Jack Rowell

San Diego Realtors Wanted

So, here's the scenario. You go into work, ready to tackle the day, just to find out that there is a mandatory office meeting. You exhale a long sigh, pick your enthusiasm off the floor and go into the training room and see every agent in your office clapping for no apparent reason.

The clapping finally stops after everyone tells themselves that they can "do it" and the office manager/ broker allows everyone to take a seat. He/ she then announces the first presenter, S0 & S0 from Who Cares Title Company. You annoyingly look at your watch while the title rep goes on and on about the many reasons his/ her company is the best/ #1/ highest customer service, and a ton of other qualities that suggest you should use their service. This annoys you mostly because you have a good title rep.

After the title rep comes escrow, a lender and a home inspector. All of them telling you that their competitors are o.k., but you should use them because of yak-yak-yak. Each rep annoys you more than the last since you have service providers in all fields and they actually throw business back at you. What you don't have is time to be kid-napped by your broker/ office manager so people can sell you on their services.

After a hefty dose of "Rep-Pitch" the broker/ office manager tells you a little about the market (which you already knew), a little bit about interest rates (which you already knew), that it's Bob's 58th birthday (you did not know he was that old and think that he's in pretty good shape for that age) and that there is going to be a company pic nic on Saturday (you surely will not be going).

Did I peg your situation? Do you want another situation?

San Diego Realtors Wanted

Give me a call, 619-507-7449 and let's see what we can do.

La Mesa Homes For Sale And The Market

Hi Folks. In this section of the La Mesa Homes For Sale And The Market series we are going to talk about buying homes, condos & multi-unit rental properties as investments.

Now, we know that La Mesa has great schools (None have API scores under 750). We know that it's charming (Please see Downtown La Mesa) and has plenty to do (Please see Lake Murray, Seau's Sport's Complex). And we know that home prices are great for what you get. All of these things make La mesa a great place to buy a home. These are the same reasons that La Mesa is a great place to invest in rental property. That, and it has a vacancy rate of only 3%, one of the lowest in the county.

That's all fine and dandy, but what about the end result? How much rent can you get vs. the price of the property, other wise know as the capitalization rate (The cap rate is the net rent divided by the purchase price. It does not count your mortgage. It assumes you paid in cash)? So very glad you asked.

7s! Condos, single family homes and multi family can all get cap rates of 7 or higher (By the way, that's good! Try getting that on a yearly basis from the stock market. Then try getting tax incentives, rental hikes and property appreciation).

Some examples of what sold this year and what the cap rates could have been are:

8150 Lemon Ave #223 is a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom condo bought for $130,000 with an estimated cap rate of 7.7 and gross rents of $1300 a month. The HOA fee of $255 pulls the cap rate down a bit, but the convenience will be attractive to some. Also, only putting down $26K is kind of cool too.

8855 Joris Way is a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom home bought for $244,000 with an estimated cap rate of 7 flat and gross rents of $1900 a month.

4365 & 4369 Parks Ave is a 2 on 1 consisting of a 3 bedroom, 1 bath home and a 2 bedroom 1 bathroom home on the same lot and bought for $330,000. it would have an approx cap rate of 8.2 and a gross rent of $3000.

La Mesa Homes For Sale And The Market

So, if you're in the mood to put your money into real estate, you could do a lot worse than La Mesa, 91941.

Let me know and I'll send you some free lists of properties that would make good rentals, or you can do your own search by clicking SEARCH.

Also, check out the rest of the series on La Mesa Homes For Sale And The Market

God Bless.

La Mesa Homes For Sale And The Market

Hi People. Today we hit up part 3 in the series of La Mesa Homes For Sale And The Market and look at the quality of schools in that zip code compared to the home prices.

First off, according to Trulia.com (I do not suggest you use Trulia.com for getting home values on your property. They tend to be off. Ask me and I'll get you a more accurate value), the median home price in La Mesa's 91941 (from 7/10 to 9/10) is approx $417,000. There are currently 31 single family homes for sale under $400,000.

My good friend Stephen Moye at Crestline Funding said your payment on a home bought at $417,000 would be approx $1,690 (Conventional loan) & $2038 (FHA).

The schools in La Mesa have API scores from 775 all the way up to 907. The API Score is a number between 200 and 1000 that reflects a school's or school district's performance on statewide student assessments administered in 2009. The only other places in the county you will get those type of scores are Poway, La Jolla and the Northern coast of San Diego county and Coronado.

