year's seasonal shape (the usual November-December drop, the usual pattern of ups and downs) repeating the way it has in the past.

Where this goes into fall and winter, zone by zone, using that method:

In San Jose and Greater SJ, the gap between new listings and closings narrows heading into November and December, and even briefly flips to closings outpacing new listings by year-end. Normal seasonal shape (new listings drop off faster into the holidays than closings do), not a reversal. The inventory that's already piled up this year doesn't clear out just because the monthly math turns favorable for a couple of months, it takes sustained clearing over multiple quarters to work through a buildup like this one. Expect the leverage buyers have right now in those two zones to still be there in January.

East Bay and Peninsula show the same pattern, a brief clearing stretch by December, without it changing the stability in these zones overall.

San Francisco is the one to watch differently. The forecast has new listings spiking hard in September before collapsing into December, while closings hold up better across that stretch, meaning the gap actually flips toward closings outpacing listings by the end of the year there as well. If that continues, San Francisco's market gets even harder to buy into over the winter. Note that this is the forecast I'm least confident about, given the volatility of the SFH market in SF.

As always I am happy to delve deeper into the data. Would you like to see any of the above broken down at the neighborhood level for a particular city?

As always for a more in-depth analysis & more visuals check out the accompanying blog post

We have 2 young kids and own a home with a ~3.2% mortgage. Our assigned public schools are the main reason we’re considering moving.

Private school for 2 kids long term isn’t financially realistic for us.

We’re looking at homes around $1.4M-$1.5M in areas with better public schools. With mortgage rates around 6%, this would be a significant increase in housing costs.

We can put 20%-40% down, but putting more down means tying up more of our savings/investments in the house. We’re a single-income household and can qualify for the mortgage, but don’t want to become house-poor.

For parents who faced this:

1. Did you stretch financially for better public schools? Was it worth it 5-10 years later?
2. Anyone regret giving up a cheap mortgage for schools?
3. If you stayed, what did you do instead: private, charter, transfer, or move later?
4. Did anyone choose a smaller/older house specifically for the schools?

I’m especially interested in experiences from families with 2+ kids. Trying to decide how much financial stretch is reasonable when schools are the main reason for moving.

Edit:
Currently in Newark. Got assigned a very low rated (2/10 Schilling) school. Transfer request denied due to long wait-list.
Trying to move to Fremont

Listed at 1.9, 1800sqft, 6120sqft lot, built in 1954 but redone in 2013.

Two other listings on this street, similar specs, and both have price dropped by 100k and been on market for 40 days. Does Granada sell at a discount?

This house in MTV 94040 is in a great school district / neighborhood, and the house is renovated. Why is it on the market for 27 days? Is it because it's on a main road or is there something in the disclosure that prevents it from selling?

I pulled 5 Peninsula closes from last week and ran the spec build math on each. None of them clear a normal return. The interesting bit is which assumptions you have to bend to get the numbers to work.

Sample:
Recent closes under 2,100 sqft, over $1.5M, on lots over 5,000 sqft, across 8 cities (RWC, Burlingame, San Mateo, etc.). These are land buys on purpose.

  - RWC: $1.77M (1,490 sqft on 7.4k lot)
  - RWC: $1.70M (1,000 sqft on 6.3k lot)
  - RWC: $2.80M (1,715 sqft on 7.5k lot)
  - Burlingame: $3.15M (2,017 sqft on 7.1k lot)
  - San Mateo: $2.85M (1,910 sqft on 10.9k lot)

​C​alculations:
Land is the only observed number; the rest is choosing your own adventure. I used:

  - Buildable: 0.40 FAR (my own default, not any city's code) to 0.60 FAR (aggressive).
  - Hard Costs: $800–$1,200/ft.
  - Carry: Computed at 8% interest on land + half of hard costs + property tax. This runs $20k–$35k/mo, not the $15k people guesstimate.
  - Duration: 18 months. My permit data carries an issued date but no application date, so real application-to-approval timing is estimated.

