Real Estate Blog - Home Improvement

5 Signs that Your Costa Mesa Kitchen Needs an Update

Every Costa Mesa REALTOR® has heard this observation from a selling client more than once: “Now that I’ve fixed the place up, it’s so nice to live here!” It’s sometimes followed by a wistful, “I should have done it years ago!” They don’t need to add, “so we could have enjoyed it ourselves.” The culprit has to be human nature—at least the part that resists spending money improving something that works (even if it doesn’t work all that well). One of the prime areas where this tends to hold true is in Costa Mesa kitchens. Since it’s generally acknowledged that the kitchen area is one place (if not the place) that gets the most intense scrutiny from prospective buyers, it is also one of the first areas that sellers decide to update. For anyone who might…

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Inspections Dampen Costa Mesa As-Is Listing Dramas

Of all the attention-grabbing terms to be found in Costa Mesa listings, the audacious “as-is” ranks right up there near the top of the deck. Intentional or not, it carries a pronounced dramatic aura. Contractors see Costa Mesa “as-is” listings as calls to action. House flippers’ pulse rates quicken when they come across it. For most typical prospective buyers, on the other hand, the same term triggers furrowed brows and a hasty move onto the next listing. “As-is” carries shades of meaning with legal implications, but in general, it simply signals to the world that the seller is not interested in improving the offered property. If something needs to be fixed, it’s up to the next owner to handle it. For that reason, Costa Mesa as-is listings are…

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A Boring Palette Helps Sell Your Costa Mesa Home

It may sound paradoxical, but one proven way to sell your Costa Mesa home is to make it boring…or at least, a little bit more boring. The principle here stems from buyer psychology—specifically, the difference between a house that would make a great tourist attraction and one whose first impression is more apt to lead to a sale. At first blush, the flashy version might seem to be not only memorable, ¬¬¬but more valuable as well. But that’s not typically true. A potential buyer can remember your house in two different ways. One memory might be of striking red walls and purple tile that call to mind images from an architectural magazine. That sort of memory will be vivid, but it doesn’t necessarily help to sell your home. A different type of memory…

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Solved: When is the Best Time to Sell Your Costa Mesa House?

When is the best time for selling your Costa Mesa house? Is there even a best time? If the change in residence is triggered by some inflexible external factor (like a transfer at work), the answer is foreordained: NOW! That can be right now, or in November, or February—since you will be making the move, to avoid paying for two homes, there really isn’t a choice. The sooner it’s listed, the better. But if the timing of a move is completely at your discretion, the “when” can be troubling. More than one Costa Mesa homeowner has worried so long and hard about the issue that years pass. When the For Sale sign does eventually go up, it’s probably because the cost of inaction has become apparent. The true answer to the question about the optimal time for…

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The L3's Open House Tomorrow In Huntington Harbour! 3/31

L3 Real Estate Featured Open House for Saturday, March 31st:

                                                        17036 Bluewater Lane, Huntington Beach                                                       

                                                                         1-4PM Saturday                                                                        

We are built on a philosophy of Heritage & Hustle L3 is a full service real estate agency with a

regional office located in the heart of #CostaMesa offering a wide-array of custom services to

meet their clients’ needs with roots in the community since 1976. It’s L3 mission to provide trusted,

convenient, responsive service to ensure clients enjoy their real…

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New Mesa North Listing from The L3!

Fantastic Mesa North Home in Quiet Cul-De-Sac! - $775,000 Bedrooms: 3 Bathrooms: 2 Parking Spaces: 2 Year Built: 1965 Garage Size: 2 Car School District: Newport Mesa Square Footage: 1242 Agent Name: Larry Weichman Broker: The L3 MLS #: PW18069036 Price: $775,000 3012 Buchanan Way   Costa Mesa, CA 92627 View Map View More Photos Range/Oven Full Refrigerator Microwave Reverse Osmosis Water System Fireplace Kitchen Island Patio Fenced Yard Grass Lawn Secluded setting …

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3 Strategies for Setting Your Costa Mesa House’s Asking Price

Selling your Costa Mesa house for the best price sometimes involves a certain amount of luck, but it’s the kind of “luck” that’s a lot more likely when you’ve set out the welcome mat for it. In addition to strategic home preparation and a solid marketing push, selling your Costa Mesa house for the best price also has to do with where that price starts out: that is, the asking price.

Once you have a clear idea of the professional opinion of its market value—that is, a price that aligns with the latest comparable sales data for similar Costa Mesa homes—you have three alternative strategies:

1. You can set an asking price as close as possible to what the comps suggest. After all, it’s reasonable and defensible—and lenders are likely to agree if…

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Turning Costa Mesa First-Time Homebuyers into Believers

Last week’s short news item could serve as inspiration for future Costa Mesa first-time homebuyers—especially for those who haven’t yet considered the possibility of owning their own Costa Mesa home.

The item in question was news of the passing of the English athleter. If that name isn’t familiar, it’s because Bannister’s story has long since faded from the headlines. But Bannister was a hero who changed the path of more than just sports history.

His triumph took place in 1954. A mid-distance runner, he had considered giving up the sport after his failure to win a medal in the 1952 Olympics. That race had been 1500 meters (about 90% of a mile). The more he thought about it, the more he determined to do more than make up for it. He decided…

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2 Obscure Factors Influence Costa Mesa Mortgage Loan Decisions

Whether you are about to embark on your first Huntington Beach home search or your umpteenth, unless you’ve managed to save enough to make you a cash buyer, soon you’ll need to secure a mortgage loan from a bank or other lending institution.

To understand what lies behind any home loan decision, just do what any good business negotiator does: put yourself in the other guy’s shoes. Getting a yes (and a low interest rate) from Huntington Beach’s lenders starts with demonstrating a history of responsible debt handling. That’s been made easy by the major credit information gathering agencies, who’ve been collecting data since your first credit application. Those bits and pieces are compiled and analyzed by the Fair Isaac Company (“FICO”). Huntington…

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Future Costa Mesa Home Sales May Defy Assumptions

Many Costa Mesa homeowners will be planning to list their properties this spring because it’s when future home sales would be expected to peak. Historically, at least, spring is when a sudden crush of prospects usually arrive on the scene. But this year, the upward drift in mortgage interest rates might have would-be sellers worried. After all, it’s common sense that any rise in home loan rates would put a damper on buyers’ enthusiasm.

Sometimes common sense and reality don’t go hand in hand. When we try to estimate the strength of Costa Mesa’s future home sales, it could be a case in point. That’s one way to look at the conclusions drawn by a pair of studies released last week. Both were focused on examining how rising interest rates are…

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