The Mostly Real Estate Podcast, with Declan Spring
Real estate market updates, and conversations of substance with people I admire, mostly in the field of residential real estate in the San Francisco East Bay Area. This show is both industry facing, and consumer facing, which makes it somewhat unique.
Listeners can access content about the state of the East Bay real estate market. The podcast also features local top-producing agents, brokers, rising stars, or agents who have simply niched down and can share their strategies.
Outside of real estate there are many conversations with local business owners, historians, politicians, and non-profits, people whom I believe provide value to the local community and enrich my experience of living here.
I've been a California licensed real estate agent since 2003 selling real estate mostly in the Inner East Bay cities and districts of Berkeley, Oakland, Richmond, Albany, El Cerrito, and Kensington.
CA DRE#01398898
The Mostly Real Estate Podcast, with Declan Spring
Episode #52 - Mark Choi - The Data Dynamo of Inner East Bay Real Estate
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Ever wonder what makes East Bay real estate so unique? Meet Mark Choi, a data-driven agent who's been meticulously documenting every property he visits since 2004. In this conversation, Mark explains why he tours up to 36 homes on broker tour day and how his two decades of records offer rare insights into our market.
We dive into the East Bay’s unusual pricing strategy—where homes often sell 40-150% over asking—and Mark recalls an El Cerrito listing that sold for 200% of list price. He shares critical market timing lessons, pinpointing January 2012 as the bottom for prices and January 2021 as the peak for low interest rates, along with advice on seasonal rhythms and the best times to list.
Mark also discusses how a $50,000 upgrade can yield a $150,000 return, the evolution of buyer behavior, and the rise of neighborhoods like El Cerrito. Most crucially, he reveals the key question buyers should ask when hiring an agent: "What's your reputation with other colleagues?" — a factor that can make or break an offer.
Ready to really understand the East Bay market? Subscribe to The Mostly Real Estate podcast for more insider perspectives.
Read more about Mark Choi on his agent website
Mark Choi is a licensed CA REALTOR® DRE#01433100
Declan Spring is a licensed CA REALTOR® DRE#01398898
This is Declan Spring and welcome to the Mostly Real Estate Podcast, and today the show is most definitely all about real estate because I'm chatting with Mark Choi, and Mark Choi absolutely loves real estate and he is pretty unique in the East Bay in terms of the data that he's been keeping for the past couple of decades on property. He just has a unique and ferocious way of tracking property. Mark is currently with the agency and this is really just a fun conversation between a couple of realtors about the same age who've been licensed for about the same period of time, have slightly different working styles, and there's a lot to catch in this conversation. That's fun. He's a dynamic, dynamic individual. Please enjoy my conversation with Mark Choi. Mark, how are you doing? Very good, how about you? I'm good. Thank you, I Very good. How about you? I'm good. Thank you, I'm good. I don't think we've had a long conversation since somewhere around the holidays we were over at Zip Code East Bay office.
Speaker 2:That's probably correct when they had a grand reopening of joining KW.
Speaker 1:That's right, that's right, and it was fun chatting with you then. And, of course, everybody. Well, definitely North Berkeley, you know, up towards El Cerrito, knows you incredibly well and we'll get into the reasons why you're one of a kind. But, mark, you're with the agency, right, correct the?
Speaker 2:agency at Berkeley. We just opened our office about a year ago, so we don't have signage yet, but we'll get one.
Speaker 1:Just going through a city process. Okay, and you're not too far from my office.
Speaker 2:No, we're by about within a quarter mile.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's cool.
Speaker 2:There's a bunch of us real estate agents offices all within a quarter mile, right around here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's right, and we're a very collegial bunch, as everybody knows, and we share data and we talk and we're going to try, and you know, and I've told you specifically, you know why I want to chat with you today, right, because you are boots on the ground like nobody else in this part of the neck of the woods. You know, let's do a little bit of a bio on you. When did you get licensed?
Speaker 2:I've been licensed since May of 2004. Wow, but I kind of say I started real estate since July 1st of 2004.
Speaker 1:Okay, okay, that's maybe when you first joined a brokerage, or I don't know, open house.
Speaker 2:My first open house ever was July 4th weekend Really brokerage, or I don't open house. My first open house ever was, uh, july 4th weekend, really really open house. Yeah, that was my first, but I was, and right when I started july 4th weekend. Well, I remember that day I picked up three buyers and they're still three buyers.
Speaker 1:You know there's three good clients of mine wow, that's amazing yeah, that's amazing 20 something years going on 22nd year this year right, and the underpinnings of that market were so different. That was was a crazy upswing market with lots of interesting loan products.
Speaker 2:There was a lot of that. That was the beginning of subprimes. Yeah, lots of prime loans then.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we didn't have any CFPB back then.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was like stated income, stated assets, do whatever you want. It was kind of like a free-for-all yeah, yeah, like how much do you want?
Speaker 1:Tell me how much do you want. Tell me how much you make. I'll make sure you get what you want.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think there's probably one bank that still does stated loans California Bank, right right now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, they're out there. It's just you know, they smell.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you've got to be cautious.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're hoping that you know CFPB can stick around. They're fighting for their lives, Right, We'll see what happens, but you, like most realtors that we know locally, you weren't. It wasn't your first career, right?
Speaker 2:No, it wasn't my first career. I actually started off as I went to school for journalism and political science and I was a TV news cameraman for eight years, shooting from, you know, murders, homicides, and to professional sports teams, which I love to do Really. And then, yeah, I was behind the scenes and you know if you're up in the Blue Canyon or the snow. I mean I went from Eugene, oregon, to Las Vegas, nevada, to Sacramento, and then I ended up freelancing here in the Bay Area.
