San Diego Countys Best Kept Secret, Valley Center

If you are thinking about selling your home and making a move to a different area.  You yearn for more open space, less people and some peace in your life – Valley Center might just be the place for you to buy a home. There are some so many wonderful homes for sale, and the prices are some of the best you will find in San Diego County. Fresh mountain air and stunning views which will knock your socks off are some of the perks of living in this glorious community. Only 35 miles to downtown San Diego make it very accessible to all amenities.

Another reason to move to Valley Center would be the school system offered. Three of the Valley Center schools have been recognised as California Distinguished Schools. VCPUSD students consistently score higher in the State tests than students of San Diego County and the State as a whole. Three of the schools have an API score of over 800. The schools are smaller than average size compared to others in San Diego County and offer a caring and supportive environment for the students.

Valley Center High School is a California Distinguished School, in its 10 year history, has proven its dedication to excellence in the classroom, on the athletic field, and in the performing arts. Its staff offer a professional learning community that is committed to all students achieving at high levels. Offering 10 Advanced placement courses for college credit along with the Maxine theatre, a state of the art performing arts facility located on the High School Campus featuring 577 seats, Steinway Grand Piano and a full theatrical fly.

Valley Center Middle School is dedicated to providing a rich educational environment that offers opportunites for all students to learn. Along with the focus on academic success, VCMS provides many opportunities for student enrichment that include: drama, chorus, computer technology, video production, craft and sewing projects, strings, agriculture, and a wide variety of after school sports.

Valley Center Elementary Schools create a safe, respectful and responsible environment  where students are inspired to achieve their individual potential and are recognized for their efforts.

Valley Center Primary School a distinguished California School, is an early childhood education where children learn and flourish in a caring and supportive environment. A deeply committed staff work collegially to provide a developmentally repsonsive curriculum for all children during their first years of school.

Valley Center Sunset

You will be pleased you have found San Diego Countys Best Kept Secret, Valley Center.

Content courtesy of VCPUSD.

TO VIEW HOMES FOR SALE IN VALLEY CENTER CALL PAM OR JOANNA:

PAM PARTON 760-580-1615                   JOANNA WOOLLEY 760-580-1630

Are you selling your home? Or do you have your home on the market and no offers have appeared yet? Read on to find out how you can add some curb appeal to your home and even maybe, just maybe add a little more value to your home.

The way your house looks from the street can impact its value. It can also shorten the time it takes to sell your home. Advice from real estate agents, appraisers, home stagers, landscape designers and home inspectors suggested the following as the projects which would add most curb appeal and perhaps some value when selling your home.

1. Paint the house.

Hands down, the most commonly offered curb appeal advice from our real estate pros and appraisers is to give the exterior of your home a good paint job. Buyers will instantly notice it and appraisers will note it on the valuation. If you’re under two years remaining life on the paint work, paint the exterior because it tends to show wear badly. Just make sure you stay within the range of accepted colors for your market. A house that’s painted a wildly different color from its competition will be marked down in value by appraisers.

2. Have the House washed.

Before you make the investment in a paint job, though, take a good look at the house. If it’s got mildew or general grunge, just washing the house could make a world of difference. Pressure washing – a job to be left to the professionals, makes the house look “bright and clean in addition  to getting rid of unsightly things like cobwebs, which may not be seen from the yard but will detract from the homes cleanliness when seen up close.

The cost to have a professional cleaning should be a few hundred dollars – a fraction of the cost of having the house painted.

3. Trim the shrubs and green up the yard.

Cut down overgrown bushes and shrubs and replace with leafy plants and annuals mulched with beautiful reddish brown bark. Cost will be minimal. You also don’t want any bare spots. Take the time to fertilize the yard, throw out some grass seed, and if needed, add some sod.

4. Add a splash of color.

It could be a flower bed of annuals by the mailbox, a paint job for the front door, or a brightly colored bench or an Adironack chair. You can buy a cute bench at Home depot for $99. Spray paint it bright red or blue and set it in the yard or on the front porch. This won’t add extra points from an appraiser for a brightly colored bench but it may help to sell the home faster than the one down the street.

5. Add a fancy mailbox and house numbers.

An upscale mail box and architectural house numbers or an address plaque can give your house a distinctive look that stands out from everyone else on the block. A good mailbox might cost $40-$50. Architectural house numbers may run as high as a few hundred dollars.

So try some of these ideas and see if they won’t just help you sell your home!

For more information on how we will help you to sell your home:

CALL PAM AND JOANNA

PAM PARTON: 760-580-1615                       JOANNA WOOLLEY: 760-580-1630

Content by courtesy of House Logics, Realtor.com

6 reasons to reduce the price of your home

Has your home just been sitting on the market with no offers?

