San Diego Home prices jump up, Still Sellers Market, defy expectations

Throughout the year, San Diego Housing Market has defied expectations.

The median sales price of a house in April was $565,500, up 3 percent for the month and 9 percent for the year. The condo median sales price nudged upward 1 percent over the month to $365,000, while the annual increase was 8 percent, according to SDAR data.

Homes are selling faster. Days on Market decreased 20.0 percent to 32 day for Detached homes in April 2016 compared to a year ago.

SDAR projected the San Diego Housing Market in 2016 would be a “Buyers Market” with “More Inventory” at the 32nd San Diego County Economic Roundtable on January 14, 2016. Why? Because it was widely expected that mortgage rates would gradually rise in 2016 after the Federal Reserve began it’s long-speculated move to raise the benchmark federal-funds back in December.

However mortgage rates have remained stubbornly and wonderfully low. The average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage was 3.64% on 5/23/2016. The historic low for 30-year rates was 3.31 percent in November 2012.

Market-wide, inventory levels were down 19.7 percent.

Overall San Diego Housing Market is a still Sellers Market.

“MBA currently forecasts the Fed will make two more moves to increase rates this year, with the first rate hike forecasted for the June meeting.”Lynn Fisher, Vice President of Research and Economics at the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA), said “We think that mortgage rates will rise gradually through the end of the year, averaging about 4.2% in the fourth quarter”

We will see if that happens in June, until then the general outlook should remain strong.

If you are thinking it’s time to start a real estate career and considering Keller Williams Realty as your Brokerage, or need to renew your California License, visit Keller Williams San Diego Metro Real Estate School Today.

Why San Diego is one of the best place to buy Investment Property

7 Reasons Why San Diego Is one of the best place to buy Investment Property

1. Rentability

It is a great time to be a landlord but horrible time if you a looking to rent in San Diego. Vacancies are at the low rate of 4.1 percent for San Diego County. If your rental property is in fairly good condition and priced right, you will get multiple applications.

2. Rising Rents

According to an analysis of rental prices of single family homes by real estate data provider RentRange, San Diego ranked the 10th place where rent is growing the fastest. Rents in San Diego increased 13.6% between the third quarter of 2014 and the third quarter of 2015. The San Diego County Apartment Association reported even higher rent increase, 20% up over a year ago, 44.6% up from 2005.
Rental prices nationally have grown at roughly twice the pace of average hourly wage growth, which was a paltry 2.1 percent over the past year. Rising Rents means better cash flow.

3. Rising Property Value

San Diego County home prices rose 0.6 percent between August and September, and are up 6.6 percent since September 2014, according to the Standard & Poor’s Case-Shiller Home Prices Indices. The monthly rise was one of the fastest among 20 large real estate markets included in the indices, while the annual climb ranked seventh. The indices were created by taking the cost of housing in each market in January 2000, assigning them a value of 100, and tracking the subsequent rise and fall. San Diego’s mark in September was 216.62, reflecting more than a doubling of home prices in nearly 16 years. The rate of increase is the nation’s second fastestbehind Los Angeles.

4. Population Growth

Population growth is a significant factor in the rising demand. The county’s population grew by an average of nearly 33,000 people annually over the past two years, according to the San Diego Association of Governments estimates. Some of this is natural growth — more births than deaths — while some of it is probably also driven by new employment opportunities that have attracted new residents from out of town. The California Department of Finance predicted that San Diego County’s population will grow by 31 percent to hit 4.07 million people by 2060 (. Due to the lack of available land to develop, I do not see the kind of overbuilding that is expected in several other same-size metropolitan markets.

5. Short-term Vacation Rental Opportunities

With over 12,000 short term vacation rentals in the area, San Diego is rapidly becoming the fastest growing market in the country. According to Pillow, Short-term Vacation Rental Investors could be earning thousands more from their rental property. One beach community short term average rent is $4896, compared with only $1761 for long term rents. However, cities and communities in San Diego County have passed or will attempt to enforce restrictions on short-term rentals. If you are a Short-term Vacation Rental Investor, you have to pay attention to new regulations.

6. Out-of-town Investor Friendly

One of investors we know could not resist to purchase a Fixer house out side of California because it was so cheap. He thought he could fix and flip it. It was an online auction, he did not have time to visit so bought it without seeing it. It turns out that this house is in the very high crime area. It is so high that no contractor or real estate agents would go there. In San Diego, we do have some areas that have higher crime rates than the others but not to this extent. We always advise you to get know the area before purchasing but not having too high crime area makes San Diego out-of-town investor friendly.

7. Climate

San Diego has on average 146 sunny days and 117 partly cloudy days a year, we enjoy mild, sunny weather throughout the year. Climate is so mild that many rental properties do not have Air conditioning, which is one less appliance to worry about. Hurricanes are very rare and heavy snow and ice are very very rare in the wintertime. From a real estate investor stand point, you can expect the life expectancy of exterior materials such as roofs to last longer. If you install a tank-less water heater and Drought-Tolerant Landscaping, you will have a relatively maintenance-free rental property. Although we do have some floods that damage the property now and then, it is easy to avoid those locations. Just ask the neighbors.

Do you think of any other cities good for rental investment? Leave a comment!

