Archive for May, 2008
Home Makeover Series: The Kitchen
May 9th, 2008 categories: San Diego Real Estate, San Diego Real Estate News, Selling San Diego Real Estate
From the Voice of San Diego Real Estate, If you read “ Getting Ready” in the previous article I posted here and have followed all the guidelines and precautions, you are now ready to begin the design and selection process.
Cabinets and Style
With all the choices in the market place, selecting the color scheme of wood tones , paint colors, floor finishes maybe even window coverings is your first step to complete the design. Assuming you now have that, what about the cabinets.
There are as many different design and qualities as there are finishes, maybe more. What sort of feeling do you want and how have you budgeted for this most important element in the design? One of things to be aware of that while any new cabinet will look good for a while, what happens when they don’t. What happens to the finish and any broken parts. Store brands or off brands may not have the adds you you passed over for the immediate budget concerns . What is something gets damaged and you need to replace it. Will the brand still be around to help with the solution.
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The Voice of San Diego Real Estate and A Serious Discussion on Mortgage Loans and Lending……The Past, The Present and The Furure
May 7th, 2008 categories: Buying San Diego Real Estate, San Diego Mortgage Banks and Loans Info, San Diego Real Estate, San Diego Real Estate News, Selling San Diego Real Estate
The Past – As practitioners in the real estate industry, not one of us is unfamiliar what with has already happened leading up to and the result of the sub prime crisis.
The Present – We are all pretty much in tune with the almost daily ideas being suggested by underwriters, mortgage purveyors, Congress and others. Everyone has ideas, testing the waters for that one stroke of brilliance that will act as a magic pill to solve the whole problem, one step at a time, one sweep at a time or even one huge brush stroke and make the problems all disappear.
The Future – Depending on who’s idea(s) win out, the course for the future of the mortgage market will probably be a lot different than it is today. That future could be filled with new opportunities as the skilled learn the new required steps for making it all seamlessly come together. Or it could be an ultra new “hybrid” type of market, a different set of rules for nearly every kind of situation imaginable, difficult to learn and even more so for the mortgage professionals to manage.
Taking a step back, let’s be clear where we were and why the market was so robust that it increased homeownership from a national average of approximately 50% to about 65% over a five or six year period. As the days roll on, that number is declining back though it is doubtful it will ever fall to anywhere near the 50% level again.
The perception during that run up period was that housing prices would continue to escalate forever and was reinforced daily by the statistics of skyrocketing sales and prices to match. With that no longer being our reality today, where are we now on that statistical scale? It has left us with falling home prices, fewer buyers in the market place, fewer home sales, and more uncertainty than in the past 20 years.
By the end of 2007 there were over 2 million foreclosure filings and 400,000 had already lost their homes. Now as bad as that sounds by the end of 2008, that may look like a ‘not so bad’ number comparatively speaking.
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