Chuck Barberini Real Estate

  “Just Thinking" I was driving home from San Francisco on a Friday night a couple of weeks ago, just easing onto the Bay Bridge, when I noticed the digital clock on the dashboard flip to 5:00. Growing up in The City, 5:00 on a Friday wasn’t just a time, it was a signal. The workweek ended, the weekend began. Like clockwork, you’d tune the radio to 104.5 FM, KFOG, because every Friday at 5:00 PM meant The Weekend Salute. The opening notes of “Smoke Two Joints” by The Toyes would roll out over the airwaves, officially kicking off the weekend. It was a ritual Fogheads across the Bay Area instantly recognized, an unofficial alarm bell telling you it was time to relax, to exhale and get into weekend mode, here comes that Friday feeling again. This was before satellite radio, before playlists and algorithms, before Apple Music and Spotify decided what we might like next. As car radios evolved from strictly AM to AM/FM, so did we. We moved on from the station of our youth—KFRC 610 AM, w...

Check Out This Weeks Newsletter Monthly mortgage payments are easing across the U.S., with MBA’s December data showing a $102 year-over-year drop and the seventh straight improvement in affordability. According to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s December 2025 Purchase Applications Payment Index (PAPI), the national median mortgage payment for homebuyers fell to $2,025, down from $2,034 in November. As mortgage rates move lower and incomes keep rising, pressure on buyers is finally starting to ease after years of climbing housing costs. For much of the past two years, higher rates pushed monthly payments sharply higher. The latest MBA data shows that trend steadily reversing. Affordability improved again, and the numbers back it up MBA’s PAPI tracks how new mortgage payments change compared with household income. When the index drops, affordability improves. That’s exactly what happened again in December. Here’s what shifted in the latest report: The national ...

Buying a home is one of the biggest purchases you’ll ever make. And homeowner’s insurance is what protects that investment. Think of it as your safety net. NerdWallet explains it: Covers Repairs and Rebuilding Costs : If your home is damaged by fire, storms, or other covered events, it helps pay for repairs and possibly even a full rebuild, if that’s deemed necessary. Protects Your Belongings : It can also cover personal items like furniture, electronics, jewelry, and clothing if they’re stolen or damaged. Provides Liability Coverage : And, if someone gets injured on your property, your policy can help cover medical bills or legal expenses. But that peace of mind does come with a cost, and lately those costs have been rising. Why Home Insurance Premiums Are Going Up There are a number of factors causing insurance premiums to rise today. But, in the simplest sense, here’s what’s driving prices up according to the Insurance Research Council (IRC). Severe weather events and natural dis...

Check Out This Weeks Newsletter More than 40,000 home-purchase agreements fell apart in December, the highest cancellation rate Redfin has ever recorded for that month. That’s not a typo. According to a new Redfin analysis of MLS pending-sales data, 16.3% of all homes that went under contract in December ended up canceled. That’s up from 14.9% a year earlier and marks the highest December share since Redfin began tracking the data in 2017. This lines up with what’s happening across the market as buyers gain more options and become increasingly selective. A Record Share of Pending Sales Are Falling Through Redfin’s historical data shows December cancellations have been climbing for years, and 2025 pushed them to a new high. Here’s how the trend looks in context: December 2025 posted a 16.3% cancellation rate, the highest December level on record December 2024 came in at 14.9%, meaning cancellations jumped 1.4 percentage points year over year Prior Decembers generally ...

  When you see a house that’s been sitting on the market for a while, the reaction is almost automatic. You start thinking: What’s wrong with it? Why hasn’t anyone bought it yet? Am I missing something? That mindset made sense a few years ago. But in today’s market, you may actually miss out. More Time on Market Isn't Automatically a Concern Anymore A few years ago, homes sold in just a matter of days. Sometimes, hours. Anything that lingered longer than that raised concerns. But that’s no longer the baseline. Inventory has grown. Buyers have more choices. And homes are taking longer to sell across the board. Those are some of the reasons why the typical time it takes a home to sell has climbed this year: And it’s not that 73 days is slow. That’s actually pretty normal for this time of year. It just feels slow because you heard so much about houses being snapped up in the buying frenzy a few years ago. That shift alone explains a lot of what you’re seeing. It’s not necessarily tha...

“Just Thinking" Two weeks until pitchers and catchers report, and in anticipation of the diamond dandies returning to the field, this week’s newsletter is going full baseball. Spring Training will feel a bit different this year because it’s a World Baseball Classic year. WBC pitchers report by February 11, and position players on February 12. This is the sixth edition of the tournament which features 20 national teams competing across four countries from March 5–17. Here is the WBC at a glance, 20 teams, 4 pools, 5 teams in each pool. Round-robin pool play 4 games per team, top 2 teams advance from each pool. Single-elimination quarterfinals, semifinals, and finals. Here are some of the rule tweaks: Pitch counts: First Round - 65 pitches, Quarterfinals - 80 pitches, Semis & the Finals - 95 pitches. Designated Pitcher Pool (DPP): Teams may carry extra pitchers outside the main 30‑man roster and activate them between rounds. International tiebreaker: In extra innings, teams star...