Speaker 1:Really, do you still have an active interest in visual, you know, in imagery, like cameras?
Speaker 2:Yeah, cameras, but I mean technology has changed so much in the tv industry. I mean it's just everything's so digitized and so quick and uploading how you transfer files is. This is totally different. I was working on beta sps and still tape and not film. But tape.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it's different now. Yeah, yeah, it's all different, absolutely. And and you prefer the other side of the camera, you're not a guy that dive. Are you on social media?
Speaker 2:if you are, I don't track you if I am, I'm very light, lightly on it right and I kind of just do my own thing yeah, yeah so.
Speaker 1:So this is kind of interesting to me now because social media is such a big draw, has such great appeal for you know, for newer licensees and younger people for their lead generation. But you're not necessarily using social media for your lead generation. What were you trained in and what do you do? Oh, God.
Speaker 2:I mean a lot of his past clients right now, or they find me on the internet see my past sales, what I've done Doing this for over 20 years. It's like someone another agent had mentioned this in a meeting before Like the first 10 years you're sprinting, the next 10 years you're jogging and the next 20 plus years after that you're kind of like walking and kind of I'm not saying picking and choosing what you want. I never turned down anything. It's just you're always going.
Speaker 1:You're always going. Yeah, you get a pace going. But do you like have outreach to your past clients?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I always make it a habit of always reaching out to my old clients. You know if it's having lunch once a week with somebody from the past. Or you know, as my office staff said and the other managers said call five people a day.
Speaker 1:Right, right, so you do that stuff. I kind of call that the old school, the old method of just staying in touch with the spirit, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Actually, instead of just being digitized, I'm more like in your face and want to meet you in person.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, more old school way Like hey we'll go to lunch.
Speaker 2:We'll go do something.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I totally understand that. I try to do it the old-fashioned way. Just, you know, meet with people in front of them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you've told me before and I think you and. I are similar, we like to meet people, lunch and chat with people.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, spending an hour out of you know your day yeah, you know, that's networking. Even if it's one person that you haven't seen in like three months or five years, it's networking.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm curious about the agency, because we hear so much about ESP, we hear so much about Compass and even Keller Williams, you know, because Gary Keller is such a loud kind of a guy and I don't hear much about the agency. What's the deal with the agency?
Speaker 2:The agency. We're headquarters in Beverly Hills. It's owned by two, Mauricio Jumansky and Billy Rose Okay, and it's a privately owned company. They have over 180 offices in 13 countries. So, we are a global company. We do have a Northern California headquarters in Alamo. Yeah, we're in Alamo, Los Gatos, Woodside, Marin and Berkeley. Okay, so Berkeley is the last office, the last corporate office they opened for the agency. The corporate-owned offices of the agency are in Arizona, California and New York Interesting.
Speaker 1:All right, and the rest of them are all franchises. Okay, agency, the corporate own offices of the agency are in Arizona, california and New York Interesting, all right, and the rest of them are all franchises, okay, interesting, and clearly you like being there. I don't know how long you've been there. I've been there coming up on two years.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's it. Yeah, because it's fairly new seeing the agency signs and all that stuff. It's fairly new, like a pie started about, yeah, almost two years ago. Okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, where were you before then? Before?
Speaker 2:then I was Compass for four years, and before then I was there 14 years at Marvin Garns that's right. And before then I started early, early on at Security Pacific.
Speaker 1:Oh, I see no way Out in.
Speaker 2:Richmond, richmond.
Speaker 1:That's right, okay, yeah, yeah, interesting. That's right, okay, yeah, yeah, interesting, huh. But now, so you're El Cerrito, you live in El Cerrito.
Speaker 2:I live in El Cerrito. Where were you raised? Oh, I was actually an immigrant. I was born in Hong Kong.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And then settled here in Albany. I went to Albany schools from first grade all the way to 12th grade and then so I've always been an Albany kid, okay, and then went away for college and worked professionally as a TV news camera for about 10 years outside there and came back and came back like in 29, 30 years old oh, I see that's interesting. So your family moved here yeah, my family moved here and then yeah, and then we settled here in Albany yeah, yeah, and.
Speaker 1:And now you're raising kids yourself raising kids.
Speaker 2:myself got twin boys, that's yeah yeah, I'll bet.
Speaker 1:Well, I really appreciate having you in. I thought of you because you know this economy is funny right Now. You and I neither of us are economists, right, but we're just like everybody else. We're trying to understand what's going on and we're not going to talk politics or anything like that. But here's why I wanted to talk to you.
Speaker 1:You're the guy who sees more houses than anybody else, the realtor who sees more open houses than anybody else. In my opinion, in the opinion of a few people I've talked to, it's like Mark Choi. We all go and look at property. We try to get out and broker tour. We do our best. There's a perception out there among consumers and buyers that agents are know, agents are going to know every single property out there. You're probably, if I were to pick one agent in the East Bay who knows every single property in your neck of the woods in the East Bay, it's you, because you get out there and you're almost like legendary Mark Choi will show up to almost every house on broker tour. Now, I don't know how you do it, but you have this method. So you know, because you're seeing, really, really seeing so much property. It goes almost back to a different decade in real estate where realtors commonly went out and saw everything. I mean, I think you're one of the last holdouts to that method.
