The traditional Real Estate “brick & mortar” brokers (Prudential, Coldwell Banker, Remax, Keller Williams, etc) have been feeling the pain of the last two years.  With less agents and less business to support their large infrastructure, their balance sheets have taken a major hit.
However, the number 1 reason for the decline of the brick & […]

There is a lot of press in the last week about signs of recovery for the national real estate market.  On a local level in San Diego, the signs have been showing themselves for the last few months in a variety of ways:

 Home prices declined 1% from February to March where it declined 2.1% from […]

The Real Estate Sales numbers were released for San Diego County for March 2009 today and they showed a solid improvement over the February numbers.  See below for details on trends from JAN to MAR 09:
Sales of Single Family Residence
JAN 09 = 1,563
FEB 09 = 1,573 =   0.6% Increase
MAR 09 = 1,919 = 18.0% Increase
Sales […]

The state of California released a $10,000 new home tax credit in mid-February this year.  Since March 1st, one-third of the $100M appropriated had been applied for by new home buyers.  An important fact is a buyer must have an active escrow on a new home in order to apply.
The California Builders Industry Association stated […]

There is a lot of buzz about Loan Modifications and what people can expect.  Here are the basics:
1. Expect them to take 60 to 90 days to receive a Yes or No answer.
2. It is generally better to work directly with your lender than a fee based service.
3. Know that only 5% to 10% of […]

The national average interest rate on the 30-year, fixed-rate loan (used as the benchmark) averaged 4.78% in the week ending Thursday, setting a new record low dating back to 1971 for the second consecutive week.  That rate is down from last week’s  30-year, fixed-rate of 4.85% and a year ago of 5.88%.
Best regards,
Mark and […]