Advantages of Buying

OWNING VS. RENTING

Our goals are simple -- to ensure that you're happy with the home you buy and that you get the best deal you can. This describes why owning should be less expensive than renting.

OWNING SHOULD BE LESS EXPENSIVE THAN RENTING

Here's a guideline that may change the way you view your seemingly cheap monthly rent. In order for you to see how expensive a home you could afford to buy while having the same approximate monthly cost as your current rent, simply do the following calculation:

Take your monthly rent, multiply by 200 = purchase price of home

Example: $ 750 x 200 = $150,000

So, in the preceding example, if you were paying rent of $750 per month, you would pay approximately the same amount per month to own a $150,000 home (factoring in tax savings). Now your monthly rent doesn't sound quite so cheap compared to the cost of buying a home, does it?

Even more important than the cost today of buying versus renting, what about the cost in the future? As a renter, your rent is fully exposed to increases in the cost of living, also known as inflation. A reasonable expectation for annual increases in your rent is 4 percent per year.

NO MORE LANDLORDS

A final (and not inconsequential) benefit of owning your own home is that you don't have to subject yourself to the whims of a landlord. When you own your home, the good news is that you're generally in control.

The fundamental problem with some landlords is that they are slow to fix problems and make improvements. The best (and smartest) landlords realize that being responsive and keeping the building ship-shape help attract and keep good tenants and maximize rents and profits. But to some landlords maximizing profits means being stingy with repairs and improvements.

When you own your home, the good news is that you're generally in control -- you can get your stopped-up toilet fixed or your walls painted whenever and however you like. No more hassling with unresponsive, obnoxious landlords. The bad news is that you're responsible for paying for and ensuring completion of the work. Even if you hire someone else to do it, you still must find competent contractors and oversee their work, neither of which is an easy responsibility.

Another risk of renting is that landlords may decide to sell the building and put you out on the street. You should ask your prospective landlords whether they have plans to sell. Some landlords won't give you a truthful answer, but the question is worth asking, if this issue is a concern to you.

Selling Your Home?

REASONS TO SELL

Our goal is to help you make the right decision about whether to sell your house. When you do, we want to make sure that you get the best possible price. People's reasons for wanting to sell their houses are almost as varied as the houses themselves.

People's reasons for wanting to sell their houses are almost as varied as the houses themselves. Here are some of the common, not-so common, and downright bizarre reasons that have prompted sellers we've known over the years to put their houses on the market:

• School district
• Neighborhood
• Better job opportunities elsewhere
• Recent marriage or divorce
• Recent death of spouse
• Additional debt burden due to layoff, medical expenses, disability, or overspending
• Serious house defects that they don't want to fix
• Increased space desires for expanding family
• Diminished space requirements now that kids are grown
• Noisy neighborhood
• Unfriendly neighbors
• Neighborhood shopping
• Climate

SELLING IN A STRONG MARKET

While your personal and financial situation is clearly an important factor in deciding whether and when to sell your house, the strength of your local housing market may also influence your decision.

SELLING DURING A STRONG MARKET

Be happy if you're selling your house during a time of rising or already elevated home prices. If you can afford the transaction costs of selling your current house and buying another home, and if the costs of the new home fit within your budget and financial goals, go for it. Just be careful of two things:

• Don't get greedy and grossly overprice your house. You may end up getting less from the sale than you expected, and the sale is likely to take much longer than it would have if you'd priced the property fairly. If you price your house too high, when you finally drop the price to the right range, you may face lower offers because your house has the stigma of being old on the market.
• Be careful about timing the sale of your current house and the purchase of your next one, if you're staying in your current strong market or moving to another strong market. For example, you probably don't want to sell and then spend months bidding unsuccessfully on other homes. You may get stuck renting for a while and need to make an additional move; such costs can eat up the cash from your recent sale and interfere with your ability to afford your next home.

How to Pay off your House ASAP (It's so simple)

Should you prepay your mortgage?

Should You Pay Off Your Mortgage Early?

Pay a little more each month. You can get all the benefits of an early payoff without the extra costs of a refinance by paying more each month. Divide your monthly principal and interest by 12 and add that amount to your monthly payment for a year.

In other words, you wouldn’t want to pay down a mortgage at 4% APR when you can earn a greater return by investing in stocks and bonds through a brokerage account or bumping up your retirement contributions. Add in the home mortgage interest deduction you can take on your federal taxes and, they say, you would be silly to prepay your mortgage and miss out on those perks.