 That could happen for a number of reasons that are outside of your control. Like a unique home layout, or having one of the few homes in the neighborhood without a garage. However, there is one factor you can control: your home price.

These six signs maybe telling you it’s time to lower your price.

1. You’re drawing few lookers – you got the most interest in your home right after you put it on the market because buyers want to catch a great new home before anybody else takes it. If your real estate agent reports that there have been few buyers calling about and asking to view your home than there have been for other homes in your area, this might be a sign buyers think it’s overpriced and are waiting for the price to fall before viewing it.

2. You’re drawing lots of lookers but have received no offers – if you’ve had 30 sets of potential buyers come through your home and not a single one has made an offer, something is off. What are other agents telling other agents about your home? An overly high price may be discouraging buyers from making an offer.

3. Your home’s been on the market longer than similar homes – Ask your realtor about the average number of days it takes to sell a home in your market.  Buyers can begin to wonder if there’s something wrong with it, which can delay a sale even further. At least consider lowering your asking price.

4. You have a deadline – If you’ve got to sell your house soon because of a job transfer, or you’ve already purchased another home, it may be necessary to generate buyer interest by dropping your price so your home is priced a little lower than comparable homes in your area. Remember its not how much money you need that determines the sale price of your home, it’s how much money a buyer is willing to spend.

5. You can’t make upgrades – Maybe you’re out of cash and don’t have the funds to put fresh paint on the walls, clean the carpets, and add curb appeal. But the feedback your agent is reporting from buyers is that your home isn’t as well appointed as similarly priced homes. When your home has been on the market longer than comparable homes in better condition, it’s time to accept that buyers expect to pay less for a home that doesn’t show as well as others.

6. The competiton has changed – If weeks go by with no offers, continue to check the competition. What have comparable homes sold for and what’s still on the market? What new listings have been added since you’ve listed your home for sale? If comparable home sales or new listings show your price is too steep, consider a price reduction.

Content courtesy of Home Logic, Realtor.com.

CALL PAM AND JOANNA TODAY FOR MORE INFORMATION ON HOW WE WILL YOU SELL YOUR HOME.

PAM PARTON: 760-580-1615                              JOANNA WOOLLEY: 760-580-1630

14243 Ridge Oak Place, Valley Center, CA 92082

This home is one of a kind – you will see no other like it in Valley Center. This custom European design and unique decoration with magificent panoramic views will leave you breathless. Located in one of the most prestigous communities of Beautiful Valley Center, Ridge Ranch Estates.

Enter into the grand entry with 17ft soaring ceilings. An elegant and romantic master bedroom suite with fireplace and forever views leads into a oversize master bath with highly upgraded fixtures and fabulous Valentina tiles througout. Contemporary chefs kitchen with bosch appliances and flamboyant cabinets.

Contemporary Chefs Kitchen

3873 sq ft of absolute luxury on 4.73 acres is a home not to be missed – so come by and get a guided tour of this unforgettable masterpiece.

Priced @ $995,000 – $1,150,000.

FOR ALL OF YOUR REAL ESTATE NEEDS CALL

PAM AND JOANNA.

PAM PARTON: 760-580-1615

JOANNA: 760-580-1630

HOW TO AVOID FORECLOSURE SCAMS

Scam artists will intentionally seek you out. They hope to take advantage of you when you are distressed about possibly loosing your home or unable to deal with the complicated issues surrounding foreclosure.

• Appearing to be legitimate: Outwardly, scam artists do not appear or act dastardly. On the contrary, scam artists may look nice and clean-cut, and they may seem to be kind and trustworthy men and women. Scam artists often engage in “affinity marketing” which means they attempt to lure people by belonging to, or pretending to belong to, the same racial, religious, social or other group as their victims.
• Asking for money upfront before providing any service: One of the tell-tale signs of a possible scam is when someone makes a promise or representation, but asks you for money upfront before delivering on that promise. If you pay a scam artist, you are unlikely to see either your money or that scam artist again.
• Making unqualified promises: To lure you out of your money and home, a scam artist will often say whatever it is you want to hear in a very convincing manner. If you’re facing foreclosure, the scam artist is likely to assure you that he or she can stop it, fix it, or make the problem go away. If it sounds too good to be true, it usually is.
• Lacking credentials: With certain exceptions, someone who charges you a fee to negotiate with your lender on your behalf must be licensed with the California Department of Real Estate. You can do a quick “License Status Check” at www.dre.ca.gov You should also conduct further investigations before doing business with someone, such as checking public records, the Better Business Bureau, and the Internet, asking for and verifying references, and going to the business address to see if it actually exists.
• Asking for you to do something immediately without delay: Scam artists will push you to make quick decisions, often by making up fake deadlines. They don’t want you to have a chance to mull things over, go over the paperwork, or discuss their scheme with your family, friends, lender, real estate agent, or anyone else.
• Asking for your signature: Whenever you sign a document, make sure you know what you are signing. Do not sign unless you have a chance to read and review the document. Do not sign if a document has blank lines left. Do not let someone con you by saying something in the document does’nt matter or does’nt mean what it says.
• Asking you to do something improper or illegal: Scam artists may ask you to participate in something improper or illegal. Proposing something a little improper may make their promises of stopping foreclosure more believable to fraudulent scheme. Do not compromise your position by getting involved in anything underhanded.
• Brushing aside your questions: To help smoke out the bad guys, ask a lot of questions, even if you know the answers. Be leery of doing business with someone who brushes aside your questions or gives the wrong answers. Indeed, an excellent way to protect yourself against scams is to learn as much as you can about foreclosure-related matters. Because scam artists prey upon ignorance, the more you know about foreclosures, the less likely you’ll be duped!

