In June, we relaunched our Red Oak Realty blog with a focus on telling richer, deeper stories about our Inner East Bay home market the real estate trends that influence its character and future, and its dynamic geographic diversity.

 

So with the holidays upon us, we are taking a look back at our most popular content of the year. It’s a great time to highlight some useful stories that may have been overlooked and to get ready for 2020.

 

So as we prepare for our 44th-year in the East Bay, here's some of our most popular content from 2019.

 

Everyone might not know that the East Bay has a unique real estate pricing culture: agents and sellers routinely list homes for sale here from 10 to 20 percent under what they anticipate they will actually sell for.

 

For example, in the first half of 2019, Berkeley single-family homes went for an average of 19 percent over list price, the highest of any Bay Area city in that period. Three Inner East Bay cities followed: El Cerrito (17 percent), Albany (15 percent) and Kensington (13 percent).

 

 

The Inner East Bay has the highest concentration of homes that sell for the highest over list price. Red denotes areas with higher sale-to-list-price ratios. Source: Red Oak Realty analysis of MLS data.

 

In other areas, homes list much closer to what agents and sellers think they will go for.

 

 

In early August, we published some of our most exciting news of the year, with a post about the acquisition of fellow independent East Bay brokerage Marvin Gardens Real Estate.

 

The acquisition made us the East Bay’s largest independent brokerage and the largest brokerage period in Berkeley, Albany, El Cerrito, Richmond and Kensington.

 

The acquisition also represents a commitment to growing a locally owned, hand-crafted brokerage that serves clients as friends and neighbors. Corporate behemoths -- who are increasingly taking over the real estate industry -- aren’t the only way forward, or the best way.

 

 

In September, we published the definitive guide to East Bay accessory dwelling units (ADUs).

 

ADUs, which also go by granny flats, in-law suites and secondary units, are immensely attractive to East Bay homeowners and homebuyers as they allow residents to comfortably host guests or family members, develop studios and generate income as short- or long-term rentals.

 

 

ADUs come in all shapes and sizes, detached like a little casita or attached like this in-house attic pictured above.

 

The post provides an East Bay guide to city policy on ADUs. For example, some cities such as Berkeley, require owners of ADUs to live in the property’s primary home, while Richmond and Oakland does not require this.

 

Other East Bay city variations include rules around renting ADUs for shorter periods, parking requirements and structure style.

 

 

Each real estate market is different and the East Bay, of course, follows suit.

 

But it’s hard sometimes to understand how to view the real estate market, which is why, in July, we laid out five key metrics consumers can use to understand the East Bay market: number of sales, median sales price, average price per square foot, average percent of price over asking, average days on market and, a plus-one, seasonality.

 

 

We don’t do a lot of house-focused posts on our blog, but one home we couldn’t resist: Oakland’s DeRome House.

 

 

The stunning DeRome House, Oakland. Image: Red Oak Realty.

 

Located in Oakland’s Paradise Park neighborhood, just east of Emeryville, the 5,356-square-foot, three-story, seven-bed, five-bath, four-fireplace masterpiece exemplifies classic Oakland architecture in a storied home, still for sale at $2.8 million.