“Cross my heart and hope to die!”

It’s one of childhood’s most solemn oaths, still uttered by six-year-olds who hope it will convince one and all of their heartfelt intention to keep a promise. More convincing than “honest to goodness” or “cross my heart,” it is nonetheless a fairly counterproductive pledge. Since it needs to be said in the first place, the assurance can’t help but plant a seed of doubt.

As the Wall Street Journal points out, some Costa Mesa home loan applicants are already being called upon to make something like a cross my heart pledge. It comes as a new piece of paperwork in the form of the not-at-all childishly titled “Covid-19 borrower certification.”

The Home loan issuers are grappling with a problem created by the $2…

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Upgraded end unit home in the popular Yorktown Villas neighborhood! This immensely desirable floor plan is the closest a condo can get to feeling like a detached home in South Huntington Beach! It stands apart from its neighbors, only with a stairwell attached to the side of it leading to another unit. An even better feature of this end unit is that it is in an extremely rare location with unobstructed views of the park. Downstairs features the spacious living room, dining area, guest bathroom, laundry room, and remodeled kitchen with granite counter tops . Upstairs, you will find 3 bedrooms and another full bathroom in between them. This model gets the added benefit of a personal parking stall directly outside the back door as well as a deep one care…

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Costa Mesa real estate observers who Googled ‘existing home sales’ on Friday would have encountered a valuable reminder of how statistics can be true—but nonetheless misleading. National media reports had uniformly reported strong results from the residential housing market—but Costa Mesa readers looking for more precise details found headlines that let them (as the mind-reading tricksters used to say) “Pick a number--any number.”

Google’s screen-topping “Top Stories” boxes displayed Friday’s leading ‘existing home sales’ entries like this:

  •          “Existing home sales jump 25 percent in July, continue record pace” -Woodworking Network
  •          “Insatiable demand drives July pending home sales up 15% annually” – HousingWire
  •          …

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Most of today’s first-time Costa Mesa home buyers are aware that they’re no longer tied to strictures laid down in previous eras—especially the one dealing with 20% down payments. For buyers with stellar credit histories, that’s horse-and-buggy material. Last year, the U.S. average down payment was just 12%—but for first-timers, that average dropped to 6%!

Relaxing steeper down payment requirements makes sense for everyone. It expands the field of buyers, so sellers and lenders benefit. But most of all, for first-time homebuyers who would need many years to save up the cash required for a 20% down payment, the advantage of being able to buy sooner (and thus, to begin building equity sooner) couldn’t be clearer. And today, with home loan interest…

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For prospective Costa Mesa home sellers who have been holding back, waiting for the past months’ chaotic events to quiet down, last week ended with an array of encouraging signs. The national indicators that underpin the Costa Mesa real estate climate were almost uniformly promising. After the dislocations that have characterized most of 2020, now, at midsummer, home sellers are finding conditions that look to be much less equivocal.

The realtor.com website offered a concise summary. On Saturday, Chief Economist Danielle Hale’s end-of-week podcast ticked off the series of optimistic indicators:

  •          July employment figures showed continuing gains, with the economy bringing back more than 40% of the jobs lost since the pandemic’s onset.
    • …

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Back in February, the housing market’s watchdog housingwire.com observed that a good way to judge the strength of the housing industry is to “Look at how often people move.” That makes perfect sense. Logic would seem to dictate that a strong housing market would mean good times for movers.

If industry analysts at IBISWorld’s publicly available “Moving Services” page are to be relied upon, the best estimates expect there to be “strong growth in the housing market.” If you’d expect that to mean a prediction of boom times for movers, though, you’d be wrong. Disruptions due to the pandemic are expected to force consumers to dial down the amount they will be willing to pay professional movers.

For local buyers and sellers seeking reliable Costa Mesa…

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Most people are aware of the record-setting lows Costa Mesa mortgage rates are chalking up right now—the kind of rates that create tempting cashflow projections for even the most conservative would-be investors. But, of course, other factors enter the decision, whether they are planning their real estate investment for their own residence or as a rental. Given the uncertainty in the economy, prospective buyers are asking themselves if now is the right time to be investing in Costa Mesa.

Bankrate.com, the popular investment site, just tackled that question. Its reasoned response: the answer is yes and no (but mostly, yes). “It’s hard to see such low rates and not reach for your checkbook,” was its understandable response. But even so, some…

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We are built on a philosophy of Heritage & Hustle. The 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 is to provide trusted, convenient, responsive service to ensure clients enjoy their real estate experience. The L3 was originally formed to offer personal, concierge-level service as an alternative to the large, nationally based real estate companies. From its small beginnings of only two employees, The L3 has grown to a full staff of 25 serving over 300 clients a year. The L3 is not limited to serving just its clients; it is also committed to serving the community.…

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In the days before COVID-19, had you asked most people how a pandemic might affect the homebuying public in Costa Mesa, a fair majority would probably have replied something along the lines of “Well—it probably wouldn’t be good.”

We now know that they would have been wrong (at least, initially).

Nationwide, most areas are experiencing an onrush of newly motivated buyers—many of them seeking to adjust to today’s changing needs. In a recent article in Barron’s, the CEO of a leading national homebuilder, Sheryl Palmer, described motivations of many newly energized homebuyers: “What I have to do working from home has just changed, and I can’t retro my house.’”

Simultaneously, at the same time that this increased buyer demand would normally coax…

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Costa Mesa apartments—specifically, the way new apartment complexes are built—could be in for some major changes if some tech company executives are right. The idea is to bring the manufacturing lessons learned from companies like Apple and Tesla into the real estate realm. If they succeed, erecting Costa Mesa apartment buildings in the future could be considerably more efficient (and less expensive). 

Henry Ford is credited with inventing the assembly line—the manufacturing technique where a product moves from one assembly station to the next, instead of having pieces brought to where the product is being built. Actually, medieval Venice was already building ships that way in the twelfth century. From the hull up, the ships were floated down a…

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