On Friday, Costa Mesa’s real estate outlook ended the busy month with a genuine surprise—one that could well augur an extension of Costa Mesa real estate’s traditional peak selling season. The news was significant enough to move from financial sections to front pages and bottom-of-the-screen crawls on cable channels. Atop the Mortgage News Daily broke the story:

“Mortgage Rates Drop Well into the High 3’s”

 Even local residents who rarely pay attention to the nuts and bolts of Costa Mesa real estate matters would likely have done a double-take at the “3’s” in that news flash. The “low home loan interest rate” phenomenon has been old news for quite a while, but those historically low rates have hovered in the 4’s since 2017. Since even tiny…

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According to an educator in NYU’s finance department, if your Costa Mesa house has experienced the kind of growth that’s been typical over the past couple of years, your Facebook friends will be more likely to buy a home themselves. Improbable as it sounds, Dr. Johannes Stroebel says that his research shows this as a measurable probability because “friends’ experiences…influence personal behavior” when it comes to their housing decisions.

The results of Dr. Stroebel’s study emerged from a panel discussion held this month. The conversation took place in Washington, DC, as part of the annual Realtors® Legislative Meetings & Trade Expo. Most of the headlines from that gathering centered around the midyear forecast by NAR Chief Economist L. Yun.…

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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 estate experience. 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, L3 has grown to a full staff of 20 serving over 300 clients a year. L3 is not limited to serving just its clients; it is also committed to serving the community. Not only has L3 donated…

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Wikipedia defines “consumer confidence” as “the economic indicator that measures the degree of optimism that consumers feel about the overall state of the economy...” Costa Mesa homeowners who are contemplating selling their Costa Mesa homes may not base their decisions on polls measuring public confidence levels—but when the climate is promising, it sure doesn’t hurt!

Wikipedia completes its “consumer confidence” definition with “….and their personal financial situation.” In fact, it’s well known that people answer pollsters’ questions largely based on their own situations. That’s why businesspeople of all stripes track the monthly University of Michigan’s Consumer Sentiment Index like hawks.

So – wow! Last week ended with news that upended…

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     When you are planning to sell your Costa Mesa home, the latest interest rate gyrations can become a worrisome element in your planning. Last week’s news should provide a measure of anxiety relief.

     Back a year or two ago, when almost all the credible financial voices were united in predicting that Costa Mesa’s historically low mortgage interest rates would soon be moving back up into more familiar territory, the effect was to prod buyers to get busy. Costa Mesa sellers took note, as well.

     Everybody knew that the imminent rate rises could make all the difference between a doable monthly mortgage payment and a budget-breaker. Frequently cited were examples like the one pointing out the difference that a single point could make on a…

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Shopping for the best Costa Mesa mortgage rates was supposed to have been made easier by requiring lenders to advertise more than just their interest rates, but in practice, the result doesn’t always work as well as intended. What it does do 100% of the time is to put consumers on notice that the cost of borrowing is not a simple matter.

Finding the best deal takes a little figuring.

If you’ve ever shopped mortgages, you know that you’ll see both the advertised “interest rates” and an “Annual Percentage Rate.” The APR is usually higher because it incorporates the additional loan charges and fees not shown in the nominal interest rate. The 1968 Truth in Lending Act required that the APR be included—and it would seem to be a fairer way to compare…

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You can’t blame Costa Mesa residents who’ve been bamboozled in the past for having grown cautious as April 1 approached. They braced themselves for this Monday, knowing that the practical jokers will have been hard at work concocting 2019’s April Fools Day tricks. There would be spoof ads, fake headlines, and who-knows-what else? to watch out for.

That’s why you could hardly fault those who instantly dismissed last Friday’s banner headline in the Wall Street Journal. It might be unfair to print an April Fools prank ahead of time—but pranksters have done that before.

And the article certainly bore all the earmarks: an almost believable premise (slightly understated to build credulity) followed by the requisite goofy supporting specifics. Maybe it…

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For those who’ve been waiting to list their Costa Mesa home until this year’s spring selling season, the waiting is over. Not only is spring busting out all over, but there is a claim that we are fast approaching the absolute best moment to list a home!

The desire to list your house at the best possible time is a logical enough ambition, but one that runs into a practical snag. The “best” time would be the moment when the most motivated buyers happen to be actively looking for a home like yours. But for any given property, there’s no practical way to identify whether it already passed before you listed or will happen after you’ve sold. Since springtime’s peak real estate season usually brings out the greatest number of buyers, that makes it…

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When it comes to industries, you’d have to place Costa Mesa real estate into the “stolid” category. The rules are set and agreed-upon. Everything having to do with real estate is entirely “real”—the opposite of “imaginary.” Certainly not frivolous, fleeting, or mercurial.

Major changes don’t come about often or quickly. It is true that one facet of the way real estate business is conducted has undergone a noticeable change due to the web. But that is actually only a shift in how clients find and qualify properties they might be interested in. They still overwhelmingly rely on real estate professionals to take responsibility for the consequential details of buying and selling.

But wait!

A new technology suddenly presents the possibility…

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