Maximizing your remodeling dollars

Deniece W. Smith Welcome Home. Phone: 650.483.2055 License #: 01295757 Email: dsoldit@gmail.com Web: www.dsoldit.com

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Considering Selling Your Home?
If you are thinking about selling your home in the near future, I am sure you will find the information in the following article very valuable. If you are interested in finding out how much your home will likely sell for in today's market just give me a call or send me an email and I'll prepare a no-obligation market analysis for your property.

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REMODELING YOUR HOME

The classic way for homeowners to increase the value of their house is by remodeling existing rooms or adding on to its current plan.

Some choose to build recreation rooms and studies while others add new appliances, fixtures and cabinets to enliven rooms and make their home more attractive to future buyers.

But, when should you decide to stop sinking money into a home and buy a bigger place? And how much rehab is too much when it comes time to recovering remodeling costs through a home sale?

For instance, if you’ve just spent $1,000 remodeling your living room and didn’t expand your small bathroom, the chances of increasing the number of interested buyers are slim.

With these concerns in mind, I can offer a few tips for those struggling to add value to their home.

First, always protect the character of your home. Nothing sticks out negatively more than a new addition that is in a completely different architectural style. Be consistent. Recognize your home’s character and stay within its framework.

The most financially rewarding areas to remodel are usually the kitchen and bath. Newly re-done cooking spaces and cabinets can attract more buyers and may command a slightly higher price for the home than a comparable one on the market. Simple repairs that are made to last will bring you the biggest returns upon sale.

Some people think that tubs are not used anymore and remodel them out of their homes.  New families will notice this and wonder where they may bathe their children.  Keep at least one tub in your home, preferably in the master bathroom.

Buyers are, by convention, more interested in aboveground living space – not basements, yards and walkways. Swimming pools can be a poor investment if installed for the sole purpose of increasing a home’s value; it’s rare that a pool’s cost will be recovered in a home sale. It can also be a negative feature for potential buyers with very young children.

Replacing worn carpeting, tiles and wood floors can give your home an immediate advantage over similar properties in the area. Updating paint colors in all areas of your home can also prove beneficial.  Both of these upgrades can be done wisely and inexpensively with the advice of your Realtor.  We have connections to just the right people used to putting in carpet for a sale, and using paint colors that make the features of your home pop out in a positive light.

Stay simple with your remodeling and look at your home as though you were the buyer. Chances are that if you find the upstairs bedroom could be brightened by a larger window, potential buyers will probably feel the same.

Don’t go overboard. Concentrate on improving two or three deficiencies in your home. More than likely, the time and money you spend adding quality to your home will be rewarded with greater profit at selling time.

As always, I'm here to walk through your home with you at no cost to you, and give you a humble opinion of what is the best upgrade for your money.

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I hope you enjoyed this article. Please feel free to forward this on to others that might appreciate the information. As you know, I am a real estate agent specializing in your neighborhood and have access to excellent Realtors in other areas as well. Referrals are extremely important to my business. I would be most grateful if you would put me in touch with people you know that might be selling or buying a home. Thank you for the support.

Silicon Valley home sales plunge, but median price edges higher

By Frank Michael Russell, San Jose Mercury News

frussell@mercurynews.com

Posted: 11/18/2010 09:47:09 AM PST

Updated: 11/18/2010 12:33:50 PM PST

Home sales in Silicon Valley plunged in October from a year earlier, but the median price for a resale house in Santa Clara County was up 2.3 percent to $562,500, MDA DataQuick reported this morning.

The number of single-family homes that changed hands in October was down 27.3 percent to 1,303, the San Diego real estate research firm reported in an e-mail. The drop in Santa Clara County reflected the market throughout the Bay Area, where sales for an October were at their second-slowest pace in more than two decades.

"Part of what we're seeing is the hangover effect from the expired homebuyer tax credits, which spurred many to buy in the first half of the year. But that effect is fading," DataQuick President John Walsh said in the news release.

"Now the real hurdles to more normal sales levels are the lack of meaningful job growth and the concerns many potential buyers have about job security and the overall economy. It's why ultralow mortgage rates, alone, haven't turned things around," Walsh said.

Resale condo sales were down 25.9 percent from a year earlier in Santa Clara County, and the median price dropped 4.5 percent to $320,000.

For all homes -- new and resale, houses and condos -- sales in the valley dropped 29.3 percent. The median price was up 0.5 percent to $502,500.

For all transactions throughout the Bay Area, sales were down 22.8 percent, and the median price dropped 1.8 percent to $383,000.

