New Listing Coming
The contractor is finishing putting the final touches on a 3 bedroom with an over-sized 2 car garage in Arroyo Grande. New roof, paint, carpet, hardwood floors, dual pane windows and more. Looking at an under $350K price when it comes on the market in a few days.
Stay tuned!
I’m Loving This Cell Phone App!
I upgraded my phone to a Blackberry Tour yesterday so now I can use our new MLS Search application with the phone’s GPS. The application is so much better than trying to search via the phone browser. It’s lots quicker and the photos and info display is better too.
I found a nifty tool to take screen shots of my Blackberry and took some while I was using the application tonite so you can see some of what it does (the graphic at the top of this blog post is a screen shot).
You can see the screen shots here
Telling people about the application these past several days I’m discovering that some have never installed an application on their cell phone before.
The easiest way to get our MLS Search application is to text “byrd” to 87778
You’ll get a text message sent back to you within seconds with link to the application for your phone. The application is FREE to download and use and it doesn’t ask you to enter in any personal contact info.
If you have any problems getting your application running, I’d be happy to help. Just email me at byrd@slocountyhomes.com
Yet More Real Estate Market Reports!
Don’t mean to information overload you all but I’ve created a page with links to Executive Summary reports for all cities. I’ll be updating these reports weekly.
Click to go to the Executive Summary Reports index
Solds and Available Homes
Below is a graph that shows the homes sold within the last 90 days in SLO County by price range. The red outline on the graph is the available homes in that price range. Ignore the dark green bar, it doesn’t mean anything. I just couldn’t make this graph without choosing a price range, which the program highlighted in dark green.
Click the graphic to enlarge it.
Rate Update and Impound Accounts
All economic data released last week reinforced the notion that the worst of the recession is behind us. The economy is currently experiencing slow to moderate economic growth with low inflation, and appears to be on track for gradual improvement. Retail Sales had their biggest monthly advance in over three years, up 2.7%. Housing Starts and Building Permits rose to their highest levels since November. Jobless Claims dropped to their lowest levels since July. Short-term inflation fears were also put to rest as both the Consumer Price Index and Producer Price Index were down compared to one year ago. The 30 Year Fixed currently sits at 4.750% (4.929% APR) and the 15 Year Fixed is at 4.250% (4.557% APR). The biggest news this week will be the Fed meeting on Wednesday which could contain information regarding the outlook for future rate hikes. New and Existing Home Sales numbers will come out later in the week. And the US Treasury will auction a record $112 billion of 2, 5 and 7-year notes.
When purchasing a new home or refinancing your existing home, your lender will undoubtedly pose the question: do you want to set up and impound account with your new loan? An impound account, also referred to as an escrow account, is an interest-bearing account set up by your 1st lien servicer into which you set aside money each month for the purpose of paying your property taxes and homeowners insurance. Each month, you pay 1/12th of your property taxes and 1/12th of your insurance in addition to your regular monthly principal and interest payment on your mortgage. Your servicer deposits these additional funds into your impound account, and from this account pays your semi-annual property tax bill and your annual insurance premium.
Most mortgage lenders offer 0.250 point pricing incentive to encourage borrowers to set up an impound account. For example, the new 30 Year Fixed loan at 4.750% that was going to cost you 1.250 points, will only cost you 1.000 point if you establish an impound account. Lenders are willing to offer this incentive because it guarantees your property taxes are paid on time and your insurance is always current. This is especially important to your mortgage company should they ever need to take ownership of the property for any reason.
Most borrowers establish impound accounts, primarily based on receiving a better interest rate and/or reduced fees. Another common reason is to break up these large semi-annual and annual payments into twelve smaller payments each month. There are also some borrowers who simply don’t want to have to worry about making their tax and insurance payments, and are content to have the servicer make the payment on their behalf. Other borrowers are resistant to setting up an impound account because they want to be more “in control of their money”. Regardless of what you decide, be sure to weigh the pros and cons of setting up an impound account before completing your next loan transaction.
Central Coast Lending, Inc.
(805) 771-9870
info@centralcoastlending.com
Another Website For You!
