Archive for December, 2007
What a way to end the year
December 30th, 2007 Categories: Real Estate News
A little Jack Johnson taking us out on the uke!! 2008 is going to be a great year!!!
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Foreclosures, short sales and the end of time
December 23rd, 2007 Categories: San Diego county Real Estate News
This week brought some potentially good news for the San Diego real 
estate market when Realtytrak released their foreclosure statistics. Notice of defaults filings, the beginning of the foreclosure, were down 44% in the month of November versus October, while actual foreclosures were down 73%.
So is this a sign of transition to a more stable market or could it be a sign of lenders taking a less agressive approach to late paying homeowners and trying to work out a better payment plan. John Karevoll of Dataquik believes it is the latter.
“They are being temporarily less aggressive,” he said. “They have been severely criticized for not doing more to help homeowners work things out. If anything, this is probably just a pause. The numbers are going to probably snap back up.”
The consensus seems to be that the market should find it’s bottom sometime in the summer to late 2008. The number I am seeing most is approximately an 8% depereciation.
What our region needs is for the fed to increase the amount of money considered to be a conforming loan. Appproximately 67% of the homes purchased are above the conforming limit versus most of the country where 95% of the homes puschased are less than the confroming rate. There is some work going on to change this so stay tuned. How would this change effect the buying process?
Currently according to Bankrate.com the conforming 30 year fixed interest rate is 5.74% versus 6.68 for the Jumbo, over $417,000. On a $500,000 dollar loan, a change in the Federal guideline would save the home buyer approximately $300 month on their house payment.
I personally beleive it is a good time to be a buyer looking for a home. Just negotiate accordingly. Approaching the real estate market from an investor angle, I would proceed with caution. 
Keep in mind, in north county coastal, the average home price in 2000 was $386,194. In 2007 the average price $780,977 which is just over a 100% appreciation rate. You have a choice; either you earn the apprecaition or your landlord does, tax benefits and pride of ownership aside.
You decide.
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San Diego city council takes action supported by local realtor
December 7th, 2007 Categories: Real Estate News
Last month I published the first of a series of articles based on water and our region. In the article I spoke of the importance of exploring, trusting and implementing the technology of reclaiming water for drinking.
Well this week the San Diego City Council over turned the mayor’s veto, 5 to 3, to finance the start of the project. This project and the council’s vote is supported by both environmental groups as well as business groups.
‘Representatives from businesses, environmental groups, a leading taxpayer group and a scientific society urged the council to move ahead into what is essentially a new study phase for water recycling. Several of them pointed to Orange County, where agencies tout their massive plant designed to inject heavily treated wastewater into the aquifer system.’ San Diego Union 12/4/2007, Mike Lee and Jennifer Vigil
The Mayor is on record as stating,”more effective and less costly ways exist to satisfy San Diego’s thirst.”. Yet there has never been an explanation of what those are.
In early 2003 we reached a compact with the Imperial Irrigation district that furloughed fields and paid to implement new watering practices in the agriculture district. What this did was allow us to buy their surplus allotted water that was now being saved.
In early September, the Coachella Valley Water District, the San Diego County Water Authority,the Imperial Irrigation District and the Metropolitan Water District signed the deal and submitted it to the California Assembly. It easily passed and two days later went to the Senate where it was also passed and sent on to the Governor’s office to be signed. Problems surfaced, however, when the Imperial Valley agency attempted to add a sentence to the agreement which said that the federal government will never again try to reduce its allocation from the Colorado River in exchange for dropping a federal lawsuit against the Department of the Interior and signing the deal. Governor Davis signed the
package on Sept. 29. Imperial Valley approved the pact by a 3-2 vote on Sept. 10th. Reluctant Imperial Valley farmers agreed to idle their winter crops to set in motion the plan to transfer thousands of acre-feet of water to San Diego and the Salton Sea beginning Dec. 1. -Prepared by the staff of the IGS Library. For more info go here
Another project that local government is working on is to cement line the American canal to prevent ground water seepage. The biggest problem, there are actually many, is that they still involve the water ALREADY coming out of the Colorado river. This does nothing to tap in to a NEW source of water.
Stay tuned for more article. Here is the whole SD Union story.
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Who needs carbon fiber?
December 2nd, 2007 Categories: Real Estate News
Check out some more wooden bikes here. If you would like to build your own wooden bike, you can start here.
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