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.

Read more at: http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2013/apr/15/tp-want-to-sell-your-home-fast-paint-it/

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Navy Begins Power Metering – Military Families Could Get Power Bill

Posted on April 19, 2013 | Leave a comment

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After never seeing a power bill, San Diego families in military housing will start getting invoices for their electricity use later this year.

They won’t have to cover the entire cost. But military families who crank up the air conditioning or leave all the lights on — at least 10 percent more than the average user — will owe for the excess.

Contact the appraisers at www.scappraisals.com for a free handout on easy ways to save energy in your home.  The appraisers at Southern California Appraisal Services are Certified Energy Analysts.

In Hawaii, the first Navy region to try the power-metering concept in 2011, about a third of military homes receive a monthly invoice averaging more than $60.

On the flip side, energy-saving households get cash back as an incentive. About a third of Hawaii families use less than the average amount and get monthly rebates averaging $57.

All told, the Navy has cut power use by 10.5 percent in Hawaii. About 15 million kilowatt-hours have been conserved, equaling $3.3 million.

The savings in San Diego are expected to be about the same, though electricity is less expensive here. It will cost $3 million to install power meters in older homes that lack them.

The change is driven by a 1998 Pentagon directive that ordered energy conservation at housing complexes managed by public-private joint ventures — in San Diego County, basically all military family housing constructed over the past decade.

Read more at: http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2013/apr/08/tp-navy-begins-power-metering/

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San Diego – New Homes Getting Hard To Find

Posted on April 18, 2013 | 1 comment

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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.

Read more at: http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2013/apr/13/tp-new-homes-getting-hard-to-find-in-san-diego/

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