Our Changing Neighborhood

We started looking for a house in the early part of 2009 but I never thought it would take us almost a year to get a house. Apparently we were not the only ones who thought there is a lot of potential and "affordable" housing in this area of Oakland. That's why it took us almost 10 months and numerous offers before we got ourselves a major fixer-upper. It didn't help that our budget was too low for a move in ready house sold by investors. Oh how we hated the investor/flippers who had beaten us out of countless houses. What were we thinking looking for a home in the second hottest zipcode in the country?

Top 10 ZIP codes where homes sold for more than the asking price in the first three months of 2010

Area	ZIP code
Chicago – Loop	60603
Emeryville/Oakland	94608
Oakland	94621
Los Angeles	90063
San Jose – East Valley	95122
San Pablo	94806
L.A. – Compton	90222
Lathrop (San Joaquin County)	95330
Oakland	94606
Oakland	94603

Source: ZipRealty

Having been here for almost a year now, we have seen some changes in the neighborhood demographic. There are a lot of renters in this area, but with all the foreclosures, it has allowed people who's been priced out of the real estate market to finally make their home purchases. That means decrepit houses around us are getting fixed up. Families and young professionals are moving into these short sale, foreclosure houses. 

Take for example the house next door. It has sat empty for a long time. The out of state owner inherited it from her aunt who lived in that house her whole life until her passing a few years ago. There was deferred maintenance and it attracted vandals. When it came on the market six months ago I thought it was never going to sell because it needed so much work. I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw the new owner moving in last month and started to slowly fixing it up. 

This house next door is small and lacks any interesting architecture details in my opinion. It's a tough sell, but boy am I glad that someone thinks this house is worth their money, time, and effort. I am interested to see what the new owner does with it. 

Here is a triplex behind our house that came on the market back in January, after several price drops it has gone pending recently. From what I heard, the interior needs a lot of work. I am pretty sure it was built as a Victorian/Queen Anne in 1900, but has lost all its charm after the "renovation" that's been done to turn it into a triplex. I am curious to see what the new owner will do to this house. Are they going to keep it as a rental investment property, in which case they probably won't do much to update it. Or do they have plans to gut it and fix it up then live in one unit and rent out the other like we did. Ah, the possibilities! 

Here's a Redfin.com map showing houses that sold in our neighborhood within the last year. I've been keeping an eye on the real estate market in the area as evident by all the houses bookmarked with hearts. I get notify whenever one of these marked houses get sold or are listed for sale. 

That's a lot of properties that changed hands in the last 12 months and hopefully that means most of these houses will get some much needed face lifts and further improve the feel of our neighborhood.