About Del Norte County, CA

The Crescent City/Fred Endert Municipal Swimming Pool just underwent a complete makeover and is it something to see. Take a look:

The swimming pool has a salt water system that uses significantly less chlorine than old technology swimming pools. This type of pool is easier on the eyes and skin.

This mural was painted by The Harbor Gallery. It is truly stunning and adds just the right mood to the pool area.

The newly added water slide is available during most family and recreation swims. The Crescent City swimming pool and slide have handicap accessibility.

Some of the other features of the Crescent City indoor swimming pool:

• The water slide
• Open recreation swim
• Family recreation swim
• Aerobics
• Water walking/Aqua jogging
• Spa and sauna that are open during adult program (available for use by those 16 and older)
• Swimming lessons
• Rentals
• Crescent City Swim Club

There is lovely artwork by local artists throughout the facility.

The pool has newly remodeled shower/locker rooms and sells snack foods and drinks.

The facility is available to rent for birthday parties and other group events.

The Crescent City Swim Club practices at the Crescent City Fred Endert Municipal pool. For more information on the swim club, check out their website.

The pool is located at 1000 Play Street, near the Crescent City Cultural Center, phone number: 707-464-9503.

Mike Nolan, a fellow real estate agent in my office, loves to fish the off the Del Norte county and Curry county coastline. Mike is a prolific fisherman and is recognized by many for his skill and knowledge regarding the sport. I get to eat what he catches and am most grateful for his abilities. Here is Mike with a ling cod.

This is Mike's son Jesse with a steelhead caught in the Smith River.

Mike says these razor clams make the best eating meal in the Pacific Ocean.

John Evans with Pacific Halibut taken off Point St. George.

Sunset over the Pacific off the Brookings, Oregon coast.

Follow Mike's fishing adventures on my blog.

Selling your Crescent City Home - Part 3 - You're in Escrow

Congratulations! You've made it. Your Crescent City home is in escrow. Don't make moving plans just yet. You have SEVERAL HURDLES to overcome.

First, if your agent didn't get a preapproval letter from the buyer when negotiating the offer, you will definitely want to see one now. Why let one more minute go by without knowing your buyer is truly qualified to purchase your home. If that's a go then start praying your home appraises for the purchase price.

The lending industry is in CYA mode big time. Underwriter's, account executives, mortgage brokers and yes, appraisers, have all been made out to be the bad guys in the subprime fiasco to varying degrees depending on who you talk to. This has caused the lending industry to become VERY conservative, overly so. Lending went from, "Just state your income, no verifciation is needed," to the buyer needing to have a rectal exam to qualify.

All that to say that appraisals sometimes come in under the purchase price, even when your agent did their job diligently in pricing your home. Thanks to HVCC there are appraiser's who are now doing appraisals outside of their preferred niche or area of expertise. You don't have to look far to find blog fodder about this topic.

I prepare my clients when we are listing their Crescent City home, especially if they are listing above my recommended price range, that the appraisal may be an issue. If you price your home high and are blessed to get a full price offer, but the appraised value comes in lower than the purchase price, you generally have a problem. If the buyer is financing the home, the bank will not loan above the appraised value. Even if a buyer has cash to bring to the transaction, my experience has been that a buyer is not willing to pay more than the appraised value and who can blame them? Would you pay more for a home than it is worth with prices projected to continue to decline?

If this happens to you then you can, A) Renegotiate, B) Cancel the escrow, C) Hope the buyer doesn't care and will bring the additional cash to close the deal (do not hold your breath on option C). In my humble opinion, renegotiating is the best option as all experts point to increased foreclosures in 2010 which will further decline list prices. If you were breaking even at the originally negotiated purchase price talk to your agent about ways to negotiate other aspects of the offer, i.e. inspections costs, commissions, title/escrow fees, etc. to keep your escrow moving forward.

So your home came in at the appraised value. That's great. What else can go wrong? Don't even ask.

The pest inspection came back with $3000 in section 1 repairs. Holy cow, now you're done for. The buyer has 17 days from the date the contract is fully executed to back out and retain their deposit if they find out anything adverse about your home (the due diligence period). $3000 in pest work would qualify for adverse. This is one example but there are dozens of pitfalls and hurdles to overcome in an escrow even if the home is in perfect condition. Use a full-time agent with a proven track record that sells a lot of volume. If the agent sells a lot of volume, the agents escrows MAKE IT TO CLOSING! No small feet in the current Crescent City real estate market.

If you would like to talk to an experienced, full-time agent regarding selling your Crescent City home, give me a call and I would be happy to do a free market analysis for you using up-to-the-minute market data. Please subscribe to my monthly market report for an indepth look at the Crescent City/Del Norte County real estate market and how it affects you.

Be sure to check out:

Selling your Crescent City Home - Part 1 - Proper Pricing
Selling your Crescent City Home - Part 2 - Negotiating an Offer

Selling Your Crescent City Home - Part 1 - Proper Pricing

Proper pricing, how important is it? In the current Crescent City real estate market; it's everything.

Unless you have been living in a cave for the last year or so, you are highly aware that the Crescent City real estate marketis a buyer's market. There are a plethora (oversupply) of listings for sale versus the supply of ready, willing and able buyer's.

