Category Archives: Real Estate

Want to Sell Your Home Fast? Paint According to SDAR President

Posted on April 20, 2013 | Leave a comment

Linda Lee, president of the Greater San Diego Association of Realtors, is the author of this guest post.

Q: Is there a golden ticket to raising the value of your home before putting it on the market and quickly finding a buyer?

A: Yes, in fact, there is.

A fresh coat of paint is an inexpensive and highly effective selling feature that can take your home to the top of a buyer’s list in a hurry.

Is there a difference between marketability and “value?” Contact the appraisers at www.scappraisals.com for your value questions.

A gallon of paint usually runs about $25, leaving plenty of room in your budget to purchase rollers, tape and drop cloths. Painting is the cost-effective answer to the home-improvement dilemma.

A fresh layer of paint brightens, cleans and updates rooms with looks that sell. Target the main rooms in your house like the kitchen, living room and master bathroom.

Keep in mind that most people are drawn toward neutral colors. The less busy the room looks the better, so shy away from using bold accent colors on walls and intricate patterns that ruin the feel of the space. Avoid dark shades; lighter colors make rooms feel bigger.

Disclaimer: for information and entertainment purposes only

San Diego – New Homes Getting Hard To Find

Posted on April 18, 2013 | 1 comment

If you can’t find a sales agent to help you at new housing projects in the county, don’t be surprised.

Sales are up 17 percent over year-ago levels, and there’s not much inventory of unsold units available, according to the New Housing Monitor published by the Hanley Group in Oceanside.

Are new construction valued differently than older homes? Contact the appraisers at www.scappraisals.com for your value questions.

As of March 31, 775 homes — 519 detached and 256 attached — had been sold since the beginning of year, compared with 661 for the same period last year. That’s the highest for this time of the year since April 2007’s 2,119 sales in the pre-bust cycle.

The number of weeks of inventory at the current sales pace dropped to only 5.6 weeks, the lowest for the same week of the year since the five-week level in 2004. Inventories rose to as high as 57.4 weeks for the same point in 2008 on the eve of the Great Recession.

This year, the opening inventory for the second quarter included 336 new houses, condos and townhouses for sale, down 68.1 percent from 1,054 homes at this same period last year.

Homes planned but not yet released or built totaled 12,646, but builders are not moving fast enough to replace the sold units with new ones.

Disclaimer: for information and entertainment purposes only

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Tagged appraisal, new construction, new home, ral estate appraisal, san diego

Home Nightmares: What You Should Really Worry About, and Fix Now!

Posted on April 17, 2013 | Leave a comment

Do you obsess, just a little, about that crack in your kitchen drywall, the one that looks harmless, but increases to the size of a giant sinkhole in your imagination? What about those tiny droplets of water around the base of your bathroom sink? Do they converge into a gurgling river when you dream about them in the middle of the night? Are you fearful that dozens of leaves are clogging up your gutters and damaging your roof — but too afraid to actually look?

Rather than disregarding these telltale signs, take action. Preventive maintenance — in both visible and invisible places — can keep expensive disasters off a homeowner’s to-do list, saving money for the improvements that enhance your home.

Does deferred maintainance effect value? Contact the appraisers at www.scappraisals.com for your value questions.

Cracking Up

Foundation cracks aren’t necessarily the harbinger of financial doom, he says. “Concrete will harden and will crack. There is typical shrinkage as concrete cures, so you can get cracks in concrete in the crawl space or basement.”

The rule of thumb: If a crack is a quarter-inch wide or wider, then there’s concern.

Inside the home, drywall can crack as well.

“A drywall crack that starts at any corner of a window or the upper corner of any door, at about a 45-degree angle, indicates settlement in the home,” Fenimore says. “Some settlement is normal, but if you have several of these cracks, that could be a concern and should be addressed by a qualified structural engineer.”

Disclaimer: For information and entertainment purposes only

Category Archives: Real Estate

Want to Sell Your Home Fast? Paint According to SDAR President

San Diego – New Homes Getting Hard To Find

Home Nightmares: What You Should Really Worry About, and Fix Now!

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