Oakland California Real Estate

Oakland, California, is located in Alameda County, and is 10 miles E of San Francisco, California. Oakland has a population of 399,484. It is in the San Francisco Bay Area region, and enjoys close proximity to San Francisco. The San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge links the two cities together.

Concentrated efforts have been made in the preservation of precious Victorian homes. The beautiful results can be seen in downtown Oakland's Preservation Park, as well as throughout the city and in the picturesque Oakland Hills.

The city's homes follow different architectural styles, but two are dominant—the Victorian, and the Craftsman. See fine examples of both in Rockridge,a pedestrian friendly Oakland neighborhood well-served by public transportation. A BART commuter train station is here, flanked by a European-style public market, ethnic restaurants, and boutiques. Another neighborhood is Elmwood—to the North—and borders the University of California. Homes in both neighborhoods are in high demand.

Oakland properties pool is 150,787 residential properties including Oakland new homes. Median age of real estate in Oakland is 1950. Its average household size is 3.38 people. 10% are one bedroom homes, 34% are 2 bedroom homes, 36% are 3 bedroom homes, 14% are 4 bedroom homes, and 4% are 5+ bedroom homes.

Homes With No Mortgage 23%

Homes With Mortgage 77%

First Mortgage Only 58%

First & Second Mortgage or HELOC 19%

Oakland Real estate Tax: Median Real Estate Taxes (2000) were $1,762 comparing to 1999 Median Family income $ 44,384. Compare to USA median yearly Real Estate Tax $1,300 and USA median Family Income $42,000 (1999).

Oakland School District: Children make up 25% of Oakland population. Oakland has 99,759 under 18 years old residents, or 0.59 kids per one worker, or 0.66 kids per one household.

There are also many private schools, including the new addition of a Spanish bilingual school for preschool to the elementary levels.

Oakland Real Estate & Oakland Homeownership

There are 48251.84 or 32% one person households, 42220.36 or 28% two person households, and 22618.05 or 15% three person households in Oakland, California. Median residents age is 33.3, Senior citizens (65+) make up 41,788 or 10.5%% of Oakland population.

There are 170,503 workers (over 16 years of age) in Oakland. Of these, 71.98% drive to work. Approximately 17.44% of workers in Oakland take public transportation. An estimated 3.73% walk to work. Public transportation consists of the bus, as well as the Bay Area Rapid Transport trains, which is headquartered in Oakland.

Median Oakland homeowner's housing expenses are 22.5%

Crime in Oakland (2003), crimes per 10,000 residents per year

Violent Crimes 140.51

Robberies 61.93

Aggravated Assaults 69.14

Property Crimes 566.48

Burglaries 114.35

Larceny-Thefts 314.18

Motor Vehicle Thefts 137.95

Oakland is an ethnically diverse city in a region that offers temperate climate most of the year. Civic life thrives here, with many museums and educational institutions that call Oakland their home. Many beautiful highlights include Lake Merritt, Oakland's own Chinatown, and the Oakland Hills with its stunning views of the San Francisco skyline and the bay.

When making a decision about buying real estate in Oakland California area, you should consider the following statistical data:

Near Medium City

Near Large City San Francisco, California

Oakland Zip Codes 94601, 94602, 94603, 94605, 94606, 94607, 94608, 94609, 94610, 94611, 94612, 94615, 94617, 94618, 94619, 94621

Oakland Area Codes 510

White population 31.29%

African-American population 35.66%

Asian 15.23%

American Indian & Alaskan

Hispanic (of any race) 21.89%

Median Family Income (1999) $ 44,384%

Population Below Poverty Level 19.15%

Jennifer Hershey has more than twenty years of experience in the Mortgage Industry as a loan officer. She is the owner of a real estate and mortgage resource site devoted to making mortgage terms and products easy to understand.

The Things You Can Do To Fix Bad Credit

When confronted with the reality of having bad credit, people's first reactions are something along the lines of "I'm doomed" or "This is it" and "That's it". But there's no need to be so depressed and pessimistic just yet.

Haven't you heard about the wonders of credit repair? Yes, I know, the critics are still going on and on about the need for consumers to be wary of professional credit repair companies and the kind of services they're offering but whether you do it yourself or hire the services of a professional credit repair company, it's undeniable that credit repair can indeed transform what was previously rated as bad credit into a good one.

If you're interested to learn about the things you can do to fix bad credit – yours in particular – read on!

