San Diego Real Estate Blog

San Diego Real Estate Blog

Home prices in most areas of South San Diego have come up in value since last summer. Homes in most zip codes rose in 2010 and in the zip codes where it dropped it only dropped a little. This is a good sign for the real estate market in southern San Diego and the overall San Diego home prices have on average gone up since last year at the same time. As usual the short sales have extremely long market times and can prove to be very trying for even the most seasoned of short sale experts.

The bank owned foreclosures and REO properties are still moving the fastest and seem to get many offers from investors edging out the first time home buyers and families who want to buy a home to live in. Some areas in South County have renewed their new home building programs and new home builders are throwing up the sticks again. Otay Ranch still has thousands of homes that are slated to be built sometime in the future. I’m sure the when depends on how soon the real estate market improves and shows steady growth. Many new home builders lost their properties and unfinished homes to the banks and they don’t want to make that mistake again. The bubble has long since broken and many homeowners are in the middle of a short sale or wish they were. Some home owners are in the middle of a foreclosure and looking for a rental to get out and start over. There’s always a next time.

The biggest house value gains were in National City while the most amount of loss was in Imperial Beach. Chula Vista areas like 91910, 91911 and 91914 had slight gains while zips 91913 and 91915 had slight declines in home values. With the economy not improving and the state of California in dire straits the real estate market can’t truly solidify and grow until the economy does and what we need to see that happen are jobs.

If  you need help buying or selling a home or condo in the San Diego area make sure you contact us we’re your San Diego Realtor.

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San Diego Real Estate Blog

Beautiful investor owned remodel for sale in Vista North County Inland San Diego California. Walnut color cabinets in kitchen with new granite counter tops and full granite back splash. New kitchen appliances include stainless steel stove, dishwasher and trash compactor. Wood floors dining room and family room. Tile entry as well as tile in the hall and bathrooms of this Vista real estate. You will get to choose carpets in bedrooms before close of escrow. New granite counters in baths custom tile showers and walnut cabinets. Bedrooms have closet organizers with raised 6 panel sliders. New fencing and landscape coming soon to complete this North County San Diego Home. New stamped concrete driveway and walkway as well. This remodeled home is located in Vista, CA 92084 - North County Inland San Diego. Come see this Vista real estate before it’s SOLD!

If  you need help buying or selling a home or condo in the San Diego area make sure you contact us we’re your San Diego Realtor.

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This is a must see condo in Chula Vista in South County San Diego. This condominium is beautiful and clean with 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms and it’s a downstairs condo unit too. Light kitchen with light cabinets and tile. The tile carries throughout the entire unit and has custom painted. Chula Vista shopping by Telegraph Canyon Road across from the Vons Shopping Center and freeway close for easy commute. Looking for a condos or home, short sale or foreclosure? Make sure you contact Dawn Lewis.

If  you need help buying or selling a home or condo in the San Diego area make sure you contact us we’re your San Diego Realtor.

San Diego Foreclosures

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Carmel Valley Real Estate 92130 in North County Coastal San Diego has not been hit as hard as most communities of San Diego County and should continue to hold its ground in 2010. The latest stats from October 2009 show that there were 21 homes sold in the month at a median home price of $1,045,000 which is a decline from last year of only 1.2%. Camel Valley had 32 condo sales with a median condo price of $469,000 which is 1.7% less in value from last October. There were 33 new homes sold in Carmel Valley and the median home price was $822,000 which is a decline from last year of 4.4%.

On Thanksgiving Day 2009 there were 158 listings for sale in the San Diego MLS. These are single family detached homes. The median price is $1,275,000 and an average price of $1,682,000. Carmel Valley should show a tick up in 2010. This is an area that does very well and is considered a North County Coastal area that is highly desirable. It’s a community that is close to the beach and one of them being Torrey Pines State Beach and has some great master planned communities. Carmel Valley is also relatively easy to get in and out of  because it is right at the 5 – 56 highway area where traffic is still quite light even in rush hour.

If  you need help buying or selling a home or condo in the San Diego area make sure you contact us we’re your San Diego Realtor.

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Follow Dawn Sells San Diego on Twitter

You can follow Dawn Sells San Diego on Twitter. Our San Diego Real Estate Twitter has all of our blog posts tweeted as well as all information pertaining to the San Diego Real Estate Market, News and Trends. Twitter is a great way for us to stay in touch with home buyers and home sellers in San Diego County.

We also keep you updated on foreclosure and short sale properties that we are selling and up to date information on the latest foreclosure and short sale news. Twitter is an excellent micro-blog for getting San Diego Real Estate Tweets out fast to our followers. If you want to follow the best San Diego Real Estate on Twitter make sure you follow us.

