Residential: The Chronicle takes a look back at the residential real estate market in 2005, and gives equal time to the soft-landing and complete and utter collapse theorists for 2006. But basically, no more bubble.
We've mined these nuggets for you:
Affordable Housing: 4300 people entered the lottery to buy 20 below market rate apartments in The Beacon across from the ballpark.
High Finance: 50% of property buyers in the bay area are using interest-only loans, compared with 31% nationwide.
Even Higher Finance: "Between 2000 and 2005 Bay Area property owners accumulated roughly $234 billion in equity." Yes, that's illion with a B. No word on their credit card balances, however.
Commercial: The Chronicle reports that all is rosy and glowing in the commercial sector. Big building changed hands. Rents are up, inventory down. And Donald Trump is playing the spoiler in the $105B sale of the Bank of America Tower. Because he can.
And on a final note, Chronicle reporter Dan Levy bids his readers a final adieu noting that he went from writing about drag queens to writing about real estate.
̿'The Buzz, 2005, The Whispers, 2006 Residential [Sf Chronicle]
?The Buzz, 2005, The Whispers, 2006 Commercial [SF Chronicle]