The Madonna Inn has a new conference facilty set to open in January. It will handle groups between 1000-2500 in size. This is pretty big news for the Central Coast. Before this new facility, the largest conference area was the Embassy Suites but it was multiple seperated rooms. The Central Coast is a great getaway for Los Angeles and the Bay Area and I'd expect to see more conferences being hosted in the new Madonna facility.

Hope all of you had a good Thanksgiving holiday!

This is usually a slow time for the real estate market. Here's the activity for the past seven days on the Central Coast. If you do the math, you'll see that inventory was reduced. I'll do the monthly stats for November in a few days.

New Listings - 120
Back on Market - 26
Price changes - 76
Contingent - 21
Pending - 157

The SLO Costco may be open in May. Then again...it may not be. Anyone want to take bets???

Grover Beach is changing their requirements when a homeowner wants to remodel or add on to their home. Before, you would need to make curb and sidewalk improvements along with underground utilities in certain remodels. With the new requirements, a homeowner would need to make the above improvements only if they increase square footage by 40% or more.

Mortgage Spam Emails

I get alot of spam emails from mortgage companies with the"we've approved your application for x%".

Since the theme of alot of these is the same, it must mean that people actually respond to these type of emails?! Amazing.....

The 320 home subdivision for Pismo Beach was approved by the City Council this week. It's off of Oak Park Rd. The developer still needs to show that the 2 wells on the property will work.

Also, the issue about water is still alive in Nipomo. Some say there's enough groundwater, others don't. They're talking about putting in a pipe to Santa Maria but who pays for it is still undecided.

The Los Osos sewer sage continues. The monthly price residents will now have to pay is around $137. Every year without a sewer means that the groundwater becomes more contaminated (Los Osos is entirely on septic systems) and the price increases. Wonder what the price per household would have been if they built the sewer in 1973 when the issue was first raised?

There are 16 new properties on the Realtor Hotsheet today. If you don't know what the "Hotsheet" is, it's a report that most Realtors run in our MLS system that tells us what properties are new, which ones have price changes, which have gone Pending, etc. This is where new properties get the most exposure to the 2700 Realtors on the Central Coast. Well...out of the 16 new listings, only 4 have photos with them. The rest say "No Photo Available". A property that doesn't have a photo certainly isn't going to stand out in my mind.

When I list a home, I make sure to upload MULTIPLE photos when I enter a listing into the MLS. These photos are available instantly! Since a new listing only appears on the HotSheet for two days, you want to make sure you get other Realtors excited about your home...the DAY it goes on the market.

New Mortgage Calculators

I found and purchased a set of mortgage calculators that I really like. Not only will these give you instant information, but you can also print out amoritzation reports on some of them too. Give them a look here:

http://www.mls2020.com/mortgage_calculators/index.html

These are on another one of my websites that I just put online.

New MLS Search!

I've upgraded my MLS search.

The new one allows you to:

- Name and save your searches. So, instead of having to enter in the same search criteria each time, you can just choose it and get the results.

- Also, you can save individual listings and then come back and look at them later.

The map function doesn't work on this one, like the last one, because our local MLS doesn't allow us to display street numbers (so the mapping program doesn't know where to map). If you want more info on a property, just click on the "Request more information" and I'll email you a link to the MLS detail, which includes the street address (and a working map).

Instant Notification is still offered, it's just called HouseTrack.

The new MLS Search is available here:
http://www.slocountyhomes.com/search_mls_page.htm

If you want to use my prior MLS search, you can still access it here:
http://www.slocountyhomes.com/search_mls_page_old.htm

There are usually 2 stages of price negotiations in a home sale; 1) the initial offer, and 2) repair requests after a home inspection is done (if one is done).

If you are selling your house and you want to have the least amount of surprises, then have a home inspection done either before or right when you list your home. This is in addition to the pest inspection. If you have these 2 reports done, you'll know what condition your house is in BEFORE you get an offer and go through the first price negotiation. You don't want to haggle on a price, then find out after you're in escrow for a week or two that you have $10,000 in damage repairs.

If you have the reports done upfront and find that your house is in good shape, then this can be used as a strong point when you market your home. Buyers and Buyer's Agents like homes that are in good condition and ready to sell!

A 15 acre ranch came on the market today in San Luis Obispo, near Los Osos Valley Rd and Foothill Blvd. Views of Bishop Peak. Has a guest house, 6 fenced pastures, and horse facilities. Asking $1.89M.

Central Coast MLS Activity for month of October:

New Listings - 729
Back on Market - 193
Contingent - 60
Price Changed- 535
Pending - 692

Previous blog here: http://www.slocountyhomes.com/real_estate_weblog_oct_04.htm