This just closed for full price, $1,925,000, which is the highest sale in the history of the Santa Barbara tract. But no surprise – there hasn’t been a sale on this side of the street in 2+ years, and these compete very well with the new homes down the hill. Plus you could have moved in for the holidays!
Quaint old-Spanish bungalow on the north end of Pacific Avenue by Tide Park Beach – a quieter and serene beach area off the beaten path. Nicely-improved interior is move-in ready while you decide your plans for the future (expand the one-story home, improve the granny flat, and/or build up and get views?). Beach access is three doors down, and the rest of downtown Solana Beach is very walkable. Other sales of $5M and $6M recently on this side of the street.
506 Pacific Ave., Solana Beach
4 br/2 ba, 1,540sf
YB: 1949
LP: $2,995,000
Who’s ready to scare up some spooky fun and score some serious candy? Here’s where you can take those little pumpkins of yours tonight:
Carmel Valley
Attend the Del Mar Highlands Town Center Community Halloween event from 4 – 6 p.m. tonight and ghouls and goblins can trick-or-treat at participating stores. Several restaurants will be offering dinner specials too, so stick around for eats that are more than candy.
Carlsbad – Bressi Ranch
Homes in this beautiful neighborhood are decked out, and many look like they’ve been professionally fashioned with lighting, music and special effects generally reserved for venues like Disneyland. Click HERE for a video of what it’s like to trick-or-treat in Bressi Ranch.
Del Mar
San Diego County’s largest haunted experience, The Scream Zone is considered among the goriest, scariest, and screaming-est fright fests to be found in the dark corners of Southern California. Your Triple Haunt favorites are back: the horrifying House of Horror, the dizzying Chamber, and the Haunted Hayride, each casting its evil spell on the Del Mar Fairgrounds.
Encinitas
Don’t miss the awesome Safe Trick-or-Treat event in downtown Encinitas tonight from 5-8 p.m. This event attracts thousands of costumed locals of all ages on the hunt for treats and to behold the spectacular pumpkins that are carved by the Self-Realization Fellowship monks. Stroll Highway 101, which turns into “Pumpkin Lane” (Encinitas Blvd. to K St.), to view the pumpkins at multiple locations while dozens of merchants will hand out goodies to the kiddos. Stop by the Encinitas 101 office (818 S. Coast Hwy 101) to pick up a free Halloween themed bag.
San Marcos
Santa Fe Hills has previously been voted the #1 best neighborhood for trick-or-treating in San Diego––and for good reason! The houses in this community transform into festive and spooky abodes with carved pumpkins and decorations that wow––but beware––some of the decor and spectacles may be too scary for very young kids, so proceed with caution. If you do feel like braving this neighborhood, you’ll surely get an eyeful! While in San Marcos, kick off the evening with a fun Halloween celebration at nearby Jack’s Pond Nature Center. They transform the Barn with “spooktacular” decor and kids can play games and do crafts and pick up some goodies.
The Haunted Trail
Located in San Diego’s world famous Balboa Park, The Haunted Trail is a stroll through the park you will never forget. Enter the mile-long Trail through the grove of twisted pines and gnarled oaks. Visitors watch your back, you never know which way the scares will hit you. Experience outdoor horror that is simply too big to house indoors!
Imagine being 22 years old and asked to play lead guitar in Paul McCartney’s post-Beatles band? Then do 65 shows over the next 14 months with Wings Over America?
Jimmy died on Sept. 27, 1979 of heart failure due to morphine and alcohol poisoning. He was 26 years old:
More evidence of how are sales and pricing have been flat this year, in spite of lower rates:
NSDCC 3rd Quarter Sales
| Year | |||
| 2013 | |||
| 2014 | |||
| 2015 | |||
| 2016 | |||
| 2017 | |||
| 2018 | |||
| 2019 |
Rates have bumped up a quarter, and any action today by the Fed won’t change them much:
Sales, pricing, rates – all stagnant and just waiting around for buyers to find the right house – or price!
If you ever thought of firing off a lowball offer, November would be the month.
Mortgage rates have been 1% lower than they were a year ago, yet sales are flat….and so are prices. We had a 2.3% improvement year-over-year, which is actually the best percentage improvement in 2019. But look at how our Y-o-Y changes have pancaked this year, compared to 2018:
San Diego Non-Seasonally-Adjusted CSI changes:
| Observation Month | |||
| January ’18 | |||
| February | |||
| March | |||
| April | |||
| May | |||
| Jun | |||
| Jul | |||
| Aug | |||
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| January ’19 | |||
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| Aug |
This latest month-over-month reading did go negative again, just like it did in August of last year. Will we have six consecutive months of negative readings in 2019, and send our index back into the 250s? If so, 2020 will probably look a lot like 2018 and 2019, price-wise.