Brandon Knapp's Market Update 6/21/10

Will rates remain attractive?


http://www.mmgweekly.com/w/index.html?SID=89e3b2c88ef35d68afff6abeb34bec4c

Silicon Valley tech leaders are reinventing themselves for a cleantech revolution

By Scott Duke Harris

sdharris@mercurynews.com

Posted: 01/30/2010 06:04:32 PM PST

Brent Constantz, founder, tours the cement facility, a... (Karen T. Borchers, Mercury News)

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• Cleantech: Silicon Valley's next great wave of innovation

Brent Constantz's last startup, Skeletal Kinetics, created a bone-fracture cement that costs $200 per gram and helps orthopedic surgeons heal their patients.

His new startup aims to churn out billions of tons of market-price construction cement that Constantz says can help heal planet Earth by embedding billions of tons of greenhouse gases into concrete. And it will deliver desalinated water as a byproduct.

Constantz is founder and CEO of Calera, a 3-year-old Los Gatos-based startup with a demonstration operation at a Moss Landing facility that once helped make incendiary bombs during World War II. His move from the medical device field illustrates how Silicon Valley's dynamic, risk-taking business culture has quickly turned a region best known for computer technology and life sciences into America's top incubator of clean, green innovations.

Reinvention is at the heart of cleantech, and several of the sector's leading entrepreneurs have transformed themselves to pursue these massive new market opportunities.

Elon Musk, the CEO of electric carmaker Tesla Motors and chairman of Solar City, first prospered as a young dot-com mogul whose credits include PayPal. Better Place, a buzz-making electric car services startup in Palo Alto, was founded by Shai Agassi, who previously had been a rising executive at software giant SAP. Bloom Energy, an innovator in fuel cells, is led by K.R. Sridhar, formerly a University of Arizona professor who helped NASA explore the potential of life-sustaining technologies for Mars.

Marc Porat had been a key player at Apple and an e-commerce entrepreneur before launching three green building materials startups — Serious Materials, Zeta Communities and CalStar Products. Kevin Surace, the CEO of Serious Materials, had previously led an e-commerce company.

As Surace tells it, he did not have great expectations when he accepted Porat's invitation in 2002 to build a business around a polymer patent: "It started out as a hobby," he said.

Today, Serious Materials is producing energy-saving glass, window and drywall products at five manufacturing facilities in California, Colorado, Illinois and Pennsylvania. The company has raised more than $120 million in venture capital and won praise from the Obama administration for creating green jobs amid environmental and economic troubles.

Several valley entrepreneurs see potential in reinventing "the built environment." Conventional means of producing cement, bricks and drywall are energy-intensive and give off vast amounts of carbon dioxide, which scientists view as the chief accelerant of climate change. Surace and Porat cite a Department of Energy report that found

the full life-cycle of buildings, roads and bridges — the production of materials, the construction and operation — accounts for 51 percent of the nation's energy use.

Constantz, who is also a consulting professor at Stanford, said it was at Stanford's Woods Institute for the Environment that he first became aware that the cement industry produces 5 percent of the world's carbon dioxide emission, ranking it a third leading cause behind transportation and power plants. Constantz developed a radically different chemical process that eliminates carbon dioxide production.

Then he placed a call to venture capitalist Vinod Khosla, whom he had known since the 1980s, when Khosla was among the founders of Sun Microsystems. Khosla, known for investing in experimental technologies aimed at big markets, quickly embraced the project and has provided an undisclosed amount of funding.

Calera was founded in 2007 to bring Constantz's brainstorm to market. While conventional cement production requires kilns that heat limestone to 1,400 degrees Celsius, Calera's process recycles power plant emissions, scrubbing the carbon dioxide with alkaline water to create a raw material for cement. The result, Constantz says, is a "negative carbon" product because it both cleanses power plant emissions and eliminates carbon dioxide in cement production.

At its demo operation beside Dynegy's natural gas-burning power plant at Moss Landing, Calera is fed by two old pipelines with seawater and a new pipeline from the power plant that redirects 10 percent of its flue gases. (The goal is to eventually use it all.) The chemical process, which Constantz says is akin to converting milk into powdered milk, produces cement powder. The byproduct of desalinated water is sold to the Pajaro Valley Water Management Agency or returned to the ocean.

Calera also has pilot projects in Australia, using underground brine water, and in Dubai, using seawater. In those locales, Constantz said, the water byproduct is a much-coveted bonus. Calera has inked a partnership with Bechtel, the San Francisco-based construction giant, to bring the technology to global market. Power plant operators facing pressure to curb carbon emissions may do so by getting into the cement business.

