My wife and I took a walk out Poly Canyon a few weeks ago (before Poly started again). We were amazed to see them busy working on the new village. Once completed, Poly plans to raise the school attendence another 3000+ students. That should make the downtown merchants happy!

MLS Map Search Tip

Have you noticed the "Email Search" in the upper right corner of a MLS Map Search on my site? What this is good for is if you want to easily bring up a map that I don't currently have defined in my menu choices.

After you move the map to where you want to display properties, zoom the map to the level you want, and choose other criteria (like price range), click on "Email Search" and send the email to your own email address. What you'll get sent is the URL for that map you have displayed. Then click on this URL and Bookmark it (or add Favorites) in your web browser. You can then go directly to this map when you want to view the current properties for sale for that area.

If you are listing a property on the Central Coast and want to have your home listed on web sites, make sure your agent is not choosing to delete your property's street address. This is an option when they enter the listing.

Without a street address, the sites that map MLS listings won't know where to map your property. I see more and more properties being listed without street addresses being displayed on websites. The Listing Agents may think this is a way to get people to call them to ask for the address so they have a chance of "double-ending" the transcation and making twice the commission, but what it's really doing is limiting the marketing exposure of the property.

Another housing survey was just released. This one for the 2nd Quarter of 2006 ranks 317 metro areas and how overvalued the housing prices are. San Luis Obispo showed up in the Top 40 of the most overvalued areas, Santa Barbara is in the Top 10.

The PDF of the report is available here (6 MB download).

There's lots of coverage about the upcoming Dalidio Marketplace vote in the local press lately. The Tribune had a front page story recently and today's New Times has Mr. Dalidio on the cover. With all the talk about the stores that could be part of the Marketplace, Santa Maria is busy bringing stores (and tax revenue) to their city. The most viewed news article on the Santa Maria Times website is the announcement of Steve & Barry's clothing store coming to the Town Center Mall. Macy's also just went in and a 14-screen theatre is projected to be finished in 2007. See the Times article here.

I must admit, everytime I drive in Grover Beach and experience the state of their roads, I wonder how other cities in SLO County can stop this from happening as we keep losing retail tax revenue to Santa Maria.

Now this is one way to avoid the lines at the airport!

This is John Travolta's home in Florida.

Home sales in the San Francisco Bay Area fell 24.9 percent in August compared to August 2006. In addition, median prices dropped in real estate research company DataQuick Information Systems reported today, and median prices dropped in three counties compared to year-ago levels.

Full Article Here

If you were in SLO today, you may have noticed the groups of new Poly students. This is the start of the Week of Welcome (WoW). I have fond memories of my WOW week...the sewer tour, the hot tubs, my first visit to downtown, and bonfires at Port San Luis. Every year they put a map together with advertisers on it and coupons around the edge. You can get some good deals if you pick one of these up. This year there is a 20% off coupon for Copelands, 19 cents loaf of french bread at Food 4 Less, 2 for 1 at the Palm, Free tire rotation at The Tire Store, and more. I was at Poly today and they have them right when you walk in the door at the El Corral Bookstore.

I hear often from Realtors and borrowers wanting to know if I think rates will go down. Rates are at a 30 year low (see link below). They have dropped a hair, but overall they are stable for the time being. Down a bit or up a bit, rates are LOW. It does definitely help with purchase power to have the lowest rate possible, but remember to beware a rate that seems too good to be true...as it could cost you a great deal later.


www.mortgage-x.com/general/indexes/average_contract_rate.asp

Last month I went to the Bay Area to photograph a home that Steve Wozniak, an Apple co-founder, built. Here's the end result: http://www.legendaryestate.com/

Make sure you click on "Film". Quite impressive.

Money magazine announced their latest Top 5 best places to retire. No California cities made the top 5 this year. It looks like they didn't even consider San Luis Obispo (or we would have made the Top 5!).

The list is here.

With plenty of homes on the market to chose from, anyone that *needs* to sell their home must make it stand out from the crowd. The way some are trying to do this is with price. I'm seeing some large price reductions lately. For example, an Atascadero home just dropped their price over $400,000 (from $1.485M to $1.050M). This home was sold in October of 2004 for $1.250M.

But the large price reductions aren't just happening in the Million+ homes. A Paso Robles home just dropped from $425K to $325K.

It's hard to say why the price reductions are so drastic but the homes seem like a good value now!

I updated the inventory report on www.SloWatch.com for stick-built homes last night. The good news is that the data shows that months of inventory has gone down for most Central Coast cities since the last report in July. For all of SLO County, the months of inventory decreased from 10.7 on July 20th to 7.6 on September 10th.

Million dollar properties are still struggling to find Buyers. The months of inventory rose from 16.2 to 19.

I plan to update the detailed inventory report for individual cities next week.

In case you didn't read this in the Tribune today, here's an article about what home builders are doing to try to get Buyers.

(From Guest Blogger- Margie Drube, Team Mortgage)

What's the buzz in mortgages right now?

