Welcome to AFI Circle on Jan 27.  Please join us to learn how to purchase special opportunity properties. You can add value to your real estate portfolio and reduce market inventory. Housing price increases are the market reaction “to supply and demand”. By reducing the supply, we are one step closer to a balanced real estate market. Clearly your investment in our economy can bring about positive change for everyone.

Special Guest speaker is Lewis Soffer.   Guests are welcome. Refreshments will be served.

When: January 27, 7:45 PM

Where: 200 Brannan Street, Suite 100

RSVP to events@afirealestate.com
Happy New Year, Welcome to AFI’s Circle on, on Friday, Jan 27. 2012 @ 7:45 p.m. R.S.V.P is a must. Guests are welcome. Refreshments will be served.

Making sense of the story

• Confidence and jobs: Housing is more affordable than it has been in decades, but many would-be buyers are worried about buying today if prices are going to be lower tomorrow.  Still, others don’t want to buy a house until they have more evidence that they’re not going to get laid off or see their hours cut back.
• Foreclosures: Banks and other mortgage investors own around 440,000 foreclosed properties, but there’s another 3.4 million loans in foreclosure or serious delinquency, according to estimates by Barclays Capital.  Because banks are faster to cut prices to unload inventory than are traditional sellers, home values can fall further as the share of distressed sales rises.
• Rents: If low mortgage rates aren’t enough to give urgency to would-be buyers, rent hikes could accelerate buyers’ decisions to take the plunge.
• Mortgage credit and rates: It’s still hard for many buyers to get approved for a mortgage because banks are demanding lots of documentation of borrowers’ incomes.
• Regulation: Many analysts don’t expect Congress to make major changes to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac during the election year, but several major regulatory changes could significantly reshape the future of the lending landscape in 2012.
• Meanwhile, the regulator that oversees Fannie and Freddie is revamping the way that mortgage companies are paid for collecting loan payments.  This could lead to a broader shakeup in the mortgage industry that ultimately influences how much borrowers are charged for mortgages and how banks handle loans that fall into delinquency.

Read the full story

The additional financial stress consumers are shouldering this year could lead to an increase in fraud this holiday season. With 13.9 million people unemployed, the threat is high. Historically, during an economic downturn, fraud skyrockets. Here are some best practices for each of us and our customers to follow while observing Cyber Monday.

• Don’t trust unsolicited email; Delete Spam
• NEVER follow links in emails, type the address in a non-Citrix browser
• Practice safe behavior when it comes to your email. If it looks weird, or comes from an unknown person, don’t open it. Even opening what you think is an email from a friend or relative could unleash a virus or a Trojan onto your network.
• NEVER share any sensitive information through open email or over the phone (without verification)
• Use caution with your email content, refrain from trivial messages
• When shopping from home only use Internet merchants you know and trust. If in doubt, check with the Better Business Bureau (http://www.us.bbb.org/)

Also, it is important to monitor suspicious activity related to all of our tasks (online and in person).

Criminals consider your personal data and access to our systems the ultimate gifts. We can deny them those gifts. Taking a few easy precautions during the holidays will help protect you and will help protect our systems both here and at home.

Vigilance will help keep us all happy and safer during this season of joy.

AFI’s 2011 Holiday Finale

When: 5:30 to 9:30 p.m. Friday December 2, 2011

Where: 200 Brannan St, San Francisco

What: The South Beach event of the year not to be missed hosted by Afi. Music, drinks, food, a Malin Namita Couture runway show (www.facebook.com/malinnamitacoutureinc), selection of international novels, Zen holiday boutique ideas to get you off to a new start, and more.

Guests and children are welcome, R.S.V.P. a must by email to events@afirealestate.com or text 415.312.25555.

AFI’s Friday Fright Night Circle

When: October 28th, 6:30 PM – 8:00 PM

Where:  200 Brannan Street, Suite 100

R.S.V.P’s are Essential: Guests are welcome to join you for wine and  hors d’oeuvres. Dress up and bring your costumed pets!

Don’t miss future events: check our upcoming events page for future events or subscribe to our news feed

You are invited to an engaging round table discussion regarding market trends and their impacts on SOMA. AFI’s highly knowledgeable circle of friends will exchange views on investments including Real Estate in order to fine tune your “Perspective, opinion, prognostication, prediction, frame of reference… and Point of View”

AFI’s Friday Circle

When: September 30th, 6:30 PM – 8:00 PM

Where:  200 Brannan Street, Suite 100

 

R.S.V.P’s are Essential: Guests are welcome to join you for wine and  hors d’oeuvres

Don’t miss future events: check our upcoming events page for future events or subscribe to our news feed

You are invited to an engaging round table discussion regarding market trends and their impacts on SOMA. AFI’s highly knowledgeable circle of friends will exchange views on investments including Real Estate in order to fine tune your “Perspective, opinion, prognostication, prediction, frame of reference… and Point of View”

AFI’s Friday Circle

When: August 26th, 6:30 PM – 8:00 PM

Where:  200 Brannan Street, Suite 100

 

R.S.V.P’s are Essential: Guests are welcome to join you for wine and  hors d’oeuvres

Don’t miss future events: check our upcoming events page for future events or subscribe to our news feed

Fueled by tech company growth, San Francisco office rents rose sharply in

the second quarter and vacancies decreased, vaulting the city to the

leading spot in an otherwise-tepid national office market, according to

three separate research reports this week.