If  you need help buying or selling a home or condo in the San Diego area make sure you contact us we’re your San Diego Realtor.

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CNN Real Estate has two interesting articles on the Obama Home Rescue Plan. The first article titled “Obama home rescue: 650,000 get help” talks about how bank are helping home owners stay in their homes by modifying their home loans. The article states in many places about these 650,000 homeowners being put into a “trial loan modifications under the president’s foreclosure rescue plan”. Basically the homeowners are not really getting a loan modification their just getting a trial loan modification. Here are a couple of excerpts from the CNN article:

Some 650,000 troubled borrowers have been put into trial loan modifications under the president’s foreclosure rescue plan, the Treasury Department said Tuesday.

That number represents 20% of eligible homeowners at least 60 days behind in their payments, according to the Treasury report. This is up from 16% a month earlier.

Despite the progress, housing counselors say the number of people falling into foreclosure vastly exceeds the ranks getting assistance. The number of filings hit a record high of 937,840 in the third quarter, according to RealtyTrac, an online marketer of foreclosed homes. That’s a 5% increase from the second quarter and a 23% jump over the third quarter of 2008.

The $75 billion Obama plan is “lagging behind the massive number of foreclosures that continue to pile up,” said John Taylor, head of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition.

But administration officials have said that the program, which was projected to help up to 4 million homeowners, is on track.

The rescue tries to keep borrowers in their homes by adjusting monthly payments to no more than 31% of a borrower’s pre-tax income. Servicers, borrowers and investors can get financial incentives to participate.

Administration officials have been pressuring loan servicers to ramp up their modification efforts. Many people have complained that financial institutions lose their paperwork, transfer them repeatedly between departments and require that they fill out applications again and again.

But the rising unemployment rate is prompting more homeowners, even those with strong credit histories, to fall behind on payments. And the president’s plan is not designed to help the jobless.

At the end of the article in the article there was the sentence:

What’s becoming even more important is how many people in trial modifications receive permanent adjustments.

The words “permanent adjustments” went to another article titled “Long-term Obama loan modifications prove elusive”. This article talks about how many of the trial loan modifications are not and will not turn into permanent loan modifications. The loan servicers state that they are having a hard time getting the homeowners to send them proper paperwork to complete the process. Here’s some information directly from the article:

Half a million people are now in trial modifications under the Obama administration’s mortgage rescue plan, but getting them permanent help is proving to be difficult.

The foreclosure prevention plan, which reduces eligible borrowers’ monthly payments to no more than 31% of their pre-tax income, requires homeowners to make three on-time monthly payments before they can receive a permanent modification.

Loan servicers use the trial period to verify borrowers’ income and ascertain whether they can handle the reduced payments.

But servicers say they are having a tough time collecting the necessary documents to determine whether troubled borrowers should receive permanent adjustments. They contend that some homeowners aren’t sending in their tax returns, bank statements and pay stubs. Borrowers, on the other hand, complain that their paperwork is being lost.

The Obama administration recently made several changes to the program to give the transactions more time and streamline the plan.

Last month, it extended the trial period by two months to give servicers more time to collect the documents. And last week, it announced that servicers could automatically move qualified borrowers into permanent modifications without their signatures.

The Treasury Department said these moves should make it easier for qualified borrowers to get permanent modifications, according to a spokeswoman. Officials are discussing ways to make it even easier, she said, including allowing servicers to access tax records directly from the Internal Revenue Service.

It is in servicers’ interest to convert eligible borrowers since they only get incentive payments when the modification is made permanent, the Treasury spokeswoman said. Plus, if the government finds institutions to have wrongly denied swaths of people, it could impose penalties.

“Treasury is also working intently with servicers to help ensure that they execute in helping more borrowers convert to permanent modifications,” she said.

Who’s to blame?

Servicers say they are wrestling with getting the completed documents they need to put borrowers in permanent modifications.

At JPMorgan Chase, for instance, representatives call and send letters to homeowners detailing what they still need to mail in. The bank says it has improved its system for collecting paperwork so that lost documents are not the problem. The issue, it says, is that homeowners are simply not sending in what’s required.

Many borrowers are growing increasingly nervous as they near the end of their trial modification periods with no decision from their servicers.

Jim Copley, a Minneapolis homeowner, was given a trial modification five months ago. He found he could no longer afford his $1,650 monthly payments after the housing collapse decimated his home-painting business.

After receiving a temporary adjustment that cut his payments to $955 a month, Copley sent his servicer, Bank of America, all the required income documentation in June. He was shocked to learn two months later that there was some paperwork missing. He called again and was told that his file was, in fact, complete and that he should continue making reduced payments until he was told otherwise.

