This is another one of those, boy oh boy blog posts. I get this question a lot. Not only do I get this question but I get it with a boat load of anger built in to it! Believe me, SOME agents can be vicious, mean and really angry when their listings show up on your website.

I should file this post under the things that annoy me tag like my friend The Phoenix Real Estate Guy would likely do.

For the common reader who is wondering how and why this question comes up. As a REALTOR and member of your local MLS [Multiple Listing Service] real estate agents have the ability to advertise listings through the IDX [Internet Data Exchange] agreement that is in place. The IDX agreement is possibly one of the if not greatest things to ever happen in the real estate business. For Team Aguilar, our head honcho Howard Blum is the broker / partner, Carlos Aguilar is a Realtor member / partner [my father] who manages this website. Through his REALTOR membership he is given permission to display listings on www.TeamAguilar.com via the IDX MLS listing feed for San Diego County. Obviously, this provides additional exposure for all listings. One day I am going to write a blog post with an IMAGE / OLD MLS Printout I have. It’s my grandparents MLS printout from 1962 for their home listed here in San Diego that was in a 3 ring binder. Back then, agents in the office would go to the 3 ring binder to search for homes in certain areas. Can you see the difference between a 3 ring binder and an IDX data feed that goes out to thousands of websites instantly?

So getting back to the question now that I have given you the cliff notes on IDX. Why is MY MLS LISTING showing up on your website? I feel like I should say, Why THE HELL is MY MLS LISTING showing up on your website? That is what a couple agents have said to us on the other end of the phone.

Well, the reason your listing is showing up on our website is because you are ALLOWING it to show up. When a real estate agent enters a listing into the MLS they are asked two questions.

- VOW [Virtual Office Website] Yes/No

- Internet Syndication Yes/No

When you say YES to these two items you are allowing websites like www.TeamAguilar.com and thousands of others to display your listings. The official Sandicor IDX rule reads as followed.

Sandicor’s IDX (Internet Data Exchange) rule enables MLS Participants (Principal Brokers) to display each others’ listings on their web sites. The rule is found on Section 12.16 of the Sandicor Rules and Regulations. This is only for internet display; it does not apply to any other type of medium (newspaper, flyers, etc.). Brokers must not have opted out of this program. IDX is considered advertising by the DRE and therefore must abide by DRE rules and regulations.

Now you always have the option to say NO to these and please understand that when you call screaming at us asking, Why is MY MLS LISTING showing up on your website? This is the answer.

YOU CAN ALWAYS SAY NO, or OPT OUT but in my opinion you would have to be a complete idiot to do so or care about nothing more than trying to act as a dual agent on all your deals which happens more then you realize. The IDX rule is the best thing to happen since sliced bread for real estate agents. Why would you cut your listing off from all of the available marketing sources out there? Your #1 objective is to sell your clients home, sell it at the highest possible price and OPTING OUT will limit the number of people who view your clients listing.

CONSUMERS. How do you know if your agent is opting out? Visit a typical real estate agents website like www.TeamAguilar.com and do a search for your home. Make sure you are getting the most exposure possible.

Alex Aguilar
Team Aguilar
Real Estate Agent, Blogger!
Alex@TeamAguilar.com
www.TeamAguilar.com
Real Estate Blog

If your looking for real estate in San Diego, Riverside or Imperial County you have arrived at the right place. Please feel free to contact us and please read our Real Estate Blog and leave your comments.

According to the National Association of Home Builders latest report, the home affordability rate is currently at 48.1% for San Diego County.

What does this mean? Home values are slowly increasing and we may be past the peak of affordability which appears to have peaked at 58.8% during the 1st quarter of 2008.

The NAHB housing opportunity index represents the percentage of homes sold that a median income household could afford using standard lender underwriting guidelines. A few years ago we never had to worry about this because anyone who could fog up a mirror could get a loan.

San Diego County has always been an expensive place to live and these numbers are nothing new but look at the chart below to see how much more affordable it is to live in many other parts of the country. You have to ask yourself, do I want to give up Sunny San Diego to live somewhere I could afford a home? Perhaps……..

See Wichita, KS on that list? Our field agent, Cory has a lot of family there and visits regularly but I think he prefers Sunny San Diego over Wichita.

