Costa Mesa real estate observers who Googled ‘existing home sales’ on Friday would have encountered a valuable reminder of how statistics can be true—but nonetheless misleading. National media reports had uniformly reported strong results from the residential housing market—but Costa Mesa readers looking for more precise details found headlines that let them (as the mind-reading tricksters used to say) “Pick a number--any number.”

Google’s screen-topping “Top Stories” boxes displayed Friday’s leading ‘existing home sales’ entries like this:

  •          “Existing home sales jump 25 percent in July, continue record pace” -Woodworking Network
  •          “Insatiable demand drives July pending home sales up 15% annually” – HousingWire
  •          …

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Most of today’s first-time Costa Mesa home buyers are aware that they’re no longer tied to strictures laid down in previous eras—especially the one dealing with 20% down payments. For buyers with stellar credit histories, that’s horse-and-buggy material. Last year, the U.S. average down payment was just 12%—but for first-timers, that average dropped to 6%!

Relaxing steeper down payment requirements makes sense for everyone. It expands the field of buyers, so sellers and lenders benefit. But most of all, for first-time homebuyers who would need many years to save up the cash required for a 20% down payment, the advantage of being able to buy sooner (and thus, to begin building equity sooner) couldn’t be clearer. And today, with home loan interest…

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One pandemic side-effect affecting Costa Mesa residential properties got Wall Street’s attention last week. The second-quarter sales numbers were scheduled for release, and the home improvement industry was expecting strong results. Sure enough, come Tuesday, Home Depot weighed in with what MarketWatch hailed as “stellar business performance”—domestic sales growth of 25%.

The following morning, Lowe’s announced “very strong” second-quarter results. They weren’t kidding. With “sales for the home improvement business increasing 35.1%,” modesty would have been inappropriate.

In fact, the big-box giants’ record-breaking flood of commerce reflects the circumstances many Costa Mesa homeowners have been dealing with themselves. Because of the…

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They’re yet to become a major presence in the mainstream of housing technology, but that could be in for a change. Increasingly, advances in “clean” technology—innovations aimed at sanitizing household living spaces—seem likely to become commonplace in the coming years.

Along with many other accommodations spawned by the coronavirus pandemic, Costa Mesa homeowners have grown much more conscious of the presence of germs of all kinds on household surfaces. That’s sent many on a mission to eradicate them as much as practical—a frustrating campaign, since the targets are, for all practical purposes, invisible.

Last week, CNBC reported on a number of technological developments that innovative-minded Costa Mesa contractors and Costa Mesa…

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For prospective Costa Mesa home sellers who have been holding back, waiting for the past months’ chaotic events to quiet down, last week ended with an array of encouraging signs. The national indicators that underpin the Costa Mesa real estate climate were almost uniformly promising. After the dislocations that have characterized most of 2020, now, at midsummer, home sellers are finding conditions that look to be much less equivocal.

The realtor.com website offered a concise summary. On Saturday, Chief Economist Danielle Hale’s end-of-week podcast ticked off the series of optimistic indicators:

  •          July employment figures showed continuing gains, with the economy bringing back more than 40% of the jobs lost since the pandemic’s onset.
    • …

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Back in February, the housing market’s watchdog housingwire.com observed that a good way to judge the strength of the housing industry is to “Look at how often people move.” That makes perfect sense. Logic would seem to dictate that a strong housing market would mean good times for movers.

If industry analysts at IBISWorld’s publicly available “Moving Services” page are to be relied upon, the best estimates expect there to be “strong growth in the housing market.” If you’d expect that to mean a prediction of boom times for movers, though, you’d be wrong. Disruptions due to the pandemic are expected to force consumers to dial down the amount they will be willing to pay professional movers.

For local buyers and sellers seeking reliable Costa Mesa…

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Most people are aware of the record-setting lows Costa Mesa mortgage rates are chalking up right now—the kind of rates that create tempting cashflow projections for even the most conservative would-be investors. But, of course, other factors enter the decision, whether they are planning their real estate investment for their own residence or as a rental. Given the uncertainty in the economy, prospective buyers are asking themselves if now is the right time to be investing in Costa Mesa.

Bankrate.com, the popular investment site, just tackled that question. Its reasoned response: the answer is yes and no (but mostly, yes). “It’s hard to see such low rates and not reach for your checkbook,” was its understandable response. But even so, some…

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