I invite you to visit another one of my websites at -
http://www.sanluisobisporealestate2020.com/
This one has a different design and MLS Search. It uses the same listings database so the MLS listing data is identical on all my sites, just displayed differently. Pick the MLS listings search site you like the best!
MLS Search Phone Application
The MLS Search Application for phones is HERE!
You can download the application from this link.
When you go to this page, you can choose your phone carrier and then it will display a list of phones. These are phones that have a GPS so that you can use a Map Search. But, if your phone isn’t on the list, it doesn’t mean you can’t use it.
For example, I have a Blackberry 8330 Curve from Verizon. Verizon decided to restrict the GPS in this phone to work only with their VZ Navigator app which they charge extra for. You can still download the app on an 8330 and it works fine, you just won’t have the map search option that uses the GPS. There’s a nifty Address Search option where you can enter in something like 680 Chorro, 93401 and it will display available properties starting with the closest to that address.
I’m done testing the application and have 26 items I submitted to the vendor asking to change/enhance. This company is still fairly new so I’m confident that the updates to the application will only make it better. For now, I wouldn’t click on the “Demo” link on the download page. If I were you, I’d just download the application and give it a try! An easy way to get the app is to text “byrd” to 87778.
Happy searching!
Video Studio
One benefit of not having kids living at home is that I have more room for my stuff! I now have my green screen setup (the photo above) for some video projects I have on my list to do.
I’ve learned a lot about video editing in the last week. I used to do desktop video with my Commodore Amiga back in 1989 using a product called the Video Toaster. The Amiga/Toaster was the best desktop video available at that time and it took a few years for Apple (and the PC) to catch up. What I did with the video back then was to make product introduction videos when I worked for Cisco Systems and distributed the videos via VCR tapes.
What I’m most surprised at is that video editing today isn’t as straightforward as I thought it would be. I have three video cameras I’m using and all save the videos in different formats. I also found out that cameras take video in different frames per second. Then I discovered that editing software doesn’t support all formats and frame speeds. I tried Adobe, Sony, and Apple software on both a PC and a Mac. I had to get separate conversion utilities to save some of the videos in a format that the editing software can read. I also learned that the consumer editing software (Adobe Premiere Elements, Sony Vegas, and Final Cut Express) don’t support 24 frames per second video which one of my cameras uses. To get this, you have to buy the “professional” versions of the software which are about 5 times as much money.
So I bit the bullet and purchased the Adobe Suite of CS4 products on Friday which includes the pro versions that have the feature support I need. Now I just need to learn how to use all this new software!
Empty Nesters
I moved our last remaining live-at-home daughter to her Santa Cruz dorm yesterday making today our first day of being official “Empty Nesters”. Amazing how fast life is at times to think that our 3 daughters are now grown-up and living elsewhere.
I’m sure my wife and I will adjust to our new phase in our lives but right now I’m feeling a bit bummed out and sure she is too…..
Property Taxes
(submitted by one of our North Coast agents)
Tom Bordonaro, the County Assessor for San Luis Obispo County, spoke to the Scenic Coast Association of Realtors last week on the progress of this year’s re-assessment of property tax values. The re-assessment of property tax values is based on Proposition 8. (No, not the one about marriage.)
Property Taxes are initially set at 1% of purchase price, per Proposition 13. Your actual property tax bill may be higher because of local bonds, assessments and fees. This base rate is increased each year by the lower of the CPI or 2%. For the past few years, however, our market has been declining, so Proposition 8 has come into play. Proposition 8 allows for your property tax assessed value to be reduced in a declining market.
Each year, the county re-assesses the value of your property by comparing the CPI adjusted base rate to the January 1st value of your property. Your property is then taxed based on the lower amount.
The county has now reviewed all single family residences less than 10 acres purchased through 2003. This years adjustments created a reduction in property taxes to be collected of $1.6 Billion. This loss, of course, will be offset by new tax revenue from the sale of new construction, new transfer sales where the old tax base is lower than the current sales price, as well as the 2% annual increase of properties that have value lower than current market value.
View the country tax assessors web-site: http://www.slocounty.ca.gov/Assessor.htm for more formation.