Speaker 2:Well, I like to educate myself as much as possible, even though I don't have a buyer for that house. I still want to go see the houses because when I have a buyer that calls me hey, look at this house, I can compare it to something else. Or a seller's going to call me. They want to know what's the local market, what's that house around the corner? I can always compare it to something and I have notes that go back to when I started in 2004. So every single time I go on a broker tour I probably print every single page I kind of like in my head how I'm going to map things out. Look at houses. I mean, I think the most I toured at one day at a broker's tour, probably from 9.30 to about 2 o'clock and some agents have come with me before. A lot of them come with me. Probably we've seen 36 and 36 homes in that. Uh, from 9, 30 to 2 o'clock. That's unbelievable. Average we'll probably see could be 20 to 25 on average yeah I mean lately.
Speaker 2:Yes, I mean there's a lot on the market right now, yeah, and you can't see everything right, but you try to see as everything. I mean when we even see things that are not even on tour, right, and if there's things that are coming soon or have a lockbox and there's a lot of houses that are not on tour, we will see those two, not just the ones on tour. We see the things that are not off, that are off tour and you've got a sheet.
Speaker 1:You're taking notes on every single house and then and then just remind people because they might not have caught it. You, actually, you're taking notes every single property and you've been keeping those since 2004 oh yeah, so yeah.
Speaker 2:So once after I take my notes and everything, I go back to office I scan them. I'll review it over the day. Yeah, I'll send notes to my comments to my clients that are looking out. Yeah, I mean it could be from. Like you know, most of the notes I write are common Like hey, what's the floor plan level? You know floor plan. Yeah, If there's a lot of quirkiness, I will always write down notes on quirkiness. Because those are things that remind me of the house.
Speaker 1:Wow. And so then, over your career as a realtor, you've seen the same house come on market and sell multiple times.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, I mean that's why I keep the notes, because a lot of these houses, any time on five to eight years they'll come back up for sale. Wow, many of them do come back up for sale. Wow, many of them do come back up for sale a lot. I mean, like I've sold one, two houses in my life where I've done three or four transactions on the same house. Wow, I think it's. I can't remember if it's three or four, but I know twice I've done it, which surprised me. Yeah, and that's a lot Like am I going to sell this house five, six times? I'm like how many times am I going to sell this house?
Speaker 1:Yeah, wow, that's amazing. So don't get me wrong. There's a lot of agents out there going around doing broker tour, going to see a lot of houses. But you know, what you're describing is just a step up. What's the territory you typically cover, you know? Am I right? It's about North Berkeley-ish, or do you go into Oakland?
Speaker 2:Usually I start off in like North Berkeley and it goes up to Berkeley Hills, yeah, basically out of my office in Berkeley and Shattuck. But North Berkeley to Berkeley Hills, to Kensington, to El Cerrito, yeah, to Richmond Heights, richmond View, even to Richmond North and East, yeah, and we'll come back down to like Richmond Annex, to Albany, to flatlands of Berkeley, west Berkeley even, uh, um, yeah, like Berkeley, north Berkeley, bart Station. Then we'll start heading uh south towards university, and a lot of times I mean, with so many houses it's hard to even get to Rock Ridge nowadays and then go into Uplands Okay, you know, uplands, north Berkeley, that's. I mean, that's kind of the furthest we'll go, but that's on a day when it's much slower. It's hard to see everything.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Amazing, that's a big.
Speaker 1:it's a big it's a lot of square miles. It's an awful lot. It's an awful lot. And then and then, do you like? So you've got this collection of data that you've built yourself ground up since the day you started. Since the day you started, do you have?
Speaker 2:it searchable? I mean, how indexed is this? It's pretty much. I look at a house because I look at what the history of it, see what the list date is, and usually within one week or two I know it's always there. So I have it categorized by each year and I always have a system. I've always used my same system. It's pretty easy for me to find the houses right away.
Speaker 1:You could probably, you know put this online now instead and have a subscription no one will probably be able to read my writing.
Speaker 2:My writing is probably like a doctor's handwriting. It's really bad. Sometimes I have to like second guess what I write. I'm like what did I write? You've got your own short? Yeah, but I probably have my own language too, and also what my thoughts of a house are, yeah on what my thoughts of a house are, and probably wouldn't share with you what my thoughts are, but probably some words that are probably not PC.
Speaker 1:Right Now you were saying, before we turned on the mics here, that there's always a conversation among us in the East Bay about our pricing strategy, right, and how it's this bizarre thing that it's more exaggerated here than I would say safely I think I could say anywhere else in the country where a list price is absolutely not an opinion of value. It's simply a tool we use. It's a strategy towards getting to where we want to go for our sellers. For, for example, uh, you know it's not unusual for property in berkeley this time of the year to sell, you know, 80 over right yeah, 150, 130, 100, yeah, 60 above list price.
Speaker 2:Sure right which is which doesn't really happen anywhere else, when you cross the bridge to marin, we don't see that I go to lafayette or Rinda, Alamo, Danville, they're like maybe 5% above list price, maybe at the most 10%, but 5% on average over there.
Speaker 1:Right. So it makes it extraordinarily difficult, I would say, of course, for our potential buyers. It makes it very, very difficult for them to understand anything because there's no real science to it. As I say, it's an arbitrary assignment of value and it's based on the realtor's personal style, how far below they want to go and push it. But you were saying that you kind of remember when, in the mid-aughts, I guess you remember seeing this sort of begin to be a thing, am I right?
