Archive for the 'Real Estate News' Category
Something to consider when shopping for a short sale home
August 2nd, 2010 Categories: Real Estate News, San Diego county Real Estate News, San Diego homes for sale
ENCINITAS- As I was reviewing saved property searches for clients this morning, this short sale listing came up for one client. It is a great illustration of short sale pricing, decision making and marketing, so I thought I would share it.
First, I am making one big assumption and that is the buyers financed 100% of the purchase as there are two loans recorded on the closing date. These loans, totaling $510,000, are from the same lender and one is 80% and the other 20%. This was a typical lending scenario when the real estate market was going nuts in 2006.
Take a look at the photo below. The original asking was $450,000 which represents an approximate depreciation of 12%. After a period of time, the purchase price was reduced to $330,000 and an offer was received. The banks generally do not touch short sale files until an offer is in place and that appears to be the case here. The bank, through their processes, determined the value of the home to be $420,000 and issued the approval as such. According to the agent’s comments, the bank is also willing to a 3% seller’s credit towards buyer’s recurring and non-recurring closing costs. Unfortunately for all parties, the buyer walked, hey they thought the house was for sale at $330K not $400K, and the house is now back on the market.
As you can see the banks just do not throw up their hands and issue approvals. They research the market using BPOs, broker price opinion, and take in to account the net loss of any offer. At $330,000, in this case, the bank is losing about $180,000 in loan value plus approximately $20,000 in closing costs. This represents an approximate loss of 39%.
When you come across a short sale that is ‘too good to be true”, well, it probably is. Do yourself a huge favor and contact your local REALTOR, 760.415.3329, to do this research for you and to determine market value. You can definitely save money with short sales if you are patient, but as the scenario above demonstrates, you need to be prepared to pay fair market value. If current market value is $100,000 more than you can afford, I would strongly suggest moving on.
Now as a REALTOR, I do think this pricing situation is very misleading and should be corrected. When agents initially list short sales so far undervalue, yes they know they are doing it, they do so protected by a cloak of ignorance of sorts. The rational being, if they do not know the purchase price the bank is willing to accept through direct communications they need to set the price they determine to be attractive to buyers. Again, without a buyer, the banks generally do not touch the file, so they really need a buyer. HOWEVER, in this situation, the agent knows the bank is looking for $420,000. Yes it is acknowledged in the remarks, but it should also be the list price of the home. I could understand a price of $399,000 to attract internet shoppers looking under $400,000 as the bank most likely will accept a high 300’s offer, especially if they do not take the credit, but to continue to list this home so far under the bank approval is irresponsible and does not meet a standard of honesty, in my opinion.
So remember, shopping short sales is not a bad strategy, but make sure you do some homework prior to putting pen to paper and getting excited. The agent has an incentive to submit ANY offer to the bank. They need this to start the process.
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Hwy 5 expansion meeting schedule
July 28th, 2010 Categories: Real Estate News
CARLSBAD- The highway 5 expansion public forums started last night with the first meeting in Encinitas and they will continue through September 9th. If you are interested in the hwy 5 widening project, you can go the Keep San Diego Moving website for all the public information. The schedule is posted below.
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Come out, come out, wherever you are
July 22nd, 2010 Categories: Real Estate News, San Diego County Community News, San Diego County Fixer of the Week, San Diego county Real Estate News, San Diego homes for sale
OPPORTUNITY AWAITS HOMEBUYERS IN SAN DIEGO COUNTY
SAN DIEGO- I have to admit to being wrong when I wrote in April that I did not feel the expiration of the tax credit was going to have much impact on the real estate market that makes up most of my business.
While I do not have data to back up my beliefs, I do not see the loss of the tax credit having much impact on the markets I serve. There was an article in today’s North
County Times titled ‘BUYING FRENZY; First-time home purchasers rush to take advantage of federal tax credit.” They quoted quite a few people who spoke of the impact on their markets and stated some positive data, but the article looked at the national picture where in many areas $8,000 is a nice chunk of a home purchase. In our area, because the incentive was 10% of the purchase price or $8,000 whichever is lesser, I would say the credit would have had a much greater impact if you could have received $25,000. This would have been more comparable to our market prices versus the $8000 on a national level.- Brian big dummy Long, 4/30/2010
It was approximately the middle of June that I began to feel the coming impact from the expiration of the tax credit and while it did not make much sense to me for reasons coming, the market has slowed tremendously.
