Not just passing by, but putting down roots. Historically, the Riverside County city of Beaumont has been just a place that you passed through on your way to somewhere else. But nowadays, many new homeowners are making Beaumont a destination — and saying it's a great place to raise a family. The Pacific Railroad started passing through Beaumont on its route through the San Gorgonio Pass to the coast in 1876. It wasn't until 1907 that a few hundred settlers began farming and raising poultry here. Beaumont was incorporated in 1912 with a population of 1,200. Today's city of 18,982 is still a stopping point for travelers making their way from the Colorado River to Los Angeles through the pass. But it has traded its manufacturing and working-class roots for more upscale tract homes. And with a 14.1% growth in population since 2004, it is one of Riverside County's fastest-growing communities. Click here to read more.
Investor guru predicts 'California Crash'. Author and self-taught prognosticator says real estate market peaked in 2005. Bruce Norris read the real estate tea leaves in 1997 and came to an astounding conclusion: After plummeting for seven years, real estate prices were about to take flight. He wrote a book predicting that home prices would double in eight years, which missed the mark only in that it was too conservative. Prices actually tripled. Now the Riverside investor-guru is re-reading those tea leaves, and his conclusion again runs counter to most projections. "The very peak of the market," Norris told members of the Orange County Real Estate Forum on Thursday night, was the end of 2005. Scoffing at many residents' buy-buy-buy mind-set forged by nearly a decade of rising land values, Norris predicted that prices will level off in 2006 and gradually slide during the next four years, erasing the gains of the last one to two years. If he's right, the median Orange County home price would drop from November's $616,000 to below $500,000 by 2010, a 20 percent decline. Click here to read more.
Demand for homes outstrips land. New-home builders couldn't keep up with buyers' demand, and used homes sold quickly in last year's hot El Paso residential real estate market. "Last year, sales greatly outstripped our ability to produce homes. This was true for almost all builders" because not enough home lots were available, Jim Sorenson, president of Classic American Homes, said in a written statement. The company sold 453 homes last year -- just eight more than in 2004. "We had, and still have, waiting lists both inside and outside the city limits. If we had the building sites, we could easily sell an extra 100 homes or more in the next 60 days," Sorenson reported. Click here to read more.
You can get a bigger tax break on your home sale the year your spouse dies. If one spouse dies and the property is sold during the same year, the survivor will be qualified to take the $500,000 exclusion on the gain. This is due to the fact that our tax laws allow the filing of a joint tax return for that year. For subsequent years the law does not allow the filing of a joint return and consequently the surviving spouse is limited to a $250,000 exclusion as a single taxpayer. The complexities in your question lie in the treatment and calculation of the surviving spouse's adjusted basis in the property when they file as a single taxpayer. Click here to read more.
Housing bubble to suffer slow leak. The current housing boom has been national in scope since it has been driven by three nationwide forces: low mortgage rates, liberal lending practices and, in the aftermath of the dot-com stock market bust, investors on the lookout for alternatives to equities. The boom has been spectacular in the San Francisco Bay Area. According to figures by the FDIC, five-year median sales price increases in September in Contra Costa County were 117 percent, 81 percent in Alameda County and 134 percent in Solano County. In Napa County, prices jumped by 143 percent. In October, the median price of an existing single-family home in the Bay Area was 644,000 -- 16.7 percent higher than a year ago. Marin County had the highest home price, at $914,250; San Francisco was second at $800,000. Nationally, more than 40 urban areas -- including Redding, Chico, Fresno, Merced and Sacramento -- experienced real estate appreciation of more than 30 percent between 2001-2004, according to the FDIC. There is no question that the housing boom has reached its peak and is beginning to soften. There are many signs. Click here to read more.
Real estate's winners now look to stocks. Bears move into houses as bulls run to Street. Like other investors in the first half of the decade, McMeiken had success investing in real estate. But with sales slowing and home prices flat, there's a concern the real-estate market is cooling. And with bonds experiencing worrisome trends and increased volatility, and the Dow Jones industrial average topping 11,000 this past week, investors have increasingly focused on stocks. Click here to read more.
First-timers get a break. FHA loosens up, boosting loan limits and easing some guidelines to help young, minority and low-income buyers. The federal government's biggest home-mortgage program streamlined itself at the end of December, and that could be good news for buyers, sellers, realty agents and builders in 2006. The Federal Housing Administration's decision to eliminate or soften many of its onerous rules about property conditions and mandatory repairs should be a stimulant to the entire housing market this year. It could help open low-down-payment mortgages with no prepayment penalties to thousands of first-time, moderate-income purchasers who instead might be turning to sub-prime alternatives with higher fees. Those new buyers, in turn, could provide sellers of lower-cost dwellings the cash to move up to more costly properties — prompting more sales activity at successive levels up the housing price ladder. Click here to read more.
Barry Stone: Ask the Inspector. Walk-through would have gotten to the bottom of the clutter. A walk-through is standard when buying a home, ensuring that no vital areas of the property are concealed from sight and that no defect discoveries are unreasonably prevented. Had this taken place, the foundation problems, the mold and various other defects would have been apparent. Had there been a walk-through, property defects that should have been disclosed by the sellers would have come to light, the purchase could have been delayed, and negotiations with the sellers could have been reopened. Instead, concealed defects were purchased on faith, and you have been left with an armload of costly surprises. Click here to read more.
~Tina Jan~
Coldwell Banker Kivett-Teeters
1655 E. Sixth St.
Beaumont, CA 92223
Work: 951-845-5520 Ext. 105
Fax: 951-845-4916
Cell: 909-446-2666
Toll-Free: 1-877-TINAJAN
tina.jan@coldwellbanker.com
www.tinajan.com
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