Speaker 2:Oh God, it was years ago. I mean it could have been 15 years ago. I mean, did it start like at the time when it hit the lowest on the market in January 2012? Yeah, I mean, like I said, people ask me well, when's the best time to buy? Well, like January 2012. Yeah, and I'm going to tell you, the best time to refinance or buy for interest rate was January 2021, nine years later.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you buy in 2012, you refinance in 2021, you're sitting golden, probably with under 3%. But I mean it's just interesting. I mean the pricing is. I mean that's why I think there's emphasis on finding a local roast agent. Yeah, it's so important.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because they got to know how we do things here, right, and it's not. There's certain people that will price transparent yeah, and there's people that will price low below market. There are people that will price a little more aggressively. It's just at the end of the day. It's just the market will bring itself and comps will support itself.
Speaker 1:You're probably familiar with the style of many, many agents and you know right who are the agents who are going to go push harder on the lower side or go closer to transparent, and that's real value to your clients. That you can interpret, you know, just based on the personality behind the listing, right.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, it's almost like knowing agents' cars you know who's who, you know what car they drive. But I mean, pricing is not a science to it, it's just, basically, it's a number. It's a big number, right, and at the end of the day it's the comps that will support itself. Sure, there'll be one or two that will shoot over the moon like, whoa, where did that come from? Right, and that buyer really wanted that house, right. But you got to remember there's like 10 or 12 offers.
Speaker 2:I mean I've seen being in the listing houses, I've seen offers go anywhere from $25,000 between first and second place to even $400,000 price difference and you're looking at that like $400,000, jesus Christ, yeah, what are they thinking? I know I've asked agents before with the big spread. Yeah, I just want to know. I'm asking that buyer's agent. Hey, who come up with that number? Is it the buyer or is it you that come up with the number? Because in my mind I'm thinking I would never have suggested that, because I'm all like working for my buyer, I'm all like that's a huge number.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know yeah.
Speaker 2:It's fascinating, right, yeah, but when they sell, even if you tell, oh, that's my buyer's number, I you know, right, think about what you're doing and say you know the comps are all this number, but you're shooting it over the moon.
Speaker 1:You know, sometimes buyers will have well, they'll have very personal reasons, right, which we may not fully understand, right, right. But other times, you know, I think there is a dynamic where people get beat, they get beat, and then they just they're like, okay, this time I can't get beat anymore, and they sort of work themselves up to a point where they go way over, they're done with the game and they just want to be the winner. Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:That's why I love listing homes in early spring, because it's like you have the buyers that have lost out and get beat and they get emotional bidding. Then you've got the buyers that come in and say, hey, it's a new year's resolution, I want to buy a house and I'm going to tell you I know the people that got beaten last year are emotional when it comes to listing. Oh, I love emotional bidders because they're going to go a little too far ahead.
Speaker 1:And I'm not like that's great.
Speaker 2:But you know there might be bidding for May spring prices or summer prices. Already for summer price or fall prices.
Speaker 1:How do you explain the you know the pricing strategy in the East Bay to reluctant sellers? You know, because there is a degree of I've found with my clients there's a degree of hesitation because they feel like it is an opinion of value and they can't separate themselves away from it. And how do you get through that block?
Speaker 2:Well, I even second-guess myself in a listing price. I mean I have a house right now that's coming up, that's pretty large, but do I list at $1498? Do I list at $1598? Or when I think the house could go to $2.2 to $2.5 million on a day, but on a bad day maybe $2.2 to $2.5 million on a day, but on a bad day maybe $2.1. But on a good day, $2.5. But that's pushing the envelope to me. But it could get there.
Speaker 2:You never know which buyers will come in. But if I want something like $1,500, $1,600, you kind of see where it's going. I'm looking at that 150% above list price. But I mean there's no formula to anything, right, it's just a number. But you kind of know what the comps are, right? I mean, if I take that house, I think it was over 2.2, and I list that 1.819. Right, then I just lost a lot of bidders. Yeah, you know they'll go look somewhere else. Yeah, but they know, I think the buyer's gotten used to it, especially people that have got outbid many times. They got used to it. Yeah, and is it fair? No, it's not fair. But I mean, is it right? Probably not right, but I mean it's just how the East Bay market works.
Speaker 1:Occasionally, we'll see, we'll hear conversations. People want to say, well, how do we change this? How do we get in line with a pricing strategy that's more realistic in terms of the actual value of the property or where it might go? And it seems like collectively it would be a very difficult thing to pull off. I don't think any one person or brokerage or group of people could really spearhead something like that. We're just kind of stuck with this as our pricing strategy in the East Bay and it would probably market a massive market correction to reset things and and maybe recover from that, or maybe it'll never change.
Speaker 2:I don't know. I just don't see how it's going to change. It's just the mindset that's been there. I mean, like I was talking earlier, I'm waiting till one day some agents will list the house one dollar, yeah, and they put it for a dollar, for $1. I'm like it's going to make national headlines, yeah. Like, why are you an idiot pricing it $1 when you know it's going to go well above Right? I mean it doesn't matter if you start $1 million or $1 or $500,000, whatever it is. At the end of the day, it's the end of the day what the number is.
Speaker 1:Can you imagine the oh yeah?
Speaker 2:I remember a listing I had in El Cerrito where it was the first home to go 200% above list price. It made national headlines in Wall Street Journal and all that and I didn't know it made headlines until someone else told me. But it's not like that person overpaid. Right, I mean could they get that price today? No, they can't, Right. So they really wanted a house, or you know, there was a number of bidders and they wanted it.
Speaker 1:When did you say 2012? February 2012 was a great time to buy, and then January 21 was a great time to refund.