At the beginning of this month I wrote a post and had a graph charting the difference between San Diego resale home sales in 2009 versus 2010. 2009 clearly showed the traditional pattern of increasing home sales as we move into the summer months. 2010 on the other hand showed a significant spike in closed transactions in May followed by an approximate 30% reduction in sales in June. Looking at home sales to date, 7/21/2010, that number looks like it is going to fall further with only 762 home closed in the same market area from the prior survey. At this pace of 38 closed transactions per day, we should expect a monthly total of 1190 closed real estate transaction for July.
THERE IS GOOD NEWS FOR THE SAN DIEGO HOMEBUYER
In my defense, there are a couple reasons, well one big one anyway, why the current real estate market presents a better opportunity for buyers than in May: MORTGAGE RATES!!
Yes, this week mortgage rates are establishing a new low, and contrary to belief it is not impossible to qualify.
Rates fell last week to 4.59% on an average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, which is down from 4.69% one week ago and the lowest ever recorded by the trade group since its survey began in 1972. Other measures show that rates continued to fall this week: Zillow’s Mortgage Marketplace quoted an average of 4.37% on Tuesday.- blogs.wsj.com,2010/7/21
Two years ago I had clients willing to give blood to lock mortgage rates under 6%, so these rates represent an incredible opportunity and more so when combined with the fact that home prices are still significantly low.
The other reason is that the ‘tax’ credit in a way hasn’t gone anywhere. In fact credits to buyers, have been around for a long time. The best thing about this particular buyer credit is you can use 100% of it regardless of how much you pay in taxes.
With the tax credit, especially the state credit, if you did not actually have a tax bill(s) that totaled the credit amount, you were not going to realize the full credit. However, as a buyer you have always had the ability to ask for a seller’s credit that would be applied towards you closing costs thus either saving you money or providing you the extra money needed to close your escrow. There are individual guidelines to how much this credit can be and it is generally a percentage, say 3%, of the purchase price. This won’t give you your down payment, but it may preserve your cash so you then meet the lender’s guidelines for necessary reserves.
If you have been considering purchasing your first home or an investment property you have a trifecta in your favor. Low mortgage rates, depressed pricing and increased inventory. Give me a call or shoot over an email and let’s discuss your particular needs.
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La Costa Valley home on sale this weekend
July 7th, 2010 Categories: Real Estate News
CARLSBAD- This weekend is your chance to potentially make a great deal on this 5 bedroom 4 bath La Costa Valley home. We will have special pricing for Saturday and Sunday 7/10 and 7/11.
Additionally, for the triathlete or cyclist, the seller is offering a new Spinergy full carbon clincher wheelset for a referral that leads to a closed transaction.***
To find out about the special pricing being offered this weekend, cal Brian Long @ 760.415.3329
*** The offer for the Spinergy wheelset is the sole responsibility and at the sole expense of the owner and is not being offered for any referrals by or to Brian Long.
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How to buy a house on the cheap
July 1st, 2010 Categories: Real Estate News
SAN DIEGO-
“The era of record-low mortgage rates may be over.
The average rate on a 30-year loan has jumped from about 5% to more than 5.3% in just the past week. As mortgages get more expensive, more would-be homeowners are priced out of the market — a threat to the fragile recovery in the housing market.
"We are seeing some panic among potential buyers who have not found houses yet," said Craig Strent, co-founder of Apex Home Loans in Bethesda, Md. "They’re saying: Man, I should have found a house three weeks ago or last month when rates are lower."
It’s all about affordability. For every 1 percentage point rise in rates, 300,000 to 400,000
would-be buyers are priced out of the market in a given year, according to the National Association of Realtors.
The rule of thumb is that every 1 percentage point increase in mortgage rates reduces a buyer’s purchasing power by about 10%.”- Home mortgage interest rates jump, Associated Press, 4-7-2010
Well nothing could be further from the truth. Interest rates are surpassing historical lows and are charting new territory. The current quoted average 30 year mortgage rate is 4.62% with no points.
