The numbers are in!

If you are among the local homeowners counting the days until Costa Mesa’s hot selling season begins, unless your house is already in perfect showing shape, you might be pondering which—if any—possible remodeling projects would be wise to take on before you list.

The answers aren’t simple. The first consideration is the calculation for whether your property is likely to attract top dollar in its as-is condition. If not, you need a prospect’s-eye take on which areas are most likely to detract from the apparent overall value of the property. Then comes another factor: identifying which of those projects will go furthest in recapturing their cost.

Even if leaving everything as-is doesn’t inspire much confidence, it might…

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Last Saturday investment commentator Rebecca Lake presented the kind of analysis that would warm the heart of Costa Mesa rental property proponents. Her report appeared on the U.S. News website under the title “3 Reasons to Invest in Single-Family Rentals.” The piece was all the more persuasive because of its fresh perspective: according to the author, 2019 looks to be an especially advantageous year for rental property investments.

Since Lake’s article was aimed at the financial community, it occasionally lapsed into FinanceSpeak like “…there tends to be a ‘beta’ between the rental market and the stock market.” Especially for Costa Mesa investors looking for relief from the stock market’s volatility, that translates into English as “daily…

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Costa Mesa real estate activity may not necessarily reflect national trends, but anytime U.S. news media pick up on an interesting storyline that includes the phrase “home sales” (either “existing” or “new”), that can have an effect on how future Costa Mesa buyers and sellers approach their own plans. Last week there was one of those stories.

It followed the release of December’s home sales numbers, which declined by 6.4%. This was truly an unusually large decline—though hardly the “plunge” that “Stuns Real Estate Agents” (the Newsmax headline).

CNBC, which usually offers a more steady-as-she-goes viewpoint in its Realty Check column, also reported that the drop in home sales “has real estate agents baffled.” They thought the agents’…

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Costa Mesa ears that were attuned to some of the nation’s commentators might have heard that last year’s gradual slowdown in residential sales might signal a dawning “buyer’s market.” That may be true or not, but as for its impact on your own home-buying plans, there are a couple of realities to bear in mind.

First is that any shift from seller’s to buyer’s market is at best barely discernable. Its basis would be determined by national averages, where a slowdown in residential closings is usually taken to mean that sellers are having a hard time finding customers. That wouldn’t fully take into account the effect that tight inventories might have. When fewer sellers are willing to put their own Costa Mesa homes on the market for whatever reason,…

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