Calera also spread the word by delivering a set of benches made from its green concrete to the plaza outside the recent Copenhagen climate summit. Viewed from above, the benches spell: HOPE.

Contact Scott Duke Harris at 408-920-2704.

Existing Home Sales Decline More Than Forecast

Business Week Report as of January 25, 2010

By Courtney Schlisserman

Jan. 25 (Bloomberg) -- Sales of existing U.S. homes plunged more than anticipated in December, showing the dependence of the housing market on a government tax credit.

Purchases slumped 17 percent the month after a government tax credit was originally due to expire, the biggest decline since records began in 1968, to a 5.45 million annual rate, the National Association of Realtors said today in Washington. The median sales price increased for the first time in two years.

First-time buyers rushed to complete deals before the $8,000 government incentive was due to end, pushing sales up 28 percent in the three months to November. The subsequent extension and expansion of the credit to include closings through June signal demand will strengthen in the first half of 2010, while raising the risk the market will then slow anew should jobs remain scarce.

“We’ll see a pickup in existing home sales in the next couple of months,” said Adam York, an economist at Wells Fargo Securities LLC in Charlotte, North Carolina, who forecast a 5.4 million sales pace. Although “we’re past the bottom,” he said, “I don’t think there’s going to be a lot of buyers out there looking for a home outside of the tax-induced effects until they feel more comfortable with the labor market.”

Stocks trimmed earlier gains following the report. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index was up 0.5 percent to 1,097.66 at 12:01 p.m. in New York. The S&P Supercomposite Homebuilder Index was down 0.6 percent.

Less Than Forecast

For all of 2009, existing home sales rose 4.9 percent to 5.16 million, the first gain in four years, from 4.91 million in 2008. The median price last year was $173,500, down 12 percent from 2008, the biggest annual drop on record and probably the largest since the Great Depression, NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun said in a news conference.

The median value in December was $178,300, up 1.5 percent from the same month in 2008. The increase was the first since August 2007 and the biggest since May 2006, the agents’ group said. A decline in the number of first-time buyers, who usually purchase less expensive houses, helped push up the median value last month, Yun said.

First-Time Buyers

The share of homes sold to first-time buyers fell to 43 percent in December from 51 percent the prior month, Yun said, indicating the expected end of the tax credit played a role in the drop in sales.

President Barack Obama and Congress extended the first-time buyer credit in early November to cover deals signed by April 30 and closed by June 30, and expanded it to include current homeowners. Even so, some economists believe the original measure pulled sales forward, restraining demand for a few months.

Yun said he was “generally pleased” with the December outcome since he feared an even larger drop following the expected expiration of the tax credit. “There is an increase in home-buyer confidence,” he said, adding “there is some sustainable momentum” in sales. Even with the decline, sales were still up 15 percent from the same month last year, signaling a general improvement, he said.

The number of previously owned homes on the market decreased 6.6 percent to 3.29 million, the lowest level since March 2006. At the current sales pace, it would take 7.2 months to sell those houses, compared with 6.5 months at the end of November.

Fed Action

The end of Federal Reserve purchases of mortgage-backed securities aimed at keeping borrowing costs low represents a challenge for the industry. The program is scheduled to expire by March 31.

Policy makers are scheduled to meet this week to discuss the direction of the benchmark lending rate between banks. The emergency programs were being wound down “in light of ongoing improvements in the functioning of financial markets,” central bankers said in their Dec. 16 statement.

Joblessness and foreclosures are other concerns. Unemployment is forecast to average 10 percent this year, the highest level in seven decades. A record 3 million U.S. homes will be repossessed by lenders this year, RealtyTrac Inc. forecast on Jan. 14. That is up from 2.82 million in 2009, the most since the company began compiling data in 2005.

Competition with foreclosures has been especially daunting for homebuilders. KB Home, the Los Angeles-based homebuilder that sells to first-time buyers, said Jan. 12 that fourth- quarter revenue dropped 27 percent.

KB Home’s orders rose 12 percent to 1,446 from 1,296 in the year-earlier quarter, while completed sales dropped 22 percent to 3,042. The company is “not going to make money in the first quarter” and plans to “restore profitability” in the second half of 2010, Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Mezger said Jan. 12 in a conference call with analysts and investors.