At a time when homes should be flying off the market, our local real estate market seems to have stalled. Looking at home sales for June, the Hwy 5 corridor market is down over 15% from July of 2009 and at a time when home sales trend up month over month, June sales are down OVER 25% from May!! I, and my fellow agents, just can’t believe that the expired tax credit would have had that type of impact on a broad market.
If the expiration of the credit really had that type of impact, here is the good news for both of us; ‘buyer’s credits’ have not gone anywhere, you just have to negotiate a seller’s credit towards buyer’s closing costs. You want $3000? $5000? $8000? It can be done as long as the credit does not exceed 3.5% of the purchase or other lender guidelines.
Let’s say you would like to buy a single family home for $430,000. You are going to go FHA, so you would need just over $15,000 for your down payment. In order to cover your closing costs, I successfully negotiated a seller’s credit towards buyer’s closing costs not to exceed $6500. Done. There is your credit.
At 5.65%, the interest rate a week after the quoted article was written, your payment on your $415,000 conforming loan would be approximately $2395.00 a month. At today’s San Diego interest rate of 4.62% your payment would $2127.00, saving over $268 a month. That’s over $3200 a year or almost $100,000 over the life of the loan. You could even ask for a larger credit and pay a point which could bring your payment under $2000.00 a month.
There are currently 774 3 bedroom 2 bath , or more, homes for sale in the Hwy 5 corridor that come in under $430K.
If you would like to discuss a home purchase, call me at 760.415.3329. I have closed numerous buyer side transactions this year.
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Put my award winning marketing to work for you
June 26th, 2010 Categories: Client Testimonials, Real Estate News, San Diego county Real Estate News, Triathlon Club of San Diego Race Reports, What to do in San Diego
SAN DIEGO- I received an email yesterday from a member of the Triathlon Club of San Diego who 
works in public relations letting me know the Vflyer template design I created for my listings was named the custom theme of the week.
“It’s official: summer is here! To ring in the new season, we’re spotlighting a very summery custom theme this week from Brian Long of Sea Coast Executive Properties in sunny Encinitas, California. Brian’s custom theme says summer to me: the bright blues and yellows, the sun-and-sea feel of the branded header, and the sand like page background he uses. This is the vFlyer equivalent of a trip to the beach. It’s a well-integrated theme that, like most of the other great themes we’ve featured, prominently 
displays the most important information in the header.
Great job, Brian, and thanks for bringing a bit of SoCal sun to us up here in the foggy Bay Area.”- vflyer blog, 6/25/2010
Call me at 760.415.3329 to put my extensive ‘award winning’ marketing to work for you!! To commemorate this acknowledgement, from today until the end of July, 2010, I will discount the listing side commission on any non-short sale home $300K and above to 1.5%. Call me for further details.
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Real estate market shifting away from lower priced homes?
June 14th, 2010 Categories: Real Estate News, San Diego County Community News, San Diego homes for sale
CARLSBAD REAL ESTATE NEWS- Today I was looking over my REALTOR.com report showing page views on my listings. I have just listed two attached homes, one in the Pt Loma/Midway area and one in the Rancho Del Oro area of Oceanside and had an existing single family home in La Costa Valley.
I was quite surprised when I looked at the weekend report and saw that my $799K home listing in the La Costa Valley area of Carlsbad is getting well over 5 hits to one when compared to the attached listings.
But then I saw this article, “HOUSING:Median home price in North County rises-Shift toward more expensive homes accelerates”, set to publish in tomorrows North County Times.
The median price for resales of single family houses in North San Diego County rose to $475,000 in May, as more people bought more expensive homes, according to records from the county assessor’s office.
More people closed contracts on homes in May than in the previous May, up to 889 from 871 sales the previous May, but the number of homes sold in the bottom tier of the market fell. The number of homes priced under $300,000 that were sold in North County fell 44 percent to 170 from 302 the previous May, while the 161 sales of homes priced higher than $750,000 rose 30 percent, and the 558 homes sold for between $300,000 and $750,000 was up 25 percent.- North County Times, 6/14/2010
Now the question is, is this a shift in the market as it relates to foreclosures which were generally lower priced homes or is the buyer demographic changing? I imagine it is a bit of both, but it was reported last week that North County’s NOD filings were down over 20% month to month and 45% from May of last year.