Now, we won't even talk about the beach areas because those prices are a whole different ballpark than La Mesa's. Poway does have great schools (Arguably the best). And, they do have plenty of good home prices with a median home price of $468,490. That comes to a payment of $1,899 coventional & $2290 FHA.

Now, add in La Mesa's charm and convenience and you'll find that 91941 is a sweet zip code to live, raise a family or invest.

So, if you'd like to check out schools in your neighborhood, or a neighborhood you'd like to move, go to my www.presidioalliance.com and click on "School Rankings".

Or, you can check out the rest of this series of La Mesa Homes For Sale And The Market by clicking BLOG.

Also, let me know if you'd like info on any home on the market in Southern California. FREE!

God Bless.

La Mesa Homes For Sale And The Market

Hi People. This addition of La Mesa Homes For Sale And The Marketis going to deal with walkability, or the Walk Score of La Mesa. Que? I said WALKABILITY (Sorry for shouting).

Walkability (Calculated into a Walk Score) is defined by the good people at Walk Score as:

"Walk Score measures how easy it is to live a car-lite lifestyle-not how pretty the area is for walking.

Walk Score uses a patent-pending system to measure the walkability of an address. The Walk Score algorithm awards points based on the distance to amenities in each category. If an amenity is within .25 miles (or .4 km), we assign the maximum number of points. The number of points declines as the distance approaches 1 mile (or 1.6 km)-no points are awarded for amenities further than 1 mile. The points are summed and normalized to yield a score from 0-100. The number of nearby amenities is the leading predictor of whether people walk".

What does that mean to La Mesa home owners? According to the folks at Walk Score, "CEOs for Cities just released a study based on data from Walk Score and ZipRealty that shows one point of Walk Score is worth as much as $3,000 of home value, depending on the metro area".

So, what type of score does La Mesa have? My office is at 8341 Lemon Ave in La Mesa (Downtown La Mesa). My address gets a Walk Score of 95 out of 100, categorized as a "walker's paradise" because it is so close to almost anything I could want.

My office also has a 95 in the Transit Score, saying it's a "rider's paradise".

La Mesa Homes For Sale And The Market

Not every address in La Mesa is going to score that high. Places in Mount Helix won't be as walkable as places in downtown La Mesa. Every area will be different.

The point is when buying or selling a home you should know how walkable your home is. It could add or subtract value.

Go to my website and plug in your address (On home page of my site) to see what your walk score is.

Check out the 1st blog in La Mesa Homes For Sale And The Market series.

Also, get the skinny on your home by requesting a comparative market analysis (It's free).

God Bless

La Mesa Homes For Sale And The Market

Hi People. Please scrutinize the things you read, even this. The news media takes some basic stats, with out explaining them, and throws them at us and either gets us feeling too good, or too bad about our housing situation.

The San Diego Union-Tribune came out with a huge graph of all the zip codes in the county and how much those zip codes appreciated, depreciated, and how many homes they sold compared to last year. Today, we'll just focus on La Mesa Homes For Sale And The Market, 91941.

So, digging into the La Mesa Homes For Sale And The Market we see that in August of 2010 the percentage change was 12.5% from August of 2009 for single family homes. Going from $380,000 in '09 to $427,500 in'10. That is a huge jump and very misleading.

In August of '09 there were 32 single family homes that sold in La Mesa's 91941 (Which, by the way, has most of 70th street all the way to Mt Helix, from Highway 94 almost up to the 8. Very diversified). 19 of those homes sold for under $400K, the lowest priced home went for $180K. There were 13 homes that sold for over $400K, the highest priced one sold for $730K.

Now, in 2010 there were 23 homes that sold. Only 8 of those were under $400K, the lowest was sold at a $285K. Then there was 15 homes that sold over $400K, the big daddy being sold at $1.2 MILLION (Had to capitalize that one).

Now, can you see how the #s do not paint the entire picture? '09 was selling dogs and in 2010 they were selling some good stuff.

Does that mean the #s do not mean anything? Of course not. The biggest thing to take from these stats is that people who own expensive homes feel like it's a good time to sell. People with some money feel like it's a good time to buy.

Just don't let the media tell you that things are great, or that things are horrible. Ask your Realtor to run some comps on La Mesa Homes For Sale And The Market, or homes in your area and you determine what it looks like.

Go to my website and check the market conditions in your area. Then contact me, 619-507-7449 to get a polished version.

Go Helix!