--With assistance from Oshrat Carmiel in New York. Editors: Carlos Torres, Vince Golle

To contact the reporter on this story: Courtney Schlisserman in Washington at +1-202-624-1943 or cschlisserma@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Christopher Wellisz at +1-202-624-1862 or cwellisz@bloomberg.net

Valley's rents at 3-year low

By Sue McAllister

smcallister@mercurynews.com

Posted: 01/20/2010 08:27:38 PM PST

Updated: 01/21/2010 08:52:04 AM PST

Driven largely by unemployment and lower incomes, apartment rents in Santa Clara County tumbled 11.5 percent in the fourth quarter compared with a year earlier, reaching their lowest level in three years.

The average monthly rent countywide for all types of units in large complexes — from studios to three-bedroom townhouses — fell to $1,482 in the fourth quarter, down 3.5 percent from $1,536 in the third quarter, according to a report released today from RealFacts, a Marin County company that tracks rents and occupancy rates in apartment complexes of at least 50 units. At the end of 2008, average rent in Santa Clara County was $1,675.

The last time rents were lower was in the fourth quarter of

2006, when the average rent was $1,481, just a dollar short of the most recent figure.

In Santa Clara County, the report covers 426 complexes, for a total of more than 78,000 units.

In San Mateo County, average monthly rent in the fourth quarter was $1,628, down slightly from $1,650 in the July-to-September period. But rents in that county fell 8.1 percent compared with the fourth quarter of 2008. The last time rents were lower was in the first quarter of 2007, at $1,624.

"Two conditions are affecting the market: One is unemployment, and the other is the decrease in household income," said RealFacts owner Sarah Bridge. With the decline in high-paying technology jobs in the past year, rents fell in bigger, newer apartment complexes, but occupancy levels remained relatively healthy, she said.

"It wasn't that there wasn't a demand for the product," but renters thought, —‰'Hey, we can't pay these top-of-the-market prices,' " she said.

Large complexes in Santa Clara County were 94.7 percent occupied last quarter, up slightly from 94.5 percent in the third quarter and down slightly from 94.8 percent at the end of 2008. The recent peak for occupancy was in the first quarter of 2008, at 96.5 percent. Bridge said landlords typically feel they can raise rents when their units are at least 95 percent full.

A wide spectrum of local landlords dropped rents last year in response to weakening demand, said Joshua Howard, executive director of the California Apartment Association/Tri-County division, whose members include big and small landlords in Santa Clara, San Mateo and Santa Cruz counties. In addition to high unemployment, more single-family homes and condominiums were being rented out last year, he said. Plus, "Some renters who have lost their jobs or taken salary reductions have decided to double up. All of this is affecting occupancy rates and rents in Silicon Valley."

Renters who do have stable incomes may be helping to boost the occupancy levels in those big complexes, he said. As rents there have dropped, more people can afford them and can ditch their old rentals in favor of something fancier.

Zubin Sadeghzadeh, a recent graduate of the University of California-Santa Cruz who works in marketing for a Milpitas company, has been living with family in Almaden Valley while looking for a place to rent in San Jose. He's noticed the decline in rents — a complex he lived in in late 2008 is charging $450 less now, he said. But there are very few studios or one-bedrooms in high-quality buildings that he can afford on his entry-level salary, he said.

"There's deals to be had if you can afford it, but someone in my position, who doesn't have the disposable income to put toward it, I'm basically looking at rooms" to rent in shared housing, he said.

As Sadeghzadeh has found, San Jose is still an expensive place to find housing. Despite falling 11.5 percent from the fourth quarter of 2008, average rent in the San Jose metro area — which includes Santa Clara and San Benito counties — was still third highest in the Western states, the RealFacts report showed.

The Los Angeles/Long Beach/Santa Ana metro area was most expensive at $1,520 average rent, followed by San Francisco/Oakland/Fremont at $1,502. (San Mateo County is part of the San Francisco metro area statistics.)

The steepest quarterly declines in rents in the West came in the Phoenix and Las Vegas metro areas. Average rent fell 8.7 percent between the third and fourth quarters in Phoenix, to $695, and dropped 8.2 percent in the Las Vegas area to $768.

Contact Sue McAllister at 408-920-5833.

1248 Phyllis Avenue, Mountain View Available as a "Pocket Listing" to be on MLS soon

Held as a "pocket" listing currently, this lovely property is available for sale and will be on the MLS soon.

1248 Phyllis Avenue, Mountain View

1248 Phyllis Avenue, Mountain View

• Excellently located on the west side of El Camino Real in South Mountain View.
  
