It’s getting to the point where it is so competitive that buyers will be tempted to make offers without contingencies to improve their chances of winning. But let’s face it, they would do so reluctantly.
Sellers should be very cautious about taking an offer with no contingencies.
You will be making a deal that would have maximum buyer’s remorse. If the buyers change their mind, and they insist on fighting for the deposit, it will tie up the property so you can’t sell it to anyone else.
Are you going to chase them around for 6-12 months to try to get their deposit and risk missing the peak – and screw up your plans for moving too?
Part of the challenge of the low-inventory era is to find the hidden gems. Travel into south Vista just two miles from Carlsbad and look how much further your money goes!
Here’s our new listing that overlooks the private Shadowridge Golf Club for only $699,000!
1990 Spyglass Circle, Vista
3 br/2.5 ba, 1,835sf
YB: 1988
HOA fee: $165/mo
The former model home ideally located above the 8th green has been beautifully remodeled and is better than new! Hardwood floors, new carpet and paint, newer kitchen and tuned-up baths! Located in a highly-desirable community with low HOA and no Mello-Roos, plus community pool & spa. Check it out!
Our seasonally-adjusted Case-Shiller Index rose more in one month than any other U.S. metro area!
The increase in the three-month annual percentage was nearly 22%, and it doesn’t include March and April which have been hotter.
The San Diego index was still positive during the initial Covid months (but muted), so it’s safe to say that the year-over-year percentage increase for the next few readings will be substantially higher than February’s.
Could San Diego end up with 30% appreciation in 2021?
Zillow is optimistic that we will see more homes being listed for sale:
In prior years, inventory has generally increased in March, and the return to some seasonal normality is a positive sign that the market is reaching a more steady state and could see inventory rise more steadily going forward. With home values skyrocketing, vaccination rates rising, and employees getting long-term guidance on where they can work, we expect an increasing number of homeowners to enter the market and list in coming months. That will come as welcome news to home shoppers enmeshed in bidding wars and watching homes get plucked off the market weeks faster than usual.
But their graph shows an interesting trend. Our inventory had already been dropping since the middle of 2019, and is probably why the beginning of 2020 felt hotter than usual:
If we are nearing two years’ worth of declining inventory, than it wasn’t just a Covid-related event – which means the low-inventory environment will persist after Covid is gone.
If baby-boomers control our destiny and continue to age in place, then it may last for years to come.
But does it impact sales?
Here’s how this month’s numbers compare to the full month of April, 2019:
NSDCC Listings and Sales in April
Year
Number of Listings
Number of Detached-Home Sales
2019
494
265
2021
293
268
We have already exceeded the number of sales for all of April, 2019 with a few days left to go!
These are the optimal frenzy ingredients of all-time!
If we do see more homes coming on the market, they should all get gobbled up and cause even crazier market conditions as buyers could have a new listing to consider every week, instead of every month. It might even put a dent in the pricing trend that has been going straight up:
San Diego had positive gains straight through the Covid-19 era:
San Diego Non-Seasonally-Adjusted CSI changes
Observation Month
SD CSI
M-o-M chg
Y-o-Y chg
January ’19
251.30
-0.2%
+1.3%
Feb
253.69
+0.9%
+1.1%
Mar
256.40
+1.1%
+1.2%
Apr
257.63
+0.5%
+0.8%
May
260.08
+1.0%
+1.1%
June
261.90
+0.7%
+1.3%
July
263.66
+0.7%
+2.0%
Aug
263.23
-0.2%
+2.3%
Sep
263.26
0%
+2.8%
Oct
262.56
-0.2%
+2.7%
Nov
263.18
+0.2%
+3.9%
Dec
263.51
+0.1%
+4.7%
Jan ’20
264.04
+0.2%
+5.1%
Feb
265.34
+0.5%
+4.6%
Mar
269.63
+1.6%
+5.2%
Apr
272.48
+1.1%
+5.8%
May
273.51
+0.4%
+5.2%
June
274.91
+0.5%
+5.0%
July
278.00
+1.1%
+5.4%
Aug
283.06
+1.8%
+7.6%
Sep
288.11
+1.8%
+9.4%
Oct
292.85
+1.6%
+11.5%
Nov
295.64
+1.0%
+12.3%
Dec
297.52
+0.6%
+13.0%
Jan ’21
301.72
+1.4%
+14.3%
Feb
310.62
+2.9%
+17.1%
The index should continue to rise more than 2% month-over-month over the next few readings.
