Paint vs. Stain

When finishing wood upgrades in your home, you have two general style options: paint or stain. Whether you want to enhance the natural beauty of your new Redwood fence, or cover up the flaws of your old plywood cabinets, each style has its pros and cons, and can be used to accomplish distinct goals in your home renovation.

If you’re trying to brighten up an older home, but don’t want to spend the money to replace outdated cabinets, vanities, and bedroom doors - paint tends to be the way to go. It covers up imperfections in older wood, and gives you many more color options to match the rest of your home (convenient if you’re not doing a complete home remodel).

On the other hand, if you’ve just spent a bunch of money on brand new Cherry cabinets, or Redwood fencing, you’re not going to want to hide the gorgeous wood grain under a thick coating of paint. Instead, you’ll want to coat it with a stain that will penetrate deep into the wood’s pores, creating a richer wood grain appearance. Different stains will show more of the woods underlying features than others, depending on their opacity and pigmentation.

In some cases, paints and stains can complement each other quite nicely. Lighter paint tones used on trim or siding around darker stained doors and/or decking can yield some dramatic and beautiful results. Take for instance this San Carlos hills home pictured below, which masterfully pairs dark stained Brazilian Ipe decking with sleek white trim, posts and siding.

Dark stained Ipe Wood decking contrasting beautifully with the white painted wood accents.  

Paint can be more difficult and time consuming to apply than stains, as you typically want to prime a surface before painting, and give it a "finishing coat" of paint after the first coat. Also, since paint is so much thicker than most stains, more care must be taken to roll it out evenly, ensuring no droplets form and harden on the surface of the wood. Maintaining paint can be a bit more burdensome as well, as you will need to chip away any peeling layers before applying a new one. Stains don't normally chip or peel if applied properly.

With stains, surface preparation of the wood is minimal and primers are not always required. For exterior uses of stains (siding, decks, trim) a finishing coat is not normally required either. However, for some interior uses (floors, doors, butcher block countertops) you will want to apply a clear protective coating once the stain has dried.

History Shows: Stock Market Paces the Real Estate Market

Economists tend to disagree on whether there is a true causal relationship between the stock and real estate markets.  However, recent data shows that when the stock market goes up or down, home prices follow.  When tracking home prices in San Mateo County against the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJI), between the dotcom crash of 2000-2002 all the way to today, you can see almost identical trend lines.  The above chart shows clearly that for nearly every peak and valley in the DJI there is a corresponding fluctuation in home prices.

As a Realtor who has represented numerous buyers throughout my career, I believe there is at least one obvious link between the stock market and real estate markets.  It is common for buyers to use stock investments to help fund down payments on home purchases.  This is especially true in regions like San Mateo County, where in the month of April a 20% down payment on the average home would have been roughly $375,000.  Since most people are not able to save this amount of money in a short period of time, stock based investments and company stocks are the typical source for the down payment.  For these people, a surge in stock value means a surge in purchasing power.  Therefore, it’s not all that surprising to see home prices ebbing and flowing right alongside the stock market.

While it’s not necessarily a proven science, the theory at the very least passes the eye test. If you’re looking for an indicator of where San Mateo County home prices could go next, keep an eye on the stock market.

The Bay Area's Most Central Transit Hub Set for a Major Facelift

The Millbrae Planning Commission was just given its first chance to formally review a massive mixed use development to be built adjacent to the city's Caltrain/BART staions.  The "Serra Station" proposal calls for the construction of 440 housing units, 290,000 S/F of office space, and 13,200 S/F of retail - contained in two 10-story buildings and one 9-story building.  This project is one of two major developments proposed in a 116 acre site surrounding the Millbrae Station, part of a city-led effort to build a vibrant economic hub around one of the peninsula's most central and connected transit centers.  The other project, "Gateway at Millbrae Station", is proposing the construction of over 300 rental housing units, 47,000 S/F of retail, and 160,000 S/F of office space.

In February of last year, city officials approved an update to the Millbrae Station Area Specific Plan, which preemptively completed much of the environmental work necessary for the development of the 116 acres site.  Plans were submitted for both projects shortly after the update was approved by city council, but they had to go through a lengthy public review process before being put in front of the Planning Commission.

Sound familiar?  Redwood City similarly completed environmental work for land downtown when they passed their 2011 Downtown Precise Plan.  This was done in an attempt to jump start developer interest in the city's downtown area - and it worked.... With fewer regulatory hoops to jump through for project approval, developers flocked to the city in droves.

Millbrae won't see development on the same scale that Redwood City did.  Their focus, at least for now, is on transit oriented development built around the Millbrae station.  Plus, the environmental work was only done for two projects (albeit two very large projects), as opposed to the dozens of residential and commercial projects that had the way cleared for them by RWC's Downtown Precise Plan.  Still, the Millbrae station certainly has the potential to become something special.  It is the largest intermodal terminal West of the Mississippi - connecting BART, Caltrain, SamTrans, and if all goes as planned, the California high speed rail.  It also happens to be the peninsula's most central public transit hub, offering easy access to the East Bay, SFO, the Oakland Airport, San Francisco, and San Jose.  With the area around it developed, this station could become a desirable place for people to to eat, shop, work, and live, rather than just a pitstop that travelers hurriedly pass through on the way to their final destination.

Check out this marketing video for the Gateway at Millbrae Station.  The project's developer, Republic Urban, put it together, and it offers a remarkably detailed representation of their vision for what the Millbrae station could become in several years time.