MOST AFFORDABLE – Kokomo, IN is the most affordable place to live in the United States, 98% of all homes sold there are affordable to the medium household income. WOW, when you think about that it would be really nice if San Diego was a little higher on that list. No offense to anyone reading this from Kokomo In, but I have never been there or even heard of your nice affordable city.

LEAST AFFORDABLE – New York-White Plains-Wayne, NY-NJ is the least affordable. Only 19.7% of all homes sold there are affordable to the medium household income. WOW, now when you think about that it gets a bit scary. It’s nice San Diego is no where close to that.

DATA SOURCE, National Association of Home Builders

Alex Aguilar
Team Aguilar
Real Estate Agent, Blogger!
Alex@TeamAguilar.com
www.TeamAguilar.com
Real Estate Blog

If your looking for real estate in San Diego, Riverside or Imperial County you have arrived at the right place. Please feel free to contact us and please read our Real Estate Blog and leave your comments.

Lets look at the new homes for Sale in Cordova & Trellis community of Windingwalk located in Eastlake Chula Vista.

It appears that brand new home buyers in Chula Vista are not paying any closing costs for the time being. With such good prices, low rates of interest, incentives of saving money and the existence of home buyer tax credit, the opportunity is almost too good to be true. Why not welcome 2010 with a brand new home in this neighborhood?

Home prices at Cordova, Windingwalk begin at around $300,000 and six floor plans are offered along with two-story homes with three or four bedrooms, three bathrooms and garages. Homes in Cordova come with formal dining and living spaces, huge master suites with equally huge closets, well-designed kitchens, downstairs bedrooms and appliances of stainless steel. Some even provide yards.

At Trellis, Windingwalk, on the other hand, single-family homes offer four floor plans with four or five bedrooms, three bathrooms and garages. These homes begin at around $400,000. Homes in Trellis come with traditional styles of architecture with details that range from Spanish to California Cottage. They also come with formal dining and living spaces, butler’s pantries, maple cabinets, granite countertops, downstairs bedroom suites and stainless steel appliances.

This perfectly planned community even comes with various amenities, such as convenient marketplaces, retail centers, and popular food and entertainment places. Anyone familiar with Eastlake Chula Vista know that it offers everything you need to live comfortably.

Residents of Windingwalk have their own private parks, recreation center that provides top-notch amenities like resort-like swimming pools, spas, grassy play areas, basketball courts, spacious courtyards, outdoor barbecues, and wedding garden with a covered gazebo and plush lawns. These facilities stand out with their dramatic covered walkways, entry towers and archways.

Once completed, Windingwalk hopes to offer up more than two thousand residences along with various community facilities, public parks, office spaces and high schools. So what are you waiting for? Take advantage of the market and look at the options available at Windingwalk in Chula Vista.

Home buyers that take out home loans insured by the government will soon learn that their loan officer or Realtor cannot have anything to do with the ordering or choosing of an appraiser. The change comes months after already making the change to Fannie Mae and most conventional loan programs. The reason for the change is the belief that over the last few years appraisers were pressured into giving a loan officer or Realtor a value they needed to make a deal work. With all of the loan fraud and pressure on overvaluing homes the industry feels this is the root of one of the problems that needs to be corrected.

Moving forward Realtors & loan officers will no longer have the power to order appraisals for FHA-insured loans. What does this mean for the typically consumer? It’s hard to say. One thing is for sure. Appraisers are going to have a hard time being aggressive on their appraisal value. It’s going to be their name and their license on the appraisal and since they have no contact with the Realtor or loan officer they won’t feel the pressure to come in with a certain value.

Here is a brief explanation of what would happen in the past.

Loan officer or Realtor need a value of $300,000 to make a purchase or refinance deal work.

If the appraiser comes in at $300,000, everyone is happy but if the appraiser comes in at a value of $290,000 that throws a BIG WRENCH in the deal! Why would this be an issue?

On a purchase deal it means the seller is only going to sell their home for $290,000 which is $10K less and that means less money in their pocket. The seller may just cancel the deal and wait for another offer to come along at $300,000. Hopefully this appraiser is pushed to come in at this value. Perhaps the agents provide listings of recent sales to help support their sales price of $300,000. Believe me, agents, buyers, seller’s and loan officer’s PUSHED appraisers as much as they could to come in at a value they needed. If a commission was on the line, great lengths were taken to close that deal.

