San Diego Real Estate and Coastal Homes for Sale

With the extreme heat of the summer, homeowners might think that it is too hot to consider paying special attention in their front yard. But for San Diego Coastal real estate sellers, this can be a perfect time to lift that curb appeal to attract prospective buyers and persuade them to walk inside their property. In fact, the American Nursery and Landscape Association's studies show that landscaping can increase the value of a home by 7 percent to 14 percent. The study also found out that it can help sellers to speed the sale by five to six weeks.

With the help of these simple and inexpensive landscaping tricks, you can release that creativity within you to create a wonderful masterpiece.

San Diego is enveloped by a Mediterranean weather so the best flowering bulbs to choose from includes Babiana, Freesia, Watsonia, Oxalis and Anemones. You can also consider the best-loved traditional bulbs of the region, such as the early blooming hyacinths, tulips and daffodils. Consider green foliage to help cool down your landscaping. Additionally, hanging adorable ferns can add a tropical-appeal to landscapes.

Umbrellas can be a great idea to add extra shade. You can look for the better prices at your local supermarket rather than at home improvement warehouses. There are two major ways in which the umbrella can be placed: through table and free standing. For larger outdoor areas, the free standing can be used to shade any kind of furniture depending on the preference. On the other side, the through-table one is common for center of the outdoor area and is placed on the center of the patio table. Choose umbrellas with a cool design. Although floral designs look appealing, they often have warm colors.

Make your yard as a great entertaining space for the guests. Place a table and chairs in the far corner, and add green or white table cloth to the table and a vase of luscious flowers. You can also consider adding water-features like plug-in fountain to create a refreshing atmosphere.  

Installing a decorative landscape lighting can amply the beauty of San Diego Coastal homes for sale. You can purchase a low voltage landscape lighting that is energy-efficient. Another option is the solar landscape lighting that stores the energy during the day, and can be lit using the conserved energy during the night. Opting for landscape lighting can be a great way to highlight awe-inspiring trees and shrubs in your yard cost-efficiently.

Refinancing home owners are putting money back into their home at record levels to help plug the equity drain.

One in three borrowers who refinanced their loan in the fourth quarter of 2009, lowered their principal balance, the highest "cash-in" share since Freddie Mac's quarterly Refinance Report began tracking the refinance data.

On par with the cash-in share, the report showed that the share of "cash-out" borrowers who did the opposite and increased their loan balance by 5 percent or more during the same period was also at a record low, 27 percent.

The data is the latest available from the Freddie's refinance report, but home owners are expected to continue the trend in the soft economy.

The cash-out loan has been steadily heading towards extinction as funding for this once popular consumer-spending-friendly loan has fallen to the lowest level since 1985 as consumers struggle to restore their household balance sheets.

When a home owner completes a cash-in refinance, he or she takes a check to the closing. That can help a home owner surface an underwater mortgage -- a mortgage balance that's larger than the home is worth.

It's a very smart place to put money in tough economic times. 

It can also free up more equity, making the home easier to sell and, in some cases, give a boost to the credit score. This is due to the lower mortgage balance.

In a cash-out refinance, on the other hand, the home owner walks away with a check and that drains equity out of the home.

This transformation from a cash-out refinance market to a cash-in refinance market is consistent with other data we've seen on households reducing their overall debt burdens, particularly revolving credit like credit cards.

All refinancing borrowers are also enjoying near record low interest rates, which make a refinance easier to achieve and cheaper.

During the last quarter of 2009, mortgage interest rates dropped to a record low of 4.71 percent for conforming, fixed-rate, 30 year mortgages and averaged 4.9 percent. During the first quarter this year, rates averaged 5 percent.

One-half of borrowers who refinanced their conventional loan during the last quarter of 2009 lowered their annual mortgage interest rate by at least 0.9 percentage points below the old rate. For families that paid down their mortgage balances when they refinanced, the monthly payment savings are even greater.

In addition to boosting equity, some refinancing home owners also bring money to the table to avoid mortgage insurance (required on loans with a loan-to-value greater than 80 percent) and to avoid higher jumbo loan rates.  

Falling home prices as well as the virtual disappearance of no-cost loans (no point-no fee loans) have contributed greatly to the cash-in trend.

No one rode the U.S. housing bubble higher than the company that calls itself America's Builder

During the boom years, Horton and its peers sprawled across the map, opening new divisions and buying up smaller fry in an industry-wide frenzy of expansion and acquisition.

In 2006, the year home prices peaked, D.R. Horton's sales did as well, with 53,099 home sales closed. Its founder predicted the company would break the 100,000-unit barrier by 2010.

That will not happen - not this year, not anytime soon.

Horton sold just 16,703 homes in 2009. Since the depths of the downturn in 2007, the company has lost more than $3.9 billion and laid off 53 percent of its workers.

But Horton has seen robust growth in one area: executive pay. The company's founder and chairman, D.R. Horton, made $17.6 million from 2007 to 2009, as his annual compensation jumped from $2 million to $7.6 million, according to Equilar, a research firm that specializes in pay.

His chief executive, Donald Tomnitz, received a similar pay hike. Both will receive raises in base salary this year.

The two were not the only ones who profited handsomely during the most perilous stretch in their industry's history, when homebuilders fired nearly half their workforce and lost more than half their market cap.

