About Humboldt County, CA

I am so excited! I finally closed a listing that I've had listed since 12/22/2007. The stats were incredible:

2 bedroom, 1 bathroom, just under 900 sq. ft. and situated on 3.4 acres in a beach community. Sounds great right? Wrong. There were so many building restrictions between the Coastal Commission and the Local building department. Additionally, it could not be subdivided and there was a power stanchion in the middle of the property with a very large easement.

I had this listing in escrow 5 times. Falling out became routine and each time I had to field more calls about the property and re-educate every prospective buyer. This was time consuming. But the upshot is that I met a lot of great people and met a few clients. That's the way these thing work. Additionally the Buyers are perfect for this property. They want privacy, which this parcel affords, and the buyer is a carpenter, so he can fix up the run down house and he doesn't want to make it any bigger.

So everything worked out in the end.

Anyone else have a long Escrow/Listing Horror stories?

By the way, here was the house:

I am so excited! I finally closed a listing that I've had listed since 12/22/2007. The stats were incredible:

2 bedroom, 1 bathroom, just under 900 sq. ft. and situated on 3.4 acres in a beach community. Sounds great right? Wrong. There were so many building restrictions between the Coastal Commission and the Local building department. Additionally, it could not be subdivided and there was a power stanchion in the middle of the property with a very large easement.

I had this listing in escrow 5 times. Falling out became routine and each time I had to field more calls about the property and re-educate every prospective buyer. This was time consuming. But the upshot is that I met a lot of great people and met a few clients. That's the way these thing work. Additionally the Buyers are perfect for this property. They want privacy, which this parcel affords, and the buyer is a carpenter, so he can fix up the run down house and he doesn't want to make it any bigger.

So everything worked out in the end.

Anyone else have a long Escrow/Listing Horror stories?

By the way, here was the house:

Full disclosure always helps!

Full Disclosure always helps!

Looking for a home using Humboldt County MLS Listings search tools is a great way to start the home buying process. Especially right now when mortgage rates are lower then they've ever been and home prices have really come down a lot in the last several years. This combo makes Humboldt a very good buy right now.

We may have not hit bottom yet, but we're probably close. So doing your preliminary home search on the public Humboldt County MLS Listings sites is a good first move, because it gives you a chance to see what you can get for say $300,000 to $350,000. You usually will find homes of all shapes and sizes, conditions and of course some are located in areas you would choose to live in and some are not.

But looking at Humboldt County MLS Listings online will only get you so far when it comes to figuring out what kind of home you are looking for and what neighborhoods you would want to live in. If you currently own a home or rent in Humboldt County CA then the best way to figure out where you want to buy your first or next home is to get in your car and start driving around.

Here are a few tips to really get comfortable with what's selling in our Humboldt County Real Estate market today and what to think about if your planning on buying a home in Humboldt County in the next few months:

1) Drive or Bike around the cities and neighborhoods that you think you would like to live in and rank them. Then map those neighborhoods out. This way you will stay focused when actually going out to actively search for your next home.

2) Once your ready to buy find a Realtor who is actively keeping up with the market. One who previews(sees a home without a buyer) new listings and tracks home prices in the micromarkets within our Humboldt County Real Estate market. For example, Arcata CA Homes on average will sell for $30,000 to $50,000 more than the same home in Eureka CA or even in Fortuna CA.

3)Find a lender you can trust. Interview 3 lenders and ask your Realtor for names. Your Humboldt County Realtor has built a relationship with certain lenders who have proven themselves over time by providing their past clients loans that successfully went through during past real estate transactions. You need to know what you can afford. If you can only afford to buy a $330,000 home and the homes you are looking at are for sale for $400,000 you cannot afford that home. So stick within or slightly above your price range and ask your Realtor for past home sales to see if similar homes sold in your price range to determine if the home you are interested in is grossly overpriced.

