What a beautiful home in a terrific neighborhood!

779 Sunny Brook Way was built in 2001, but looks and feels brand new thanks to the care and maintenance of the current homeowners. Featuring 4 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms, this home has a great floor plan and has been tastefully upgraded. Close to so many Pleasanton amenities, including our historic downtown, golf courses, and top rated schools.

Visit www.779sunnybrook.com to tour this home.

Open House on Sunday, 6/28 from 1pm-4pm.

Wow! This house is a 10+! Brand new contruction on desirable Walnut Drive in downtown. Walking distance to all the great amenities Pleasanton has to offer.

4 Bedrooms, 3 Baths

2180 +/- Square Feet

Beautiful design choices throughout!

Offered at $994,000.

Open House on Saturday, 6/20 and Sunday, 6/21 from 1-4pm.

Pleasanton Real Estate Market Update for May 2009

The month of May showed continued improvement in the number of Pleasanton homes that went under contract. 64 homes went under contract in May (as of May 28^th when this article was written) a significant increase over the average of 33 homes going under contract in each of the first three months of 2009.

May ended with 219 homes available for sale (note: at the end of May 2008 there were 262 homes available for sale).  This would put the unsold inventory index at 3.4 months supply of inventory.  The unsold inventory index is a unit of measure that is used to evaluate the strength of the market.  It takes the current number of sales for the last 30 days and divides it into the number of homes available for sale.  In this case, that would be 219 divided by 64= 3.4.  That is down substantially from as recently as February of this year when the unsold inventory index stood at nearly 10 months of inventory.  Many experts believe that anything under 6 months is considered a sellers’ market.

A closer look at the break down of inventory into price brackets reveals that the months supply of inventory is even lower in certain price brackets and higher in others:

This graph reveals that 80% of the sales activity is happening in the under $1 million dollar price range where the unsold inventory index is under 2.1 months.  In contrast, homes over $1 million dollars are showing a much greater months supply of inventory with the highest being 20 months for homes in excess of $2 million.  This is due in part to the difficulty of obtaining financing for loan amounts in excess of $729,000. 

 In the townhouse and condo category, Pleasanton sales are quite strong while the available inventory continues to decrease.

At this time last year there were 66 townhomes and condos available for sale in Pleasanton- nearly 3 times as many.  As recently as January of this year there were 41 available for sale with only 4 “pendings.

The National Association of Realtors reports today that homes sales nation wide rose 6.7 percent in April, that’s up over 3% compared April of 2008. Click here to read the whole article.

Housing affordability and record low mortgage rates have contributed to a surge in sales. Additionally, the first time home buyer tax credit of $8000 was a tipping point for many buyers who may have still been on the fence. And since first-time buyers must finalize their home purchase by November 30 to get the tax credit, greater activity in the months ahead is very realistic.

A recent change in the use of the $8000 credit may also help to generate continued home sales. Last week, HUD announced that qualifying buyers can use the tax credit for closing costs on FHA loans, to buy down the interest rate or to make a larger down payment.  This is a significant change that could really have an impact on the consumer’s buying power.

Pleasanton real estate sales also saw a surge during the month of May. 74 homes went into contract, up significantly from 25 sales in February and 44 sales in March of this year.

Rates go up, rates go down.  Catch them while you can.

After Wednesday’s mortgage market rally drove rates down by a bunch, Thursday’s sell-off pushed them right back up.

This has been a common pattern in the skittish world of mortgage rates this year.

With the U.S. economy still teetering between recession and growth, markets are looking for signals anywhere it can find them.  Thursday’s clue came from a government report showing that more Americans are collecting unemployment benefits than at any point in history.

Strangely, mortgage rates rose on the news.

We call it “strange” because weak economic data has tended to draw mortgage rates lower lately to the benefit of prospective home buyers and would-be refinancers. Lower rates make homes more affordable.

Thursday, though, the pattern broke. 

The main reason why mortgage rates rose Thursday isn’t because of the employment report or any other piece of data.  Rates rose Thursday for the same reason that they had dropped the day prior — the Federal Reserve. 

On Wednesday, the released minutes from the Fed’s last meeting suggested that the group might make a larger mortgage market intervention.  On Thursday, in the face of worsening jobs data, markets bet the Fed wouldn’t. 

Mortgage rate shoppers, unfortunately, got caught in the crosshairs.

Rates can — and do — change quickly, without warning.  And, thus far this year, the changes have been extra sudden.  This is one reason why it’s often prudent to lock a mortgage rate as soon as you find one that’s agreeable.  Wait too long, and it could be gone.

(Source:Our lending partner, Tom Parke, at MetLife Home Loans)