Tag Archives: real estate

Are Home Bidding Wars Easing?

Posted on August 25, 2013 | Leave a comment

San Diego County remains one of the most competitive housing markets in the nation, but local bidding matches appear to be easing, shows an analysis from online real estate brokerage Redfin. Competition softened in July due to an increase in listings and mortgage rates.

Contact the appraisers at www.scappraisals.com for your home value questions. They are San Diego Home Value Experts.

More than 70 percent of deals reviewed by Redfin in July faced multiple bids, a drop from 82 percent in June and a drop from 73 percent a year ago, based on the brokerage’s data. The national rate is 63 percent.

San Diego and Orange counties faced the steepest decreases in competition month-to-month. Still, the two regions rank as the No. 4 and No. 3 most competitive markets in the nation. San Francisco and Los Angeles topped the list.

Local home sales shot up to a 7-year high in July as 13 percent more listings became available, allowing potential buyers more choice in a supply-constrained market. Also, recent home-price and mortgage-rate spikes have discouraged some buyers who may have dropped out of the market. That paved the way for more persistent consumers to ink deals.

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The Worst Home Improvements for the Money

Posted on May 5, 2013 | 1 comment

The “10 Best Home Improvements” is an oft-cited list in newspapers and shelter magazines. But what about the worst improvements? Since the bad ones rarely rate a mention, here’s a look — realizing, of course, that we’re not talking about personal taste, need or comfort. This list, rather, comes from a strictly return-on-investment point of view.

Contact the appraisers at www.scappraisals.com for your “added” value questions.

Swimming pools. Pools top everyone’s list of don’t-do-its, if only because not everyone wants one. So if you put a pool in your backyard, you are eliminating better than half your potential market, and you haven’t even put up a “For Sale” sign yet. You want to appeal to the largest buyer pool possible, no pun intended.

Beyond that, there’s the cost. The experts maintain that unless you are in a neighborhood where pools are an anticipated amenity, not an unexpected one, you’ll be lucky to recoup half the cost. Ditto for basketball and tennis courts.

Doug Rogers of Century 21 Millennium in Pineville, La., recently went on a listing appointment in a subdivision of $200,000 houses. Once he got there, the owners “couldn’t wait to show me” their new $45,000 pool. And, of course, they wanted to ask $260,000 for their otherwise ordinary house.

At closing, though, the pool netted them just $7,000, which means they took a loss of $38,000.

Better to join a country club or perhaps the YMCA. In Virginia, where pools are good only three months out of the year, John Statton of Re/Max Action Real Estate in Mechanicsville, Va., says you can join a local pool for $300 a year — without the increase in homeowners’ insurance that owning a pool brings.

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Tagged add value, house, pool, real estate

How to Warm Your Home

Posted on September 20, 2012 | Leave a comment

1. Prune those sun-suckers

Shady plants are great in summer, especially on the north and western sides of your property. But at this time of the year you want to get as much sun into your house as you can. Now is the time to prune plants blocking out your sunlight, if possible.

2. Let the sun in

When the sun is shining, remember to open curtains and blinds during the day, especially on the northern side of your home, but also the east (in the morning) and the west (in the afternoon).

However, you might consider leaving south-facing blinds and curtains closed on days when it is colder outside than in as the sun won’t hit those windows.

It’s very common to see homes shut up all day long with the curtains drawn. But before you head off to work or out for the day, opening the blinds and curtains on windows that get the sun can mean coming home to a much warmer property.

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Tag Archives: real estate

Are Home Bidding Wars Easing?

The Worst Home Improvements for the Money

How to Warm Your Home

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