For those who have never bought or sold a home during Costa Mesa real estate’s busy season, coming up with metaphors isn’t easy.

  • It’s not like end-of-model-year auto sales because that season draws buyers by offering heavy discounts. Newly manufactured real estate isn’t arriving from the factory, so price reductions aren’t called for.
  • Real estate’s high season isn’t like a nursery’s or hot tub dealer’s peak seasons, either—even though both get busier around the same time of year. The pricetags for Costa Mesa real estate transactions make such comparisons ill-suited—apt metaphors would have to be more momentous.

It might be more fitting to turn to nature or to science for a suitable analogy. If so, you could argue that Costa Mesa’s…

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The-L3-Real-Estate-Spring-Cleaning-Tips

If you are a homeowner who’s planning on selling your Costa Mesa house, this year’s spring cleaning efforts can merit some extra attention. For most of us, the past year meant a lot more time spent indoors. With potential buyers soon to be among the visitors, the regular airing-out and straightening-up procedures might not be sufficient.

It’s useful to examine the difference in the ways that professionals approach spring cleaning— something the American Cleaning Institute makes possible via its industry-sponsored website. In addition to the expected Quick Spring Cleaning Tips and the less seasonal ABC’s of Cleaning, the ACI offers a section that promotes stepping back and organizing an overall operational approach—especially useful for Costa Mesa…

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The passage of the massive American Rescue Plan Act last week gave those who plot the ebb and flow of Costa Mesa housing activity much to ponder. Even without the Act, most observers already expected that by the end of spring, the majority of the U.S. economy would be undergoing a healthy recovery due to the escalating rollout of the COVID-19 vaccines. It was predictable that the Act's injection of trillions of dollars (including $20 billion for increased vaccine production) would add strength to the rebound.

But what would be the impact on real estate in general—and Costa Mesa housing in particular? For Costa Mesa sellers, the outlook couldn't help but be positive. According to website therealdeal.com, in February, U.S. sellers had been chalking…

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Freddie Mac’s slogan is “We make home possible”—a claim that is literally true for more than a few Costa Mesa homeowners. Freddie (the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp.) has the stated mission to keep money flowing (that is, supply liquidity) to the nation’s smaller mortgage lenders, while “Fannie Mae” does the same for large retail banks. Both are government-sponsored enterprises.

This past Tuesday, Freddie published its “4 Reasons to Refinance Your Mortgage.” Since the Corporation has north of $2 trillion in assets under management, you could say there were at least two trillion reasons why anyone who ever deals with Costa Mesa home loans might find the ideas worth checking out. Freddie’s reasons for refinancing:

 

  1. Lower your monthly…

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It’s been a worrisome stretch of time, no doubt about it.

One worry that hasn’t troubled Costa Mesa homeowners was what could follow a nationwide surge in foreclosures. This is a once-removed kind of worry—one that would only become truly worrisome if widespread foreclosures took place.

The instigator for either worry is the COVID-19 pandemic’s triggering of U.S. layoffs and business closings. That could cause widespread defaults on government-backed home loans—the first worry. If defaults happened en masse, it might well be followed by the worry we’re talking about—Worry #2: a crash across the wider housing industry.

Needless to say, Costa Mesa homeowners would prefer that not happen.

Preventing a foreclosure surge would do the trick.…

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The rationale behind Costa Mesa’s “peak season” for home sales may be open to question, but the fact of its existence has been firmly established for decades. Across the U.S., come springtime and summer, history confirms that the pace of real estate transactions quicken. Last year provided a rare exception—but no one expects it to be repeated in 2021. All expect more homes will be put up for sale, more buyers will appear on the scene, and more sales will result.

The peak season phenomenon might seem counterintuitive since family fortunes and career ups and downs don’t necessarily correspond to the spring and summer seasons. There does exist the education factor—so timing a move from one school district to another so as to coincide with summer…

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