Belmont is about as convenient a city as one can find if you want to split the difference between the South Bay job centers of Mountain View and Sunnyvale, without being too far from San Francisco for the occasional jaunt to the city. Housing prices, to be sure reflect this fact. (Click images for larger photos)

And up in the hills, winding streets and Bay Views can make desirable homes downright expensive. That is, of course, until the housing market collapsed.

Belmont is by no means the cheapest place to live on the
Peninsula, but it is not Burlingame or Palo Alto either. With
good schools, convenient amenities and the aforementioned good location, the area can be a great place to lead the quiet, suburban lifestyle the Bay Area has become known for.

This home is a short sale, meaning the bank holding the current owner’s mortgage is letting them sell the house for less than the amount of the loan. The home appears to be in great condition with a reasonable yard for the hills, but is located on a somewhat busy street. It’s been on the market
since April without a price drop (despite the agent’s
claims to the contrary), so we would be surprised
if a price drop is forthcoming.

The home has some positive features, to be sure, but the
busy street may turn off some buyers: so is it a:
DEAL or NO DEAL?

Address: 1715 Notre Dame Ave., Belmont, CA
(MLS Listing)
Status: ACTIVE
Bedrooms: 2; Bathrooms: 2
Living Space: 1,670 sq ft
Lot Size: 7,250 sq ft
List Date: 4/4/2009
Original List Price: $695,000
Current List Price: $695,000
MLS no.: 80916993

Real Estate Agent Comment: Spectacular Bayviews! Short sale - dramatic price reduction. Amazing kitchen w/granite counters.Family Room. Large Florida Room, Large usable rear yard. A must see - views forever!

DEAL or NO DEAL?
Comment below and tell us what you think!

By ANDREW JEFFERY

This post first appeared on Minyanville.

Residential real estate is about to get very weird.

In the coming months, housing-market data is likely to show price stabilization in many of the country’s hardest hit areas. Pundits, government officials and real-estate professionals will loudly proclaim the worst of our real estate woes are behind us. Back in reality, however, this data will simply reinforce the axiom that there are lies, damn lies, and statistics.

The lion share of home price declines have, thus far, been focused in low-end markets -areas where property values became the most detached from housing-market fundamentals. Even though the high end is now declining, sales activity is still heavily concentrated in the country’s most distressed markets.

Taking a look at the data below compiled by my firm, Cirios Real Estate — which depict sales transactions for the part of the San Francisco Bay Area between San Francisco and San Jose known as the Peninsula — one can see how rising home prices from 2003 to 2007 shifted sales transactions towards more expensive properties. This makes intuitive sense, and should naturally push up both average and median home prices.

Click to enlarge

Since the market peaked, however, notice how the percentage of sales of homes under $400,000 shot up to more than 50% of sales in the first quarter of this year, from as low as 9% in 2007.

Conversely, sales over $1,000,000 that accounted for almost a quarter of transactions in 2007 now make up less than 9% of total sales so far in 2009.

This heavy concentration of sales in low-end markets is skewing home price data to the downside, exaggerating the impact of depressed markets on broad measures of prices.

As the foreclosure epidemic spreads outwards to more well-to-do areas, and job losses force previously stable homeowners to sell into a weak high-end market, more expensive homes will begin to make up a greater percentage of total transactions. This dynamic — not an overall rise in property values — is likely to push up average and median home price measures.

In other words, high-end markets will be falling as price discovery rears its ugly head, while low-end markets are flat at best, as price declines reach exhaustion levels and investors step in to buy. High levels of supply and looming shadow inventory of foreclosures will prevent meaningful appreciation in these distressed areas for the foreseeable future.

Meanwhile, data will show a housing market on the rebound.

No doubt, banks like Wells Fargo (WFC), Citigroup (C) and Bank of America (BAC) will cheer the end of the real-estate slump. Real estate professionals will pound the table that now’s the time to buy (just like they said back in 2007). Government officials will proudly assert their mortgage-relief efforts were a success.

Nothing, however, could be further from the truth.

By RYAN TAYLOR

It’s still a lousy time to be selling new homes.

The National Association of Home Builders, or NAHB, shared its sentiment index for December, which remained at a record low of 9. The index is based on 426 residential developers nationwide; a reading below 50 reflects negative sentiment. In addition to the general index number, confidence levels for current sales dropped to 8 from a reading of 9 last month. The six-month sales forecast dropped from 18 to 16. To say confidence remains extremely low is a bit of an understatement.

The NAHB sentiment index number is an important gauge of the health of the overall market. In many of the hardest hit areas of the country, there remains a glut of housing supply - particularly new construction. Homebuilders are aggressively cutting prices, which is adding to existing downward pressure on prices caused by foreclosures. Since new homes are often more desirable than existing homes, watch any strength in homebuilder sentiment as a prelude to possible strength in the broader market.

While many prognosticators are starting to believe we’re moving into a bottoming phase in the housing market, the chief economist of the NAHB, David Crowe, remains unconvinced:

“We have seen no improvement over the past month in terms of sales conditions for new homes. In fact, certain factors have gotten progressively worse, not the least of which is the job market, where massive layoffs are having a devastating effect on consumer confidence.”

The sobering reality of the housing market is that its recovery has been postponed due to the global recession and the resulting job losses. Despite aggressive moves by the Treasury Department and Federal Reserve to lower interest rates and spur demand, people without jobs simply do not buy houses.