Learn about local real estate and housing market trends from The Cascade Team Real Estate.

Written by Andrea Murad - Published April 03, 2012

It's not easy being a home seller in this market. It's even harder for first-time sellers.

Selling a home is one of the biggest financial transactions most people ever do in their lives. And the current real estate market, still plagued with a record number of foreclosures and short sales, can be a challenge for anyone.

"This is a unique market," says Walter Molony, senior public affairs specialist at the National Association of Realtors (NAR). "The real estate market is cyclical in nature, but we've never had an amplification like we've seen in this market. The boom and bust cycle is taking much longer to recover from, although we're beyond the midway point in the recovery."

For first-time home…

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To give you an advantage when working out a loan
modification with a lender, I am going to share the lenders wish list of borrower concessions they seek.
Understanding what a lender wants in a loan modification
will help you better prepare and have more success
working out a loan modification.

Before a lender agrees to modify a loan agreement,
they will want as many concessions from the borrower
at they can reasonably get. These concessions are
negotiable based on each unique situation. Following
is a standard list of borrower concessions:

Lender Wish List of Borrower Concessions

  • Additional collateral
  • Personal Guaranties
  • Principal reduction
  • Cash infusion to cover operating cash shortfalls
  • Capital reserve account
  • Escrow taxes and…

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As of Monday April 2nd, 2012, the median price for a single family residential Carlsbad home has increased dramatically to $678,490 with an average of 137 days on market, up 6 days from last weeks report.  Days on market have held fairly steady over the last few weeks, however only 34% of all listed properties who had a price decrease in the last seven days, while 5% of the homes had price increases.  Inventory levels have been relatively consistent given the current sell through rate, and overall days on market are trending downward.  Recently, the seven day moving price average recently made a strong move up away from the 90 day moving average, which would suggest that price stabilization is starting and short term prices are on the rise in the Carlsbad…

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Home Buyer Moving

Daily Real Estate News |      Monday, April 02, 2012   

While the price of a home and its square footage are important factors in judging a home, women and men also base their decision largely on how they “feel” and whether the home fits their lifestyle, according to a new survey conducted by Coldwell Banker Real Estate.

The survey of 1,000 men and women found that the sexes don’t differ too much when it comes to sizing up a home to buy.

For more than a quarter of home buyers, the home’s “feeling” has to be just right to make them want to buy. Twenty-eight percent of women and 25 percent of men put more emphasis on their feelings about a home than they do the square footage, price, or even the layout, according to the survey.

The survey…

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Daily Real Estate News |      Friday, March 30, 2012  

Mortgage rates were down across the board this week compared to last week, according to Freddie Mac’s weekly mortgage market survey.

After posting a big jump last week, 30-year mortgage rates were back below the 4 percent mark this week, offering another boost in home affordability for buyers.

Here’s a closer look at rates for the week ending March 29.

  • 30-year fixed-rate mortgages: averaged 3.99 percent, with an average 0.7 point, falling back from last week’s 4.08 percent average. A year ago at this time, 30-year rates averaged 4.86 percent.
  • 15-year fixed-rate mortgages: averaged 3.23 percent, with an average 0.8 point, also slipping from last week’s 3.30 percent average. Last…

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Daily Real Estate News | Thursday, March 29, 2012  

According to a new study, people say they are more likely to reach out to their friends and family via text messages or e-mail than a voice phone call from a mobile or landline phone, according to the study conducted in March by Nokia.

Twenty-one percent of survey respondents said they preferred to send an SMS text message to contact someone; e-mail was the second preference, at about 18 percent. Meanwhile, 17 percent of respondents said they prefer a voice call from their mobile phone.

Messaging services like WhatsApp, Skype, Twitter, and instant messengers were all found…

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Daily Real Estate News | Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Scammers are increasingly taking actual online listing ads of homes for sale from real estate agents’ sites and reposting them on sites such as CraigsList as rentals, duping a growing number of renters.

Tug Pierson, a RE/MAX real estate professional in Indiana, says he learned of one of his for-sale listings being used in a rental scam, reposted online several times throughout the Internet.

Another real estate agent, whose listing was also reposted as a rental, says he learned of it when an unsuspecting renter contacted him to say he was at the house with a truck of furniture ready to…

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Daily Real Estate News | Monday, March 26, 2012

Facebook stock shares have been getting plenty of buzz by investors who want to cash in, and already in anticipation, Facebook investors have been bidding up home prices in Silicon Valley. One man is so confident about the Facebook IPO that he’s willing to give up his home to get a piece of the shares.

Reporter Jane Wells from CNBC recently reported about an entrepreneur in Los Gatos, Calif. — an area in Silicon Valley— who is making the unusual offer to trade his $29 million home for $29 million in pre-IPO Facebook stock.

Entrepreneur Ken Raasch says, “I feel like Facebook has a great model, and I’d like to…

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The Cascade Team Real Estate is proud to be a part of the American recovery. 

Good jobs enable people to achieve the American dream of home ownership. And every time a house is built, bought, or sold, jobs are created—lots of them—right here at home.

  • Home sales in this country generate more than 2.5 million private-sector jobs in an average year. For every two homes sold, a job is created.
  • Each home sale touches dozens of different professions.
  • Every home purchased pumps up to $60,000 into the economy over time for furniture, home improvements, and related items.
  • Housing accounts for more than 15% of the Gross Domestic Product, making it a key driver in our national economy.
  • Housing has led this country out of six of the last eight…

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Pets are part of the family. They enrich our lives, make us smile, and comfort us when were down.  Leaving a pet alone at home however, can sometimes test the loving bond between pet owner and pet. Today, we celebrate those times…. Enjoy!!!

If you have any funny pet photos that you would like to share please feel free to send them to info@thecascadeteam.com and put the subject "Funny Pets" on the subject line.

How could you ever be mad at that face???

Much More Than A 1% Listing Brokerage

It will save you thousands, but many times when homesellers hear that we offer a 1% MLS Listing Commission, they might think they are sacrificing service for a reduced listing commission. When homesellers talk to…

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