Real Estate Directory

The Advantages of a Homeowner's Association

I was traveling down a Santa Monica  residental street the other day where they are tearing down many small older homes and replacing with beautiful two story twenty-six hundred square feet homes. Not much lot left, but these homes that are scattered down the blocks are lovely. And for those who do not care about much yard, they are a great deal.. Usually you see two or three grouped together. I travel this residential street quite often and you can imagine my shock when I came across one of the new homes and it had been painted a very bright  lavender or light purple, whichever describes it best for you. Can you imagine if you were on of the three neighbors that had just purchased one of these new $900,000 Santa Monica homes. Believe me it is a real eye sore….. Bring on some CC&Rs!

A Practical Home Office

I was fascinated the other day when my eight year old granddaughter began describing to me what she thought the next Huntsville home her parents purchase should include. She mentioned a 2 two story six bedroom  home she said that two of the bedrooms to be used as offices, one office/craft room/homework  room for the family and one office for  father's business. Since I make a living working from my  home office, this got me thinking of what is really necessary for a home office. From my experience, I think the following list is very practical  and economic. Although a six bedroom home sounds unrealistic, many new homes in planned communities in the Huntsville real estate market have the capabilities of upgrading in size.

Existing Home Sales Are Up?

What happened to the Bubble?

The National Association of Realtors reported Thursday that that sales of existing single-family homes and condominiums rose by 5.2 percent in February to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6.91 million units. This despite the predicte 5 % drop compared to last year.

The prices of homes sold in February rose to $209,000 for the nationwide median.That was 10.6 percent above the median price in February 2006.   

Economists believe that both new and existing home sales will dip by around 5 percent this year as rising mortgage rates cuts into demand.

But mortgage rates seem to have perhaps stagnated because of a drop in inflation. But Lereah said all indications so far were pointing to a gradual slowdown in sales to a more sustainable pace.

By region of the country, sales rose by 19.2 percent in the Northeast and were up 11.1 percent in the Midwest and 5.1 percent in the West in February. Only the South showed weakness last month with sales there dropping by 2.5 percent from the January pace.

Lereah said sales activity at present was really a "tale of two cities" with some of the hottest markets showing declines while some medium priced markets still posting strong sales gains.

He said that sales were down by double-digit levels in such hot sales markets as Phoenix, Fort Lauderdale and San Diego. He said, by contrast, sales were up by double-digit amounts in aeas such as Indianapolis, Albuquerque and Houston.

Real Estate Education

Real Estate Education and Schools are blossoming on the internet. According to Rismedia, The RealtyU   network of real estate schools reports that its official student count for 2004 had surged 31% over the previous year, pushing the total number of real estate agents trained in one year to 305,000. That's 100,000 new licensees, as well as the number of agents getting continuing education.