What about a refinance? You have similar things to deal with. Cash out refinance means it’s less money going to the home owner and less money for them to take a trip, buy a boat or just blow in Vegas!

The thing that makes this difficult and why I would imagine appraisers would support this change is that the appraisers who were inflating home values were being rewarded by MORE BUSINESS. (More Likely To Get Repeat Business) It made it difficult for a good appraiser to continue to work when the Realtor or loan officer controlled who they ordered the appraisal from. Do you think a loan officer or Realtor would order another appraisal from an appraiser that prevented them from closing their last deal? Probably not, this was a major problem in the real estate industry.

This would mean that consumer home appraisals are going to reflect the value of a home much more closely since brokers that would usually profit from approved loans won’t be choosing appraisers that could declare higher values.

However, there are certain organizations that state that changes and other attempts to reform the industry of appraisal hurts both appraisers and consumers because the new rules will result in home values that are extremely low since the appraisers are not familiar or experienced with the local markets. If you have appraisers coming from miles and miles away to perform an appraisal they may not be familiar with the area like a local appraiser.

The changes started last year when a code was adopted and made to divide loan officers from ordering appraisals. Although the entire process has been changed, it still remains to be seen whether it was a smart move and only time will tell.

If you are looking to complete a purchase or sale of a home, you shall no longer be kept in the dark when it comes to its closing expenses, thanks to the changes made in the RESPA this year. Loan originators seem to be opposed but it should help even the playing field and help buyers avoid the all too familiar bait and switch policy!

These changes require lenders to completely disclose every single closing expense, including expenses related to getting loans and any estimated expense for settlement, title insurance and the like.

Closing process forms have also gone through changes to make things easier for consumers to fully understand these costs and to compare them with the final closing expenses. This has encouraged consumers to shop around and compare costs from different lenders prior to making a mortgage choice.

Unfortunately, these offered estimates are usually only binding for ten days, so buyers only get several weeks to complete necessary tasks like keeping settlement services and reviewing title reports prior to closing. It would therefore be a necessity to act fast and meet deadlines within contracts of sale.

Because of this, every home buyer should work closely with an expert in real estate to come up with the best strategies in finding the ideal closing service vendor in no time.

Several Tips You Should Follow:

1. Since local customs and laws tend to differ, your agent might strongly recommend you to get optional services like home warranties and inspections. Ask and make sure it makes sense for your purchase.

2.  Buyers who are smart can save tons of money just by finding personal providers of closing expenses to retain quality at a lower cost but this can lead to delays and make it difficult to close on time.

3. Overall, it comes down to the old rule that you just need to read and understand everything you are signing. The item that really concerns me is lenders will have to offer buyers a good faith estimate and it has to remain the same all the way through to the end of the loan. Any unexpected expense will require the loan to go back in to underwriting and cause additional delays.

Make sure you do your homework and find a great mortgage company to work with! Please view the RESPA website for additional information.

Are you looking at homes or condos with an HOA?  If you are looking into buying a home, you may want to do a little more research before you purchase. In today’s real estate market, many HOA’s are underfunded which may require you to make a larger than normal payment to fund the HOA.

A Homeowners Association refers to a legal and formal entity made to maintain a community’s common areas and enforce deed limitations. Their ultimate objective is to protect the values of properties, maintain a community’s appearance and character, as well as meet the expectations of anybody within that community.

Because of this, buying a home with a Homeowners Association could be useful if you want to ensure that your common grounds are maintained, such as community pools and landscaping. However, you should do your research first to avoid getting yourself into undesirable situations because of the rules and financial issues.

Here are several things you should know, learn and explore about a Homeowners Association to help you decide whether this would be the ideal situation for you:

1. Check if any special assessments have been made. Viable funds and studies of reserve could help any community stay away from needing special assessments.

2. Review the funds of reserve, which pay for improvements in the long term, like road paving, pool work, or condominium complex work. Finding out the amount of money that has to be inside the fund might be difficult. However, if you are a buyer, you can find out if your selected Homeowners Association has conducted reserve studies as of late. Such studies will also advise how much money needs to be kept every year to make sure that every need is paid for.

3. Review the charged fees of assessment, which are usually charged by the month, the quarter, or the year. It would be essential to discover exactly which assessments you will be paying for. This usually includes community pools and playgrounds, walking trails and clubhouses, lawn care and landscaping. It might also include the maintenance of common grounds, such as snow removal or trash pickup. If you are aware of this information, you will better understand how much you should budget for these areas that will become your responsibility after buying a home in a certain community.

