Number of Central Coast Realtors Decline
The housing market is causing some agents to either leave the industry or choose not to renew their Realtor membership. The number of Realtors on the Central Coast peaked in 2007 with 3440. In 2008, there were 3278 Realtors. This year we’ve seen a bigger decline in Realtors, down to 2917.
Considering 2581 homes sold in 2008, we still have TONS of Realtors competing for these sales. This doesn’t count the agents who are selling real estate and are not Realtors.
If you spread out the sales evenly, no Realtor would be able to survive on 1-2 sales a year. But, you may have heard the expression “20% of Realtors do 80% of the business”. This is the case on the Central Coast too. So while the number of Realtors has declined since 2007, many Realtors had zero or one total sales last year. You can typically find these Realtors sitting at Open Houses to get Buyer “leads” or in the office waiting for the phone to ring.
I’ve also heard that with people losing jobs, some are working on getting their real estate license so that might prevent the number of Realtors from taking a big drop next year. What happens with most new agents is that they get their license and their initial sales are to people they know. I’m not sure if it’s such a great thing to be one of an agent’s first couple sales but some feel obligated to use a friend that has a real estate license.
Diablo Canyon Work Finishes Early
The work on Diablo Canyon finished up about a week earlier than projected and the reactor went back online today. There were 2500 temporary workers brought in to help with the replacement of the steam generators, 1000 of them from out of the area.
Too bad they couldn’t have permanent jobs so they could continue to pump money into the local economy.
Best of Caravan – Santa Maria
(Submitted by one of our Santa Maria agents)
Without a doubt, the hands-down Winner of this weeks Caravan is this French Country Style 3/3 boasts of 2,340 square feet of family comfort & elegance. Just off the all important Family room is a Media room with terraced seating. Separate formal Living & Dining rooms. Large gourmet Kitchen with lots of prep room on the granite counter tops. As if that wasn’t enough this entertainers dream is complete with an outdoor stone Patio with a custom waterfall & exterior fireplace. When you are ready to retire to your Master Suite you will experience a beautiful yet efficient hideaway with a large walk-in closet, convenient master bath finishes off all that makes this home just a step above the competition. All this for $359,900. Don’t miss it.
Best of Caravan is an agent’s pick of the home on the week’s Broker Open House Tour of New Listings (aka. Caravan).
Home Sales Rise
There’s a headline being reported on a bunch of sites, the newpaper, and on TV news that home sales increased a few percentage points between January and February. While this is true, it’s kinda misleading. January we always have low sales because January’s sales come from December Pending Sales and December is always a slow month. So, I really wouldn’t call the rise between January and February a big deal, especially such as low percentage increase. Now if sales had fallen from Jan to Feb, that would be news as that never happens.
Cal Poly Sufin’ School
I was just watching the 11 o’clock news on KSBY and they mentioned again that Cal Poly was one of the top 5 surfin’ schools ranked by some surfing dudes at surfline.com. UC San Diego, UC Santa Cruz, and UC Santa Barbara were in the top 5 as well. What I really like is how they describe Cal Poly:
“ Just like the surrounding areas, Cal Poly is most known for their agriculture. But the business, engineering, science and liberal arts programs are gaining equal ground on the tree-huggers.”
“Springtime is windy and freezing and the summers aren’t anything to hang around for. If pick-up truck driving farmers give you the creeps and wide-open farmland isn’t appealing, head to a more urban school.”
If you’ve walked through Poly’s UU lately, you’ll see that they now have a surf board shaping area where the bike repair place used to be (next to the arts and crafts kiln).
Grover Beach Vision Map
Grover Beach has put their vision for their city in a very nice 11×17 brochure which I have included a link to below.
Download the PDF of the Vision Map
Signs of a Buyers Market
I ran across this tonite and thought it was pretty funny. I am starting to see some yard signs starting to look this way.
Chinese-made Drywall Ruining Homes
Appears that drywall from China may have sulfur in it that is causing problems with homes in Florida and Alabama. The homes were built around 2006 and its estimated that thousands of homes may have the drywall in them.
You would never think that the origin of drywall is something that you need to be concerned about.
Bayside Cafe – Morro Bay
(submitted by one of our North Coast agents)
My all time favorite restaurant in Morro Bay is the Bayside Café . It has just the perfect blend of beautiful setting, great food & service, good pricing and still… comfortably casual.
You can dine inside or outside on the patio- I recommend outside- the heaters keep you plenty warm—even on a chilly evening.
They are open 11:00-3:00 Monday –Wednesday and 11:00 to ~ 8:30 Thursday- Sunday.
Once you visit for lunch or dinner- you are likely to return again and again- as many of us do. If you like dessert… the mud pie is quiet tasty.
Located in the Morro Bay State Park, next to the Nature Museum, near the sailboats, and across from the camping grounds.