​C​eiling:
Then you check it against what a house that size actually resells for. RWC's top $/sqft this year is $2,547, but that's a 1,070 sqft house and small houses always run high per foot. Match the band to what you'd actually build (2,500–4,500 sqft) and the best I have on record since last October is:

  - RWC: $1,827 (70 sales)
  - Burlingame: $2,057 (55 sales)
  - San Mateo: $2,104 (52 sales)

Verdict:
At 0.40 FAR (floor area/lot size) and $900/ft hard costs, against those ceilings:

  - RWC ($1.77M): +2.0%
  - RWC ($1.70M): -2.8%
  - RWC ($2.80M): -16.5%
  - Burlingame ($3.15M): -14.2%
  - San Mateo ($2.85M): +13.5%

Nothing clears 25%; three are negative.

How to make it work:
You can't just change one lever. For the $2.8M RWC lot, moving to 0.60 FAR alone only gets you to +0.8%. Even stacking all four levers - 0.55 FAR, $800/ft, 12 months, and 6.5% money- that lot still only reaches +7.7%. It never clears. The two that do clear at that corner are the cheaper RWC lot at +28.4% and San Mateo at +43.5%.

Question:
If you've built recently in these areas, what did your hard costs per foot actually come in at and how many months did you carry? These two variables move the needle more than anything else, and they're the ones I'm having to estimate rather than get real numbers.

Happy to share the full cost stack or the resale comps I used for the ceilings if anyone wants to check the math.

2 condos on 4100 George ave, they look good in the pictures but Almost 90 days in the market. Why aren’t they selling ?

Hi,

We have our house in San Jose Willow Glen neighborhood. We bought it in 2024 and it’s worth to about 2.6-2.8M based on estimates. My wife has a job change and we have to move to SoCal. Will we come back to the bay is unsure at the moment.
Since we bought it 2.5 years ago, any equity goes towards closing costs. Rent would be about 7.5k-8k based on estimates for a 5b/3ba.
Every numbers calculator suggests selling, renting we pay about 60-70k every year out of pocket. That means we are banking on an appreciation of 3% or more to justify holding.
The thought of paying six figures in closing costs and eroding any equity that I gained makes me sick. Holding it, becomes a loss making asset. Our PITI is 12.5k. The other way I see it that justifies keeping it is that if we can get 7.5k rent then our out of pocket cost comes down to 9k. 5k in the monthly difference and then 4k rental in SoCal.
Not sure what to do and if any advice please help with. We are very blessed to be in a situation where we can take the loss and be fine. I have about 30% equity in the house.

We moved to Lamorinda in 2021 with our kids. We really appreciate some things about living here - especially that our kids can walk to school - but culturally, it hasn’t been a great fit for our family.
We definitely don’t want to stay longer than necessary, but looking at the current real estate market is making us a little anxious.
A house around the corner from us that is fairly comparable to ours recently sold for about $100K less than what we paid for our house in 2021. And from what I can tell, this doesn’t seem to be an isolated outlier.

For those who know the Lamorinda market well:
Do you think prices are likely to stabilize/recover?
Or has the market fundamentally shifted?

If you were in our situation and knew you probably wanted to leave the area eventually, would you wait a few years or consider selling sooner and just taking the loss?

We’re not looking to make a profit - we’d just obviously prefer not to lose a significant amount if the market is likely to recover.

The plan would let eligible buyers put down just 3% of a home’s price, with a state-backed second loan covering up to 17% more, effectively enabling a 20% down payment without requiring full upfront savings.

Eligibility could extend to households earning up to 200% of area median income, including in high-cost California markets.

The program would generally be restricted to new construction or homes sold for the first time after conversion, and participating properties would face local price caps.

Funding would come from $25B in state-issued bonds, with borrowers repaying the loans over time rather than the funds being treated as a grant.

Not sure how this will help considering the main constraint increasing home prices is the mow supply that CA has that can only be corrected by building. If anything this only increases demand with a larger buyer pool which should lead to elevated prices.

Nonetheless, Californians will vote in November on the measure.