While Wall Street bankers have received far more scrutiny - and grief - for their fat paychecks, homebuilder executives have been doing quite well for themselves. In 2007 and 2008, the CEOs of the 10 biggest U.S. homebuilders earned an average of about $6 million a year each in total compensation.

And although banks and automakers got bigger bailouts from the government, homebuilders certainly got their share. This came in the form of tax benefits for buyers, tax refunds for builders and policies that kept mortgage rates low and foreclosures off the market.

"Without the government's support, in all likelihood we would have seen more failures among the builders," said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com. "It's almost hard to list all the things that have been done to support homebuilding either directly or indirectly."

The federal homebuyer tax credit, which has provided up to $8,000 for homebuyers, cost taxpayers about $25 billion, Zandi said, while the tax refund amounted to a $5 billion cash cushion for big builders' balance sheets. Individual states, such as California, helped out, too, offering their own baskets of tax benefits and breaks for homebuyers.

Of course, homebuilding executive pay - including that of Horton and Tomnitz - isn't what it was at the top of the market, when predatory lenders pushed few-questions-asked loans on people who could not afford them. In 2005 alone, for example, Horton and Tomnitz each took home cash bonuses of almost $13 million.

Then again, some investors say homebuilders were overpaid during the boom, when Bob Toll of Toll Brothers Inc., R. Chad Dreier of Ryland Group and Larry Mizel of MDC Holdings Inc. took home compensation and stock sales in the hundreds of millions.

Then again, some investors say homebuilders were overpaid during the boom, when Bob Toll of Toll Brothers Inc., R. Chad Dreier of Ryland Group and Larry Mizel of MDC Holdings Inc. took home compensation and stock sales in the hundreds of millions.

"Homebuilding is highly cyclical. You can't blame that on corporate management nor should you give them credit when there is an upturn," said Eric Marshall, director of research for Hodges Capital Management, which owns shares of No. 1 builder PulteGroup Inc. "CEO compensation needs to be better balanced, especially in cyclical industries."

D.R. Horton declined to comment for this article.

Location, location, location
Homebuilding falls in a sector known as consumer durables. That's the technical term for the big-ticket items that cost consumers not just money but often sleep - such as houses and some of the stuff inside them. Besides homebuilders, the sector includes companies like appliance maker Whirlpool Corp. and furniture retailer Ethan Allen Interiors Inc.

But CEOs whose companies build homes make more money - four to five times more - than their counterparts who manufacture couches and washing machines, said Robin Ferracone, executive chair at compensation consultant Farient Advisors. She and others attribute homebuilders' outsized pay to a quirk of the industry: the involvement of founders and their sons in companies such as Horton, Toll Brothers, MDC Holdings, Lennar Corp. and Hovnanian Enterprises.

"When a homebuilding company goes public, it often doesn't make that psychological transition to being a public company," Ferracone said. "They pay themselves as if they were private."

The task of buying a home can be a demanding situation whether you are buying your first San Diego Coastal home, purchasing a vacation home, or looking for a place to spend your retirement. Due to the large number of variables involved, it is quite easy to let something important slip. Here are some tips to help you prepare for the process.

• Always have the San Diego Coastal home you're planning to buy be inspected by professional home inspectors. This way you will have an estimate on the repair costs, if there are any. If it turns out that there are problems aren't readily noticeable, you can use the estimate to negotiate a price reduction.

• Learn as much as possible about the circumstances of the seller, as there may be mutually beneficial opportunities. For example, you are facing the difficulty of qualifying for a big enough mortgage and the seller is worrying about the college costs of his child, the seller might become interested in accepting a second trust as part of the purchase price.

• Before making an offer, research your mortgage options first. Five days is normally insufficient to get all of your paperwork together. Determine the best kind of mortgage, the best rates, and all other things relevant to the deal before making a commitment.

• Learn to negotiate like a pro. Being good at negotiating means you will have a better deal in your hands. Remember that there's a lot more money involved in this kinds of deals than any other deal you might encounter.

• Do your homework. These tips are here just to get you started. You'll need to do a little more research if you want the best possible deal. Read more on the topic of home buying, on negotiating, and on other factors, like schools and amenities.

We hope that these tips help you in securing a deal for your San Diego Coastal home.  

Among the 20 U.S. metropolitan areas with the highest foreclosure rates, foreclosures actually declined in the last year, falling in 14 of the top 20 cities and eight of the top 10, reports RealtyTrac, which provides a market platform for foreclosures.

"The decreasing foreclosure activity in some of the nation's top foreclosure hot spots in the first quarter is largely the result of government intervention and other non-market influences, and not a sure signal that those areas are out of the woods yet when it comes to foreclosures.

Nationwide, foreclosure activity increased in 159 of the 206 metro areas RealtyTrac tracks and was up 16 percent overall compared to the first quarter of 2009.

Here are the top 10 cities with the most foreclosures:

1. Las Vegas-Paradise, Nev.
2. Modesto, Calif.
3. Cape Coral-Fort Myers, Fla.
4. Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, Calif.
5. Stockton, Calif.
6. Merced, Calif.
7. Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale, Ariz.
8. Vallejo-Fairfield, Calif.
9. Bakersfield, Calif.
10. Orlando-Kissimmee, Fla.