Bad Credit Can Still Be Erased – That's the first thing you have to convince yourself of. The path to credit repair is not a short and easy one; so if you don't have the patience and perseverance for it, I can already tell you now that you'll be quitting even when you're not halfway to the finish line. Because you're doing it alone, the task is doubly harder so you truly need buckets of patience if you want to see this through.

Prepare Yourself For Changes – Don't fool yourself into thinking that when all this is over and you've accomplished what you intended – and that's to repair your credit – you can immediately revert to your old form and once again not care about payment deadlines, overextending your loans, using up the remaining balance of your credit cards and so on.

If you want the effects of your credit repair achievements to last, then you must promise to yourself not to go back to your old bad habits. Besides, that's also like throwing away everything you've earned!

Deciphering Credit Reports – When you're about to fix bad credit you can ask anyone in the world with a minimum amount of intelligence regarding financial matters and they'll tell you that the first thing you'll always have to do is obtain a copy of your credit report and find out about your FICO scores.

If you have a FICO score that's above 680, it's time to set your heart at ease because for now, there's nothing to worry about. But if you have a score lower than 550, you better wish that your credit report contains a number of errors or you're in for a longer fight.

Mr. Peter Garant is a long time contributer of financial articles, Most of his work is faxless payday loan and credit repair Articles.

Overpricing Homes: Sellers #1 Mistake When Listing Their Home

Home sellers said that overpricing was the biggest mistake they made when listing their homes. Next worst mistake is dealing with the same real estate agent who represented the buyer.

Overpricing a home is the number one mistake sellers said they made when listing their homes, according to a new national real estate e-mail survey. The margin was nearly three-to-one over the second choice concerning homes for sale.

Survey respondents said their next biggest mistake was "dealing with the same real estate agent who represented the buyer," thereby setting up a possible conflict of interest and possibly a perception that the buyer was getting a better deal with the home price.

Third biggest mistake was "failure to disclose known defects or problems." Virtually tied for fourth place were: "under pricing their real estate properties" and "not utilizing Internet technology to market their homes."

"With the rapid home price appreciation we've seen in many housing markets across the country, it's not surprising that sellers expectations sometimes outran their local real estate market reality," said Michael Bearden, president and CEO of HouseHunt, Inc.

Bearden expressed surprise over the negative response to agents representing both buyers and the sellers: "Usually it boils down to good communication with the consumer. The agent who communicates effectively and stays in touch throughout the real estate transaction usually has a positive experience with both the buyer and the seller.. With automated response systems customer communication should not be a problem."

Monte Helme is a national public relations consultant with HouseHunt, Inc. Previously, he was vice president of public relations and publications for Century 21 Real Estate Corp.; vice president of communications for AmeriNet Financial Services (now LendingTree); assistant city editor/Orange County for the Los Angeles Times; executive sports editor of the Rockford, IL, Morning Star and Register-Republic; and reporter for the Dixon, IL, Evening-Telegraph. Find real estate, homes for sale through public MLS and by visiting websites: HouseH and SuperMLS.com powered by HouseHunt, Inc.

Financing Residential Solar Power

Although competition is driving prices down, solar panel systems can require you departing with a chunk of change. Fortunately, the mortgage industry wants to talk to you.

Financing Residential Solar Power

If you are considering improving your home with a solar panel system or the hot new thin solar roofing systems, you need to learn three little letters – E…E…M. EEM stands for energy efficient mortgage. It also stands for avoiding out of pocket costs to improve your home with a solar.

Energy efficient mortgages came to be because of a nudge from the government to lenders in an effort to promote the use of solar energy as a power source. Put another way, the government told lenders to do it and do it now. So, what exactly is an energy efficient mortgage? Glad you asked.

An energy efficient mortgage is a loan that allows you to incorporate the cost of your solar improvements into your mortgage loan. The improvements can cost up to 15 percent of the total value of your home. The lender will calculate the energy savings for you home because of the new solar system and will add that to the total loan value, letting you borrow more than normal. Put another way, it doesn't matter how much equity you currently have in your home, the solar financing is added on top of the loan. This, of course, lets you get a solar system without much out of pocket expense and you get to recover a good chunk of the cost through an increased mortgage interest deduction. Throw in tax credits, rebates and net metering incentives, and solar is getting mighty cheap if you know how to work the system.

Energy efficient mortgages have very few restrictions. You can get them for new construction or existing homes. The can be issued for single family residents, duplexes, condos and so on.

Frankly, it is a no brainer to go with an energy efficiency mortgage. Ask your lender for more information on the program so you can find out how to profit from a solar improvement to your home.

Rick Chapo is with SolarC a directory of solar energy companies. Visit us to read more articles on solar power and renewable energy.