Mark Kunce - Keller Williams San Diego Metro - The My Home Team

Preparing your home for Chinese homebuyers, investors

China surpassed Canada as the foreign country that spends the most on residential properties in the U.S.; Chinese buyers comprise 16 percent of international home buyers. One-third of Chinese purchases were concentrated in California for the year ended in March, according to the National Association of Realtors, trailed by Washington state, with 8% of purchases, and New York, at 7%. What do these Chinese buyers look for when shopping for a house? What type of house do they prefer? The Chinese are attracted by many of the same qualities as local buyers: good schools, good location and a good value. Feng Shui is the second-most important consideration, according to the Asian Real Estate Association of America (AREAA) survey. 81 percent of Chinese-Americans surveyed who are also home owners said that Feng Shui factored into their most recent home purchase. Feng Shui is an ancient Chinese practice involves making energetic and physical adjustments to a space in order to create balance and flow. Home seller can use Feng Shui to assist in selling your homes or investment property, you can maximize your chances of appealing to the greater audience to get the best selling price possible. Below are some examples of deal-breakers that go against Feng Shui and the reasoning behind those principles:

Good Feng Shui

• Uncut crystals in the bedroom provide stability
• Bamboo lifts energy upward
• Displaying ancestor's possessions and sharing their stories
• Undulating terrain-a dragon site
• Wind chimes
• Uncluttered spaces
• South-facing windows
• Stoneware pots strengthen ties to Mother Earth
• Silver elements in the bedroom connect to other lifetimes and invite angels' protection
• Stones integrated with the landscape
• South-facing bed, kitchen and dining room on east side of house, living room in the center, and the study on the north
• Water features

Bad Feng Shui

• Commercial buildings or hospitals next to a temple or church
• Buildings towering over those around it
• Glass front doors
• Fast-flowing streams
• Hills deprived of topsoil or foliage
• Facing a hill blocks good fortune.
• T-intersections invite evil spirits to enter
• Yards sloping down to the road-chi flows away
• Lobby stairway leading directly to the front door
• Clutter in any form
• Front door aligned with a back door
• Pie-shaped lots brings bad luck-triangles are unlucky shapes
• Sharp corners

Mark Kunce Keller Williams Realty San Diego Metro - The My Home Team CA BRE# 01458113

Why Top Real Estate Agents Joined Keller Williams

The REAL Trends “The Thousand” featured 72 Keller Williams’ agent teams in its Top 250 ranking of real estate teams by transaction sides; those Keller Williams teams together represent 27,391 transactions. The 2015 listing also featured 36 Keller Williams’ agent teams in its Top 250 list of teams by volume, equating to more than $4.69 billion in sales. An additional twelve Keller Williams agent teams were similarly recognized in the average sales price-listing category for top teams.

So why are top real estate agents are with Keller Williams?

1. Cap system

Keller Williams Realty has a commission cap, which means that after you ”cap”, everything else you earn is yours. Often Top Real Estate Agents are a married couple team. If you have a married couple team and both are licensed agents and pay MLS fees, they would share one Cap. It means they would reach “cap” faster and earn 100% commission.

2. Profit Share, Build a Downline

Most of Top Real Estate Agents have his/her associates. When they joined Keller Williams office, associates would name their team leader as “Sponsor”, associates become “First Level”. If “Fist Level” is productive, hasn’t yet met the cap of what they’ll pay their Market Center, and the Market Center is profitable, a piece of that profit goes to the sponsors. So when Top Real Estate agents give their associate a lead, not only they can collect referral fee (or commission split) but also profit share. If associates refer someone who names them as their sponsor, they go to your “Second Level”. So the potential is exponential for Top Real Estate Agents or Broker (for example, Century 21 Carol Realty in San Diego joined Keller Williams San Diego Metro). Since profit share began in 1989, Keller Williams has shared more than half a billion dollars to it’s associates. In 2015, the company is tracking for it’s largest year to date, at nearly $130M shared. See more info.

3. Retirement Income

Once you have spent three years at Keller Williams, you secure your "downline" revenue for the rest of your life (and beyond), meaning you will continue to collect commissions on the agents you recruit to Keller Williams, even after you stop selling real estate. In fact, your heirs will continue to receive profit sharing checks even after you die. KW is the only national brokerage offering this type of generational financial security.

4. Training

Training fuels all of our success. But often times many Top Real Estate Agents do not have time to train their associates. At Keller Williams, they can guide new associates through Keller Williams training programs so new associates can get into production quickly and build their businesses. Providing education to associates is a core belief of Keller Williams. Training Magazine named the real estate giant the world’s No. 1 training organization across all industries.

JOIN KELLER WILLIAMS

---

We are always available to answer your questions. In fact…we love doing it! Feel free to contact us. We look forward to helping you grow your real estate career.

Keller Williams names Mark Kunce 2013 Cultural Icon for Southern CA

Mark Kunce of San Diego My Home Team, Keller Williams San Diego Metro was recently named as the 2013 Cultural Icon for his contributions to KW Cares and many other local and national charities. More commonly known as the WI4C2TS Award, it is given to the agent who best exemplifies the Keller Williams culture. The Cultural Icon Award is presented to an elite group of Associates who best live up to the Keller Williams Realty "WI4C2TS" philosophy.

KW Cares is a 501(c) (3) public charity created to support Keller Williams Realty associates and their families with hardship as a result of a sudden emergency. Hardship is defined as a difficult circumstance that a person or family cannot handle without outside help.

The charity is the heart of Keller Williams Realty culture in action – finding and serving the higher purpose of business through charitable giving in the Market Centers and communities where Keller Williams associates live and work.

---