If you have any foreclosure related questions give us a call. If we do not have an answer we will refer you to some who does.

PAM PARTON                760-580-1615                  JOANNA WOOLLEY  760-580-1630

Quick Tips for San Diego Homeowners on Short Sales and Your Credit

One of the most frequent questions that homeowners want to know is what happens to their credit score as the result of a short-sale. Here are a few points to remember.

1) When you negotiate a short-sale, the homeowner may still owe the difference between the mortgage balance and the discounted sales price. This amount can still be collected via a “Deficiency Judgement” If granted, this judgement may adversely affect the homeowners and their credit report (not unlike other judgements).

2) The best way to avoid the deficiency judgement is to ask the bank to agree to accept “Payment in full without pursuit of any deficiency judgement.”

3) Remember that the difference between the mortgage balance and the short sale may be declared as income on their tax return by means of a “1099.”

In dealing with any short sale, the homeowner should always speak with their accountant and/ or attorney to see how this sale will affect them.

content courtesy of Brian Olenik, Corinthian Title.

Call Pam and Joanna for more information on some great deals in North County San Diego.

PAM PARTON 760-580-1615                           JOANNA WOOLLEY 760-580-1630

Guys – the statistics are out and they speak for themselves; women out-purchase us in the real estate market two-to-one!  National data for the year ending last June reveals that single women accounted for 21% of all home purchases, to 10% of purchases for single men. That may just be an eye-opener for many of us in the business.   Such a significant demographic group deserves to be both recognized and well-served by the real estate and financing industries.  Click on the link below to read an excellent article on this subject posted by Marilyn Kennedy Malia on Bankrate.com:

“4 Tips for Single, Female Homebuyers”

Paul Gonzales, Sales Manager, Countywide Mortgage (760) 746-7388 or paulforloans@aol.com

Valley Center Market Trends February thru Mid March 2010

Valley Center Real Estate Trends

Well lets take a look at how the market is shaping up since the beginning of the year when we looked at Valley Center in are article Valley Center 92082 Homes Sold January 2010.

As we compare the different catagories, we dont see a huge significant difference.   Appears the market is truly leveling off.

There are a few more active listings than there was in January, but that is expected as we go into the spring season.  This is still considered a shortage of inventory and buyers are asking for more properties to choose from.

The average price per square foot is still about the same, now at $165.73.   Very affordable!

Valley Center has so much to offer in the way of natural beauty and peaceful country living.  Many people think it is so far from everything but, you can be to the freeway and on your way either north, south, east or west in a matter of 20-30 minutes.

If you are looking for a great place to live and at an affordable price, take a closer look at Valley Center, you may be very pleasantly surprised!

Home Prices Rise

Home sale prices in Southern California showed new energy in January, bouncing 8.6% from the same month one year earlier — a period when the market was inundated with steeply discounted bank-owned properties.

 Compared with a very strong December, the median fell 6.1% to $271,500 in January, ending eight consecutive months of price appreciation or stability in the Southland, MDA DataQuick, a San Diego real estate research firm, quoted Tuesday.

The month-to-month decline was likely in part to the higher percentage of cheaper Inland Empire homes that sold in January compared with December as buyers in pricier areas stopped searching during the holidays and investors and first-time buyers made up a larger share of shoppers.

Results from the first two months of the year don’t always provide an indication of what will happen for the rest of the year.

 Many experts fear the market will suffer after the government ends programs which have helped the market on the road to recovery.

