About this time every year, the question for house hunters is whether to delay their serious shopping until the anticipated springtime upsurge in Costa Mesa homes for sale. Almost every year, when the weather begins to warm, the springtime ‘For Sale’ signs blossom. One school of thought has it that the wider selection favors buyers—it means more sellers will compete for their attention. On the other hand, that also means more buyers will vie for the most compelling properties.

Of course, when to start serious prospecting may be more dependent on individual calendars that are dictated by outside factors—so there’s no set answer for everyone. But there are a few powerful arguments why for some, setting out on a serious house-hunting expedition at…

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For homeowners weighing the pros and cons of adding their homes to the Costa Mesa listings, the ‘pros’ are substantial. The steady national rise in home prices indicates a healthy market—one significant “pro.” The latest national existing-home sales price figures confirmed a median rise of 14.6% over the previous year—the 105th consecutive month of price gains across all regions.

Another one of the “pros” is a market where competition is relatively light—something that’s been the situation in America for some time. And when the scarcity of existing homes for sale is combined with what might be the strongest “pro”—bargain-basement home loan interest rates—the positives make a strong case for this being a favorable environment for joining the Costa…

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Dave Ramsey is a standout among media finance coaches. It’s hard to disagree with his brand of commonsensical counsel that eschews shortcuts and paths to riches that depend on newly concocted strategies. Costa Mesa readers and listeners who rely on his consistently risk-averse advice learn to avoid high-interest debt while building a solid financial base—a footing typically anchored by the equity most families build through their greatest investment, their home.

As the old year came to a close, Ramsey’s web site laid down five trends that are likely to emerge in the coming year. Costa Mesa homeowners who have been tracking the national real estate crosscurrents would not have been surprised by any of the five—but would likely be reassured by the…

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No one may be sure of how many Costa Mesa homeowners chose to deal with their year-end stir-craziness by surfing the web last weekend, but for those who did so by Googling “top events of 2020,” there wasn’t much doubt about what finished as Number One:

The pandemic, of course.

Second place tended to be a jump ball between either the Presidential election or impeachment, after which a dozen other noteworthy occurrences vied for recognition. Among others, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s resignation from the Royal Family competed with the Australian and California wildfires, the postponement of the Tokyo Olympics, a stock market crash (although Wall Street’s swift recovery made that one a weak contender), murder hornets, etc.

What did not…

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Gather ‘round, people: it’s The Year in Review time again—the week when columnists and TV talking heads line up to chatter and lament over the year’s record-shattering advances and failures. From Washington to Hollywood, Wall Street to Silicon Valley, 2020 provided as rich a trove of talking points as any year in memory.

Closer to home, for Costa Mesa homeowners and investors, the year in real estate was no exception. When news of COVID-19 first broke, it looked as if the pandemic’s spread might claim Costa Mesa real estate as an early casualty. Yet, despite the persistence of distressing developments in a host of other areas, local real estate watchers watched a much different picture being painted across the nation.

Here’s a selection of a…

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For prospective buyers who will be out looking for Costa Mesa homes for sale in the coming year, last Wednesday’s “Housing Forecast for 2021” that was picked up by commercial newswires held both good and bad news. The mix of favorable and less-favorable elements alternated back and forth throughout the news release. Future Costa Mesa house-hunters might have felt the reader’s equivalent of watching a tennis match rally.

  • The source of the forecast—realtor.com—did offer up one overriding reassurance:
    GOOD: “The 2021 housing market will be much more ‘normal’ than the wild swings [experienced this year].”
    But that was tempered with:
    NOT SO GOOD: “Prices stay high.”
    The back-and-forth continued:
    ENCOURAGING: “…more home options will probably become…

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Attention, Costa Mesa!

Ready or not, the Holidays are not waiting around!

If that alert strikes you as unnecessarily alarmist, remember that this year's calendar works out to have fewer days than usual between Thanksgiving and Christmas. And if your traditional Thanksgiving tryptophane-engendered post-turkey stupor was followed by too many days of leftover turkey sandwiches, the resulting snoozefest may have led to your catnapping through this year's shortened holiday preparation days.

The fact is, Costa Mesa's holiday celebrations are already well underway. If you find that hard to believe, there's this proof positive: the eighth, final day of Hanukkah arrives this Friday! That's right; the Jewish Festival of Lights began last Thursday. The…

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As Costa Mesa nears the end of 2020, one of this year’s defining economic hallmarks was the sustained continuation of real estate price rises. According to last week’s email announcement from industry price monitor CoreLogic, U.S. price advances were more pronounced than had been foreseen by nearly anyone a year ago. Through the end of October, year-over-year, annual average housing prices rose by 7.3%.

These returns are studied by industry professionals—including Costa Mesa real estate agents and brokers—not only for comparison with recent local sales results, but as indicators of what to expect going forward. The details in CoreLogic’s “HPI Forecast” are just that—predictions—well-informed estimates rather than certainties. Based on U.S. public…

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Costa Mesa rental properties can bring their owners substantial investment income at the same time they are quietly building equity. It sounds clever—and it is clever, as many legendary titans of industry have pointed out. Nineteenth-century millionaire-philanthropist Andrew Carnegie’s “Ninety percent of all millionaires become so through owning real estate” is typical.

More recently is this quote from wealth-creation expert Robert Kyosaki, author of the mega-bestseller, Rich Dad, Poor Dad:

If you don’t like real estate, all you have to do is make hamburgers, build a business around that hamburger, and franchise it.”

Kyosaki’s sly observation lets us draw our own conclusions about the relative likelihood of becoming a one-in-a-billion…

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With Thanksgiving Day gatherings behind us, this year’s Costa Mesa holiday shopping action re-focused on the Black Friday sales phenomenon. Early reports were encouraging—but confirmed what Costa Mesa businesspeople expected: a substantial tilt to home-based shopping.

CNBC’s initial late-night observation was that bargain hunters were ringing up record online sales. This was a result that had been foreseen by retailers, who had prepared for the reluctance consumers might show to in-person shopping.

Even so, the National Retail Federation had projected that this year’s holiday sales would grow by somewhere between 3.6%-5.2%. If that proves accurate, sales will exceed averages reached during the previous five holiday seasons—a shot of good…

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