Laguna Niguel Real Estate Blog

The housing slump has a far reaching arm when it comes to the damage to related industries. People are realizing there are a lot of things they can do without when the dollar is tight and they've opted to forgo such luxuries as new home furnishing and high end kitchen remodels. Places like furniture and furnishing businesses, where the sharp drop in sales is blamed on an abrupt cut in furniture shopping, something that most home owners do not see as a necessity, and home improvement giants such as Lowes, Home Depot and Sears have all felt the effects of a slow housing market.

Home improvement retailers are expected to post weaker results and probably won't see a rebound at least until 2009 as the U.S. housing slump, concerns about recession and tighter credit conditions stall consumer spending.

While falling home sales and construction have been a major hit to results over the past year, these retailers have also been hurt as consumers aware of falling home prices pulled back from big-ticket projects such as kitchen remodeling.

"A large part of renovation is to set it up to improve the value of the property," Doug Kass, head of the bearish hedge fund Seabreeze Partners Management, told the Reuters Housing Summit in New York this week.

"And now, given the erosion in (home) values, it seems it's not all that necessary," he added.

Kass said many people don't realize that buyers who refinanced their homes and took cash out to fund improvements or trade up to higher-end goods no longer have that luxury.

Source: Reuters, ocregister

Labels: home sales, market, real estate

Posted by Cherri Fox at 8:21 PM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal brings up the question of the importance of good schools when it comes to buying a home. Many parents have difficultly in finding a neighborhood with a good balance of quality education and reasonably-priced homes.

When readers were asked if they agreed that good school districts were one of the most important factors for a home buyer in considering an area’s desirability and housing prices, the replies were almost unanimous in that the school district was either the number one consideration or a top concern when making a home purchase.

You can read more here and be sure to check out the article by Katherine Boehret, Grading Neighborhood Schools, where she provides some great tips and links to web sites that provide free school comparisons.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

Labels: home sales, market, neighborhood, school, school district

Posted by Cherri Fox at 9:57 PM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

There's an interesting article over at the Orange County Register about the recently published index by the National Association of Home Builders and Wells Fargo Bank that ranks O.C. as the nation's fifth least affordable housing market. But this is actually good news for Orange County home buyers since last year the county ranked in the top three, just behind Los Angeles and Salinas. This means that housing in the county is becoming more affordable. In fact this news follows on the heals of an announcement by the California Association of Realtors report that home affordability in O.C. is the highest it has been in three years.

If you're curious as to where you might find the most affordable market, it's Kokomo, Indiana at 93%. Lets see ... palm trees, breathtaking coastline and ideal year-round weather with sunny days and an average temperature of 70 degrees. At this writing it is 6° F in Kokomo Ind. You decide.

Labels: home sales, industry news, market, market update, South Orange County Real Estate

Posted by Cherri Fox at 6:57 PM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

David Wessel of The Wall Street Journal Online explains why, when tracking home prices, getting a clear picture of the recent past might be more difficult than you think.

The two best barometers of housing prices are the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight's index and the Standard & Poor's Case/Shiller index. Both are based on the same concept that looks at repeat sales of the same houses yet, as Wessel points out, there are significant discrepancies in the resulting numbers and with housing prices so important to the health of the economy, people want to know "why these two carefully constructed measures differ."

Read more at Tracking Housing Prices, why the Numbers Conflict .

Labels: home sales, industry news, market

Posted by Cherri Fox at 7:57 PM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

We've all heard the saying that first impressions are the most important and in many cases a first impression may be the only chance you'll get.The same thing applies when it comes time to sell your home. The buyer's first impression of your property can be vital to the success of selling your home, so it is important to make that first impression count.

Home staging is just a matter of decorating your house to sell. It involves picking up the clutter, doing some detailed cleaning (remember that prospective buyers love to open cabinets and closet doors!) and repairing where necessary as well as putting away the personal chochkes and photos and making small but significant changes through the choices and placement of furniture, lighting elements and accessories.

It's important to remember, just because you're ready to sell your house doesn't mean your house is ready to go on the market, but with a little elbow grease and work, home staging can help you sell your home for top dollar in record time. And with today's market, that's always a good thing!

You can find a couple of great posts on the importance of a home's first impression, one by Millie Legenhausen over at activerain and another here by Earth Available Realty.

Labels: home sales, home staging, how to

Posted by Cherri Fox at 4:39 PM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

It can be accepted as a general truth that the main thing that keeps a home from selling is price. While many Listing Clients consider a minimum bottom line price for their home a MUST, let's take a look at all of the things that can be changed to make that happen.

Assuming that you absolutely CAN'T Lower your price, Here's What you MUST DO:

1) Do what has worked all along: Hire an agent who will market your property with the most market saturation. Make sure that they are going to hit all of the print marketing necessary to penetrate deep into the market and dig out the buyers.

2) Target 80% of the Market: Make sure that your agent also gets good marketing penetration online. The agent doing this should have several websites, a blog, the agent must monitor their website traffic, and be somehow accountable to you with regard to how many buyers are finding your property online.

3) Sweeten the pot: Discuss a commission structure that will get buyers agents thinking about nothing EXCEPT selling your home. Adding an extra percentage to the buyer's agent commission will have them staying awake at night thinking how they can sell your home.

4) Consider staging: staging your home may be a viable expense for you if you just haven't had the offer quality that you need. This is something to consider if you are getting tons of showings, but NO OFFERS.

5) Find a name you can trust: If top dollar is your goal, it is best not to risk shopping around for a cafeteria plan of real estate services, you need a full service broker, and you need them NOW! If a full service broker already let you down, it's time to start shopping the agents on their individual merits, but choosing a business model in this case that doesn't offer full service, just won't work out.

Labels: home sales, how to, sell

Posted by Rory at 3:38 PM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post