Wifey did this for me because I left this morning before the new number was released. We’re heading for more than 20% appreciation this year! San Diego jumped into the #2 slot for the whole country too! From cnbc:
The cities with the largest gains continue to be Phoenix, San Diego and Seattle. Prices in Phoenix gained 17.4% year over year, followed by San Diego with a 17% increase and Seattle with a 15.4% increase. Nineteen of the 20 cities reported stronger price gains in the year ended February 2021 versus the year ended January.
Even as vaccines are distributed more widely and Americans start to emerge back into the economy, the desire for larger living spaces with more outdoor amenities appears not to be waning.
“This demand may represent buyers who accelerated purchases that would have happened anyway over the next several years,” said Lazzara. “Alternatively, there may have been a secular change in preferences, leading to a permanent shift in the demand curve for housing. Future data will be required to analyze this question.”
Two weeks ago we hit a slight dip attributed to the spring break, and the pendings have roared back:
Three Weeks Ago:
Actives: 334
Pendings: 362
Two Weeks Ago:
Actives: 357
Pendings: 344
One Week Ago:
Actives: 335
Pendings: 358
This Week:
Actives: 342
Pendings: 362
While the +20 pendings over actives is impressive, the 362 is far from an all-time high. The total number of pendings was in the 400s between June 22nd and Nov 30th, with the high being 491 on September 7th.
These average $$/sf are touching new highs though, and the sellers will keep pushing:
NSDCC Detached-Home Active Listings
Price Range
# NSDCC Active Listings
Average LP/sf
# Sold Last 60 Days
Average SP/sf
$0-$1.0M
8
$604/sf
27
$561/sf
$1.0M – $1.5M
33
$688/sf
132
$594/sf
$1.5 – $2.0M
43
$693/sf
151
$639/sf
$2.0M – $3.0M
51
$1,005/sf
118
$747/sf
$3.0M+
212
$1,419/sf
107
$943/sf
If you can buy a house between La Jolla and Carlsbad for less than $600/sf today, you’re doing pretty good!
This has a Del Mar address but Sun Valley is east of the 5 and feels more like Rancho Santa Fe, its neighbor down the street here. This sold for $2,675,000 last June, which seems like a relative bargain today:
It never occurs to agents to properly conduct a bidding war where the market decides the winner.
Instead, they choose the easy route and just collect offers, itemize them on a spreadsheet, and then point out a winner to the sellers. It is an ego-boosting choice that fares well around the brokerage’s water cooler, but is likely to leave loads of money on the table.
Agents who deny open bidding and just process one round of blind offers are clerks, not salesmen.
By the time they got the last offer, Quinn and Daryn Shapurji had received 54 bids on their four-bedroom, single-family house in Fishers, Ind., in just three days. Ms. Shapurji said they felt totally overwhelmed — and a bit melancholy.
“We felt bad that we had to say no to so many people, because we got a lot of beautiful letters from buyers saying how much they loved our house and why they wanted to live in the area,” said Ms. Shapurji, 32, a closing coordinator for a home builder. “Some buyers had already struck out on five or six homes.”
Chris Dossman, the couple’s real estate agent, suggested they take a cash offer that was $25,000 above their home’s list price of $220,000. “It wasn’t the highest offer they received, but the cash buyer waived the appraisal, so we knew that we weren’t going to have an issue with the home closing from a financing perspective,” said Ms. Dossman, an agent with Century 21 Scheetz based in Indianapolis.
“Fifty-four offers is by far the highest number of offers that I’ve ever received for a listing,” added Ms. Dossman, who has been an agent for 15 years.
“We’re seeing an inventory crisis,” said Katie Wethman, a Washington, D.C.-based real estate agent at Keller Williams Realty. Indeed, total home supply at the end of March sat at only 1.07 million units, down 28.2 percent from a year ago, according to the National Association of Realtors. The association’s data also found that homes typically sold in a record-low time of just 18 days in March, down from a 29-day average in March 2020.