   “San Francisco jumped to the No. 1 position in the country” for office

real estate performance, said Colin Yasukochi, vice president of research

at Jones Lang LaSalle and author of one of the reports. “Technology

companies are the underlying driving force in the San Francisco market.

It’s recovering very quickly” from the economic downturn.

   He shows the city’s average asking office rent at $40.06 per square foot,

up from $33.71 a year ago.

   Over the past four quarters, about 1.3 million square feet of space was

absorbed by tenants, “the best four quarters since 2008, which was the

peak of the market,” Yasukochi said. While the vacancy rate overall is

still a relatively high 16.2 percent, in hot neighborhoods such as South

of Market, it’s only 6.9 percent, he said.

   Chris Macke, senior real estate strategist for research firm CoStar Group

in Washington, agreed that San Francisco is bouncing back.

   “You folks have seen steady rental-rate increases for effectively every

quarter since early 2010, whereas nationally they’re still having

rental-rate decreases,” he said. “In the second quarter, San Francisco had

the largest rental-rate increases, going up 4.4 percent compared to the

first quarter. That’s very, very strong, far better than anywhere else in

the country.”

   Part of the dynamic is that San Francisco tends to be volatile, as supply

is constrained for the most sought-after, higher-quality “creative”

spaces. “It’s a market that is prone to greater increases and decreases;

it acts like a tightly wound rubber band,” Macke said. Bright outlook

   The San Francisco metropolitan area, which includes San Mateo County, was

also on top for rent increases between the first and second quarter in a

report from research firm Reis.

   “I think the outlook for San Francisco is relatively bright,” said Ryan

Severino, an economist at Reis. “We expect to see fairly robust rent

growth there this year.” Both Oakland and San Jose metro areas also are

benefiting from increased office demand, Reis found. It ranked San Jose

fourth in the nation for rent increases and the East Bay ninth.

   Tech firms increasingly are branching out from SoMa into downtown,

previously the domain of more traditional companies. ‘The hustle and

bustle’

   “We like the hustle and bustle of the Financial District,” said Alex Mehr,

co-founder and co-CEO of online dating site Zoosk Inc., which signed a

lease in the second quarter for 21,391 square feet at 475 Sansome St. It

already was subletting the space from Yahoo.

   “Software companies prefer SoMa because they hire a lot of Java developers

who live in the South Bay and so (being near) Caltrain is an advantage,”

Mehr said. “But we’re a Web company and our developers live in San

Francisco, so the Financial District is a much easier commute for them.”

   Zoosk went from about 20 employees 18 months ago to almost 90 now. Mehr

expects the staff to double annually, so the company will soon outgrow its

current location. Rising rents don’t concern him too much. In the heart of

the city

   “The advantage of being in the heart of San Francisco with quick access to

BART and having all that action all around us outweighs any increase in

prices,” he said.

   Meade Boutwell, senior vice president with broker CB Richard Ellis,

recently represented a downtown building that remodeled a

3,000-square-foot space specifically to lure tech tenants.

   “The Mills Building at 220 Montgomery is one of the oldest buildings

downtown, it’s a classic that survived the 1906 earthquake,” he said.

“It’s class B space with traditional dropped ceilings. We tore out the

ceilings, exposed the raw concrete, brick and piping, which made it very

creative-looking. The tech tenants that all wanted SoMa in 2000 said they

loved the feeling of the space; we had nine offers.” A tech company leased

the space for $41 per square foot, a premium from its $35 asking price.

Now the owner plans to do a similar rehab elsewhere in the building.

   Executives at Starwood Property Trust, a real estate investment trust

based in San Francisco, said they are bullish on the city.

   “San Francisco has held up better than most markets,” said Chris Tokarski,

managing director and chief credit officer. “In particular the tech growth

is creating more pressure and space is leasing up quicker. You can say

that about apartments, retail and office. It clearly is seeing growth on

all fronts.”

Original article via The San Francisco Chronicle

E-mail Carolyn Said at csaid@sfchronicle.com. ———————————————————————-
Copyright 2011 SF Chronicle