by Roberta Murphy To paraphrase Charles Dickens, these may be the best of times and the worst of times at least with San Diego real estate. Few are surprised that the real estate bubble popped in the plethora of new home subdivisions that peppered San Diego County in the last few years. Stupid loans and and unwitting buyers created a marriage that has crippled the real estate industry. But not…
by Roberta Murphy If real estate investors are looking for blood in the streets, they had better be wearing galoshes. Even the books of venerable luxury builder Toll Brothers, America’s largest luxury builder of tract homes, are in the red. For the first time in 21 years, the company is suffering its first quarterly loss (Oct. 31) in the amount of $81.8 million. Much of this loss can be attributed to…
by Roberta Murphy The displaced people of San Diego County are beginning to return home. Most return to standing homes; 1600 or so others are greeted by their nightmares: Homes destroyed by fires. We are just beginning to hear and see stories of people returning to the burned heaps of rubble that were once their homes. They sift through some of the debris and find broken china, perhaps a metal…
by Roberta Murphy For almost two years now, there have been serious rumblings and grumblings about Option ARM and interest-only mortgages that could put a number of buyers into default. I initially gave the dicey mortgages issue detached interest, because our clients tend to be a conservative lot when it comes to borrowing. We deal with few real estate speculators and most of our clients are solid buyers of primary and secondary homes. My…
by Roberta Murphy It is difficult to avoid the subject of short sales and foreclosures when discussing real estate these days. We receive ongoing emails and calls from people wanting to buy short sales and foreclosures because they want the best deal possible. They believe that the best buys can only come from bloodied sellers and lenders and that somehow real estate agents are the best bloodhounds of all (which…
by Roberta Murphy Todays tragic massacre at Virginia Tech leaves us all wondering how such a thing could happen and what we might have done to prevent such a horror. And oddly, I find myself longing for a front porch swing. There is the predictable push for gun control, the demands for metal detectors on campuses, and more efficient lockdowns. I suppose these are all good and reasonable solutions, but…
by Roberta Murphy Some of the more difficult listing appointments our group encounters these days are ones that involve short sale conditions. In this situation, the seller owes more on the property than what it is worth in the current market. A year or so ago, we were having to explain how short sales worked to anguished sellers. These days, sellers call us, say they are underwater with their mortgages,…
by Roberta Murphy I just returned from a meeting of top real estate agents in North County San Diego. There was much discussion about what is selling and what is not. Aside from market issues (luxury home market is strong here and multiple offers are not uncommon for buffed homes in the $1.5 million and up range), the issue of home presentation and staging was at the very top of…
by Roberta Murphy Upgrades anyone? Last night, I spent a fun evening with an interesting Carlsbad Realtor who probably set a world record in San Diego luxury home upgrade sales in the late 1990s into 2003. Shara’s experiences in new luxury home sales will be an article for another time, but I thought it might be important to peer into the current hot items being demanded for new luxury homes….
by Roberta Murphy Real estate pricing has become a minefield… particularly for homebuyers and homesellers in volatile markets such as California, Nevada, Arizona and other former hot spots. As real estate markets shift, the old comparable sales model for offers and pricing may no longer be quite so valid–and could in fact be dangerous. If sellers overprice their properties–based on prior sales that may have occurred some months ago–they run…