Still, sellers face a challenge: “Getting inundated with offers can be overwhelming, and it can make it harder for sellers to choose the best offer,” said Alicia Stoughton, a real estate agent and designer at Keller Williams Advisors in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Why? Because “the highest offer isn’t always the best offer,” Ms. Stoughton said.
Here are the factors sellers should consider, in addition to purchase price, when evaluating multiple offers.
“Cash is king,” according to Nancy Newquist-Nolan, a real estate agent at Coldwell Banker in Santa Barbara, Calif. “I often recommend sellers take a cash offer, even if it’s not the highest offer.”
Still, mortgage buyers aren’t completely out of the running, said Ms. Wethman. “If you’re confident in the buyer’s lender and their ability to get approved for a mortgage, there’s not a lot of risk taking an offer from a buyer who’s getting a loan,” she said. Her advice to sellers? “Do your due diligence on the lender who is providing the funds,” she recommends.
This is a step where sellers can lean on their listing agent, Ms. Newquist-Nolan said. “I call up the lender and ask how qualified the buyer is for their loan,” she said. Moreover, “some lenders are notorious for dragging their feet and missing key deadlines.”
The best approach that sellers can take when weighing offers, Mr. Lejeune said, is to compare them side-by-side. His strategy: “I present offers to my clients in an Excel spreadsheet that specifics the offer price, loan amount, type of loan, contingencies, and other important metrics,” he said. “It’s basically a cheat sheet for sellers.”
Ms. Dossman is also a fan of presenting offers in a spreadsheet. As she puts it, “You want to have all the information in front of you when you’re making a decision.”
Many buyers attach personal letters with their offers to try to sway the sellers in their favor. But some real estate agents don’t even show sellers these letters when they present offers to avoid the possibility of unlawful bias against a buyer. But Ms. Dossman said she will share letters after vetting them to make sure there isn’t any information that could raise the potential for fair housing violations.
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We sold a home with Jim and Donna and from beginning to end they were consummate professionals. Their initial walk through the property resulted in a list of items to be repaired or updated. They supplied a list of vendors and job quotes to do the repairs and updates. We originally wanted to sell ‘as is’ and just get it over with. They gave us a selling price for ‘as is’ and options for doing a few updates/repairs to doing it all with the selling price for each option. We agreed to do all they suggested and we sold for the exact price they predicted. For every dollar spent we got back more than $2 back in the selling price. And they got that price in a rising interest rate environment! Donna and Jim are extremely detailed and guide you through ever aspect of the sale. There were no surprises thanks to their guidance. We couldn’t be more pleased with their representation.
Thank you Donna and Jim,
Jerry and Mary
Heather Quejada
March 27, 2025
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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.
Lou F
March 27, 2025
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WeI had the pleasure of working with Klinge Realty Group to sell our home in Carmel Valley, and I cannot recommend them highly enough!
Jim and Donna demonstrated exceptional professionalism, offering expert guidance on market conditions and pricing strategy, which resulted in a quick and successful sale.
Communication was prompt and we were well-informed throughout the entire process.
For anyone looking for a dedicated and knowledgeable real estate team, look no further!
---
William Sams
March 25, 2025
Trustindex verifies that the original source of the review is Google.
Donna and Jim Klinge of Klinge Realty Group have our highest possible recommendation. From Donna and Jim’s first visit to our house through closing their advice and counsel was candid and honest in all dealings. They kept us fully informed throughout the process. The house sold less than three days after listing with a two-week closing. My wife and I have sold several houses during our lives. This was by far the best experience. Klinge Reality is a premium service realtor. You can’t make a better choice for someone to sell your home fast and for top dollar.
Emily Hernandez
December 29, 2024
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Donna and Jim provided exceptional support and professionalism throughout the entire process. We couldn't have been happier with their efforts. They made our house shine, and thanks to their expertise, it sold above the listing price in the very first weekend! Truly a fantastic experience from start to finish.
Jesus Adrian Sahagun
November 11, 2024
Trustindex verifies that the original source of the review is Google.
