December marks the start of the real estate prediction season—and last week, Forbes published an early entry. Forbes is the century-old business magazine that tracks investment and financial markets—often bringing heightened scrutiny to the housing industry since housing is a tail often said to wag the dog (the canine is the rest of the U.S. economy). For anyone who doubts the validity of that metaphor, here’s how the NAR® maps the economic impact every single home sale makes, state by state.

For those with an eye on the direction of the national and Costa Mesa housing markets, the Forbes outlook was interesting. It was mildly out of step with the grim-faced recession commentaries being offered by most of the talking heads on TV. Residential real…

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The national press has fallen into the habit of treating almost every piece of news dealing with U.S. real estate as an all-too-predictable blow to the economy. Last week provided a welcome break in the pattern, as area residents who’ve been following mortgage rates in Costa Mesa found little to gripe about. CNBC’s headline, “Mortgage rates fall for the third straight week…” was a good example. Interest rates for 30-year fixed-rate conforming mortgages had again decreased following the Thanksgiving pause—and by emphasizing the continued trend reversal, reporters had highlighted the rosiest detail in a pack of mixed data.

The number of mortgage applications was a good example of how glasses could be reported as either half-full or half-empty. Yes,…

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One Costa Mesa Thanksgiving is the appropriate number of turkey days. Two Thanksgivings would not only result in needless overexposure to your most irritating relative—it would also be a textbook example of inflation economics: twice as many feast days chasing too few turkeys.

Pointing this out wouldn’t normally be necessary were it not for what happened in 1939 and how close we came this year to the possibility of replaying what happened then. This year we have a November where the calendar shows five Wednesdays. That is too close for comfort to what happened in 1939, with its five Thursdays: The Year When There Were Two Thanksgivings!

During the darkest days of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln had revived George Washington’s idea for a national…

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For Costa Mesa readers who happened across this month’s curbed.com, the news revealed by its top headline would certainly have kept them reading. “We’re Getting Closer to a Martian Housing Market” is likely to have been a surprise to most local residents.

Even if they were currently active house hunters who had decided to expand their search beyond the Costa Mesa listings, the news that neighborhoods elsewhere in the Solar System were about to open up had probably escaped their notice. The notion of considering a starter home on the Red Planet wasn’t a widely discussed alternative, but if the curbed headline was legit, humanity is now nearing a milestone where first-time shelter-seekers might soon go extraterrestrial.

The explanatory details…

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Few things are more frustrating than the plight of a would-be Costa Mesa home buyer who can easily afford to buy a listed Costa Mesa home—but not right this minute. The delay might be due to a temporary cash-flow crunch, a legacy windfall that will absolutely happen (but not until 26 months from now), or any one of a number of other common scenarios.

The frustrating part isn’t just the immediate disappointment of missing out on the delight of moving into a home that’s a perfect fit—but also realizing how the inability to buy that ideal property will wind up costing a serious amount of cash. The house will certainly be sold during the interim 26 months, so that particular opportunity will be lost for good. But equally galling is the impact on the…

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Around this time every year, crazy weather conditions wreak havoc on various parts of the North American continent. Costa Mesa neighborhoods don’t have to be threatened directly to have local homeowner nerves on edge, either. Many of us can’t help but be affected by all the shaky iPhone videos of coastal destruction and the mayhem wrought by twisters that suddenly come roaring through communities, no matter how far distant.

So last Thursday, it was a nice change when housingwire.com’s cataclysmic headline brought news of a different kind of disaster. Even though the language shouted, “collapse!”—the effect was comforting. It was a welcome kind of fiasco. More directly, it looked as if Costa Mesa neighborhoods were going to feel the aftereffects of…

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It can be easy to forget, but while skimming through the news of the day, there are usually opportunities hidden within changing circumstances—even those presented as thoroughly unfavorable. Last week, the investment strategists at SeekingAlpha.com offered a view of the state of the U.S. housing market that wasn’t widely available elsewhere. If nothing else, it offered a positive note that Costa Mesa real estate watchers could appreciate.

A case in point was last Monday’s article that emphasized a different take on the soaring mortgage rates and falling home sales numbers that inspired gloomy commentaries elsewhere:

“Housing market becomes more balanced as falling home sales lead to higher inventory”

The upbeat headline was followed by a real…

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To many a Costa Mesa home loan applicant, the mortgage industry might seem to be as inscrutable as the mysterious monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey. It seems to act as an all-powerful gatekeeper, only granting passage into the world of homeownership based on formulations it alone determines—either by logic or whimsy (depending on which way the decision goes). The home loan industry appears to hold all the cards in a game where it never entirely shows its hand—or so it can seem (especially to first-time applicants).


The truth is that mortgage issuers are motivated by the same carrots and sticks that any financial entity has to juggle: profits are the goal, expenses are to be minimized, and evaluating risk is the key factor that rewards lenders who…

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It takes an unusually well-organized homeowner to keep on top of all the minor maintenance items that go awry from time to time in every house. So when it’s time to list our Costa Mesa house, many of us don’t even like to think about all the small fixes we’ve gotten used to—but ones we will no longer be able to ignore. Facing an extensive fix-it list doesn’t have to happen if you get in the habit of putting aside a few hours a month to cure individual household failures as they crop up—but it does take a firm commitment to do it!

A while back, the Washington Post’s Jura Koncius made exactly that point in an article that pointed out how most people tend to put off those little renovations until they’re about to list their home—when completing some…

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As we wade into the fall, area homeowners who are putting their properties on the market will be able to cash in on what is known as the “Autumn Advantage”—one of the principal reasons many home décor professionals find it the easiest season to exploit. You don’t have to be a staging expert to see how autumn in Costa Mesa lends itself to a myriad of eye-catching seasonal props that help make Costa Mesa homes warm and inviting—in fact, “homey” is a perfect description.

Some areas that illustrate the Autumn Advantage:

  • Seasonal Scents. Most professional stagers keep clear of scented candles because they run the risk of alienating some buyers who happen to have an aversion to any particular scent. But fall is an exception for scents that trigger…

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