The big-ticket sales were concentrated in the South Bay, Peninsula and San Francisco, where companies such as Google and Facebook were sending waves of newly minted millionaires out searching for their dream homes, which were in short supply. Bidding wars pushed high prices even higher.

Courtesy Bernard Andre -- This home on Park Lane in Atherton sold for $30,300,000

...the Circle Building is perhaps the country's largest single manifestation of "Tuhao Jin" (literally "gold of the unrefined and wealthy"), a viral term lately used to mock the country's nouveau riche.

The term has been applied widely to what many Chinese consider garish displays of wealth

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From Bankrate.com 
When you sell your home, you'll likely get an earful of advice about finding the right agent. You're less likely to hear what you should do before your first meeting with that agent. If you don't prepare, you could suffer financial consequences, according to Herman Chan, a real estate broker in San Francisco.

"Anything you can do to make (the agent's) job easier is going to benefit you during the process and when sale time comes," Chan says. "What's important to remember is that you're mostly likely going to be working very closely with this person on a very big transaction, so it's a good idea to be prepared and ready to provide them with as much information as possible right off the bat."

Here are seven things the seller needs to do before contacting and hiring a real estate agent.

Read more: http://www.bankrate.com/finance/real-estate/to-do-before-hiring-agent-1.aspx#ixzz2pzXQOjEP 

 Catherine Bigelow chatted with the noted scribe about the "comically off-putting" shrubs in front of her limestone Pac Heights palace, Steel had this to say: "Sometimes I think San Francisco hates successful people ... No matter what I do, people say nasty stuff. I mean, the world is falling apart and people complain about my hedge. It's a mystery."

An Arizona regulator is ordering “Property Wars” reality TV star John Ray and his firm to immediately stop doing business because neither hold a real estate license, as required by law.

The Arizona Department of Real Estate issued a cease and desist order to Ray and his business, Arizona Investors Alliance LLC (dba Bid AZ Foreclosures), on December 6, noting Ray’s license has been terminated since July 2011 and the firm shows no record of a license.