Irresponsible Journalism: How the San Francisco Chronicle is stealing the equity from Peninsula homes and what you can do about it

By Anton Blewett, Cell: (650) 996-2028

The front page of today’s Sunday Edition San Francisco Chronicle reads: “Mortgage Meltdown: Neighborhoods crumble in wave of foreclosures,” “One Street’s Nightmare: People bail out, those who remain suffer,” and “Local Trouble Zones: Epidemic repossessions hit several ZIP codes.” The three articles are largely based on the chart titled “How ZIPs become trouble zones,” which lists the zip codes with the highest rate of foreclosures.

• Is any zip from San Mateo County listed? No.
• Are any San Mateo County cities mentioned in the article? No.
• Will the article affect the value of San Mateo County homes? Big time.

The articles mislead the public, specifically potential buyers, into thinking that a major real estate downturn is occurring in all areas of the Bay Area when in reality, it is occurring in only specific neighborhoods. Unfortunately for Peninsula home owners, buyers do not make this distinction. As public perception of a widespread downturn increases, buyers will wait to buy because they are fearful of losing equity or hopeful of buying at lower prices. As buyers postpone their purchase, the buyer pool shrinks. As the buyer pool shrinks, demands decreases. As demand decreases, home values drop.

The Peninsula
My impression is foreclosure rates are low in San Mateo County. Homes that are short or foreclosure sales are tagged as such. Because I preview the new inventory every week, my impression of foreclosure rates is pretty good. Moreover my father and other agents in my office agree. All in all, homes are maintaining their value on the Peninsula. However values will drop if demand continues decreasing.

Responsible Journalism
The San Francisco Chronicle must do a better job of distinguishing local markets and acknowledge the role articles play in impacting home values. The Peninsula real estate market follows entirely different rules than the rest of the Bay Area, state and country. For example, if the article asserts that high foreclosure rates negatively impact property values, which today’s article does, and Peninsula foreclosure rates are low, then the paper must acknowledge this fact! Or better yet, the paper should publish an additional article highlighting the resiliency of the Peninsula real estate market.

What you can do
As a Peninsula home owner, I am angry. If you are concerned as well, share your sentiments with Chronicle Editors and Staff Writers. Either write a letter to the editor or email the article writers individually. The writers are Erin McCormick (emccormick@sfchronicle.com), Carolyn Said (csaid@sfchronicle.com), and Kelly Zito (kzito@sfchronicle.com).

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