Month: August 2006

Beware of 1-800 numbers on Yard signs

One of the “tricks of the trade” is to use a 1-800 number on a yard sign with the promise of free 24 hour information about the home for sale. What most of these services do is immediately contact the agent with the phone number of the person that called. These services are able to retrieve the phone number even if the caller has Caller ID Blocking. A person is thinking they are not calling a salesperson and just getting recorded property info, but they quickly realize this isn’t the case when their phone rings.

Some Fast Facts:

Calif. median home price – July 06: $567,360 (Source: C.A.R.)

Calif. highest median home price by C.A.R. region July 06:
Santa Barbara So. Coast $1,075,000 (Source: C.A.R.)

Calif. lowest median home price by C.A.R. region July 06:
High Desert $333,330 (Source: C.A.R.)

Mortgage rates – week ending 8/24:
30-yr. fixed: 6.48%; Fees/points: 0.4%
15-yr. fixed: 6.18%; Fees/points: 0.4%
1-yr. adjustable: 5.60%; Fees/points: 0.7%
(Source: Freddie Mac)

NEW HOME CONSTRUCTION CONTINUES TO DECLINE IN CALIFORNIA

California housing starts declined for the fifth consecutive month during July 2006, falling 40.8 percent compared with the construction pace recorded one year earlier, the California Building Industry Association (CBIA) recently reported. Despite the decline, builders are on track to produce 180,000 new single-family and multifamily units in California during 2006. CBIA anticipates multifamily construction to remain strong in most markets for the remainder of 2006 but expects single-family starts to fall by 20,000 to 30,000 units compared with 155,000 single-family starts in 2005.

Based on the number of building permits issued, 11,121 new housing units were started throughout the state in July, with single-family units accounting for 73 percent of the starts. According to the report, single-family construction was the strongest in the Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario region, followed by the Sacramento-Arden-Roseville and Los Angeles-Long Beach-Glendale regions.

There’s going to be a missle launch from Vandenberg sometime tomorrow. They will announce the launch window a few hours before the launch but I saw one place say it’s going to be between 6 AM and 10 AM.

Here’s a site that has a calandar of the launches:

http://www.spacearchive.info/vafbsked.htm

Selling in Today’s Market

I came across this artcle on another real estate blog and would recommend reading it.

A blog reader sent me a link to an article about the housing “slump”. (Thx Lou!)

I went to Staples in SLO last night to buy a printer for daughter to take to college. They were out of stock and they told me I could order it online on their site. I’ve been told this by employees at other office supply stores too.

I’m assuming that if I order online, no local city in SLO County will receive any of the sales tax I pay? Send me an email if you know where the tax dollars would go in this case. Thx!

The Los Osos Community Services District (CSD) filed for bankruptcy yesterday. While there is no mention of this on the CSD website, I did find the press release.

“If you were getting professional help or advice from each of the following, how much would you trust them to give you advice which was best for you?”

This was a question asked by a Harris Poll. Unfortunately for real estate agents, consumers didn’t rate their trust level too high for agents. Read the article here.

Brent Olson, a local photographer, sent me an email with a link to his photo website. There are some GREAT photos of Avila Beach on it, even some of what it looked like before the construction. Check it out! www.outofavila.com