The daughter of our client runs a eclectic homewares business:
Handcrafted Homewares & Home Reno Adventures by Angie Johnson. Est. 2007. LA based (previously, Montreal & San Francisco) Handmade in the US
With prices so high now, everyone knows that it’s smart to fully upgrade your house before selling – at least when possible. But not many sellers do, so buyers get as close as they can and then deal with the rest. My general rule-of-thumb still applies – expect to spend another $25,000 to $50,000 for upgrading any house you buy!
We are happy to assist our buyers with those upgrades too!
Here are photos of a newer but normal tract house that our buyer thought needed some pizzazz, so Donna coordinated the work before our buyer moved to town.
The TV was on a large, barren wall, and adding an electric fireplace gave it a traditional feel. But instead of installing it flush, let’s build it out to add some dimension:
This electric appliance kicks out steady heat and has 50+ color combinations!
The kitchen had an off-white antique finish to the cabinets, which looks dirty after a few years. Let’s paint those light gray, change the cabinet pulls, add some modern stools, class up those pendant lights, and install a built-in fridge too:
The master bathroom was base grade:
Let’s ditch the basic wall mirror/medicine cabinet and combo them up instead – with lighting!
How about this new closet by Top Shelf Pull Outs for about $6,500!
Note to self – always take two photos in case someone has their eyes closed!
Nick was nice enough to include my quote in the Journal this morning:
The Fed’s U-turn on rates this year has delivered “the ultimate soft landing for the housing market,” said Jim Klinge, a real-estate agent in Carlsbad, Calif. Housing markets in the second half of last year felt “like a ghost town.”
At the same time, however, heady home-price gains in recent years have dulled the potential boost from a decline in borrowing costs.
Falling interest rates extend buyers’ purchasing power. A general rule of thumb holds that a one-percentage-point drop in interest rates is equivalent to a 10% reduction in the costs of purchasing a home.
“If you are thinking about buying a home, that drop in rates is very important,” said Brian Wickert, president of Accunet Mortgage in Waukesha, Wis. “But the drop in rates has been gobbled up by the increases in price caused by higher demand and lower inventories.”
Our inventories have been lower around the NSDCC (see below), but even when combined with lower rates, our NSDCC sales have been flat, with average and median pricing up 4% to 5% recently. Tomorrow’s Case-Shiller Index for San Diego County will show about a 2% to 3% increase year-over-year.
NSDCC End of October:
| Price Category | ||||
| Under $1.0M | ||||
| $1.0M – $1.5M | ||||
| $1.5M – $2.0M | ||||
| Over $2.0M | ||||
| Totals |
If rates had not come down this year, our landing would have been much more turbulent!
The lowering of the train tracks in Carlsbad has been discussed for years, and it looks like it’s going to happen. The number of trains is expected to DOUBLE to 100 PER DAY!
The Carlsbad City Council received an update from the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) on a future project to potentially lower the railroad tracks in Carlsbad’s downtown railroad corridor.
In anticipation of train traffic doubling through Carlsbad by 2035, a second set of train tracks will need to be built alongside the existing tracks. The city is exploring the alternative of lowering the future double tracks beneath the existing street elevations through the Village and Barrio areas in Northern Carlsbad.
The City of Carlsbad, SANDAG and North County Transit District completed a study in 2017, determining that lowering the railroad tracks in a trench, beneath the existing street elevations, is technically feasible and has economic benefit. Two alternatives are now under evaluation: short trench and long trench alternatives.
Both alternatives would lower the double railroad tracks beginning from the Buena Vista Lagoon in the City of Oceanside, require replacement of the Carlsbad Boulevard overcrossing with a new bridge spanning the tracks and replace the railroad bridge across Buena Vista Lagoon.
The short trench alternative, which spans 6,000 feet, would construct vehicle overpasses at Grand Avenue, Carlsbad Village Drive, and Oak Avenue, with pedestrian overpasses at Beech Avenue/Carlsbad Village Station and Chestnut Avenue.
The long trench alternative spans 8,400 feet to include vehicle overpasses at Grand Avenue, Carlsbad Village Drive, Oak Avenue, Chestnut Avenue and Tamarack Avenue, with a pedestrian overpass at Beech Avenue/Carlsbad Village Station.
Lowering the railroad tracks below street level is reported to have a variety of benefits, including:
Next Steps
SANDAG is currently preparing an analysis study on the two options for lowering the railroad tracks in a trench. A draft report is estimated to be completed in fall 2019, at which point public input will be sought on the short trench and long trench alternatives.
Link to article @ City of Carlsbad website
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CA DRE #01527365, CA DRE #00873197