Lower Your Payments!!! How can it be, you ask, when I have a $500,000 mortgage that my payments could be less than $2000? The answer could cause you great problems later if you're not prepared.

Those wonderfully low payments could mean you are financing your interest due and it is being added to your principal balance. That means with every low-low payment you make your mortgage is getting larger. Neg-Am or negative amortization loans and Option ARMs (Adjustable Rate Mortgages) allow that very option of not paying even your full interest payment each month and allowing the shortage to become principal due. How upset will you be to find out your mortgage is larger than when you started it last year or five years ago? Be very careful if the new payment on your mortgage seems too good to be true...It probably is!

The article link below is regarding Interest Only loans; a very good mortgage option if the situation is right. They are better than neg-Am loans, but still could be dangerous if you are uninformed. If you have questions about your mortgage or new mortgage options, feel free to contact me.

Read the article here

Awhile ago I blogged about the 800# telephone numbers on yard signs that sole purpose is to get your phone number to the agent. I thought you'd be interested in another "gimmick" used to get people to call an agent, other than actual marketing of the home for sale. Here's the sales newsletter for Talking House. This is a product that broadcasts a recorded message over an AM radio station. I actually tried Talking House many years ago. I was planning to use it to broadcast a message over the radio for the people driving in downtown Pismo (on Pomeroy). Unfortunately, I couldn't get it the signal to reach any distance even though I purchased their external antenna that was supposed to make it go for 1000 feet. In my experience, it was more like 25 feet.

Freddie Mac - Home Price Growth Slows to Less Than Five Percent in Second Quarter

"Although the slow down in house-price appreciation has been quite sudden, going from an annualized 13 percent in the fourth quarter of 2005 to less than half of that rate just six months later, there is still strength in the housing market. Single-family house sales through the first half of the year averaged 7.03 million units at an annual rate, on track to make 2006 the third best year for home sales. Similarly, one-family housing starts averaged an annualized rate of 1.64 million units through June, just a little under the record pace set in 2005. As the full impact of two years of rising short-term interest rates is felt in the economy, the slowdown in the housing market could become more abrupt over the next year.


Read article here

Newspaper ads for real estate is expected to take a big hit in the upcoming years as the Internet continues to change the real estate industry. Article here

The montly real estate magazines are also losing their audience. The latest Buyers survey from the National Association of Realtors reported that only 1% of buyers found their home through a real estate magazine. Not too long ago, this number was over 10%.

Even the salespeople from these magazines aren't hiding this. The following is from a flyer I recently received from The Real Estate Book.

"...Both Buyers and Sellers are scanning The Real Estate Book to see who the hot agents in town are...Make sure they see you in The Real Estate Book."

So even they are admitting people aren't reading their publications looking for homes to buy!

My advice is if an agent that you are going to list your house with does a lot of expensive print advertising (newspaper and magazine), tell them you want great Internet presence and take the money they would have spent on print advertising, and give it to you via a lower commission!

Our MLS system had a change made to it recently. Previous it displayed Days on Market (DOM) for a listing. DOM was a quick way to tell how "fresh" a listing was. The problem with DOM was that some agents would cancel a listing, then relist it to start DOM from zero again. With homes staying on the market longer and longer these days, more of these shenanigans were bound to take place.

So, now DOM has been replaced with CDOM standing for Cumulative Days on Market. If a property has been listed within the past 60 days, it adds the DOM from the prior listing period.

For example, a home in Arroyo Grande was on the market last year with one Broker. After 180+ days, they changed Realtors and Brokerages. Another 120+ days and the listing expired again. Then, the home was relisted with the original Brokerage again. Before the change, this listing showed DOM=2, which reflected how long it was on the market with the new Brokerage. But now it says CDOM=315. CDOM paints a much more accurate picture for a listing.

What is a Reverse Mortgage?

Here's a link to a webpage that gives a good overview of what a Reverse Mortgage is (and isn't).

Here are a couple "Headlines" from the Jay Leno show. Looks like someone didn't do a good job at proofreading.

http://snipurl.com/vv2r

http://snipurl.com/vv2f

There's a new yogurt shop that opened in Arroyo Grande last week called Yogurt Creations. They have a couple stores in the North County. If you're familiar with Bali's in SLO, it's similar. You get your yogurt and any toppings, then you weigh it and pay.

It's on Grand, between Oak Park and Courtland in the new building with Taco Del Mar and Little Ceasers.

Check out the latest issue of New Times. They did a nice blurb about my SloWatch.com site and this Blog in their real estate section. Thx New Times!

Pending Home Sales Index Points To Easing Market

WASHINGTON (September 1, 2006) – Home sales should be leveling out in the months ahead at a lower pace, according to an index based on pending home sales, a leading indicator for the housing market published by the National Association of Realtors®.

Read the entire article here

Central Coast MLS Statistics - August 2006 - residential

Price Changes - 1706
New Listings - 953
Pending - 543
Back on Market - 285
Contingent - 51
Sold - 407
Expired - 446

I updated the graph on www.SloWatch.com with the August data.