Vishal Karnik

Real-estate market is tilting towards buyers' benefit in San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara metro area Are you sitting on the sidelines and losing out on opportunity to snag value purchases in real-estate? Are you waiting for the interest rates to come down? Are you actually losing out on opportunity to buy real estate at a better deal? If you have these questions, check out the below trends available for July 2024. The following review is for San Jose, Sunnyvale, Santa Clara CA metro area. But you can review the trends for your metro area of interest. Median Listing Price is declining The listing price being lower, you can find some great deals from distressed sellers who are motivated to sell at a discounted price. Active Listings are increasing Increase in active listings allows for higher options to select from. The higher active listings are also driven by less competition from other buyers. The higher interest rates are making people wait on the sidelines. But a savvy buyer can i...

  The real-estate market trend numbers are available for April 2024. To review the charts used here, you can visit www.vishalkarnik.com New Listings : In the South Bay metro comprising of San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara in California, the new listings are up 40% YoY in April 2024 and 25% from previous month of March 2024. This in spite of the fact that the interest rates continue to stay high around 7%. Active Listings : The active listings have grown by 25% YoY driven by the increase in new listings. As the real-estate sales cycles are longer, the new listings are driving increase in active listings available on the market. This should give inventory options for the buyers to explore homes that are more likely to find what they are looking for. Median Listing Price : The median listing price has reduced by 4% YoY.  Although this time last year saw a peak in the median listing price, which cooled down for the rest of the year in 2023. If the interest rates continue to stay high...

  Spring is Here! Did you know summer is the peak season in real-estate transactions? There are various reasons that drive towards the seasonality. Reasons that drive the seasonal uptick in Real-estate in Summer More daylight and visibility : In contrast to winter months when it is cold and the days are short, summer offers a better climate to show/view houses. Additional, length of the daylight is helpful furthermore. But more importantly the warm weather allows people to make houses ready for showing and allows the buyers to see the houses in comfortable weather. In many parts of the US, the snow is a hindrance during the winter season for exploring homes. Academic School Year : Lot of the housing moves are related to kids' academic school year. The sellers are wanting to make sure their kids can finish the school year in the current school and start the new year in a new school. The same considerations are for buyers to ensure that they can ensure that the kids are not disrupted...

What is a 1031 Exchange? A 1031 exchange is a swap of one real estate investment property for another that allows capital gains taxes to be deferred. Who should be aware about it? Folks who currently own or plan to own investment properties. But also current home owners who want to defer the capital gain taxes on their real estate property, by investing into investment properties in future.  Can you do a 1031 Exchange on primary residence? 1031 Exchange deferral is for investment properties. So by definition primary residence cannot be used for a 1031 Exchange. However, you can convert your primary residence into investment property for a period of 2 years by renting out the place and then doing a 1031 Exchange on the property. If you are married, you can defer up to $500,000 in capital gain taxes by doing a 1031 Exchange. What are the requirements? You need to purchase a like-kind property. But the definition of like-kind property is pretty flexible. The new property being purchas...

The following summary is based on data from the California Association of Realtors and FRED interest rates. The sales data used is updated till January. The median home sales price YoY (Year-over-Year) has been up in California, but MoM (Month-over-month) prices have declined. The difference in the SF Bay Area is more stark.  The decline in month-over-month prices indicates that the high-interest rates are having a dampening effect on house prices. People are limiting their purchases of higher-priced homes. Although, Santa Clara County has not seen the MoM (Month-over-month) decline. This indicates a strong demand continuing in Santa Clara County despite the high interest rates. As well as San Francisco County has actually seen an increase in MoM sales. So San Francisco market seems to be favoring higher-priced home sales. This indicates high-priced property buyers are jumping into the market irrespective of the interest rates. This growth might be driven by increased stock valuati...