Whatever the cause, the number of foreclosures have fallen, and that has indeed helped push up home prices. Real estate agents have been worried for months about a lack of homes to sell, and bidding wars have erupted for some of the less expensive homes. County records show the median price in North County rose 17.7 percent from April 2009 to April 2010 to $453,000- North County Times, 6/10/ 2010
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New Listing in the Sports Arena/ Pt Loma area
June 13th, 2010 Categories: Real Estate News, San Diego homes for sale, Triathlon Club of San Diego Race Reports
Checkout this 2007 Lennar built townhome in Cabrillo at the Bay. 3 bedrooms 2 baths and an AWESOME garage that has plenty of room for two cars and all the triathlon gear you could come up with. This is a very central location close to the San Diego river bike path, Mission Bay, the beaches and downtown. Contact me @ 760.415.3329 if you would like to see this home.
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Brian loses his 100 mile virginity
June 4th, 2010 Categories: Real Estate News
ENCINITAS- I have not really wrote anything about it here, but after many many years, I am finally going after my first Ironhttp://www.ironmancda.com/man. June 27th I will hit the water in Lake Coeur d’Alene and am looking forward to the day.
For those that do not know, this is a triathlon with a 2.4 mile swim, then a 112 mile bike ride followed by a 26.2 mile run. I have swum the distance before, but had never ridden 100 miles or finished a marathon. I was hoping to accomplish the first 100 mile ride and first marathon as part of the IM.
This past Wednesday was my last long ride and when we approached the finish two miles shy of 100, I was convinced to do a little circuit to pick up the last two miles before or 5 mile run.
Here is the two loop route. It starts from my office, Sea Coast Exclusive Properties in Encinitas and climbs a few foothills through Rancho Santa Fe and Olivenhain before heading up El Camino Real for the Oceanside Harbor. The green start icon is misplaced, but the mileage in right as confirmed by two others riding with me. For a really cool feature, click on the red finish icon. It will open the route in a player and you can follow the route.
More about my Ironman as time goes by.
First three people that send me a email with the subject line GO BRIAN!! get a free race entry to the Camp Pendleton Sprint Triathlon.
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Hwy 5 widening coming to North County?
June 4th, 2010 Categories: San Diego County Community News, San Diego county Real Estate News
CARLSBAD- I have a client that has been considering a home in Encinitas that is relatively close to the highway 5. In an email today they asked if I saw the article in the newspaper regarding plans to widen the freeway from the 5/805 merge to the Oceanside harbor.
I had saw the article and have heard about this plan for several years now. I actually attended a community forum in 2006’ish and left there with no new information as everything was conceptual. They truly had no answers to most questions.
The community forum meetings regarding this improvement started in 2004 and in 2006, the project was expected to cost approximately 1.1 billion dollars.
The $1.1 billion project would expand I-5 from eight to 14 lanes and would add new car-pool lanes from La Jolla to Oceanside. Widening the 26-mile stretch of freeway from Mira Mesa Boulevard at Interstate 805 and Genesee Avenue to Vandegrift Boulevard at Camp Pendleton isn’t expected to begin until 2009 and wouldn’t be complete for at least five years.-NCTIMES, March13,2006
Unfortunately, the price tag for the San Diego freeway widening project has more than tripled and may cost as much as 4.5 billion dollars according to the San Diego Union Tribune article.
While I realize that there is money allocated for this project through special half cent sales tax, the project will need additional state and federal funds which can be huge problem given the current state of their respective budgets. The state of California is having trouble funding 
education and keeping basic services open five days a week.
What would be great to see would be making our local communities more livable thus reducing the need to drive to other areas for services, entertainment, retail, jobs, etc. I experienced a dramatic shift in traffic conditions when gas hit $4.00 a gallon. It was apparent many people thought about their driving habits.
I also notice the impact UCSD has on traffic on the 5. You know when school is out for breaks and when it starts in the fall. It’s too bad we can not figure out better mass transits to destination location such as UCSD and the Del Mar fairgrounds. There has been discussion about a seasonal Coaster platform at the fairgrounds. We could incentivize the use of mass transit with special admission pricing for those that take the coaster. There could be a dedicated gate for use by Coaster passengers only.
Californians and their cars.
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