Second only to Forbes.com, MarketWatch is the most often-visited financial and business news site—pulling in more than 38 million unique readers a year. That beats out more prominent names like the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, and Reuters. Such popularity can be interpreted as “highly trusted”—but given today’s heightened level of free-floating skepticism, that remains to be seen.

Last week MarketWatch’s “Picks” page presented four predictions for the housing market that might interest Costa Mesa readers—including owners of Costa Mesa luxury homes and those interested in acquiring Costa Mesa high-end properties. It dealt with residential real estate as a whole, but the writers—economists and real estate pros—placed a luxury market prediction…

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It’s a tempting scenario: having accumulated a considerable amount of cash, you find your Costa Mesa dream house, agree that the asking price is within reason—and prepare to sit down to make an all-cash offer. By buying it outright with cash, the future looks like ultra-smooth sailing, financially speaking. No mortgage payment. No interest. No monthly insurance set-aside or property tax pre-payment impounded into some escrow account the mortgage company insists upon. And you really own the place yourself—with no strings attached!

Although there are undeniable plusses to buying your Costa Mesa dream house with cash, there are at least three opposing reasons why it would be prudent to at least think twice before writing that all-cash offer:

  1. …

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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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For the local homeowners with Costa Mesa homes for sale, last week’s real estate news was filled with encouraging details. Headlines like “Home-Price Growth Accelerated in January” (the Wall Street Journal), “Home prices skyrocket 19.2% in January” (CNBC), and “Condo prices hit all-time high: Redfin” (TheRealDeal.com) were prominent across the media, with reportage emphasizing signs that for most of the country, this year’s busy season was already in full swing.

Even the most worrisome development—a stronger-than-expected uptick in mortgage interest rates—could be viewed as a plus for homeowners with Costa Mesa homes for sale. Although the week’s average home loan rates climbed to their highest level in more than three years, most outlets included…

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This spring, the marketplace for first-time homebuyers is similar to last year’s, only (as the saying goes) ‘more so.’ Earlier in the month, CNBC broadcast a number of statistics that made the case. In their phrase, for first-timers, buying a home is “tougher than ever.” Even so, for Costa Mesa house-hunters, it’s a half-empty glass that is also half-full.

The CNBC report concentrated on a major segment of first-time buyers: those born between 1981 and 1996 (the millennials). Given that the typical first-time homebuyer household has an income in the $75,000 - $100,000 range (approximately what mortgage lenders require), it’s possible to determine how many such households there are. In 2019, there was one listing for every 24 of those households.…

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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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