San Francisco | California Pacific Brokers

It’s Officially Rabbit Season: Chinese New Year

February 3, 2011 By Michael

Happy Chinese New Years!

February 3, 2011 marks the beginning of the Year of the Rabbit.

The big Chinese New Years Parade in San Francisco will on Saturday, February 19 2011.

Named one of the world’s top ten parades, Chinese New Year Parade in San Francisco is the largest celebration of its kind outside of Asia. Over 100 units will participate in the parade, many of the floats and specialty units will feature the theme of this year’s Chinese zodiac sign.

Nowhere in the world will you see a lunar new year parade with more gorgeous floats, elaborate costumes, ferocious lions, and exploding firecrackers. Some of the parade highlights include elaborately decorated floats, school marching bands, martial arts group, stilt walkers, lion dancers, Chinese acrobatics, the newly crowned Miss Chinatown USA and the Golden Dragon.

The Golden Dragon is over 201 feet long and is always featured at the end of the parade as the grand finale and will be accompanied by over 600,000 firecrackers! The Golden Dragon was made in Foshan, a small town in China. The Foshan dragonmasters formerly made all the costumes for the Cantonese opera, and the Golden Dragon bears many operatic touches, such as the rainbow colored pompoms on its 6 foot-long head. It is festooned from nose to tail with colored lights, decorated with silver rivets on both scaly sides and trimmed in white rabbit fur. The dragon, made on a skeleton of bamboo and rattan, is in 29 segments. It takes a team of 100 men and women to carry the Golden Dragon. This is also considered an honor to be chosen for the grand finale. Rain or shine, come watch the parade!

Here’s the parade route:

A few properties in the area:

Showing properties 1 - 4 of 4. See more Listings near Chinatown in San Francisco.
(all data current as of 2/4/2012)

$1,399,000 : 333 Bush St #3908, San Francisco

2 beds, 2 full baths

Home size: 1,560 sq ft

Year built: 1987
$149,500 : 336 Kearny St, San Francisco

0 beds, 0 baths

Home size: 723 sq ft
$165,000 : 475 Sansome St, San Francisco

0 beds, 0 baths

Home size: 1,800 sq ft
$99,888 : 000 Street, San Francisco

0 beds, 0 baths

Home size: 860 sq ft

Listing information deemed reliable but not guaranteed. Read full disclaimer.

Homes Sales in the West Slightly Higher in January

Homes Sales in the West Slightly Higher in January

Homes sales in the Western region of the nation inched approximately 3% higher in the last month. The increase benefited from a comparison to January 2009 sales, which was in the wake of the US financial crisis.

Nationally, sales rose 7% from January 2009. The median was flat at $164,700. In the West, the median price fell by nearly 6% to $203,400.

In the Western region of the United States, homes sales surged for much of last year, fueled largely by homebuyers and investors snapping up bank-owned properties in California, Arizona and Nevada.

Nationally, sales fell around 33% from December and by nearly a quarter in the West. Some of that decline is likely due to seasonal factors, but also a decline in the number of buyers racing to qualify for an $8,000 first-time homebuyer tax credit. Lawmakers ultimately extended the deadline to April 30 and added a $6,500 incentive for repeat buyers, taking some of the urgency out of the dealmaking. Another factor for the fall in home sales was the inventory of homes for sale has been shrinking.

Throughout the Western region, the supply of homes under $100,000 stood at just over 3 months in January; it was around 5 months for homes below $250,000. In markets like San Francisco, Las Vegas and Los Angeles, the roster of available homes has dropped 40% or more from where it was a year ago, according to the Associated Press.

Eight cities registered annual sales increases last month: Honolulu, Seattle, Albuquerque, Portland, Phoenix, Boise, Las Vegas and Billings.

Five metropolitan areas posted annual price declines: Denver, San Diego, Anchorage, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.

Some Regional Highlights:

Steepest price drop: The median homes sales price in Las Vegas tumbled 20% from a year ago to $120,000 as homebuyers continued to snap up discounted bank-owned properties. Sales jumped 20% from a year earlier.

Sharpest price gain: San Francisco, where the median price posted an annual increase of about 25% to $410,000.

Biggest sales gain: Sales in Honolulu jumped about 65% from a year ago. The metro’s median home price was essentially flat from a year ago at $418,500.