The loan modification HOPE from the Obama Administrations seems to be again lots of HYPE and falls in with all the other UTOPIA DREAMS of the current leadership. Everything is a temporary fix. We need permanent solutions. Let’s let things run their course without big brother intervention and economics, good and bad, will cycle through. I wonder what’s next.

 CNN Articles

 http://money.cnn.com/2009/11/10/news/economy/obama_mortgage_plan/index.htm

http://money.cnn.com/2009/10/16/news/economy/Obama_modification_program/index.htm?postversion=2009101611

If  you need help buying or selling a home or condo in the San Diego area make sure you contact us we’re your San Diego Realtor.

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2010 San Diego Real Estate Market

I know it’s still 2009 November and it might be a little early for 2010 San Diego Real Estate Market predictions but I think I’ll give it a shot. 2010 in the San Diego Real Estate Market should show more foreclosures than we had in 2009. In 2009 many foreclosures were held off of the market due to the moratoriums. Now that many of the foreclosure moratoriums are lifted the banks are gearing up to get the REO’s off of their books. 2010 in San Diego and many parts of the country will be known as the year of the “Last of the Foreclosure Market”. There will be more foreclosures after 2010 into 2011,  2012 and 2013 but 2010 will be the last big year for foreclosures.

There will still be more short sales and some banks are moving faster on them. There’s lots of talk about the short sales being streamlined and moving through the system faster. In 2010 it might just be a lot of false hope in this area. I hope I’m wrong and we see the short sales as a whole (not just select banks) move through the system fast and to a sale but it might just be a lot of hype. Systems like REOTrans are setting up to do short sales but I’ll believe the push towards short sales over foreclosures by the banks when I see it.

For homebuyers in 2010 it should be a delight with more inventory coming into the San Diego Real Estate Market. In some price ranges like the lower end first time home buyer prices under $400,000 there still will be a fight with other buyers to get the homes. There are way too many buyers and investors in the under $400,000 range in many areas of San Diego County that will keep this price range in very short supply in 2010. The upper end in non-coastal areas will still slide a little lower in 2010. We’ll see how this worked out in 2011.

If  you need help buying or selling a home or condo in the San Diego area make sure you contact us we’re your San Diego Realtor.

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San Diego Real Estate Blog

The First-Time Home Buyer $8,000 Tax Credit was just extended until April 30, 2010 by the U.S Congress.

Expands the credit to grant up to $6,500 credit to current home owners purchasing a new or existing home between November 7, 2009 and April 30, 2010.

Here is more information about how the Extended Home Buyer Tax Credit can help prospective home buyers become part of the American dream.

Who Qualifies for the Extended Credit?

First-time home buyers who purchase homes between November 7, 2009 and April 30, 2010.

Current home owners purchasing a home between November 7, 2009 and April 30, 2010, who have used the home being sold or vacated as a principal residence for five consecutive years within the last eight.

To qualify as a “first-time home buyer” the purchaser or his/her spouse may not have owned a residence during the three years prior to the purchase.

If you or you have purchased a home between January 1, 2009 and November 6, 2009, please see: 2009 First-Time Home Buyer Tax Credit.

Which Properties Are Eligible?

The Extended Home Buyer Tax Credit may be applied to primary residences, including: single-family homes, condos, townhomes, and co-ops.

How Much Is Available?

The maximum allowable credit for first-time home buyers is $8,000.

The maximum allowable credit for current homeowners is $6,500.

How is a Buyer’s Credit Amount Determined?

Each home buyer’s tax credit is determined by 2 additional factors:

The price of the home.
The buyer’s income.

Under the Extended Home Buyer Tax Credit, credit may only be awarded on homes purchased for $800,000 or less.

Buyer Income

Under the Extended Home Buyer Tax Credit, which is effective on November 7, 2009,  single buyers with incomes up to $125,000 and married couples with incomes up to $225,000—may receive the maximum tax credit.

These income limits have changed from the 2009 First-Time Home Buyer Tax Credit limits. If you or your client purchased a home between January 1, 2009 and November 6, 2009, please see 2009 First-Time Home Buyer Tax Credit.

If the Buyer(s)’ Income Exceeds These Limits, Can He/She Still Get a Credit?

Yes, some buyers may still be eligible for the credit.

The credit decreases for buyers who earn between $125,000 and $145,000 for single buyers and between $225,000 and $245,000 for home buyers filing jointly. The amount of the tax credit decreases as his/her income approaches the maximum limit. Home buyers earning more than the maximum qualifying income—over $145,000 for singles and over $245,000 for couples are not eligible for the credit.