This year has been difficult on our family, mainly due to having to sell our home. Thankfully we knew God had a plan for us and working with the Klinge team was a key part of it. It was an obvious decision to work with them again after such an amazing experience when purchasing the same home we needed to sell. The challenge was, how will we do this in so little time with so much going on? Jim and Donna held our hand every step of the way. Whenever an unexpected issue arose they found and provided a solution. Never once did we feel pressured to make a decision and the Klinges were always reassuring after providing the information that the decision was ours to make. Despite the curve balls, they never panicked and exemplified the “can do” attitude, making us feel optimistic and taken care of. Their expertise and professionalism was superb. But of all the reasons to work with the Klinges, the most impactful and valuable is their compassion and genuine care for their clients. We pray that we can one day purchase our forever home and you better believe that Jim and Donna will be representing us - as long as they will have us of course. Thank you again Klinge team! Your execution, experience, and care are unmatched.
SABIHA PASHA
July 23, 2024
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Jim and Donna were fantastic! Jim understanding my needs, recommending potential places, pointing out the pros and cons of each property was invaluable. Then when the offer was accepted Donna’s organized guidance through the inspections, paperwork etc made the whole process seem effortless.
So grateful that I had them on my side!
Anu Koberg
July 13, 2024
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We first found Jim through his blog at bubbleinfo.com, which really showcased his knowledge of SoCal real estate. Since then we've done three transactions with Jim and Donna, and they are an incredible full service agency, with Jim's deep market insight and Donna's deft contract and project management. We trust them implicitly in their analysis and strategy, which is based on years of experience. They're always available and on top of things, and we strongly recommend them to anyone.
Bjorn Isachsen
July 10, 2024
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The Good
The Klinge Realty Group operates like a finely tuned machine, with a very personal touch. We contacted them on a Sunday and they were talking to us about our family and our needs on our living room couch the following day. They carefully listened to us and worked with us to identify the best and quickest path to listing within 2 weeks to take advantage of the low inventory conditions in our South Carlsbad neighborhood. They knew our tract specifically and had many previous sales there over the years - they came prepared with a thorough analysis of comparative sales and recommended a pricing strategy that they felt confident would yield offers the first weekend on the market.
The Great
Over the next two weeks Donna coordinated a range of vendors who she knew from experience could get the preparation to list work we needed done on time and with high quality. Our light tune-up involved excellent experiences with their stagers, landscapers, contractors, electricians, and plumbers. Throughout this period Donna's daily communication was clear, concise, and responsive. Any time we had questions Donna picked up the phone or texted immediately - but almost always, she answered our questions before we even knew we had them.
The Outstanding
We had a tricky situation with a shared fence that could have delayed our escrow. Donna used superb mediation skills to negotiate the terms of replacement and was personally on site with the fence contractor to make sure everything went smoothly. The fence looks great and escrow closed on time.
The Truly Exceptional
Our house came on the market on a Wednesday and between then and Monday morning Jim was personally at all three open houses. He was in constant communication explaining potential buyer reaction and strength. As he predicted offers began to come in on Saturday and each one was incrementally higher than the last. At the end we had 5 offers, 4 of which were over list, and the final accepted offer was $100,000 over list. In addition to being over list it included rent back terms that met our needs.
The Recommendation
For all of these reasons we would strongly recommend The Klinge Team to anyone wanting to sell in North County Coastal San Diego. I had been reading Jim's bubbleinfo.com blog for 15 years and knew when the time came to sell that he would be our first call. Jim Klinge is not your standard realtor. He is keenly aware of market conditions and sales strategies. And, works his tail off - though not as hard as Donna . At this point he's gone from realtor to friend and I plan to have him over to grill and chill at our new place to talk real estate, but also just about life and raising kids in San Diego. He's more interested in relationships than his sales numbers - and that's why his sales numbers are so high. We have already recommended the Klinge's to some close friends and another successful sale is on deck right around the corner...
Chris Shea
June 21, 2024
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We recently had the pleasure of working with Jim and Donna from Klinge Realty Group to sell our house, and we couldn't be more satisfied with the experience. From the initial meeting, they listened attentively to our needs and provided invaluable guidance on specific improvements to get our home market ready.
Their responsiveness throughout the entire process was truly impressive. Anytime we had questions or concerns, they were quick to address them, ensuring we felt comfortable and informed every step of the way. What stood out the most was their team and extensive network of tradespeople, which made addressing any necessary repairs or updates seamless and stress-free.
Thanks to their expertise and dedication, our house sold quickly and at a great price. We highly recommend Jim and Donna to anyone looking to buy or sell a home. They are a fantastic team who truly care about their clients and deliver exceptional results.
