Green Real Estate Appraiser

The pace of home price appreciation in San Diego County fell to a level near its historical average in September, as the housing market continued its return to normalcy after last year’s investor-led run-up in prices.

In September, the median price for a home sold in the county was $445,000, up 5.5 percent from a year earlier, DataQuick reported Monday. Since the real-estate tracker began collecting the data in 1988, San Diego County has averaged an annual home-price gain of 5.2 percent.

In August, when annual appreciation was 8.1 percent, the median home price was $448,500.

Read more at: http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2014/oct/13/dataquick-september-homes-sold-realestate-median/

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City officials announced Thursday they no longer plan to build the proposed Regents Road bridge, which has sparked years of legal wrangling and community protests in University City.

Giving up on the bridge, which has been planned since the 1980s, will allow city officials to more aggressively pursue alternative solutions to the area’s traffic congestion and emergency response challenges, Mayor Kevin Faulconer and other city leaders said. One such solution will probably include building a new fire station on Governor Drive in southern University City, the mayor said.

The shift also means rural Rose Canyon, a popular hiking spot that the $40 million bridge would have crossed, will remain pristine and relatively undisturbed.

“This new path forward will help protect the environment, help the community get the fire protection that it deserves and needs, and give us the final word on a decades-long debate over the Regents Road bridge,” Faulconer said at an afternoon press conference near the entrance to Rose Canyon. “It’s time to move forward with a realistic plan that can be put into action.”

The shift in strategy was praised Thursday by the University City Community Planning Group, residents living nearby and the Friends of Rose Canyon, an environmental group that has fought the bridge with litigation.

Thanks to everyone that fought so hard to save this environment!!

read more at: http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2014/sep/25/regents-bridge-university-city-rose-canyon-abandon/

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New data provided by national credit bureau Experian and researchers at the Oliver Wyman consulting organization suggest that a rebound boom in equity-tapping is underway. Owners have pulled out $120 billion in new home equity credit lines in the last 12 months, a 27% increase in volume over the year earlier.

In some states, new home equity line borrowing is exploding — up 169% in Wyoming, 85% in Oklahoma, 79% in Arizona, 53% in Florida and 52% in Ohio. Dollar volumes of new lines are highest in areas with the most expensive housing, especially along the West Coast and the Northeast. In California alone, nearly $6 billion in new equity credit lines were originated in the last 12 months, according to researchers.

In many cases these are not small lines, either. For owners with high credit scores, the average amount that can be drawn down on new lines is just under $120,000. For those with good but not perfect credit, dollar limits average in the $40,000 to $60,000 range.

Home equity credit lines — commonly referred to as HELOCs — typically are second mortgages. Unlike standard second loans, HELOCs are structured as open lines of credit that the borrowers can access up to a stated limit. Lines are often used to pay for home renovations, college tuition and other recurring big-ticket expenses

read more at: http://www.latimes.com/business/realestate/la-fi-harney-20140831-story.html

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