Can a Buyer Still Qualify If He/She Closes After April 30, 2010?

Under the Extended Home Buyer Tax Credit, as long as a written binding contract to purchase is in effect on April 30, 2010, the purchaser will have until July 1, 2010 to close.

Will the Tax Credit Need to Be Repaid?

No. The buyer does not need to repay the tax credit, if he/she occupies the home for three years or more. However, if the property is sold during this three-year period, the full amount credit will be recouped on the sale.

If  you need help buying or selling a home or condo in the San Diego area make sure you contact us we’re your San Diego Realtor.

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I read a recent article titled: Realtors® Urge Congress to Act Now to Extend Homebuyer Tax Credit. In the article the National Association of Realtors included some facts about how many first time home buyers were helped into their new homes by the tax credit which will end on November 30, 2009. I know it’s helped here in the San Diego Real Estate Market and many of our clients have taken advantage of the incentive. 

Below is an excerpt from the article: 

The National Association of Realtors® is calling upon its 1.2 million members to urge Congress to extend the successful homebuyer tax credit into next year. 

Since its inception earlier this year, the $8,000 first-time homebuyer tax credit has brought 1.2 million new buyers into the market—350,000 of whom would not have purchased a home without the credit, according to NAR. The credit is due to expire November 30. 

“Now is the time for Congress to keep this recovery going by extending the tax credit through 2010 and making it available to more homebuyers. We have all seen how the credit has been a spur to bring homebuyers into the market, and have seen the beginnings of a real recovery in the housing market. Housing has always led this nation out of economic downturns, and can do so again,” said NAR President Charles McMillan, a broker with Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage in Dallas-Fort Worth. 

Realtors®, the leading advocates for homeownership and housing issues, will be writing to their Senators and Representatives to tell them of the successes with the tax credit thus far and to press them to extend and expand it now. 

For the entire article please visit Realtor.org 

If  you need help buying or selling a home or condo in the San Diego area make sure you contact us we’re your San Diego Realtor.

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All Information is believed to be correct but not guaranteed. 

San Diego Real Estate Blog

The San Diego Real Estate Market has seen better days. It’s not that there aren’t buyers seeking that perfect place to call home sweet home it’s the little inventory they have to choose from. Inventory is low especially in some areas of San Diego County in the first time homebuyer price ranges. So low that many VA and FHA buyers are taking their chances on short sales, which may or may not ever close escrow, and waiting it out.

I can’t tell you how many questions I answer on Trulia about buyers and short sales. Buyers are always asking, what takes so long, how come the banks won’t approve my offer, what’s going on, why did they take another offer, why did the bank foreclose on the home when I had an offer on it for 8 months, why is the seller declaring bankruptcy, and on and on. It’s like writing an offer on a home and putting it into a black hole and hoping something good comes out on the other end. It usually doesn’t.

Keep in mind if you’re a buyer who wrote an offer on a short sale you probably are in competition with 5 to 50 other buyers. Only 1 of those offers will get accepted and many times the home will go to foreclosure and no one gets it. It’s frustrating for everyone involved including all agents, the negotiators at the banks, sellers and all the other buyers trying to buy the home. Just think how the seller feels….. they are losing their home, their dreams, their investment, they and their family – kids, dogs, cats now need to find another place to live, most likely a rental or in with family, and their life is being turned upside down. Kind of puts things in a different perspective when you look at it from the side of the one who is losing the home.

San Diego Home Buyers using a VA or FHA Loan to buy a home or condo are often in third and fourth place when writing offers on foreclosed properties. They have that going for them too. The problem is with so many investors in the market buying foreclosures for cash or large sums of money down in conventional loans the VA and FHA loans aren’t usually the best way to go for an asset manager looking at offers on the REO asset they are managing. On cash offers they don’t have to worry about appraisal issues or finding out a buyer really doesn’t qualify for the loan to buy the foreclosure. It’s an unfortunate situation that people who want to buy the home to live in and be part of the community are being put in the back seat to investors looking to make a buck. But it is what it is and for now it’s bad news for some VA and FHA buyers. Hang in there. Times will change.

If  you need help buying or selling a home or condo in the San Diego area make sure you contact us we’re your San Diego Realtor.

San Diego Foreclosures

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San Diego Real Estate               San Diego MLS 

San Diego Relocation                San Diego Home Search by Map

San Diego Home Buyers           San Diego Home Sellers

San Diego House Values           Local Real Estate Information

San Diego Real Estate Blog      San Diego Short Sales

San Diego Foreclosures            San Diego Green Homes

San DiegoListing Book

All Information is believed to be correct but not guaranteed.