2581 ANNAPOLIS St East Palo Alto, CA 94303

Last sale: Jun 16, 2009 Sold $573,732 (This is a bank take back)
Last REAL sale: Nov 10, 1999 Sold $270,000

I found the mortgage history of this home on PropertyShark, and it is quite interesting.  First the homedebtor bought the house in 1999 with two loans from Bank of America:

Notice that the two loans add up to the purchase price. So great, this guy is buying the home for 0 down, but at least it is a fixed loan. Now he lived in it for  a bit over 3 years before doing another refi.  This time it is a cash out refinance because the amount borrowed is $300k.  This time it is from Indymac:

Notice that now it is an adjustable loan. A year and a half later there was another cash out  refi in June 2004:

So basically he took another $30k out, but wait, it’s not over! Another 16 months later, he did another HUGE cash out refinance:

Yup, in this final refinance he took out another $242k.  Then finally the home was foreclosed this year.  So at least he enjoyed the house atm for almost 10 years and took out over $300k.  Here is the funny part, all the banks he dealt with are dead except for Bank of America.  I guess  it sort of makes sense, too.  I don’t think this guy lost much since the money he took out was tax free and he didn’t really have any equity in the house anyway.  The last bank definitely lost the most on this series of refinances, but I guess they have ” imploded”.

2330 University Ave #110 East Palo Alto, CA 94303

Last sale: Feb 22, 2006 Sold $445,000
Loss if sold for asking: $246,000 or 55%

I don’t know about you but these listing photos just make me somewhat dizzy.  You can sort of make out some chairs in the first one, but the second one seems like the realtor took it while he/she was drunk and fumbled around. Anyway, I suspect the cut down price is to elicit more bids, or the realtor was really drunk?

Could this mean that many more apartments will come up for sale soon?

800 WEEKS St East Palo Alto, CA 94303

Price: $848,000

Last sale: Apr 02, 2004 Sold $780,000
I have to say that this is a fairly nice looking house for East Palo Alto, but what is truly interesting is the past listing prices. Here it is:
Apr 09, 2009 Price Changed $848,000 — MLSListings #80840024
Feb 03, 2009 Price Changed $388,000 – MLSListings #80840024
Jan 26, 2009 Price Changed $445,000 – MLSListings #80840024
Oct 15, 2008 Listed $495,000 – MLSListings #80840024

Basically, the price on this house was lowered all the way down to $388k at one point, and in April the seller decided to jack the price up $460k. I guess they really believe that the bottom has been reached. In actuality this home is listing for twice the price per squarefoot as other EPA homes. All I can say is good luck.

I personally go to East Menlo Park a lot for this restaurant called Back A Yard Grill .  They really have the best jerked chicken, but that neighborhood is not somewhere you want to be after dark.  The houses there are definitely not worth the 600k to 700k they sold for in the peak, and using public funds to keep prices that high seems pretty ridiculous.  What do you think?

Interestingly enough, East Palo Alto and Daly City actually made the list for least discounted.  That is probably because most of the listings in these cities are  bank owned and so the starting price tend to be very low.  The report mentioned that East Palo Alto actually had homes sell for above asking, and I’m not really surprised because there are decent single family ranchers selling for under $200,000 now in East Palo Alto.  I’ve been to that city many many times, and some areas are not that scary looking.

So the lesson to sellers here is that they should not overprice their homes.  If they don’t hold on to unrealistic expectations of what their home is worth then they might sell their homes quicker.

2268 ADDISON Ave East Palo Alto, CA 94303

Price: $183,750

Last sales:
Sep 19, 2008 Sold $579,457 -5.0%/yr Public Records
Oct 12, 2006 Sold $640,000 16.4%/yr Public Records

Loss if sold for asking: $395707 or 68.3%
This bank owned property is probably one of the cheapest single family homes on the Peninsula and it looks like it still has some appliances left. It’s about $460k off its peak price, and that’s pretty sad.

2109 DUMBARTON Ave East Palo Alto, CA 94303

Price: $995,000

Last sale:

Last sale: Aug 01, 2003 Sold $1,000,000

Loss: $5000 or 0.5%

This 9 unit apartment building in East Palo Alto is selling for below its 2003 price.  The capitalization rate is almost 8% according to the owner.  Unfortunately investment property loans are still pretty expensive now and unless you would need more than $300k for this purchase to be a non-jumbo loan.  This could work out for some investor with a lot of cash and experience in property management.  The property’s location is not optimal since it is practically on the 101, and it is in East Palo Alto, which has a bad reputation.  Recently East Palo Alto has become more gentrified, and perhaps in 20 years or so it would catch up to Palo Alto and Menlo Park? Anyway, this has been on the market for over 4 months, and it could sit longer unless the Feds decide to help out the commercial real estate credit market.