• 3 bedrooms / 2 bathrooms completely remodeled home in 2008.
  
• Dual paned, low emission windows throughout.
  
• Gorgeous new interior and exterior doors.
  
• Travertine tile fireplace goes all the way to the ceiling.
• Area above fireplace flat screen ready with electrical and cable hookup.
• Sparkling quality hardwood floors.
• Living room boasts amazing wall of windows.
  
• New composition roof.
• All new kitchen includes:
  
• Custom maple cabinetry with glass fronts.
• Pull out drawers in lower storage cabinetry.
  
• Solid granite slab counter tops.
• Stainless steel main sink and vegetable prep sink.
• GE Monogram wine refrigerator with smoky glass front.
• GE Monogram six burner stove and hood.
• GE Monogram professional refrigerator, freezer on bottom.
• GE Monogram dishwasher.
• Custom diamond shaped travertine tile backsplashes.
• Extended eat at bar island.
  
• All new bathrooms include:
• Italian tile floors and walls.
• Granite counter tops.
• Designer sinks.
• Toto toilets.
• New sprinkler system around entire home.
• Tasteful and appealing new landscaping around entire home.
• New concrete stamped and custom dyed driveway, front walkway,side patio and rear patio.
• Sliding glass doors from each exterior room to rear yard.
• Laundry area in garage.
• New heating ducting. (Furnace in attic.)
• New water heater.
• Recessed lighting throughout home.
  
• This home is fully permitted and ready for you to enjoy!
  

Priced at $1,049,000

I'm happy to answer any questions you may have on the home.
(650) 483-2055 cell..Deniece

Talk to lenders before seeing homes

by Deniece Watkins Smith

As home buyers prepare themselves for the bottom of the real estate market, they are attending open homes consistently. There are many potential buyers who are beginning to look at purchasing their first home in the near future. As a conscientious Realtor, I worry that Buyers are still using a method which presents unnecessary risk to their purchasing process. So how does a buyer minimize risk in today's market? Call some lenders first, yes first, before going to open homes.

Seeing homes first seems very logical. You might say, "Let's go see if we can find a house we like. If we do, maybe we'll make an offer on it." Again, seems logical. If you are a buyer who has thought this, you are part of the ninety percent of buyers who sees homes first, quickly chooses an agent, then makes an offer on a home, then talks to a lender. This is a big trap! Be very careful when doing this.

To explain, the home purchase process has many details, which when overlooked can be risky for Buyers. Buyers think that logic will be the primary tool they'll use to analyze if home purchase is appropriate for them. However, once they find the place they love, emotions take over and they'll do almost anything to live in the home they found was just right.

A smart Buyer must remember that the decision to move effects lifestyle, family, income, investments, stability, they way others see us, our ego, our pride..shall I go on?

So you say, "Hey, I'd like to be prudent in my purchase. What should I do?" The answer: Talk to lenders before seeing homes.

The average consumer hears a lot about interest rates, but doesn't hear about all of the other factors that are involved with a loan. Loan variables can include, but are not limited to: length of the loan; amortization schedule; interest rate; available loan products; income; credit score; pre-payment penalties; reserves; down payment (starting equity); family health situation; how long you plan on living in the home; will it be your primary residence? .
Again, these are only some of the variables to consider when getting your loan.

Lenders frequently change what types of loans they are marketing. This week Bank A may be offering a special on an adjustable rate loan, and Bank B may not even have that product available. Next week Bank A may raise the rates on that product because they are promoting a different product this week that makes more profit for them.

In this volatile lending atmosphere, there is that possibility that Bank A may no longer be around the week after that. So be sure to become familiar with Bank A, Bank B, and Bank C to add certainty to your purchase.

Understanding everything you can about loans should be done before you consider seeing homes. The pressure of working full time, taking care of your family, and finding time to know all you should about your loan is very difficult to do in the time frame allotted in your contract. In Silicon Valley, this time frame (or financing contingency period) is extremely short. Buyers can propose anything in a contract with regard to a financing contingency. However, Sellers feel most confident with Buyers who have already done their homework and won't be using the Sellers' time to do their learning. Having done your lending homework decreases risk to you and makes a Seller more sure of you, which in turn can give you a great advantage on the price you offer, the terms you propose, or even (yes, it's still happening locally) being the winning bid over another Buyer's offer.

Take your time to learn about loans, choose a lender you like, then find your home.

A list of recommended professionals with whom I do business, including reputable lenders, can be found on my website www.dsoldit.com.