4) Be realistic. If your ideal home is 1500 square feet with 4 bedrooms, 2 baths on an wooded acre lot for $330,000 and the homes that have sold in the past 6 months or even a year in our Humboldt County Real Estate market sold for $400,000 or more than you need to readjust your home searching criteria when searching Humboldt County MLS Listings on the web. You may only be able to afford a 1500 square foot 3 bedroom/2 bath home in a neighborhood on a standard lot where you'll have to create landscaping to give you a little bit more privacy that you would have gotten on that 1 acre wooded lot.

Because of our unique situation: Low morrtgage interest rates, First Time Home Buyer Tax Credit Incentives and fairly low prices, compared to 3 to 5 years ago, makes this a good time to get into your first home, move up into your next home or downsize. Will the Humboldt County Real Estate market continue to drop? It might, most buyers who are buying right now know that even if they're current home price drops even another 5 to 10% that buying a home is a long term investment and you'll have a few bumps in this journey. But in the long run, home markets go up and go down, right now we are down, but eventually we will start to creep back up.

To see what's currently available visit Humboldt County MLS Listings and you will be able to search for what homes are for sale in your price range.

To Learn More about the buying process read some of these blog posts below:

First Time Home Buyers FHA Loan Info

Updating your Preapproval Loan Letter

Copyright 2009 Jessica Bigger. All Rights Reserved. *Humboldt County MLS Listings: Low Mortgage Rates and Price Make Humboldt a Good Buy*

In our Humboldt County Real Estate market I speak to many sellers who attempted to sell their home the first or second time around, hiring a local Realtor who they felt could get the job done only to be disappointed time and time again.

It’s frustrating when you’re ready to move on in your life to be stuck in a holding pattern because no buyer seems to be making an offer on your home. You can’t look for your next home, you can’t enjoy being in your current home because of constant interruption, and your just tired of the showings or lack there of that don’t produce a result, while other similar homes seem to be selling. Why not yours?

A lot of Realtors will blame the current state of our Humboldt County Real Estate market as to why your home isn’t selling. Now don’t get me wrong. Some homes in this Humboldt County Real Estate market won’t sell for various reasons. Some of these reasons could be that your home is near a highway or on a very busy street corner. Maybe your Humboldt County home has a funky floor plan, or your home needs so much work that the only buyers interested are investors who will buy way below fair market value to increase their chances of making a profit when they sell after doing the necessary improvements.

There’s a fine balance as a Humboldt County Real Estate listing agent when it comes to pricing a home for sale. There’s the data we must look at – What has been selling in the past 3 months, what’s currently pending and what is the home’s current competition. There’s also the overall market knowledge of what buyers today are looking for. In the end it’s a little bit of scientific research and art.

One thing is for sure. Buyers in this market are looking for value. They have access to the same information that sellers have in regard to home sales. Plus they are looking for the best home they can buy today in their price range. So not only do you have to be the home in the best location, best condition, best curb appeal, but you also have to have the best price in the price range that those buyers are searching in. So if buyers are looking for a home between $300,000 to $350,000, and there are 30 homes for sale in various conditions and the lowest price home is say $320,000 (taking into consideration the other factors for selling), you may need to price your home at $310,000 to create enough interest among the buyers looking in this price range.

Also based on recent statistical modeling of Humboldt County Real Estate homes that have sold in the last 6 months, I have found that the longer a home sat on the market the more likely the home didn’t sell at all. And if it did sell the home sold for significantly less than it was originally priced at and just lingered on the market for months (Statistical info by Ferret Analytics).

Preparing your home before you sell it, is just as important as marketing and advertising your home for sale. If your frustrated about your past experiences with selling your home make sure you work with a Humboldt County Real Estate agent who understands what it takes to sell any home in our current Humboldt County Real Estate market the second time around.

To learn what buyers are looking for in our Humboldt County Real Estate market read here.

Here are a couple other blogs to give you insight on what it takes to sell your current home in Humboldt County.

How Much Can I Get for my Home in this Humboldt County Real Estate market

Preparing you Humboldt County Home for Sale

Copyright 2009. All Rights Reserved. *Humboldt County Real Estate: Selling Your Home the Second Time Around*