Speaker 2:January 2021 and January 2020. Okay 2012 and 2021. I mean, you kind of know it was like the lowest time for interest rates was January 2021. But between January 2021 or December or November 2021, it's only made an eighth of a point difference. So all of 2021 is great for interest rates but, yes, historically, as it comes for like prices, oh, january 2012 was the lowest. Yeah, I mean you think the market crash of 2008 and 2009 was lower. No, it went even lower in 2012. Wow, yes, yeah early 2012.
Speaker 2:And then the market started going back up after that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I remember and I've said it in this podcast a few times with various guests. I remember spring 2012, when people just started showing up to open houses again and it was like this moment. I remember it clearly because I had only really been a recession era. Real estate, uh, realtor and and to have people start showing up in numbers at open houses to me was mind-blowing, oh I would say we don't.
Speaker 2:I think open houses pre-pandemic was definitely a lot more than now. Yeah, I mean, yeah, I'm also. I'm also one of those agents that have a clicker. Yeah, and I click. How many ages come through a broker tour? How many agents come through an open house? I don't count children or anybody under 18 years old, but I just count the number of people come through an open house because that's how I report back to my sellers. How many people came through an open house, yeah, what the interest level like, besides knowing how many disclosure packets are. How many people have gone through the house? Right and sure, I have a historic home that I did. That went over 2,000 people in one Sunday to you know now.
Speaker 1:Hold on hold on 2,000 people.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, it was a historic landmark home.
Speaker 1:Whoa, whoa, whoa Dick. Tell me about how you Hold on In what period of time during the day, like three hours.
Speaker 2:Within a two-and-a-half-hour period.
Speaker 2:There were people lining up the door. Really, day, like three hours, within a two and a half hour period, there are people lining up the door. Really, it was the um captain budro's house on um oxford, the 1500 block of oxford that has the turret, yeah, and it was built in 1890s with a brick foundation and had an extra turret that was higher than everything else. Captain budro wanted to see his ships from Berkeley out in the bay. Yeah, amazing. So that one was crazy. That's what started me using the clicker, because I was like I've got to see how many people come through. But people, of course they were all looky-loos, but people were really interested and looking at the house because everyone drives by it. It has like 13 colors in the building in the building.
Speaker 1:Wow, no, it's a phenomenal, I know. I mean, I know what year was that God?
Speaker 2:I would say that was like was it before the market crash? Okay, or I think it was before the market crash, before 2008. It was somewhere between before 2008. Wow, in 2007.
Speaker 1:Were you selling merch?
Speaker 2:No, I wasn't, but it was just. It was a crazy house. That's crazy. We're not back to pre-pandemic days when it comes to open houses. I would say I remember doing an open house pre-pandemic in 2019 in January, pouring rain in Kensington. Pouring rain, Rain's going sideways and I literally counted over 300 people coming through.
Speaker 2:Wow, I'm like people are coming in the rain and slopping in the house and I was like Jesus Christ, and then now you'd probably be lucky to get, on average, maybe like 120 to 150 people in the house now on Sunday, right but also depends if you do an open house on a Saturday or Sunday, because Saturday open house has been going on for a number of years, right, and even before pandemic, and they've been doing saturday open houses and it kind of splits over.
Speaker 2:but you know, I've done my own research. Where you do saturday sunday or just do sunday, yeah, it's the same amount of people you get on saturday sunday or you just do sunday by itself, yeah, it equals out to be the same it's interesting who started the saturday thing.
Speaker 1:I was very disappointed.
Speaker 2:I don't know, I mean I, I actually, yeah, I'm disappointed at saturdays too. I actually try not to do saturdays as much possible because I actually like to keep one weekend day closed. So that's for private tours yeah, okay, I mean because it's really for the true buyers that I really want to see the house, want to see it privately, because you take a house away for like half the day, right, and there's really buyers that really want to, just want the privacy.
Speaker 1:You know that's an interesting downside to Saturday open houses that I hadn't thought of, but you're absolutely right.
Speaker 2:I think down in Peninsula they do things different. They do people do more Saturday open houses, not Sunday. But here we do Sunday. We would love to see things go back to traditional, just Sunday open houses. But you know everybody's trying to do one, leg up on somebody else and do something, you know.
Speaker 1:That's right. I mean, when they started making it a feature in the ad review, I was like that's it. We're going to be doing this forever. It's notoriously difficult to know when the market's changing in real time, right.
Speaker 2:For sure, yeah, right.
Speaker 1:It's impossible.
Speaker 2:It's impossible. Yes, I'm just going to tell you that. Everyone asks me how's the market? I always say it's great. I always say it's great. I'm all like bid for the futures, just like a stock bid for the futures. How much you want to pay over? Like how long you'll live in this house if you go live in her 20 years? So what if you pay $100,000 more? Let's go pay for itself. My own personal house I bought in 2018. Now, 7 years later, people, eight years later, people probably wish they bought what I paid for, even though I paid maybe a hundred to 150,000 dollars above maybe the person behind me, but I don't care because, at the end of the day, I'm well above. I'm way ahead of everybody else.
Speaker 1:At this moment in time, with the uncertainty that's going on in the money markets, are you noticing lower levels of what are you noticing out?
Speaker 2:there definitely a softer seller's market. I mean, um, it's, it's softer, but I would say it's really house to house. It's okay. It's really strategy. I mean, the houses that are more done up, yeah spruced up, are definitely getting more attention, and it's really about pricing. It's really about pricing to get you someone in the door.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:But I mean it's really house to house I mean 2023,. We were begging for listings. It was the lowest I've seen in 20 years the number of listings out there. We were really hurting for listings and now it's like too much. I mean it's like I was telling my colleagues going on broker tour over the last month wow, this is the most house I've seen in Berkeley Hills this week. Then the next week there's none.
