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San Diego- Classes and Rebates for Saving Water

Posted on August 18, 2014 | Leave a comment

San Diegans are looking for ways to turn down their taps as the region continues to endure a drought that seems to have no end in sight.

Demand is up for water conservation tips, classes and rebates, according to local water agencies and environmental groups. Although water use was up for the first five months of this year compared with 2013, officials hope the uptick in awareness is the first step toward increased water savings.

“Whenever you have a drought, it ends up being a period of sea change,” said Jason Foster, director of public outreach and conservation for the San Diego County Water Authority.

While a severe drought in the 1990s ushered in long-lasting changes in indoor water use, Foster said the most recent dry years have pushed San Diegans to revisit the way they water their yards and lawns.

“Retrofitting a landscape is not as easy as … installing a high-efficiency toilet, but there are lots of things you can do to demystify that and help achieve that larger transformation,” he said.

That process got off to a rocky start this year. In January, Gov. Jerry Brown declared a state of drought — the third such year of low rainfall — and asked Californians to reduce water use by 20 percent. Through May, however, statewide conservation was nowhere near that level. In San Diego County, consumption was up 10 percent over the same period in 2013.

While Southern California avoided the water shortages that afflicted the state’s northern communities, it has banked on future water supplies. Metropolitan Water District, the region’s wholesale giant, plans to draw down half its reserves this year to avoid cutbacks, said Dana Friehauf, a water resources manager for the water authority.

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San Diego – Home Appreciation Slows

Posted on August 15, 2014 | Leave a comment

Annual home price appreciation in San Diego County is nearly back to a normal pace, continuing its descent from last year’s gains of more than 20 percent.

Last month, the median price for a home sold in San Diego County was $445,000, which is 6.6 percent higher than the median price in July 2013, real-estate tracker CoreLogic DataQuick reported Wednesday.

By comparison, home prices in July 2013 were up 22.1 percent from the previous year, an increase driven largely by investors who fixed up and resold distressed properties, or rented them out and therefore constrained supply.

“When we were seeing 22 percent price appreciation, I would argue it wasn’t the case that the same exact house was selling for 22 percent more,” said Jordan Levine, director of economic research at Beacon Economics. “It was that the mix of houses were skewing toward less distressed, which pumped up those overall medians.”

Levine said he sees annual appreciation returning to about 4 to 5 percent, which is in line historically with incomes and inflation. In the housing bubble that led to the Great Recession, eased lending standards allowed home prices to grow beyond what incomes could support, Levine said.

From June to July, the median home price in the county declined by $5,000. At the same time, activity in the county’s real-estate market declined both over the month and annually. In July, there were 3,474 transactions closing in San Diego County, down from 3,736 in June, and an 18.5 percent drop from the 4,260 transactions in July 2013.

Gary Kent, a La Jolla-based agent with Keller-Williams, said he considers the current housing market to be the first balanced market since 2000, meaning it’s not a strong buyer’s or seller’s market.

“I think that’s partly because prices have reached the point that we have some people selling because they like the price they can get for the house,” he said. “The flip side is that buyers aren’t seeing what looked like bargain prices anymore. Some buyers are dropping out of the market saying, ‘Well, it’s not a bargain.’”

While the market may be returning to regular levels, inventory remains constrained, although it is improving. In July, there were 8,122 active listings in the county, up from 5,443 a year earlier, the San Diego Association of Realtors reports. July’s supply represents a little more than two months of inventory, while Levine said economists would like to see five to six months worth of inventory.

He also noted stricter lending standards were curtailing affordability, although the average rate for a 30-year fixed mortgage in July was 4.13 percent, down from 4.37 percent a year ago, Freddie Mac reports.

The slowdown in the housing market isn’t limited to San Diego but extends across Southern California, where sales fell to a three-year low, DataQuick analyst Andrew LePage said in a statement.

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Zero Down Home Loans Are Back

Posted on August 12, 2014 | Leave a comment

On the surface, their zero-percent down loan sounds like a throwback to the risky lending practices that led to the Great Recession. At the time, many borrowers could simply state their incomes and not have to put down a dime.

During the housing bubble, a homebuyer could arrange for 80/20 financing, or piggyback loans, meaning a buyer would get one mortgage for 80 percent of the home price, and another to cover a 20 percent down payment. Then the lenders would sell the loans on the secondary market, washing their hands of any sort of risk from a default.

This time, however, is different, says the Lanes’ lender, Navy Federal Credit Union. The credit union brought back its zero-down product called HomeBuyers Choice in 2010 after a two-year hiatus. It charges a higher interest rate and holds the loans in its portfolio.

“Several years ago we started making them again because the performance of the people that we lent to even during the recession was fantastic,” said Cutler Dawson, the credit union’s chief executive.

Bankrate Senior Mortgage Analyst Holden Lewis said other than Navy Federal and NASA Federal Credit Union, which has no San Diego County locations, he doesn’t know of any other lenders that offer non-backed zero-percent down loans.

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San Diego- Classes and Rebates for Saving Water

San Diego – Home Appreciation Slows

Zero Down Home Loans Are Back

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