Home buying, selling, making, improvement, whatever.

This new site will be under regular revision and improvement.
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For immediate homebuying support call 619 987 0525.

Please note: I will be ''away from my desk'' and not working on Fri. July 3, sorry for the inconvenience.

Homebuying update, June 26:

Every agent I've spoken with lately is saying the same thing, namely ''I can't get any offers accepted''. Certainly that's not perfectly true, otherwise the ''pendings'' and ''solds'' wouldn't be piling up so heavily on the MLS these days, while the number of '' actives'' dwindles down to less than half of what it was just a few months ago. However for most agents it's the truth. Because of the current heavy competition for houses, for every accepted offer on a house, there are 5, 10, 20, or more offers which didn't get accepted, which brings me to my point. If you want to get that house, BID HARD, bid like you mean to get it, otherwise you won't. That's just how it is right now. Don't worry about finding comps which substantiate your wishes that you shouldn't have to spend so much for that house. The comps are changing and will change, as prices are driven up by the current low-supply-high-demand dynamic. Here's a perspective on the changing comps:

The market seems to be going back up. Don't worry about what the news says, San Diego is way ahead of the general national trends, the stuff they're reporting for the nation right now happened months ago here, we've moved on. When the market peaked and then started dropping. sellers were caught ''chasing the market'' downwards. Buyers saw sellers dropping and wouldn't buy because they new that prices were dropping. The only ones selling were those who priced their homes far enough below ''current market value'' that they were real bargains (or seemed so at the time!). They in effect got their properties way out ''ahead of the market'' in order to sell them.
Now, with the market currently rising, the same thing is happening but in reverse. Buyers are ''chasing the market'' upwards, and at the same time pushing it up there. The successful bidders are the ones offering way out, or at least clearly, ''ahead of the market'' in order to buy them.

So don't be so fixed on the recent comps right now, they're from a few months ago overall, and that ain't the market anymore. Those were from when there was inventory. If you have a limited budget then you might think about bidding harder on a lesser-priced property rather than bidding more minimally on a greater-priced property, in this market it's extremely unlikely that you'll win with that latter strategy. I've been writing offers on various properties in various parts of town and various price ranges and I've been seeing this same condition all around. I've talked with other agents and other buyers, heard them talk about their other friends who are buyers, and it's the same story. So just consider this a little market dynamic update. Prices are still relatively low, and so are interest rates. You'd call it a buyer's market if there was much out there to buy, but there isn't. So if you find a house that you want, bid hard.

Next subject:

Turf?

With the upcoming City of San Diego water rationing plan scheduled to implement this summer, it might be worth it to look into non-traditional, water-wise plans for your landscaping. As Bob Dylan said: ''The times they are a-changing''

or AstroTurf!

It's June now, and The City of San Diego shows that we're at THREAT LEVEL YELLOW in our need for water conservation, here's the current list of water-conservative measures which San Diego citizens are mandated to take:
http://www.sandiego.gov/water/conservation/drought/prohibitions.shtml

The San Diego County Water Authority is offering a rebate on ''smart'' irrigation controllers, click here for the 10-4 and probably more: http://www.sdcwa.org/manage/conservation-smartcontrollers_single.phtml. This is good for City of San Diego too.