Category Archives: Uncategorized

San Diego – 2017 Housing forecast

Posted on December 6, 2016 | Leave a comment

Expect increased rent prices in San Diego County next year and many of the same hurdles to get new homes built.

That’s at least some of the consensus coming out of two real estate forecast conferences in San Diego this week attended by builders, landlords and investors.

There was cautious optimism about President-elect Donald Trump, anticipation of changes for office space demand and a general displeasure about the failed effort to get Lilac Hills built at the annual economic forecast gatherings of the local Institute of Real Estate Management in La Jolla on Friday and the University of San Diego’s business school on Thursday.

Donald Trump

The real estate industry has had a mixed reaction to Donald Trump’s election victory, despite his history as a real estate developer.

Jason Wood, project principal at San Diego real estate development company Cisterra Development, said Trump’s plan to lower taxes and cut regulation could be a boon for the industry, at least in the first few years.

“Does everyone know the new president is going to try and lessen some of the regulation that has held us back?” he said to the roughly 250 attendees at the La Jolla event.

He said there was no question the industry would change, it was just a question of how much.

“2017, in my opinion, is going to be a good year in our business,” he said.

However, other aspects of the president-elect give other analysts pause.

“This idea of traumatizing world economies through Twitter is very unsettling,” said real estate consultant Gary London at the same event. “ I think if we start creating trade wars with China, that could have an impact.”

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Home loan limits lifted for first time since 2006

Posted on December 2, 2016 | Leave a comment

Federal borrowing limits were increased for the first time in more than a decade last week because of rising home prices across the nation. The Federal Housing Financing Agency had capped the baseline loan limit since 2006 as home prices dropped during the recession.

The new rates, used for conforming loans acquired by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, will take effect Jan. 1. In general, federally backed loans allow for smaller down payments and, theoretically, help more people enter the home market.

In San Diego County, loan limits for a typical single-family home will be $612,950, up 6 percent from where they are now. Those limits are higher than the national baseline of $424,100.

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Website helps house hunters find the best schools

Posted on December 2, 2016 | Leave a comment

House hunters with children now have another option when seeking a neighborhood with a good school.

air housing laws prohibit agents from providing advice or opinions on schools because it could be considered steering people to particular neighborhoods. However, agents for several years have been recommending to buyers information on GreatSchools.org, which ranks schools on a one-to-10 scale and on other third-party sites.

Now another site called Cruvita.com launched its own school-rating system, offering buyers the ability to see house listings by school district. Buyers can search by city, Zip code or county to get a list of schools with a letter grade. Cruvita has real estate listings in many areas, including the District and numerous jurisdictions in Maryland and Northern Virginia.

The Cruvita School Score uses a patent-pending algorithm to rank and grade most public schools in the United States based on test scores and other educational data. The lower the score, the better the school. The letter grades are assigned to schools nationwide to make it easier for buyers to compare schools quickly; a B+ in Maryland is equal to a B+ in Arizona.