4. Study the conditions, covenants and restrictions. Now, this might be a problem since you will discover what a community allows and doesn’t allow when it comes to home and yard changes. Many buyers buy homes, only to find out that they can’t add swimming pools or make additions or even plant a certain type of tree! To avoid this, you need to find out the basic rules when it comes to flying flags, satellite dishes, outside antennas, home businesses, patios, fences and pets. It would be absolutely essential to know which rules you have to live by in certain Homeowners Associations.

5. Keep in mind that rules change as time goes by. Because of this, you should periodically review the rules to ensure that you live peacefully within your Homeowners Association. The key in today’s market is to make sure the HOA is funded and has plenty of reserves.

When I heard that Mayor Jerry Sanders and Chargers President Dean Spanos were in serious talks about the possibility of a new stadium located in downtown San Diego, I was THRILLED by the prospect. No offense to the city of Escondido who have been courting the Chargers to move their team there for a quite few years now. It’s just that the Chargers are not Escondido or Chula Vista, and most certainly, not Los Angeles. They are San Diego!

For anyone who has been to Qualcomm Stadium, you fall in to one of two categories:  One type of person believes Qualcomm is an ill-designed cracking slab of concrete with narrow walkways and a cold, uninviting aura. The other type of person is one who has never been to another NFL Stadium to see just how big of a difference a nice stadium can be.  In fact, as far as I’m concerned, Qualcomm and Candlestick in San Francisco are on par with one another and both should be torn down. The Spanos know this and understand this, which is why they want to build a new stadium. But the fact that the city and its taxpayers don’t want to help pay for a new stadium, is the biggest hurdle the Chargers face.

Just because the taxpayers don’t want to help out however, does not mean they are not supportive of Mayor Sanders who is working with Dean Spanos to figure out where the money to build a new stadium can come from. According to Matthew T. Hall of the Union Tribune, one financing option that is being thrown around could come from “selling or developing the city-owned 166-acre Qualcomm Stadium site, which the team would leave vacant.” This is an option where the city can help out without a tax hike. It also brings to light the fact that Qualcomm’s site is HUGE and the proposed site downtown would be much smaller.

The downtown site would be 15 acres directly next to Petco Park that currently includes the city-owned Tailgate Park, the Wonderbread Building, and the bus yard for the San Diego Transit Corp. The beauty of this site, is that the infrastructure is all in place thanks to Petco Park. There’s parking, public transportation set up, and a slew of bars and restaurants in the area that make a killing on game days.  In addition, Hall reports that Charger’s special counsel Mark Fabiani says the downtown stadium makes financial sense “because infrastructure improvements to accommodate a stadium of up to $1 billion elsewhere could cost $200 million, but they are a fraction of that downtown”.

Of course there are naysayers who don’t want to see a stadium go up downtown. Business owners that would have to move, nearby residents who don’t want a huge construction project going on in their neighborhood or the influx of crowds that would be present on game-days.  But I am not going to address such people or such issues, for this is an unapologetically biased blog in favor of a downtown stadium.

Yes, there are hurdles to overcome before this dream can become a reality, mostly of the financial kind. But the city needs this. It needs something it can rally around. Something to be proud of besides the weather, and a beautiful new stadium in the city’s up and coming downtown is just what the doctor ordered.  And can you imagine how much money a Super Bowl hosted downtown would bring into the city?  But all the benefits of a new stadium are light years away. At this point it’s just good to see that San Diego is once again the front-runner for the new home of the San Diego Chargers.

Let’s face it: real estate has been hard this year and because of this, the 2009 Realtors Conference & Expo should be a must-visit, if you are a realtor in the United States of America. No time would be better than now to invest in networking and education for your personal business and you can do so this weekend in San Diego.

From November 13 to 16, the National Association of Realtors will hold the 2009 Realtors Conference & Expo in San Diego, so get ready for the latest upturn in the industry and think about taking part today. This year’s main sessions include:

- One hour with the commissioner of the Federal Housing Administration, David Stevens, who will talk about today’s primary issues such as appraisals, condominium rules, loan limits, and solutions for the insurance fund of the FHA.

