today I’m gonna be talking about the
challenges to buying a home in Oakland
and the surrounding East Bay area this
can be a challenging market to buy in we
have a lot of issues that are really
specific to our area that make it hard
like for example the culture of our real
estate market with regard to pricing we
also have a lot of non-traditional
practices that out here there are also a
lot of old homes with a huge variability
and condition and it can be very
competitive market sometimes also there
is a lot of media hype that can
contribute negatively to the perception
of the process so let’s talk about it hi
my name is Tanja Odzak-Goppold
I’m a top realtor with Keller Williams and I work
Oakland and surrounding East Bay area so
the first challenge is a culture of our
real estate market with regard to
pricing I mean simply said we don’t
price at what the seller wants or
expects the house to sell at we don’t
price at what the house content either
this is just how it is and it’s much
larger than one person it’s not
something that also seems like it’s
going to be changing anytime soon
the other challenge that’s related to
this is that there’s no consistency in
list price oftentimes buyers here and
they latch on to statistics like Oakland
sells at 20% above the list price or
whatever that I have which happens to me
that month but again this is an average
and there’s no consistency to it and
also some agents list 20% under some 30
some maybe 40% under with the expected
sales price is going to be and the other
thing to keep in mind is this is not
something that is true across the board
either it’s never gonna be always 20%
are always 30%
listed this is something that varies
between neighborhoods it varies between
the local agents and the not so local
agents and even within the local agents
themselves there’s a lot of variability
some are a little bit more aggressive
with how under however much under that
they list also the condition of the
house is factored into this as well the
location the street there is no
consistent percentage at which the
difference between list price and sales
prices nothing consistent about that at
all so to take that a step further that
basically means that list price is
meaningless and I often tell my buyers
like look the list price should be
viewed as an opening bid and that like
it maze will start at $1 because it’s
generally that meaningless so buying a
house here is truly much more like an
auction due to the culture of the
pricing which basically is you list low
to sell high and you know I’m not gonna
lie when Joey and I sell homes we employ
these same techniques when we work with
our sellers to list and sell their homes
if we didn’t we would be doing our
sellers a disservice so list low to sell
high as our mantra and that’s how the
game works and in order to be successful
and to sell within it that’s how we work
it so I want to give you an example this
was a house that we sold at five eight
eight one bomber ah it was just a
gorgeous gorgeous and a super unique
Oakland Hills home and as you can see we
listed at nine hundred and eighty nine
thousand two just shy of a million
dollars and we sold it for one point
four eight million dollars we got
seventeen offers and it sold for you
know thirty three percent above the list
price so that’s just one example
another one is this other house that we
sold this was a super-cute two-bedroom
two-bathroom house and the super hip and
very desirable diamond district 355 for
Lincoln Avenue and this one wasn’t as
aggressively under listed but it was a
set of 799 thousand and we sold it we
got 10 offers on and we sold it for nine
hundred and ninety thousand dollars so I
just wanted to show you that just to
give you some perspective of how how
houses are sold out here so what does
that mean when you are searching for a
home right that’s the question so what
you need to know is you cannot search by
price point regardless of whatever app
you’re using to to look up property you
cannot expect to for this area input a
certain price range and expect to get
back homes that are going to be
affordable for you pricing to use a
colloquial expression out here is a HELLA DUMB
you still need to use an app but
you have to have a different approach
which by the way I wanted to bring out
the new Keller Williams app it is
amazing it was released a few weeks ago
it is by far hands down the best app out
there to use to search for properties
keller williams a tunnel research all
this all this you know focus groups and
testing and you can do things with this
app that you can’t do on their other
apps furthermore keller williams does
not sell your data period other you know
companies like Zillow or red fin what
they do is the data that they collect
from you they get it and they sell it to
the highest bidder
so you know however that works but
keller williams they don’t sell your
information your data period if you are
interested in using it or checking it
out shoot me a text I’m happy to send it
to you
the other challenge out here is we have
a ton of old homes Oakland and many of
the surrounding areas including Berkeley
Albany, San Leandro… have tons of old
homes I also own a very old home my
house is 106 years old it was built in
1914 and buying an old home is very very
different than buying a newer or new
home oftentimes they’ve had several
owners who have taken care of them in
very different ways and in different
ways so condition is a huge factor and
I’m talking about foundations roofs and
especially so important actually one of
my favorite topics is drainage on and
about the property because that really
is gonna affect the condition of a home
we are also a competitive market out
here Oakland and the surrounding areas
are definitely competitive we are
centrally located in the Bay Area and
despite what you might hear we are still
reasonably priced for our location and
proximity to San Francisco actually
downtown Oakland is like the center of
the Bay Area and on top of that Oakland
is still much cheaper than San Francisco
Berkeley and some of the other
surrounding areas the other thing that
also greatly influences buying out here
and is also a challenge to overcome is a
media hype do not buy into the media
hype that houses sell for crazy amounts
over asking when the standard practice
out here is to list under the valued
price in the auction type sale of course
they are always gonna go for over asking
and this makes for
lines and people eat it up houses
actually sell for close to what’s
expected and but you know this media
hype it can affect one’s perception of
the market and for buyers sometimes it
can be discouraging so the question that
you’re probably asking yourself is will
I ever be able to buy a house out here
and the answer to that is yes a loud
resounding yes you will you just need to
work with an agent that has a finger on
the pulse of the market someone that
works with both buyers and sellers and
has a thorough understanding of how it
works out here and with that being said
there are still deals to be found and
bargains to be had and you just need to
work with someone who knows how to look
for these if you have any questions I’m
always here to help you whether it’s
giving you advice for your long term
real estate goals selling your home
buying a home or investing in real
estate I’d love to help thank you so
much for taking the time to watch my
video if you do find these helpful
please subscribe to our channel for more
again my name is Tanja Odzak-Goppold,
I’m a top-producing realtor with Keller Williams and I
work Oakland and the surrounding Greater
East Bay area I wish you the best and a
very happy and healthy day