Positive News on the Real Estate Front

Over the course of the summer, there has been positive news on the real estate front.  For starters, on August 20^th, Edmund Jin, the principal executive of Fremont-based JLA home Inc., a home furnishings manufacturer, paid $21 million for a 610,000 square foot distribution center in Livermore.  The sale of this building marked one of the largest commercial real estate transactions in the East Bay over the last few years.  Perhaps commercial real estate is still alive and kicking in the East Bay.  Michael Lloyd, a Colliers International broker, commented on the transaction by saying, “No question, there is money out there to make deals that are priced correctly.”  To read more about this real estate transaction, visit the Contra Costa Times.

In addition to this large real estate transaction in the East Bay, manufacturing grew in the month of August.  The Institute for Supply Management said that the manufacturing index rose to 52.9 in August from 48.9 in July.  This is the highest the index has been since June of 2007.  According to Investopedia, the manufacturing index gives investors a detailed look at how busy the manufacturing sector is, and can have a significant effect on the markets. Since manufacturing is a major sector of the U.S. economy, an increase in the index can indicate an uptrend in the economy.  Read more on this topic in the Los Angeles Times.

The Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller 20-City Composite Home Price Index also reported that home values in the San Francisco metropolitan area gained 3.8 percent in June compared with the month before.  The San Francisco metro area includes San Francisco, San Mateo, Alameda, Contra Costa and Marin counties.  For a full detail of this article visit the Contra Costa Times.

With all of this positive news, it seems as though real estate may be on its way to a healthy recovery.