Kudos to the editors at Forbes for this month’s thoughtful offering—a checklist that can clarify the advisability of buying Costa Mesa homes “in this hot real estate market.” The six questions combine to create a personal inventory that prospective Costa Mesa homebuyers can use to gauge the timeliness of a commitment to buy in this spring’s busy season.

While much of the rest of the real estate and financial press spent last week speculating over whether a U.S. residential “bubble” was either forming or about to burst (none of them thinks so), Forbes contributor David Rae’s questions were more valuable for homebuyers with legitimate concerns about the advantages of buying right now. Here are the questions—

  1. Will I be willing to live in this…

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When it comes to your own Costa Mesa real estate holdings, so long as a sense of proportion is retained, keeping up with fashion writers’ latest opinions is usually a harmless pursuit. So it was that the publication on March 31 of Betty Stefanova’s “5 Interior Design Trends that will Disappear this Year” seemed worth checking out. After all, the abrupt termination of a trend could be costly to any local homeowner who went all-in on one of the soon-to-be-axed design ideas—especially if their property was headed for the Costa Mesa market. Although Ms. Stefanova’s qualifications were not readily available, her strong opinions were undeniably thought-provoking:

  1. Open-Floor Plans. Now that “most of us” are working remotely, the need for silence in our…

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As a practical matter, being able to identify with pinpoint accuracy the single week that market conditions suggest will be the optimal time to list your Costa Mesa home isn’t really possible. For one thing, for a market the size of Costa Mesa’s, the numbers aren’t large enough. That’s why Realtor® Magazine’s annual “Best Time to Sell Report” calculations are based on the entire country’s data, which seldom duplicate our own.

So this year’s “Best Time” calculation is really no better than a hint for how things will turn out when the year is in the books. Even so, if you have been holding your own house off the market, waiting for an unambiguous signal that it’s time to list, that absolute perfect moment does look to be close at hand. Realtor’s…

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If ever there were a time to organize your Costa Mesa spring cleaning, Sunday was it. The March equinox happened at about a half-hour before noon EST: the official start for Costa Mesa’s spring. Online spring cleaning task lists started re-appearing well ahead of that inaugural moment, however—many began populating the web in early February. Rather than just revisiting any of those checklists, this year it might be more interesting to take a step back to consider a more holistic approach to preparing for the annual effort:

  • First – if the oven has a self-cleaning cycle, try using it, following the manufacturer’s directions. These may include removing the racks and catch-pans, and using a soapy cloth or scouring pad to reduce thick spills. Also,…

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The reasons commentators dispense so much advice to first-time homebuyers are clear: the process of finding and buying a house means making a huge financial commitment in an industry rife with customs and terms that are alien to most consumers. Once you have navigated the process, it’s all less intimidating—but you really have to do it once to feel at ease.

But what about selling your Costa Mesa house if you’ve never done that before? Since you’ve been through a successful sale from the buyer’s side, it may feel a good deal less daunting, but the considerations and choices do look different from the opposite side of the table. Again, selling your Costa Mesa house is a huge financial venture—and your lack of prior experience can make some…

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Given all the publicity given to supply chain disruptions, energy prices going bonkers, interest rates heading either slightly or not-so-slightly uphill, etc.—with all this going on—why are we also hearing that now is such a good time to sell? Especially if there is no pressing reason to compel a move, why would you choose now as a prime time to sell your Costa Mesa house? Wouldn’t it be more logical to hold off until things settle down?

The answer is based on one of the most rational of economic truisms—namely, that when there are more buyers than sellers, you’d rather be a seller. Assuming that waves of supply and demand inevitably ebb and flow, the next change would be a market with more sellers than buyers. In a buyer’s market, sellers compete…

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For both sellers and the house-hunters they wish to attract, Costa Mesa mortgage interest rates have played a key role in enabling attractive real estate propositions. It is, however, an element that has been expected to weaken in the coming year as anticipation of rate hikes grows. With every notch up in Costa Mesa home loan rates, buyers will have to pencil in higher monthly payments. That would gradually remove one of the key elements that has energized the market.

But the story last week did not follow that script. By last Thursday, mortgage giant Freddie Mac was quoting U.S. average 30-year fixed loan rates at “3.76%. That not only remains in historically low territory—it’s even a drop from the previous week’s 3.89%.

Just ‘why’ was cause…

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The rationale behind U.S. housing’s rising prices has been nothing if not consistent. The tale has been all about the supply/demand imbalance—a textbook example that makes perfect sense for everyone with a smattering of free-market economics. For those who have been tracking the number of Costa Mesa listings, that’s why last Thursday’s release from the Census Bureau seemed to make no sense at all.

In housing markets from coast to coast, house hunters have consistently grumbled about the meager number of homes for sale. ‘Inventory shortage’ was the term that kept appearing, often preceded by modifiers like ‘growing’ and ‘acute.’ ‘Housing shortfall’ was another. Typical was the National Association of Realtors®’ January press conference, which…

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Leave it to the news media to uncover the latest threat to Costa Mesa house-hunters’ peace of mind. Last week, the guilty party was the Associated Press, whose contribution seemed timed to introduce a disquieting competitor into the already-crowded field of prospective home buyers.

Today’s Costa Mesa house-hunters had already been subjected to scare-mongering stories about recent buyers having to dig deeper into their pockets to land houses over the bids of hordes of competitors. Now comes the AP with word of a new sci-fi addition to the reputed multitude of overeager competitors: robots.

Robots who want to buy houses.

It might not have inspired a War of the Worlds panic, but CBS News’ headline was alarming:

Friend or Foe? Home-buying Bots…

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As December began, at least one Washington Post report—the one from award-winning real estate reporter Michele Lerner—didn’t spare the superlatives. For Costa Mesa homeowners looking to add their home to the Costa Mesa listings, the details could scarcely have been more auspicious. According to the headline, buyer demand in the month just ended wasn’t just good. It was record-setting.

Lerner relied on two separate reports from Redfin for much of the data that validated the claim. One index which records buyer demand as reflected in requests for house tours and various other home-buying services eclipsed the previous record. By another measure, 45% of U.S. properties were sold within two weeks of being listed—during the four weeks ending November…

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