San Diego Real Estate Cafe by Krista Lombardi
Archive for the 'Daily Grind' Category
The Grand Slam on the San Diego Real Estate Market
To help out on States that were slammed hardest by the real estate market, President Obama has approved more plans to help homeowners.
The program is going to 5 States, California being the largest, which will get $700 million to assist 46,000 borrowers. The choice of States was established by which ones had highest unemployment and/or had seen a drop of 20% in home values.
What effect will this have if you have San Diego real estate and are underwater?
Enjoy the First Time Homebuyer Credit From the Comfort of Your Own….Jail Cell?!
Can’t believe what you just read? Yeah, me neither, but it’s true.
An audit of refunds to taxpayers claiming the tax credit concludes that millions of dollars have been paid out to prison inmates and homes purchased before the credit took effect.
Apparently quite a few scams and mistakes were made.
Prisons report the status of inmates to the IRS on a voluntary basis, and “without congressonal action to require state and federal prisons to report the status of inmates to the IRS, there will be gaps in the data and compliance problems will persist.” Commissioner of the IRS Wage and Investment Richard Byrd said.
Predicting California Economy
Are we going up, down, or sideways? Grab your crystal ball!
UCLA’s Anderson Forecast has just released a report that the California economy is on a two-track recovery. San Diego and the coastal regions are pulling out of the recession ahead of the rest of the State.
Apparently the State’s economy is already getting better, the jobless rate averaged 12.6% in the first quarter. Not good numbers, but UCLA’s crystal ball says that it hit it’s peak and will decline to the 10% mark until it dwindles in 2011.
Congress Abandons Critical Housing Programs
If you live in San Diego, this really doesn’t affect me or you, we live in a desert. The issue is that it does affect a lot of other people, so whether near or far, let’s talk about the National Flood Insurance Program reform bill.
Congress left town before reauthorizing the National Flood Insurance Program, which has resulted in thousands of homes going unsold.
What is the story with this? Well the Flood program has gone unfunded and is running out of money. What that means is that banks have stopped accepting applications for rural housing which leaves perfectly well qualified buyers unable to buy their dream home.
Short Sales, The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
Generally speaking, you should view all available options to you on the San 
Diego real estate market so that you can make decisions on which home you’d like to purchase.
Here is the catch…
Sometimes these short sales are really deceiving. Often they advertise a sale price that is completely out of whack with the market. Almost 200K less than the last sale on a 330K appraised value?! What does that do to a person’s property value? It makes the real estate market worse than it needs to be.
And the ugly part of this is that recently it appears as though quite a few agents will tell you that they are taking your offer on the short sale. Then they drag out signing acceptance on the offer or they put the property into “contingent” status and just a few days before the bank approves the short sale, they put the property back on the market to collect more offers.
Why? Fear.
San Diego Real Estate and Apple Pie
It is easy to peruse the internet and get a few different views on the San 
Diego real estate market. To tell the truth, you can generally break it down to positive views and negative views. It is confusing, flip-floppy, and leaves you feeling like everyone between the newspaper, Case-Schilling, NAR, CAR, and Realty Trac are spinning the numbers to preach to their own choir.
To combat that, we set up the How’s The Market page, it’s still a new page, but I’m curious to see how the stats change as time goes on. Will the first time buyer credit affect the market, will unemployment keep the numbers down? No crystal ball, but we will be able to track the stats.
All this said, I read an article today with a negative view and had to share it with you to hear your thoughts.
Ready?
Loophole in CA State Law
If you own San Diego real estate and you did not refinance your home, 
defaulting on your mortgage limits all liability to the property itself.
In other words, you can walk away with a clear conscience that there will be no 1099 issued for the difference between what you owed and what the property was worth. There will also be no lien, no lawsuit, they will ask you for no more money.
Listen to this, though: If you refinanced your property TO GET A LOWER INTEREST RATE, and now you are under water on your home, you are NOT protected from that liability. The bank can take back the property and sue you.
Ever feel like the bank always wins?! I mean a few years ago, they gave out money like crazy, interest rates were low and they had a lean mean marketing campaign out there to induce thousands and thousands of homeowners to refinance their property. To do what? Make money on the re-fi, take back the real estate, and then sue them for more?
New Taxes on Real Estate?
I just sent a letter to Congress along with some other fellow Realtors. The 
San Diego real estate market is very fragile right now and adding little fees here and there can only be harmful when we’re trying so hard to turn it around, stabilize it and keep our recovery on track.
Here are the proposals, see what you think.
First of all, all landlords will be required to provide an IRS form 1099 to all contractors they do business with if they pay that contractor $600.00 or more in any given year.
What does that mean?
Doom and Gloom?
In stark contrast to my rose-colored glasses story yesterday, here are the findings of an article printed the same day just dripping of gloom and doom. It is a report by the Mortgage Bankers Association. My fingers are crossed for a happier scenario, but it is only fair to show both sides of the coin.
The study states that 16-24 year olds and anyone that is planning retirement has been permanently effected by the economy and that the negative lasting effects will cause many to stay in the labor force until well past the age of 60-65 to rebuild some of the wealth that was wiped out during the recession.
91 Metro Areas See Price Increase – Good or Bad?
It’s so difficult these days. I mean, I see this article online that goes into how 
much better everyone is doing, it says that real estate has gone up and the economy is starting to improve. Sounds fantastic, right? Only one article away from that is DOOM and GLOOM staring you in the face. It’s true, the very next article I read was about how we will never recover from the recession, it will permanently affect the young and everyone who is planning to retire in the next 10 years. So are things better, worse, or the same? Why does the news always have to be so confusing?
Let’s look at everything today with rose-colored glasses and leave the doom and gloom for another day, let’s chat about the 91 Metro areas with increased prices. Maybe that will mean more people keeping their homes, less short sales, and more stability for homeowners.
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