Speaker 1:Right, they all get sold off. No, it's not that.
Speaker 2:There's like maybe 12 up in the hills and suddenly there's none. The next week it's like there's like maybe 12 up in the hills and suddenly there's none. The next week and the following week might be six, right, but it's just, they go in waves. You can't time everything perfectly, Right, but it's just, there's a lot of inventory. I mean, I thought people would hold out putting their house on the market before April 15th because you know it's kind of tax time. People don't want to pay attention to houses.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But there was a lot of homes before tax, which is not usual. I mean, I remember in a pandemic I listed a house in December which I would never do, never do, never, ever do I do one in December. If I did it and it did, great, yeah. But would I do it now in this market? No, I wouldn't. Right, I wouldn't. I mean, once you hit after Thanksgiving, between Thanksgiving and New Year's, it's kind of like you're preparing for houses for early spring.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, we do have a very specific seasonality to our market. Absolutely, it's still a seller's market almost all the time. It's a little softer, so you have to make sure you're doing the things right.
Speaker 2:It's how much you want to put money into it. I always tell people you pay on average, get triple back, double for sure. You put in $50,000, you'll get back $150,000. You put $100,000, you put back $300,000. That's on the high side, but, yeah, could it only be double? Yes, yes, but spending money, your ROI is great coming back, but there's some houses that are just not worth it. But there are still out there people looking for bargains and flipping houses and, yeah, it's harder than before yeah, yeah, you work with.
Speaker 1:You do a good deal of that kind of work, I know, and so the flippers look at a margin all day long.
Speaker 2:Right, you know they want to put in a hundred thousand dollars, spend at least amount of possible and one could better return. But you know, when it comes to flipping, I will say that you want to, on average, get $40,000 to $50,000 per month before taxes. Because if you're working for $10,000 to $15,000 per month, what's the point? I'm going to tell you you're better off, probably even in the stock market, even in today's stock market. I'm going to tell you your money is probably better in return in the stock market than the houses.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So this market right now for flippers? If you're not a pro, if you really don't know your stuff, would you say it's not a great time to be a flipper. Things are a little uncertain, huh?
Speaker 2:Well, I only work with several flippers and I try not to work with many because I'm straight honest with these people that want to work with me. I'm like, look, I've already worked with one or two flippers and I'm going to tell you you don't want to be in my B pile, you want to find an agent that's going to put you in A pile and want to give you as much attention as possible. Because if I'm loyal to a flipper, I'm not going to deviate from that, nor am I going to go somewhere else. I just tell them it's best for you to find another agent. I'm not trying someone else. Best to work with someone else.
Speaker 1:Yeah, fair enough, so you vet them out carefully, right.
Speaker 2:And I'm loyal to my clients. My clients are loyal to me and who I work with by the way, the houses that you're involved with your flip clients.
Speaker 2:It's beautiful work they sell. And I don't flip myself. No, I mean I probably could if I want to, but I never want to compete against my own clients. It's not worth it. And not only that, it's like you know I should concentrate on what I do best in selling. Stay in your lane, yeah, stay in my lane because sure, I can do a lot of flipping and ironing. We shouldn't act as general contractors, but you know I can do a lot of stuff myself. Yeah, but I just stay to what I do best is selling houses.
Speaker 1:Yeah, walk me through your perception of seasonality in the East Bay.
Speaker 2:I'll start from January. Okay, I love early, early, early spring. I'm talking about January to right before taxes. There's not as much on the market. People are New Year's resolution, want to buy houses. Okay, I'm not even affected by the interest rates, it is what it is. I think those interest rates of being at 6% or 6.5% it's going to be around for the next five years Right.
Speaker 2:I agree with you. This reminds you of 1997 to 2014. Four or five when it was just stuck in 6.5% for a while. So early January, early spring, it's like you know, and after Super Bowl it's really the kickoff of the year, yeah. And then you go all the way to like, and I always think, like you know, you kind of held back a little bit right before taxes. But right after taxes all the way to like late to mid-May is great, and all these early spring they're already paying summer or fall prices already, right, and then the summer months are not like what it used to be. Okay, I'm old enough to have you know. When we go to school back in the day, summer months and weeks were probably about what? 13, 12, 13, 14 weeks long.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was long.
Speaker 2:It was long. Now it's like only 10 weeks. It's a lot shorter. Yes, so you're talking about they get out in second week of june and they're back in school middle of august, middle august, I know, it's amazing it used to be.
Speaker 1:We don't go back to school until late august or even after labor day yeah, you do the final camping trip close to labor day or whatever, and and then yeah, after, and then when you start getting into late may, even if you don't have a kid graduating from school or anywhere, you're going to know someone who goes graduate.
Speaker 2:so they start traveling by end of may to june to mid-june. So you kind of lose those buyers. Yeah, you lose that pool of buyers that are traveling, and then right after you they're done with graduation. You kind of hit right oh, we're done with school, let let's go right on vacation. So then it's kind of like with the shorter weeks in summer, now you don't know when people are going on vacation because you know they'll hit vacation right after school and they'll hit on vacation right before school starts again. But then there's that in between there's that short window that I'm not even a big fan of listing houses in June and July anymore, right, I'd rather even tell you, hey, let's wait until, you know, early August, right, and even before Labor Day weekend to beat the crowd of all the other homes that will come on after Labor.
Speaker 1:Day Get ahead of it. Yeah, get ahead of it. Well, similar to what you said about getting ahead of it, maybe in late January, February just get ahead of it Day in August, I think is great.
