Last week, those who closely monitor Costa Mesa home loan rates were treated to a literary fit of impatience by the Mortgage News Daily—usually one of the most dispassionate of mortgage journals. On Friday, it became more than clear that MND has had it! The headline read,

No, Mortgage Rates Are Definitely Not Back to All-Time Lows!

The exclamation point is a rarity from financial journalists—as are superlatives like “definitely.” The cause of the editorial apoplexy was spelled out in unequivocal terms—it was “the unified onslaught of news coverage” that had once again dispensed the now-familiar phrase about mortgage rates being “back to all-time lows.” Not so, exclaimed MND—in fact, “today’s rates are actually and unequivocally not even close…

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“Cross my heart and hope to die!”

It’s one of childhood’s most solemn oaths, still uttered by six-year-olds who hope it will convince one and all of their heartfelt intention to keep a promise. More convincing than “honest to goodness” or “cross my heart,” it is nonetheless a fairly counterproductive pledge. Since it needs to be said in the first place, the assurance can’t help but plant a seed of doubt.

As the Wall Street Journal points out, some Costa Mesa home loan applicants are already being called upon to make something like a cross my heart pledge. It comes as a new piece of paperwork in the form of the not-at-all childishly titled “Covid-19 borrower certification.”

The Home loan issuers are grappling with a problem created by the $2…

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This year may go into the history books as the one that sprang more surprises and turnarounds—including unparalleled disruptions and resumptions in Costa Mesa residential commerce —than ever before. Amidst a financial world recovering from the steepest nosedive since the Great Depression, followed by the steepest single-month rebound in history, you might think that the real estate commentators would double down to bring readers their most penetrating analyses and prognostications.

But keep in mind that August is journalism’s traditional Silly Season. It’s also the end of the month, when reporters, editors, and publishers are most likely to abandon ship for a few weeks. It’s been an exhausting year for them, too, so it shouldn’t be surprising if at…

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Upgraded end unit home in the popular Yorktown Villas neighborhood! This immensely desirable floor plan is the closest a condo can get to feeling like a detached home in South Huntington Beach! It stands apart from its neighbors, only with a stairwell attached to the side of it leading to another unit. An even better feature of this end unit is that it is in an extremely rare location with unobstructed views of the park. Downstairs features the spacious living room, dining area, guest bathroom, laundry room, and remodeled kitchen with granite counter tops . Upstairs, you will find 3 bedrooms and another full bathroom in between them. This model gets the added benefit of a personal parking stall directly outside the back door as well as a deep one care…

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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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