santa barbara county real estate

sudoadmin
juillet 10, 2019

BUYING BEFORE THE SCHOOL BELL RINGS

Just because summer is here does not mean it’s too late to get in before the school year begins. It does mean time is of the essence to find the perfect family home and get your kids enrolled in a great school!

RIGHT SCHOOL

Buying the right home is more than square footage and amenities, for many young families it’s also about being in the right school zone. At C21 Hometown we understand the importance of knowing what ’s going on in a Community. That’s why at C21Accueil.com, we offer Climate, Culture, Market, Lifestyle and School information for every Community we serve. Most Central Coast schools boast above-average rankings for California.

To find out how specific schools are ranked, check out:
San Luis Obispo County: https://school-ratings.com/counties/San_Luis_Obispo.html
Santa Barbara County: https://school-ratings.com/counties/Santa_Barbara.html

MARKET IS HOT

Whether you’ve been looking and may have lost out to multiple offers or have been holding out to avoid the Spring Frenzy, now’s a great time to buy. Many new homes have been added to the inventory pool in recent weeks and prices are slightly lower than last year’s summer season according to the California Association of Realtors.

THIS WEEKEND

A typical time period from offer to closing is 30-45 days, assuming no issues come up with the mortgage and title process. So let our C21 Hometown Agents find you and your family the perfect home so you can start the school year off right!

A propos de CENTURY 21 Hometown Realty – Hometown Realty is the leading real estate firm on the Central Coast of California with offices spanning Santa Barbara County and San Luis Obispo county offering expert agents and convenient locations.

Bysudoadmin
Onjuillet 10, 2019

sudoadmin
janvier 5, 2014

Where do Central Coast Home Buyers Come From

Century 21 Hometown has more consumer website traffic (over 600,000 monthly visits) than any other brokerage or franchise website on the Central Coast according to Hitwise. Only Century 21 Hometown partners Realtor.com, Zillow.com, and Trulia.com have more. No other brokerage ranks in the top 10 for the Central Coast DMA, Hitwise reports. The Central Coast DMA or Demographic Market Area is defined as the stretch of the California coastline that includes Ventura County, Santa Barbara County, and San Luis Obsipo County. The image to the left explains where consumers are connected to the internet when they access C21Accueil.com for property information. Our ability to attract buyers from beyond the local market area is a key reason why sellers choose to list their home with a Century 21 Hometown agent.

As you might imagine, most buyers for real estate on the Central Coast are local. San Luis Obispo and Arroyo Grande, two of the region’s largest cities account for the most significant amount of consumer traffic. Where it gets interesting is looking at the other cities in the top 10. They include, in order of traffic volume: Bakersfield, Los Angles, Santa Maria, Paso Robles, San Francisco, Atascadero, Paso Robles, and Orcutt.

“I am not surprised at all by these results,” says Century 21 Hometown Realty broker Amy Gallagher. “I review every transaction for the company and I routinely see the buyers coming in from the Central Valley, Bay Area, and Los Angles.” Central Coast is known by many to provide one of the best lifestyles in America and real estate here trades at a discount to property closer to the major metropolitan cities.

The Future Looks Bright

The county planning commissions in Ventura, Santa Barbara, and San Luis Obsipo Counties have taken care to manage growth. Every planned development project goes through a careful consideration process to ensure that expansion does not overwhelm community roads, school, or other population sensitive services. We have a condition whereby far more people are trying to move to the Central Coast than move away. This holds property prices stable and drives property value growth. If you would like to see our recent Central Coast Market Trends, here is a sample for the CCRMLS market area for Northern Santa Barbara County and San Luis Obispo County.

Central Coast Market Trends

Free Credit Scores Abound

As a home buyer, a mortgage may play an important role in your purchase. It is a good idea to check your credit history before starting the home buying process. You will want credit hygiene to enhance your opportunity to negotiate the best possible mortgage program. A handful of credit card issuers are betting that you’d like to see your credit score every month. Discover, Barclaycard US and First Bankcard’s have started offering their 35 million cardholders free access to their credit scores.

The score they’re sharing ? called FICO ? is used by credit card issuers to decide whether to give you a charge account and what interest rate to charge you.

Discover is putting your credit score on your monthly statement. Barclaycard and First Bankcard customers will have to visit their credit card company’s website to see their score.

You don’t have to open a new credit card account to see your credit score. Credit.com, CreditSesame.com and CreditKarma.com will give you a credit score (without making you pay for credit monitoring services as some other sites do).

The score you get on those sites can be different from your FICO score and from the credit scores used by mortgage companies, auto dealers and other types of lenders.

All credit scores are calculated using information from your credit report, but each type of credit score is based on a proprietary formula devised by the company that sells the score. While different scores have different number ranges they all predict how likely you are to repay.

So if you have good credit based on one scale, you should have good credit based on another credit score’s scale, even though the two numbers might be different.

Bysudoadmin
Onjanvier 5, 2014

sudoadmin
octobre 17, 2013

Distressed Property in CCRMLS

The Central Coast Regional MLS spans multiple counties. It is mostly San Luis Obispo County and Northern Santa Barbara County. The nearest MLS to our south is Santa Barbara. The nearest MLS to our north is MLS Listings which spans Monterey to San Francisco.

The data below is a current snapshot of all homes in the CCRMLS region. Not just homes for sale, but every property on the tax roles. The data is calculated using something called an Automated Valuation Model or AVM. AVMs have been developed as tools that Hypothèque companies (Banks) use to understand the default risk in their portfolio. There is no way that they can have an appraisal done on every home on a regular basis, so they use complex mathematics to create estimates. The AVM is a very important number for both home buyers and home sellers. Frankly, if there is a mortgage involved in the purchase, the AVM is the first tool used to evaluate the potential loan. Secondly, the bank will review the appraisal. This protects the bank from lending too much on a home and the buyer from paying too much. Vendeurs need to think about this in pricing a home. Even if you do get the highest possible offer from a buyer, the offer price may be too high to qualify for a loan. It happens a lot.

According to a report from Property Radar, in September, nearly one in four, or 1.5 million (22 percent) of California’s 6.8 million homeowners were underwater while more than 420,000 (6 percent) were barely above water (less than 10 percent equity in their homes).

This chart shows that in CCRMLS, the number is more like 2/3 of the properties are underwater, but most are not underwater by very much. 22% of the homes are on the bubble of + or – 10%. Given the accuracy of AVMs being what they are, you can be assured that there are an equal amount in the range of 10% above or below even equity that could go either way.

21% of the property is between -10% and -40%. This is the area of the market that qualifies for something we call a Short Sale. In most cases, the bank recognizes that both the home owner and the bank have a problem. Typically, a Century 21 Hometown REALTOR® can work with those sellers to get the bank to agree to market the property at current market values. 100% of the proceeds of the sale go to the bank and the homeowner walks away without owing any more on the home. There are some tax consequences that our Century 21 Hometown agents can explain.

That last group of properties that are more than 40% underwater is 4% of the market. That is what we usually consider the Foreclosure market. It does not mean that those properties are in Foreclosure, it just means that they probably should be. There are plenty of homeowners who pay back underwater loans.

If you do not know where your property value ranks in comparison to market value, contact any Century 21 Hometown agent. We can provide you with the AVM for your property, or we can do a full analysis by visiting your home. In today’s market, there are more buyers than sellers, so property values are going up. It is a great time to list your home for sale with Century 21 Hometown.

Bysudoadmin
Onoctobre 17, 2013