Real Estate Tips and Helpful Hints

GARDENING TIPS 🍆🥑🍎🍓🌱🍍🍍🍋

Here are some recommended planting dates for California's major regions:
North and North Coast: May, early February, late April, and May
Desert Valleys: March, February–June, and December–February
Southern California: Fall between October and November, before the first rain
Los Angeles: First frost date is December 15, and last frost date is February 1
Sacramento: Last spring frost occurs on average on March 1, and first fall frost occurs on average on November 26

Hi Everyone,

The housing market has been shifty lately. It’s hard to predict where things are headed, but there are some facts that put those scary rumors to rest. True, mortgage rates rose dramatically last year, impacting many people’s ability to buy a home. And after rapid price appreciation, home prices finally peaked last summer. These changes led to a rise in headlines saying prices would end up crashing.

Prices have been relatively flat at the national level. Lawrence Yun, Chief Economist at the National Association of Realtors (NAR), doesn’t expect that to change:
“Home prices will be steady in most parts of the country with a minor change in the national median home price.”
Are the housing crash rumors true?
Here's the real deal
You might think sellers would have to lower prices to attract buyers in today’s market, and that’s part of why some have been waiting for prices to come crashing down. But there’s another factor at play – low inventory. And according to Yun, that’s limiting just how low prices will go:
“We simply don’t have enough inventory. Will some markets see a price decline? Yes. [But] with the supply not being there, the repeat of a 30 percent price decline is highly unlikely.”

A recent survey from Zonda shows 53% of millennials are still renting right now because they’re waiting for home prices to come down. But here’s the thing: the most recent data shows that home prices appear to have bottomed out and are now on the rise again. Selma Hepp, Chief Economist at CoreLogic, reports:
“U.S. home prices rose by 0.8% in February . . . indicating that prices in most markets have already bottomed out.”
But only time will tell…..

Spring showing so many Blooms,
Not all plants are good for FURBABIES ❗️❣️🐾

Come February, Americans anticipate the activity of Punxsutawney Phil, the climate-forecasting rodent whose shadow will signal if winter will persist longer or be shorter.

But weather isn’t the only thing we’re eager to get an expert forecast on right now. Many of us also want to know where mortgage rates will land in the second month of 2023, all the better to guide our decisions on purchasing or refinancing a home.

Here’s a silver lining among these overcast days of snow, ice and frigid temperatures: Freddie Mac reports that mortgage rates continue to dip. The benchmark 30-year fixed-rate mortgage is averaging 6.13 percent at the time of this writing, up 2.58 percent from a year ago but down from its 7.08 percent high last autumn. And the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) reports that for the week ending Jan. 20, mortgage applications jumped 7.0 percent over the week prior.