What that means for you the seller is that you have a lot of competition in selling your home. The number one factor in getting your home sold in this current buyer's market is to price your home below the mid range of the competing listings (or lower if the home is in worse condition than most of the competing listings). Foreclosed listings are coming onto the market at the bottom of their price range and getting snapped up, so in order to compete, you have to price accordingly. If you don't have the stomach for this and plenty of seller's don't, you more than likely will not sell in a timely manner.

Your full-time real estate agent should be a huge help in this regard. A full-time real estate agent who sells a lot of volume does so because they work hard, KNOW THEIR MARKET, and have competitively priced listings. A good agent is worth their weight in gold in this market, so choose wisely.

Statistics show that homes that sell in the first few weeks, sell for more than if they languish on the market for many months and if you think about it, that just makes sense. Why? Anything, whether it be a movie, a new brand of clothing or new listing has a "newness excitement factor" attached to it that doesn't last long. If the item proves to be genuinely excitining, like a really good movie, then large crowds attend for many weeks and people go see the movie more than once (think of Star Wars when it first came out). However, if the first wave of lookers spread, through word of mouth, that the movie is a dud...well, that's usually the end of it and it gets sent to the DVD rental store.

Same thing with a house for sale. It comes on the market--especially in a small market like Crescent City-- and it gets a flurry of showings. This is the time when a home has the greatest chance of getting competing offers and therefore higher offers. The old adage that, "Your first offer is usually your best" is so true most of the time. The longer a home is on the market, the more shop worn or stigmatized it becomes. I know you don't want to give your house away but remember, a home is worth what a buyer is willing to pay IN THE CURRENT MARKET, not what a buyer would have paid in 2005. I know that's painful, but unfortunately it's a fact.

What if, by chance, you do price high and a buyer that just has to have your home offers full price? You better read Part 2, because having an accepted offer is not the end of the story, it is only the beginning.

If you would like to talk to an experienced, full-time agent regarding selling your Crescent City home, give me a call and I would be happy to do a free market analysis for you using up-to-the-minute market data. Please subscribe to my monthly market report for an indepth look at the Crescent City/Del Norte County real estate market and how it affects you.

Don't miss:

Selling your Crescent City Home - Part 2 - Negotiating an Offer
Selling your Crescent City Home - Part 3 - You're in Escrow

Crescent City/Del Norte County Real Estate Market Report for September 2009 - Number of sales were down.

Sales were down for September, however I expect a sizable increase in number of sales closing in October (keep reading for the reasons for this optimism).

The median price home that sold in September was $145,000. This supports my statement I have made 100 times or more over the past few weeks that, "What is selling is $200,000 and under."

Why? This segment of the market was shut-out for years because of skyrocketing housing prices and now, these home buyers are taking advantage of falling prices, awesome interest rates and the federal income tax credit of $8000 which goes away on December 1, 2009. I've heard rumor the tax credit will be extended, but I have not seen anything official as yet. If anyone can provide a link to an official statement on the subject in a comment on this post, I would be grateful.

What does it all mean? It is a buyer's market and will continue to be, in my humble opinion, until foreclosures level off and decline to levels prior to 2008. Everything I have read (that I trust) says foreclosures have not peaked yet and are expected to do so sometime in late 2010.

If you NEED TO SELL YOUR HOME, now may be the time to get serious about what comparables say is the true value of your home in THIS market. Ask your agent to pull up comps from the last 30-60 days if they are available and price your home in the bottom half of that range or at least close to the halfway mark if you need to sell. The Crescent City/Del Norte County real estate market historically slows way down November through February, so price your home to sell now if you need to sell. If you don't, don't worry about it. Springtime will come, the flowers will bloom, buyers will come back, but prices will more than likely be lower due to a continued influx of foreclosures.

Here is the market at a glance:

	9/09 # Sold	9/09 Median	9/09 Average
Residential Sold Listings	15	$145,000	$173,267
Price Range	% Active listings	% of Sept. 2009 Sales	% of 2009 Sales
$199,000 and under	39%	73%	62%
$200,000 - $299,000	29%	20%	22%
$300,000 - $399,000	13%	-	9%
$400,000 - $499,000	6%	7%	5%
$500,000 - $599,000	2%	-	2%
$600,000 - $699,000	2%	-	-
$700,000 and up	9%	-	Less than 1%

There was 1 commercial sale in Sept., no land sales.

And August's figures:

	8/09 # Sold	8/09 Median	8/09 Average
Residential Sold Listings	19	$195,000	$217,460
Price Range	% Active listings	% of June 2009 Sales	% of 2009 Sales
$199,000 and under	41%	55%	63%
$200,000 - $299,000	27%	27%	23%
$300,000 - $399,000	11%	11%	9%
$400,000 - $499,000	8%	6%	6%
$500,000 - $599,000	3%	6%	2.5%
$600,000 - $699,000	1%	0	0
$700,000 and up	9%	0	Less than 1%

Seller's, don't get discouraged just yet. Only one of the September sales in the Crescent City/Del Norte County real estate market was a foreclosure versus 21% of sales in August. The seller's who are pricing to compete with foreclosures are selling! I have several clients who have priced their homes for THE CURRENT MARKET with good results. Call your agent and ask for a CURRENT market analysis; using current market data to price your home may bring you the sale you've been looking for.