We have known Jim & Donna Klinge for over a dozen years, having met them in Carlsbad where our children went to the same school. As long time North County residents, it was a no- brainer for us to have the Klinges be our eyes and ears for San Diego real estate in general and North County in particular. As my military career caused our family to move all over the country and overseas to Asia, Europe and the Pacific, we trusted Jim and Donna to help keep our house in Carlsbad rented with reliable and respectful tenants for over 10 years.
Naturally, when the time came to sell our beloved Carlsbad home to pursue a rural lifestyle in retirement out of California, we could think of no better team to represent us than Jim and Donna. They immediately went to work to update our house built in 2004 to current-day standards and trends — in 2 short months they transformed it into a literal modern-day masterpiece. We trusted their judgement implicitly and followed 100% of their recommended changes. When our house finally came on the market, there was a blizzard of serious interest, we had multiple offers by the third day and it sold in just 5 days after a frenzied bidding war for 20% above our asking price! The investment we made in upgrades recommended by Jim and Donna yielded a 4-fold return, in the process setting a new high water mark for a house sold in our community.
In our view, there are no better real estate professionals in all of San Diego than Jim and Donna Klinge. Buying or selling, you must run and beg Jim and Donna Klinge to represent you! Our family will never forget Jim, Donna, and their whole team at Compass — we are forever grateful to them.
Jim,
I just read this interesting article in today’s New York Times about developers’ increasing use of perpetual resale fees on new developments as a way to increase their bottom line.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/12/business/12fees.html?pagewanted=1&hp
Thanks for the La Jolla vid, I hope to see more in the future. In your estimation, is 700k for that lot a good deal(please don’t laugh)?
I know very little about zoning, but I would definitely consider going in for half with someone and splitting the lot… $350k for an ~8000 sqft lot in LJ actually seems pretty reasonable. What are building costs these days, still around $200 a sq. foot?
Nice to see some prices finally start coming down in LJ. If anyone out there reading this lives/has lived in LJ and could give me a brief run-down of what it’s like to live in the area I would very much appreciate it.
Genius,
I don’t live in LJ but I have immediate family there. The schools are good, but freeway access is pretty horrendous. If you have school-age kids, it’d be a good move. If you like staying home or just running local errands, it’d be a good move. If you like going places, or have to commute to work outside the LJ area… do some soul searching.
Bottom line, figure out what’s important to you and purchase accordingly. You might try my subjective home evaluation tool. I built it to help myself make purchase decisions, so it might not be 100% perfect for everyone, but hey – it’s free. 🙂
http://homeval.kwaping.com/
Happs,
That is a stunning story. Laugh out loud stunning. It’s the kind of thing that tears my mind right in half. One half of my mind would like to take the developer that slipped that into the contract out back and put a bullet in his/her head. The other half of my mind wants to get nose to nose with the seller who was too CLUCKING LAZY to read the damn 40 page contract and just signed it and laugh and laugh and laugh at them.
JtR, you should do a tour of that REO on Sagebrush. People will get a kick out of that one on the blog.
Love the house. Hate the traffic noise, and there’s too much work to be done for that price, IMHO.
Still, it IS a nice house.
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Genius,
If you ever see a decent lot that you’d like to buy and split, let us know. We might be interested in something like that. We’d want a *minimum* of 10,000 sf though.
Thanks Kwaping.
CA renter – I’ll take the 8k parcel and you can have the remaining 10k. You do realize, however, what kinda of neighbor you’re going to have.
If I see something in the future I’ll hit you up. 10k in LJ is kind of hard to come by.
Well, we’re pretty loud neighbors (in a good, fun way), so whatever you do, it couldn’t be much worse. 😉
Definitely let me know if you see something interesting, and we can go through Jim.