Speaker 2:And then you go into Labor Day, into even Halloween. Is fine with me. But, then, once you get to Thanksgiving, people aren't thinking about holidays and families. We've been having this no contingencies for years, so it's like there's pretty much no contingency now. Writing an offer with contingency now is like taboo. But as an agent, I'm going to tell you and manager would tell you, give them their inspection, give them even a three days. Legally, it should probably be smarter to give them the three days.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Have a good business practice, put something in there, even a day but I will tell you you're not going to get a house because there's so much competition right.
Speaker 1:I mean we're kind of stuck, it is yeah the brokers don't like it. Yeah, but at the same time, the buyers want to buy houses, because you're either writing an offer or you're buying a house.
Speaker 2:Right, that's the old side, it's from contingencies to hard money loan to. Is it truly cash? I mean there's so many creative financing now. Yeah, I mean everyone's trying to do a leg up. We're trying to do something different. Yeah, absolutely. I mean now with commissions. I'm here tracking on what's a yes, what's a no and what's a C for call agent on commissions yes. There's a new window. What's a C for call agent on commissions?
Speaker 2:yeah, there's a new window and an MLS on the bottom left. Now, yeah, that says why for yes and for no, and C to call agent. Yeah, it's just like we're trying to figure out, like know how we got price things? Like how are they? You know what are, what are the things are kicking back here and there right and it's interesting it adds an extra layer.
Speaker 1:Conversation with buyers I had this conversation just last week with somebody. They said you said that house would probably sell 1.6, but actually it's all 1.5, blah, blah, blah. And I said, yeah, but you know what? The commission wasn't paid by the seller. So actually it kind of you know and Supply that's missed in the buying pump. They just look at the sticker price and that's it. They don't recognize. And when you're, you know what I mean. That's a lot of money.
Speaker 2:I mean I haven't wrote an offer yet with no commission that the buyer's paying for. I've always just had to sell it, pay for it, like the old way.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, I'm seeing it routinely with cash. You know when it's a cash close it's not uncommon. I'm noticing to see that there was no commission.
Speaker 2:Well, they're trying to pay no commission, they're trying to lower prices for taxes, but back in the day You'd get pushback right. Well, let's say back in the day there was a period of time where you could write a lower price and not pay a commission, but then the county would not get their taxes. Eventually the county got word of it. It and they don't make you sign the affidavit at title did you get a kickback? Because if you did, we're gonna reassess you higher. Yeah, now the county can't really do anything because now it's a federal judgment with the follow, because you know the higher courts will be overruling what county says. So now the county really can't really dictate that anymore because it's like they have a right to go lower now.
Speaker 1:Some of this kind of stuff gets lost on consumers and we have to be the mouthpiece and explain what's going on.
Speaker 2:I mean, they're saving like what If they're paying commission at $30,000 or $50,000, they're saving only like $400 or $500 a year in property taxes. But four or five hundred years over a lifetime adds up it matters in the transfer tax too.
Speaker 1:It can make a difference, right especially in berkeley, when because when you, you know you've got that the step yeah, the ladder step up, that's right. So you want to get in under?
Speaker 2:I mean, there's you know, richmond has that too now they do have that in richmond, that's right. I mean I've done a deal in richmond before and I thought I could get away with going up to the next percentage higher, because I was writing an offer at $9,999.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I thought I was like right there, like no, you're like a dollar over, and we were going back and forth with the county, no way, and they made us pay the higher transfer tax. Oh, so I was almost like you know what I want to write for $9,995 to make sure you're definitely under it, because we were going back and forth from county and they were the county was the city of Richmond and county was pulling all this language out. I'm like eventually, I'm like it is what it is.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, I was.
Speaker 2:You know, as an agent, we're trying to be creative and like trying to get it right below and save buyers money.
Speaker 1:I've thought about that before, or like how close can you get, and I guess it turns into a fight.
Speaker 2:Oh, it's fighting with the city and county. Yeah, yeah, I mean it's more city, especially city of Richmond.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you want to stay clearly under.
Speaker 2:Oh, clearly under. I mean don't be like within a dollar or something, but you want to be clearly under by even a couple thousand dollars, because you know they will get their tax dollars. Well, listen.
Speaker 1:And then the seasonality. Then, as we get into November, December, obviously not the best houses are on the market and demand drops off.
Speaker 2:But sometimes I think like, sure, listen, november, december might be a great time for people that are looking for year-end tax reasons for, like, either 1031s or looking like maybe they made too much money and they need to offset something by buying a house right, there's not much on a market then no, so yeah it's really what the motivation of the buyer is it's a low inventory.
Speaker 1:I've always found it difficult too. As we start the new real estate year maybe get into, you know, january, february this year would be, exactly, you know, a perfect example of that. And then we're struggling right to the market gets starts to heat up, you start to get some property back in the market, good property starts to come on, nice dressed up property, and we're looking for comps. Where are you going to go? Their October, november, december last year was brutal. It just, you know, the property values just weren't, weren't showing up. And now you're looking back for comps and your buyers are also looking back and they're going hey, you know.
Speaker 2:And then the sellers want the higher price of the higher comps. I mean you can't satisfy everybody. I mean it's hard for appraisers. I can't even imagine what appraisers are going through. I'm explaining. A number of years ago, when it was just going so fast, every single month was just changing. Right, that was hard, it was impossible. That was impossible. It was hard to even track it. But it's almost like the only way to really track it is knowing the number of buyers in a home. And then if there's like 10 buyers and well, one buyer got it, so that's one person off, and there's nine other buyers behind it, and you're like, okay, what place did I come into? And then you're like, then you're strategizing your head, like what did I come in? What other buyers are out there? Right, and if they have bought houses yet, and what they're, you know. You're almost playing, thinking ahead and like a mind game of like where am I? Where do I need to be in the next house?
