Is it all downhill from here?

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Or, are we only just beginning to climb?

After a period of flat median housing prices, the San Francisco Bay Area median home price has bounded upward like a speeding bullet train. It’s tough to figure out, however, if it is a typical California bullet train to nowhere or a sign that the economy is beginning to boil and pop.

According to the CoreLogic Data Brief for the San Francisco Bay Area, the Bay Area median home price hit $657,000 in April 2015. It is approaching the all-time high of $665,000 that was set in June and July of 2007. It does, however, appear to be driven by more sales at the upper end of the price range as 66% of the home sales in April were above the $500,000 mark.

In keeping with the April employment trends, Marin, Solano and Sonoma did not participate in the big bounce this past month. It will be an interesting summer around the BBQ pit after board surfing on the Bay… I’ll be the guy with the camera, not the wetsuit.

See my summary of the April 2015 DQ CoreLogic figures here.

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Bay Area Counties Diverge

An interesting trend is splitting the Bay Area this spring. The four counties that ring the western, eastern and southern edges of the San Francisco Bay have seen strong employment growth over the past six months. The five northern and far eastern counties have seen employment trend downward. What’s separating them besides the Hayward Fault?20150608-poppies-DSD_5813_v201_v2

High-tech!

Alameda, San Francisco, Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties have seen employment growth of between roughly 3% and 9% over the past six months.

Their low-tech cousins in Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, Sonoma and Solano Counties have seen an average decline in employment of -2.7%.

See the latest (April 2015)

Bay Area Employment Trends

and

6 Month Trends Here.

 

 

 

 

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Photo Challenge: Vivid

Red and its close family do it for me… make me think vividly. How about you?

Joe

See the weekly photo challenge here.

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Ridiculous @ $4,225

In case you were wondering how people handle the stress of the astounding cost of renting in San Francisco with the median apartment price at $4,225 a month… think kite surfing. (In the San Francisco Bay off of East 3rd Street in San Mateo.)

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Photo Challenge: On The Way

Visitors put you into tourist mode if you live in the San Francisco Bay Area. They come with expectations. You’re a tour guide even if you haven’t had a moments training. You go to places over and over and over and over again. It doesn’t hurt since I love to visit San Francisco, Muir Woods, the Napa and Sonoma Valleys, the Coastside and all the other beautiful spots this region has to offer. So another trip on the San Francisco Bay with my sister sounded good. Heading out to the Golden Gate I could snap a couple of different photos of the Golden Gate Bridge on the way.

(Late add to the photo gallery… found this upward view of the bridge on a sunny day while looking for another shot. Was on the way to the Mountain Play on Mt. Tam. I was in the passenger seat!)

Joe

See the weekly photo challenge here.

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Photo Challenge: Broken

Broken Still Life

Broken Still Life

Snapped off by the wind or lost through planned obsolescence, the flower petal and pine tree branch seem at home in a bowl. Broken off from their place of origin, they make a new home.

Joe

See the weekly photo challenge here.

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Wild Markets

Check out the latest craziness in Bay Area Median Home prices for March 2015 here.

And pix from a drive thru San Francisco here (as in below).

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Photo Challenge: Enveloped

Wrapped in a layer of green, Robin felt comfortable while keeping an eye on me. I was in the open. Exposed without any means of cover, I could not hide my fear.

Joe

See the weekly photo challenge here.

American Robin

American Robin Enveloped in Green

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Light and Lighthouses

Weekends are too short… don’t you think? Just a brief trip actually… down to the Coastside. That stretch of California coast from Pacifica down to the Santa Cruz county border centered around Half Moon Bay. The light was so so because we’re having an early summer weather pattern. Overcast and cool along the coast. Hope your Mother’s day was as lovely as mine.

Joe

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Photo Challenge: Forces of Nature

Here I am, four miles to the Pacific Ocean and three miles to the San Francisco Bay. It’s Northern California. It’s sunny, it’s foggy, it’s windy, it’s cool in the summer and wet in the winter (usually). It’s bay flats and coastal hills and sandy and rocky and a peninsula that runs from San Francisco to San Jose. Lots and lots of forces of nature. None, however, compare to the one I hope remains unforced for many years to come.

That testy old San Andreas Fault runs just 400 or so yards from where I’m sitting. It’s one force of nature that you can be standing on and not know it’s at work. Relentlessly slipping and grinding away mostly unseen and unheard and unfelt. Most quakes are rocking or jolting or swaying affairs. Many go unnoticed. Most would say they never felt a little minor 2.0 tremor unless they were on top of it. That happened to me about a year ago. The whole place was buzzing like a giant industrial vacuum cleaner was at work on the floor above except it wasn’t. I stopped and looked around and had to wonder, “what the?” Then reason set in and I checked the USGS quake website. Sure enough, less than a mile away just on the west side of the fault. A reminder that the San Andreas doesn’t rest. A ceaseless yet silent force of nature.

Joe

See the weekly photo challenge here.

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