You can’t avoid paying taxes, and we all need to pay our fair share. However, paying your fair share shouldn’t place an unjust burden on you. As a homeowner, your tax burden is doubled because you pay both income and property taxes. To decrease that burden and boost your tax savings, take advantage of these homeowner tax deductions. As a result, you can use your tax savings to go on a vacation, increase your child’s college fund, build upon your retirement fund, or complete another home improvement project.
Tag Archives: homeowner
Why Homeowners Aren’t Selling
Every month I tell you inventory is still low. This is not only the case for San Diego County and North County, but also for most of California. What’s keeping people from selling their homes? The CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® (C.A.R.) recently surveyed Californians and found some interesting answers why homeowners aren’t selling.
Home Maintenance
A common expectation of homeowners is that the components and systems in their homes work when they need them. Periodic home maintenance is just as important in making this happen as is having a trusted service provider to make repairs when those systems fail.
Victims of Murphy’s Law can attest that their air conditioner goes out on the hottest day of the year or the water heater fails when they have out of town visitors.
Should You Opt for a Fixed-Rate Mortgage?
94% of purchasers last year opted for a fixed-rate mortgage at some of the lowest rates in home buying history. Yet, some of them will pay more in interest than necessary based on the time they’ll own the home.
If a person only plans to be in the home a few years, the adjustable-rate can offer significant savings.
Not only is the interest rate on the adjustable-rate lower than the fixed in the initial period, amortization on a lower interest rate amortizes faster than a higher interest rate.
What Do You Want in a Neighborhood?
When looking at this recent survey of what people want in a neighborhood, I thought it was interesting how important walkability and public transportation are to people buying a home. Since Southern California is so car dependent, these are issues for many of our communities.
Even with our excellent weather and wonderful communities, Walk Score does not rank San Diego County highly on their walkability scale. We have no cities scoring 50 or above on their scale of 0 to 100. The city of San Diego scores the highest in the county at a still car-dependent score of 49.
Housing Statistics Report for San Diego County and North San Diego County February 2014
The January numbers from the housing statistics report for San Diego County and North San Diego County show continued year-over rising prices along with possible easing and seasonal slowing. This is not surprising since January closings usually represent homes that went under contract in November and December and the market is typically less active during these months due to the holidays. Most real estate analysts also predict a slowing down of the rapid price increases we have experienced in San Diego County over the past 18 months.
While the median price for all North County home sales decreased slightly, the median price for North County single-family detached homes increased by 5.46 percent compared to December 2013 and 22.47 percent over the last 12 months. Median prices for detached homes in all of San Diego County dropped by 1.45 percent from December to January, but were still up by 21.48 percent compared to January 2013.
The median price on single-family attached homes in North County dropped by 0.59 percent in January 2014 compared to December 2013, but were still up by 18.25 percent compared to the previous year. Attached homes in all of San Diego County saw an increase of 1.67 in their median price compared to December 2013 and an increase of 24.49 percent over January 2013.
To read the full housing statistics reports, please click on the links below.
Housing Statistics Report for San Diego County and North San Diego County January 2014
The December 2013 housing statistics show prices continuing to increase with a 17 month trend of year-over price gains for North County detached homes and a 21 month trend for non-North County homes.
As is typical around the holidays, activity slowed down with listings of North County detached homes decreasing by 13 percent and sales dropping by 3 percent compared to November. Hopefully the new year will bring enough of an increase in inventory to maintain a healthy market. To read the full housing statistics reports, please click on the links below the snapshot.
Continue reading Housing Statistics Report for San Diego County and North San Diego County January 2014
Housing Statistics Report for San Diego County and North San Diego County December 2013
In November we continued to see a slow down in appreciation coupled with a tightening of inventory. This resulted in a decrease in prices compared to October, but still gave us increases in year-over pricing for single family detached homes in the North County area at 11 percent and outside of North County at almost 15 percent.
Prices of attached homes fared even better in North County with a 10 percent increase over the previous month and 30 percent compared to November 2012.
Energy Efficiency Tax Credit Expiring Soon
The energy-efficient home upgrades tax credit is scheduled to expire on December 31st this year. If you need to make improvements to your home, this could be an incentive to do it before the end of the year. If you have already made qualifying improvements without realizing the tax credit is available, it may seem like a holiday gift you weren’t expecting.
The Most Wanted List
According to a recent survey, these are the features buyers most want in a new home.