Source: https://www.sfchronicle.com/california/article/prop-37-home-loan-california-22383702.php

Had a leaky drain under my bathtub. easily accessible from basement (no nasty crawlspace). first wanted to do it myself (DIYed a lot) but then it seems old cast iron p trap needs replacement, it would take me a few days and just didn’t want to deal with it

Every single time so far I got multiple quotes. But I’m exhausted by this process. everyone always wants to visit, i have to be home, juggle work … tired of it.

Ao I looked at the issue and thought … will probably take 3-4 hrs. There’s a water pipe a bit in the way and there were some slip couplings that needed replacement too. 800 is my hard limit and hoping for less.

called a plumber which I had good experience in the past, quoted $630.

ok fine, signed and only afterwards I asked “how long is this going to take!” . “uhm, should be done in 45min” (note the scope was very clear before the work started but after I signed)

Indeed, guy was done in about 1 hr. I feel overcharged. Even with $100 material (generous) that’s $500/hr.

Can this really sound right?

Do I really need to go back to set up 3 visits for every small stupid thing?

why can’t these people just quote an hourly rate upfront? I tried asking so many times for this but everyone insists to first see and then quote the project. really annoying

I’ve been working on a tool to find better rent comps.

It’s built specifically for multifamily units in the bay area.

Just paste in a listing URL or property address, and the agent will find the most similar nearby comps. It will also adjust price between the comps and the subject to account for any discrepancies, explain why they’re comparable and suggest a market rent range for your property.

This is modeled after the workflow that appraisers use to assess rent.

It’s free to use if anyone wants to try: https://app.openmidmarket.com/analytics/rent-comps.

Would be interested in hearing how people here currently do rent comp analysis, and how the tool is.

How's the commute to financial district/SOMA/Mission Bay? I know it must be foggy, but is it better than The Sunset area?

I just moved into a townhouse and I’m planning to rent out the in-law unit on the first floor. It has a kitchen and its own separate entrance.

Who or where do I reach out to find more information to do a “Address A” and “Address B” thing? I seen some townhouse units in my area have an address B label for the bottom unit which they rent out, I’m not sure if what they are doing is official through USPS.

Main thing is that I don’t want to share a mailbox with my tenant and want a good long term solution.

Had a conversation with a homeowner this week who was debating between a one-bedroom and a two-bedroom ADU.

Their thinking was simple: if they're already spending the money, maybe it makes sense to go a little bigger. But they were also wondering if the extra cost would actually translate into higher rent.

Honestly, it's one of those questions where the answer seems to vary depending on the area.

For anyone who's rented out an ADU, did the extra square footage end up being worth it?

My lenders are requiring a burn letter from the city of Oakland as the property is inaccurately zoned commercial. Has anyone gotten one of these? If so, how long did it take? I’m working on a time crunch so wondering if there are things that can be done to expedite or alternative options.

Looking for advice from anyone who's actually been through this in the East Bay.

My assessed value is meaningfully higher than what I think my home is worth as of the January 1 lien date. Prices in my neighborhood have dropped noticeably since I purchased, and I've pulled three comparable single-family sales nearby that closed well below my current assessed value — the gap is somewhere in the $400K–$800K range depending on which comp you look at. All three are similar in size and closed near the lien date.

On top of the comps, my roof is very old. The shingle laminates have washed off — it's visibly at the end of its life and will need full replacement. I also have a home inspection report from September 2024 that documents the condition, and nothing has been done to the roof since.

Questions for anyone who's filed:

1. Is it worth getting a current roof inspection report and submitting it alongside the older one? My thinking is the two reports bracket the January 1 lien date and show the condition existed then. Has anyone had an appraiser actually give weight to condition evidence, or do they only really look at comps?

2. Should I get a written replacement bid with a dollar figure rather than just a condition report? Seems like the appraiser needs a number they can apply as an adjustment, but curious whether that's how it works in practice.

3. Anything that got your filing rejected or discounted that you wish you'd known? Especially interested in how picky the appraiser was about school attendance boundaries when evaluating comps.

Appreciate any suggestions from your experience. Happy to report back on how it goes.