Category Archives: Real Estate

House Hunting – 8 Things to Ask About the Neighborhood

Posted on June 29, 2014 | Leave a comment

Check all the statements that are true for you.

1. My house scores high on the walkability scale. To find your home’s walkability score, go to walkscore.com and type in your address. Any score over 70 is very walkable. Give yourself credit for any address that gets a score over 50. Whether members of your household can walk to at least one, if not many of their daily activities, such as work, school, church, or the market, plays a big role in how much unintentional exercise they get, according to a walkability report from Smart Growth America that ranks America’s 30 largest metros.

2. My neighborhood has sidewalks, a park, bike lanes, or bike or jogging trails. Those who live in communities that support walking, cycling and outdoor recreation are far more likely to be physically active, according to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a national nonprofit that works to improve the health of Americans.

3. I live within a mile of a supermarket that sells fresh produce. Having a fresh-food supermarket nearby is associated with a lower rate of obesity, while living close to a convenience store, which usually doesn’t sell fresh produce, has been linked to higher rates of obesity.

4. My town has a weekly farmer’s market that I can get to in five minutes. Studies show that communities that support a farmer’s market, which also provides easy access to healthy produce, are healthier.

5. The number of sit-down restaurants within a five-mile radius of my home either equals or exceeds the number of fast-food restaurants.

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What Season Should You List Your Home?

Posted on June 27, 2014 | Leave a comment

It’s common knowledge verging on holy writ in real estate: Spring is the absolute best time of the year to sell a house.

Right?

But is there hard statistical evidence that listing your house in April, May or June — flowers blooming, birds chirping, lawns greened up after a tough winter — actually nets you a higher price or a shorter time from listing to sale?

Yes, but it’s not as clear-cut as you might imagine. There are important nuances in the data. Reviews of realty industry and academic studies suggest that while sales totals generally are highest in May and June, they actually reflect listings, contracts and buyer searches that occur earlier in the year.

A study of 1.1 million home listings between 2011 and 2013 in 19 major markets by the national realty brokerage firm Redfin found that, contrary to popular impressions, houses put on the market in winter — defined as Dec. 21 through March 21 — had a nine-percentage-point greater probability of selling within 180 days and at a smaller discount to the initial list price than houses put on the market during the spring months (March 22 through June 21). The advantage jumped to 10 percentage points over summer listings (June 22 through Sept. 20.) Winter listers ultimately sold for prices 1.2 percentage points higher than homes listed during any other season.

Though there were geographic differences, researchers found that even in areas with harsh winters, there were statistical advantages for listers. In Chicago there was a 13-percentage-point advantage in selling time for listings initiated in late December through mid-March compared with listings in the summer.

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55,000 SD Owners Still Underwater

Posted on June 18, 2014 | Leave a comment

Nearly five years after the Great Recession, more than 55,000 San Diego County homeowners are still underwater on their mortgages, says an analysis released this week by the real-estate website Zillow.

The report found that in the first quarter of the year, 12.6 percent of homeowners with mortgages in San Diego County owed more on their properties than they were worth, down from 21 percent a year earlier.

The drop in those underwater was aided by big home price appreciation in 2013, which during the summer peaked at 24.1 percent year-over-year. Still, the annual gains slowed in the second half of the year, and weren’t enough to get everyone’s value to recover to a point that they could sell their home for a profit or at least break even to get out of their loan.