Speaker 1:When you're looking to take offers on property, are you careful to look at? You know the competing inventory and who's taking offers when and like. Position yourself properly there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean a long time ago I used to take offers on Wednesday. Now it's kind of Tuesdays. I think a lot of people take offers on Tuesdays. You want to take offers almost before more houses are coming on the market. Yeah, because you know houses come on the market Tuesday, wednesday, yes. If they want to hit that broker tour on Thursday, yes. Then if you don't hit that broker tour on Thursday, then you hit it on coming on Friday, saturday, then you hit broker tour next following week. But ideally, yeah, we would like to do broker tour first and then two open Sundays. Yeah, you know, I would love brokers to always see it first before buyers see it first. Yeah, I want the buyers, I want the agents to be like hey, ahead of the game and say, oh yeah, I've seen that house, let me tell you about it. Yeah, instead of like I don't want the buyer to be telling the agent about the house, I want the agent to be telling the buyer about the house.
Speaker 1:Uh-huh.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I want them to be more informed than the buyer.
Speaker 1:That's a nice sequence. I've been surprised with just how I think of all the cities like El Cerrito's just really come up in value a lot in the last 10 years.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's always been hidden. What's another? El Cerrito, san Leandro.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I guess so it's kind of like you've got a great BART station, you've got good schools, you've got good downtown and you're not in Oakland and you're just outside of it. So it's like San Angelo I knew 10 years ago plus. Yeah, it's another town that's great, that people should be concentrating on. But El Cerrito is kind of like it's been hidden. But it's great. The two BART stations really help. Right, that's true, the two BART stations really help. And you know four square miles, you know 24,000 residents, you know. And then you got Albany one square mile, 24,000 residents. And what? Kensington? One square mile, 5,000 residents. They're all compacted in that area. And El Cerrito, you get the view. Yeah, you get more land. You know. I always say the hub of real estate in Bay is Berkeley. The further you go out, either you're going to get more square footage in the house room, count, bath count, it's just you get more bang for the buck.
Speaker 1:You've been doing this for a couple of decades, and how do you avoid burnout at this pace that you keep? What's the trick?
Speaker 2:I don't really burn out. I mean I don't drink coffee Okay, almost like a natural high but I'm always on a go, go, go, uh-huh, uh mentality and I just, I mean I'm, I go in and out of houses pretty fast but I make sure I say hi to the agent.
Speaker 2:I mean it's like I said, new agents, the best thing you can do is go on broker tour okay because there are some agents that don't want to talk to you, but eventually they'll go see over and over and over again. They're like who are you?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And it's like when it comes time to writing an offer and you don't know that person but you have that repertoire from you know talking to them from broker tour like hey, yeah, they're nice people or something. So really going out there, like you know, putting your boots out there and talking to agents, is a good thing. Yeah, one thing that buyers never ask their agents is like what's your reputation with other colleagues?
Speaker 1:It's the unknown. Unknown. They don't know to ask it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but it's just like you want an agent that gets along with everybody else.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:You know we're looking for people that want to close yeah, but we also look at what's best interest with the buyer.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:For most important. But you've got to know, hey, what's your relationship with the other colleague?
Speaker 1:What's your relationship in the realtor community?
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:And how can that benefit me? So that's an unknown. Unknown. Buyers simply don't know that. That's an important question to ask. They don't know. Do you bring that up with buyers?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I bring it up with buyers. I say, hey, you've got to know who these people are. Yeah, Like, oh yeah, I know the agent, I know this, I can call them up right away. You know, To this day I still enjoy going out seeing agents that have retired in the last five years, and it's like you see, I remember starting off when I decided I always respect the old agents.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Always respect them because you know they got experience.
Speaker 1:And you're going to be one of them?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I remember when I first started. I hope not, but when I first started we were working on carbon copies.
Speaker 1:Right the triplicate. Yes.
Speaker 2:Yeah Right, the triplicate yes, but yeah, it was 2004. I remember carbon copies and then by the end of 2004, then zip forms began. So I had a very short period of carbon copies, but I do remember writing carbon copies.
Speaker 1:That's right. Press hard, press hard, yes. And then press hard and I got bold ink and blue ink and so on, but I mean pull out the yellow one and give it to the client or whatever.
Speaker 2:Yellow, pink and white. I mean, I remember those days.
Speaker 1:I think it was. I have a closing question. Is there a property out there not yours? Is there a property out there right now that you're particularly fond of that you might consider? Hey, here's the property of the week. I want to let people know about it.
Speaker 2:I mean, I think Josh Dickinson has a very nice one at 115 Windsor.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:I heard it's really nice. It's in Kensington on Coltisac. He modernized it. It's probably just under 1,600 square feet.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And I believe there's an ADU in the back.
Speaker 1:Mark, I'll let you get back to your day, back to your family, back to going out and about, and I really appreciate this.
Speaker 2:Thank you very much for inviting me. I'd love to do this more often.
Speaker 1:This episode was edited by me, with original music by Chuck Lindo, graphics by Lisa Mazur. The podcast is brought to you by the Home Factor Realtors, thehomefactorcom. Catch up on the latest news from the East Bay Market in their weekly blog, published every Saturday at thehomefactorcom. Now, if you'd like to reach out to me with suggestions for the show, please text me at 415-446-8591. Catch you on the next podcast, everybody, take care.