Month: March 2011

Rich Ferguson, the husband of one of The Keith Byrd Team agents, was on the Ellen show today wow’ing America with his magic. Great job Rich!! Watch it below.

Everyday I hear agents saying, “Oh no, my buyer passed on the home warranty because it was an REO property and sold as is.” Or, “They can’t afford the home warranty.” However, these are actually the best reasons to purchase a home warranty for the property.

For example, a home inspector may tell the prospective homeowner they are looking at $200 in A/C repairs, $150 in plumbing work and $200 in electrical work after closing. Once these systems are brought up to good, safe and working order (even after the closing), the systems are covered by Old Republic Home Protection’s home warranty Plan for a full year.

This means if a compressor blows, a condenser needs to be replaced, or a slab leak erupts, these systems will be covered either for repair or replacement. This is what home warranties are designed to do – cover the major systems in the home (plumbing, electrical, A/C & heating) and the built-in appliances within the living space of the home and the garage that fail due to normal wear and usage.

The systems and appliances should be in good, safe working order on the effective date of the Plan. We know that many banks will not allow prospective buyers to conduct any repairs on these major systems until after closing. However, once the homeowner has addressed the issues flagged on the inspection after the closing, these items will be covered for the term of the Plan.

This very valuable coverage can potentially save homeowners thousands of dollars in unforeseen repairs or replacement of the major systems and appliances in their home. So, just when you think you can’t afford it, just remember–you can’t afford to be without it.

This article is provided courtesy of Old Republic Home Protection, a leader in the home warranty industry, providing superior service, comprehensive coverage and competitive pricing.

Should you have any questions regarding this article or home warranties in general, feel free to contact local area representative Amanda Wood:

Amanda Wood
Account Executive
Old Republic Home Protection
(800) 282-7131 ext. 1210
amandaw@orhp.com
www.myorhp.com/amandawood

On KSBY News Monday, they ran a segment asking if Diablo Canyon is causing home values to go down with what’s going on in Japan. The question is being asked because of the Reuters article saying a nuclear plant in MA is. (Go here and click the house photo to see the video report)

The segment was not ready for prime time (sorry KSBY) as no one knows if there is or will be any impact so it didn’t make sense to even try to answer the question. We are not in an area that gets many home sales each month for the statistics to answer that question. It’s going to take many months of statistics and even that might not really answer the question.

The KSBY segment focused on Avila Beach as that’s the closest to Diablo. That’s the WORST city to try to look at statistics for a trend as there has only been 2 homes and 1 condo sold so far this YEAR! Check the statistics dashboard if you want to see how few sales were in Avila Beach in 2010 too.

What I got a chuckle out of was at the end of the segment said that Avila prices have down 1/2 a percent in the last week, according to Trulia. And where did Trulia pull that number from?

Mortgage rates finished last week unchanged as housing data continued to disappoint. Existing Home Sales declined almost 10% in February and the median existing home price was $156,100, down 5.2% from a year ago. First time home buyers purchased 34% of existing homes, all-cash sales were a record 33% and distressed home sales represented 39% of the market. New Home Sales did not fare any better, declining nearly 17% to the slowest pace on record. It was the third monthly decline in a row and far below the 700,000-a-year pace that economists view as healthy. Sales slumped 57% in the Northeast, 28% in the Midwest, 15% in the West and 6.3% in the South. The median price fell 8.9% to $202,000, the lowest level since December 2003.

Currently, the 30 Year Fixed is 4.500% (4.629% APR) and the 15 Year Fixed is 3.750% (3.902% APR). This week we will see Consumer Spending, Consumer Confidence, Construction Spending and the Case-Shiller Home Price Index. Friday’s economic news will feature the monthly employment reports including the Unemployment Rate.

One of my daughters came home this weekend from college and had me watch the following video. Turns out, this video has had over 50 million hits since it came out less than 2 weeks ago. Some are calling it the worst video ever but the song does get stuck in my head. I thought I’d post it as you’re probably going to hear it mentioned somewhere.

As of Friday (3/25):
Lake Nacimiento – 96%  (it was 78% full as of last Saturday)
San Antonio – 69%
Twitchell-Santa Maria – 40.7%

As of Thursday (3/24):
Salinas Reservoir-Santa Margarita -104.1%

As of Wednesday (3/23):
Lopez Lake – 84.3%
Whale Rock-Cayucos – 71.2%

I got a message from someone saying that they couldn’t read the listing detail (the text was on a dark background). Unfortunately, the person didn’t leave a valid email so I can’t find out what Browser they are using.  I can’t find any problems but that doesn’t mean there may be a problem with older browsers. If you are having problems reading listings, can you send me a message with the Browser (and version) you are using so I can troubleshoot?  THANKS!

We now have a Featured Listings page!

Click here for our Featured Listings page

We’ve enhanced the Hot Sheet available in our VIP Client section. You can know choose both Cities and Listing Statuses that you want to see on the 7-day hotsheet. What’s really cool is that checking/unchecking cities and listing statuses result in an INSTANT display of the info on the Hot Sheet (kudos to my programmer who developed this!).

IMO, our Hot Sheet is WAY better than the Hot Sheet Realtors can access on the MLS.