The Federal Reserve plans next month to end a $1.25-trillion program that has helped keep interest rates at rock-bottom levels by purchasing mortgage bonds from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The Federal Housing Administration, which has backed mortgages for many first-time buyers, is expected to tighten its lending rules later this year. An extended federal tax credit of up to $8,000 for first-time home buyers and up to $6,500 for some current homeowners will expire April 30.

Some analysts expect the market to get another boost as the tax incentive expiration nears. But as the federal measures unwind, the housing market will be burdened by high job losses and foreclosures.

“Beyond the spring, everything will depend on what is going to happen with those delinquencies. Are they going to turn into foreclosures or notices of default? And what are the banks going to do with them once they have them?” said Gerd-Ulf Krueger, principal economist at Housingecon.com. “There will be very significant pressure on the banks to behave reasonably . . . and then it is anybody’s guess what happens after the midterm election.”

Many real estate agents and experts are hoping for an early spring shopping season, given the tax credit and low interest rates, but say a lack of new foreclosures has slowed the sales pace. A total of 15,361 homes sold in Southern California in January, an increase of only 0.9% over the same month a year earlier when the market for lower-end, bank-owned properties began to take off, DataQuick said.

We are definitely noticing the lack of inventory out there for our buyers at this time. All the good deals are just being snapped up instantly by the investors.

Sales dropped 31.2% in January compared with December. A decline between those two months is normal; on average, sales have fallen 28.4% in that period every year since DataQuick statistics began.

The number of foreclosures as a percentage of the resale market ticked up slightly in January. Foreclosure resales made up 42.1% of all sales of previously owned homes in Southern California, up from 39.6% in December but down from 56.4% in January 2009.

Home Equity

Trading Home Equity for Cash

Would-be borrowers still find most home mortgages tough to get in this semifrozen credit environment. A major exception is reverse mortgages for homeowners over age 62. These mortgages represented a growing market for the past decade. Even in the recession of 2009, the number of reverse mortgages grew 4 percent over the previous fiscal year.

Banks, brokers and savings and loans are happy to approve reverse mortgages because the Federal Housing Administration insures them; thus, lenders will be repaid even if the value of the house falls below the balance of the loan. And many consumers find reverse mortgages simpler to qualify for, because eligibility primarily involves borrowers’ age, home value and equity — not their income or credit history.

Earlier this year, moreover, Congress substantially raised the F.H.A.’s maximum loan limit to $625,500 (the amount a borrower actually receives depends on age and the home value but cannot exceed that amount). And it has extended that higher limit through 2010. The agency also set tougher standards for those who provide the mandatory credit counseling — usually by phone — for applicants.

Roughly 80 percent of heads of household over 65 are homeowners, federal data from 2007 show. For seniors who want to remain in their homes, reverse mortgages can provide a lump sum, monthly checks, a line of credit, or a combination of these. The loan is repaid when they die or move and the house is sold. In the interim, borrowers use the money for various purposes. They pay off their first mortgages and therefore no longer face those monthly payments. They pay down other kinds of debt. They invest in their houses or in other assets. They acquire a nest egg for emergencies or money for their everyday expenses.

“A lot of people are paying for home modifications,” said Barbara Hillard, a reverse mortgage specialist with M&T Bank in Montgomery County, Md. “They want to age in place, so they’re getting ramps, stair lifts, a bathroom downstairs so everything’s on one floor, curbless showers. They’re preparing their homes for their long-term care.”
But reverse mortgages probably should come with big red “handle with care” warnings. The F.H.A. insurance makes them more expensive than conventional mortgages from a bank, so they are probably not suitable for short-term uses; ordinary consumer loans, for those who can get them, may prove cheaper. Some lenders have used aggressive sales tactics or misleading marketing strategies to sell these products to people who aren’t good candidates for higher debt. And that is what reverse mortgages are: deferred debt, yes, but more debt, which could leave elders with little equity in their houses in later years, when they may need it more.

“People should consider the long-term consequences, not just their immediate needs,” said Barb Stucki, vice president of the home equity initiative at the National Council on Aging. “It’s not free money. If you use your house as an A.T.M., you could jeopardize not only your financial situation, but your ability to continue to live in the house.”

Still, the reverse mortgage can be a useful tool, especially for older people who are house-rich, or house-kind-of-rich, but cash-poor.

A good starting point for families wondering whether this loan makes sense for their older members is the council’s online brochure, “Use Your Home to Stay at Home.”

The council has a nationwide network of F.H.A.-approved reverse mortgage counsellors (required for every applicant) who are happy to include adult children in their counseling calls. Those counselors are available free to low-income older people but charge $125 to others — but only if they decide to proceed with the loan.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development also can help you find other approved counselors in your area.

Content courtesy of New York Times author Paula Span.