- Testing your presence on-camera with the host of HGTV’s Real Estate Intervention, Sabrina Soto, through an interactively simulated home walk-through. Plus, she will share tactics that can be put to use in your personal marketing plan.
 
- A political and legislative forum by political insiders Bill Press and Michael Murphy, who will talk about the ever-evolving political landscape, as well as how this will impact the races of the House and Senate from their very own perspectives.

Plus, you’ll even get the chance to meet William Shatner on Saturday, November 14 from 1 to 4 p.m. If you happen to be a realtor who is also an avid fan of Boston Legal or Star Trek, you will not want to miss out on this opportunity to get his autograph or pose for a photo with him, would you?

Besides, San Diego in itself is worth the time to visit. If you miss the summer weather or simply need to take a break from everyday life, San Diego would be the perfect place to kick back and relax, with November being the city’s sunniest month of the year.

If you’re worried about shelling out too much cash and your budget is quite tight at the moment, here are some ways you can save money on your trip to the conference:

1. Opt for registrations that will fit your personal schedule and needs. Passes for the expo itself are $25, while passes for one whole day are going for $130 and passes for the entire conference are $330.

2. Room with somebody. (There are several low rates still available if you book now.)

3. Take the shuttle. To get to the Convention Center itself, there are complimentary shuttles from various hotels and you can even get a cheap airport shuttle from the National Association of Realtors.

San Diego meetings are always something worthwhile. Recently coined as the country’s top meetings and conventions destination, visitors enjoy exploring this urban playground. Not only will you be surrounded by fun and the sun, but there are tons of attractions that you will love in San Diego, as well. Trust me.

According to Sign On San Diego’s Roger Showley, the Urban Land Institute released its “Emerging Trends in Real Estate 2010” report last week.  On the report’s 9-point scale, San Diego’s real estate market is predicted to improve to 5, a whopping one tenth of a point above 2009’s ranking. What does this mean? Not much really, but it does mean that things certainly are not getting worse.

As we all know, San Diego’s residential sector took an enormous hit dropping from a median home price of $517,500 in 2005, to a much more realistic $325,000. An now, with the residential market coming around, so too will other real estate sectors. Showley reports that Jonathan Miller, a consultant for PricewaterhouseCoopers, who wrote the “Emerging Trends” report said “San Diego is improving because its housing market, having declined earlier than markets in most places, has “stabilized” and is thus setting the stage for nonresidential properties to recover.” “Setting the stage” doesn’t mean nonresidential properties WILL recover in 2010, but I don’t think anyone is going to complain about a stabilizing market that brings with it the hope of once again having flourishing real estate market, even if it is still a ways off. 

What else did the reports say?

“For 2010, the market is a pure hold’ meaning investors should retain their properties and not rush to buy or sell.”

“Shopping center owners should ‘hang on for dear life’ as retailers struggle with falling sales and many vacate their premises.”

“Office-building landlords should expect a game of ‘tenant musical chairs’ as lessees seek the best deals.”

“Hotels can’t get any worse but will ‘lead the commercial real estate industry in recovery’ as the economy improves.”

As for San Diego, even a miniscule glint of improvement on the real estate front is a sign of hope. Jonathon Miller adds, “the point is San Diego, unlike some other markets, has taken a tough hit here, but it appears to be stabilizing, and that’s better than other markets around the country.”  It’s funny to think that just a few years ago “appreciation” was the word that was being used. Appreciation was expected and relied upon, and taken for granted. And now, with our heads in our hands and hopefully a little wiser, appreciation is a distant memory. Now, the word “Stabilizing” holds a similar connotation that “appreciation” once had.

It’s been a busy week and I just wanted to make a quick post to let everyone know we are going to get this blog going but I have had a couple people out of the office and it’s been a really busy couple weeks. Things should be getting back to normal here shortly and we will get back up to speed!

I hope everyone is doing well. There has been so much going on in the news. It’s a great time to be writing so please bare with us while we get things back on track.

One interesting subject being talked about is the possibility of extending the First Time Home Buyer’s Tax Credit. Our friend the Phoenix Real Estate Guy just wrote a solid update on the subject and the possibility of it being extended. Please take a minute to check it out HERE.

See everyone back here shortly.

Also, we are working hard to bring a Spanish version of our website. It’s a lot of work, here is a link to Bienes Raices en San Diego.