When it comes to people who see the mortgage prepayment issue in black and white, the question is just about math. After all, why would you prepay a loan at 3% or 4% and lose out on part of a valuable tax deduction when you could invest that money instead and earn considerably more.

Apply Immediately Before Time Runs Out

How important is open house - How often - What time limit?

Pro

Open houses are a great way to get buyers through your home. You never know when the right person is going to walk through the door and fall in love with your home. Your neighbors will more than likely stop in and they are a great source of word of mouth advertising. It's worth the inconvenience of having to be gone for a couple of hours!

I send out a list of open houses in the MLS to the buyers that I am working with each Friday. I've sold several homes to buyers that have seen them at an open house.

Once every 30 to 45 days works well for me and hold them open from 1 to 3

Con
Open houses are successful only in certain markets. For example, San Francisco buyers know that the open house is their best ticket into homes. In places like St. Louis, Nashville and Charlotte, an open house is a way for an agent to generate buyers for other homes and allow for the neighbors to see the house. Nationally, less than 0.05% of all homes are sold at open houses. If you don't mind holding your home open for people to come through and your agent is willing to conduct them, go for it. It doesn't hurt. However, statistics say, it just doesn't help.

The most important part of selling your home is pricing right and having it in the best condition for the price point. The most important promotion of the home is a strong web presence with impressive visuals, solid copy and transparent information. Homebuyers are using the internet in their home search. In my opinion, forget the open house and strive for strong internet presence.

Personally, I think that open houses are very helpful in exposing the property to potential buyers when they are not with their agents. In the past year, we have had 3 properties sold to individuals that came through the open house, whether sent there by there agent, found on the internet, or following signs. That's enough proof for me.

As with most things in real estate, there are caveats. At the high end, you tend to get more Walk-ins who have always wanted to go inside a house like that, but that comes with the territory. We do our opens from 1-4PM on Sundays, just don't make it too long. It's better to have several groups in the property at once, bumping into each other, which better creates a sense of desirability and urgency. If you have someone linger in the home for 30+ minutes and no one else comes in, it plants the seed of doubt in their mind.

Just our thoughts, hope they help

The property can be yours for $5.595 million.

The well-maintained estate was built for Fletcher Dobyns, a critic and writer, and his wife Winifred Starr Dobyns, a landscape architect who authored books on the subject.

The property sits on almost an acre of land dotted with mature trees and gardens. Loggias and covered patios offer great posts from which to enjoy the landscape.

The cost of renting in LA

 

If you're apartment hunting, you know how hard it can be to find a quality option for a reasonable price. So what does the low-end rent on a rental in Los Angeles look like these days--and what might you get for the price.

The rental database finds that the median price for a two-bedroom apartment in the city of LA is $1,730—unchanged in the last two months. The price of a one-bedroom did rise a bit in February; it’s now $1,350, a $10 bump over the month before.

The general trend is still upward though. Prices are 3.8 percent higher now than they were one year ago.

Need a budget-friendly new spot? Though apartment hunting can be challenging, don't despair just yet--there are deals to be had. So what does the low-end pricing on a rental in Los Angeles look like these days--and what might you get for your money?

We took a look at local listings for studios and 1-bedroom apartments in Los Angeles via rental site Zumper to find out what budget-minded apartment seekers can expect to find.

New plans to reshape the LA River, from Vernon to Long Beach

 

The plans unveiled a week ago call for 146 individual projects in and around the river, including new trails, parks, crossings, and more. Among those proposals are seven “signature projects” that have been analyzed in greater detail. They include:

• Development of new green space, public art displays, and affordable housing around Cudahy Park
• Addition of park space, trails, and a dirt bike facility around the Atlantic Boulevard crossing in Vernon
• A trio of park-topped bridges, new landscaping, and a band shell at the Rio Hondo confluence in the city of South Gate
• Floating boardwalks above the soft-bottomed portion of the river that flows through Long Beach and new access to the levee at Willow Street
• Pathways, recreation areas, and links to existing bike trails at the stretch of river between Greenleaf and Del Amo boulevards
• New crossings, rest areas, public art space, and a nature overlook at Compton Creek
• A new park, expanded wetlands, new stormwater capture facilities, and an amphitheater around Wrigley Heights in northern Long Beach

More broadly, the plans also call for greater access to the concrete channel itself, including the addition of terraced seating and ramps that would allow people to explore the riverbed in certain areas.

The working group has held dozens of public meetings and community events to discuss the project, but numbers reported in the draft plans suggest community awareness of the project may be low. Workshops, pop-up booths, and bike tours have drawn fewer than 800 residents and only 420 responses were recorded in an online survey about the project.