Listings Wanted

Getting Ready to Sell Your Home – Tip #1

Thinking about what to do to your house to get it ready to sell? Here’s one of the things that Buyers really hate, and that Sellers can remedy before putting their house on the market that won’t break the bank, but will dramatically improve the sell-ability: Popcorn ceilings.

If you’ve lived with a popcorn ceiling, you know that it accumulates dirt, defies cleaning and is impossible to paint. Worse, if your home was built prior to the mid-1980s, it may contain asbestos.

Removal is a messy and laborious process, with or without asbestos. The material must be wetted down and scraped and the underlying wallboard wiped clean. Once the popcorn is gone, the ceiling is usually repaired with joint compound, textured and painted. Even if there’s no asbestos, you probably should hire a drywall or painting contractor for the job.

Before you tackle this job or any others, contact us. Team Patereau will gladly tour your home and make suggestions about what needs to be done, and what not to worry about in the current market. We’d love to hear from you.

Facts About Taxes for Sellers

Vote Today

Today is voting day for me. Working on filling out my mail-in ballot and plan to get it in the mail tonight with today’s postmark. I’ve decided on most things. Trying to be thoughtful and informed on things I haven’t been able to decide about yet. The ballot is long and the issues are complicated. Voting feels like a “Job” right now.

The other half of Team Patereau has his voting booklet in hand and has marked his choices. He always goes to the voting booth to cast his ballot so he’ll be there bright and early tomorrow morning.

In this partnership we often cancel out each other’s votes. That doesn’t prevent either of us from voting!

Open House Today

Need to get this great house rented. 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, includes refrigerator, washer & dryer. $2,385/month. 2 pets allowed. Come by and take a look: 9274 Calle Del Rey, Gilroy.

Time Change Week-End

The good news is that many clocks reset themselves nowadays. It’s a great life!

Recovery for Former Homeowners

The recent San Jose Mercury News article about foreclosure victims buying again is good news all around. As we all know, Americans want to be homeowners. And they want to own a home so much that they forget about the pain and sadness their last experience caused. So, for many, just three years later they are ready with their down-payment and their moving boxes, and they’re saying, “Let’s do it again!”

Fortunately, there are ways to accomplish home-ownership for these people with the help of the government backed programs like FHA. Read the article, and if you’re ready to be a homeowner again, contact us and we’ll get you on your way.

Household Formation and New Home Sales Both Running Strong

By Gino Blefari
President & CEO
Intero Real Estate Services, Inc.

Two of the most interesting housing indicators to hit the news in the last week were an uptick in new home sales and a discussion about the rise in household formation.
Let’s look at household formation first.

First, what is it? Essentially it’s when a person or group of people forms a household. It’s significant in housing because the market needs households in order to create demand for both home purchases and rentals.

The Census Bureau tracks this number and not surprisingly found over the last 4-5 years that more college graduates and young adults either moved back in with their parents to wait out a tough economic climate or never left, which stifled household formation.

But, according to the Census Bureau and an analysis by Zelman and Associates, household formation is trending upward once again, thanks in part to Millennials who are moving out of their parents’ houses.

Obviously, young people moving out, forming households and starting their lives is good news for the economy and especially the housing market. It doesn’t mean folks are jumping straight from mom and dad’s basement to their first home purchase, but it’s an important step in the recovery engine.

New home sales

The other good piece of news this week was the rise in new home sales, which last month jumped to the highest level in more than two years. In its latest release, the Commerce Department said that new home sales were up 5.7% in September to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 389,000. That’s up from 368,000 in August and the highest rate since April 2010, when the federal homebuyer tax credit boosted sales.

Further, sales have risen 27.1% in the last year, the strongest yearly gain since February.

Strong growth in new home sales is an important indicator as it can help to spur more new construction, which some markets dealing with constrained inventory really need right now.

In addition, new home construction has the potential to create more jobs and boost economic growth. Another win for housing.

As we start to approach the end-of-year holiday season, we can feel pretty good about the state of the recovery and how things may fare in 2013.

Happy Halloween

Haunted House Info

 

The two economists at Turlia, including Jed Kolko, the head economist, have lot of time on their hands, so this Halloween season they did extensive research, evaluation and calculation bout haunted houses and exactly where most of them are located. It’s a fun article, but it also may make you wonder if it might really be true.