Real Estate Supergirl

Buy vs Rent, what is more affordable in San Diego?… Check the facts!

Since I know I don’t myself like to listen to somebody’s rants without checking the cold hard facts of the topic, I will help you avoid the same.

In many people’s opinions Realtors are not always the best source of information, since they usually say “it’s a great time to buy!” whether it is or it isn’t..

But negative stigma or not in our profession, this might be the time, when we are actually correct!

Let’s check the exact stats from Trulia.com.

Trulia looked at housing prices, foreclosure activity and job opportunities, and found that it’s cheaper to buy a home than to rent in 74% of America’s 50 largest cities!

Among 4 categories there are: 1. Much more affordable to rent, 2. More affordable to rent, 3. Renting is cheaper, but it might be better to buy and 4. More affordable to buy.

The no. 1 city that tops the list in the first category, is of course New York, New York!  With the approximate rent cost of $3000-$3500, and the approximate list price of $1.2-1.4 mil, it definitely makes so much more sense to rent a place versus buying.

On the other side we have – drum rolls, the one and only Las Vegas! Even with cheap rents like $700-$900,  the list price in many people eyes being ridiculously low, pretty much comparing to the price of a vehicle of $50,000-$150,000. Buying in Las Vegas is a no brainer and obviously after radical 50-60% price slashes, I believe there should be almost no renters there!..

How is it in San Diego?..

With the average rents ranging from $1350-$1850 a month and median listing price being $250,000-$350,000,  and 10% unemployment rates as of July 2011 it is considered More affordable to Buy!

So there!. Facts speak for themselves, and don’t let the negative media affect you.

We can always find reasons why not to do something, or take a risk in life.

Maybe that’s why we find ourselves sometimes being in the same spot in life that we did years ago… This is the time to act and to make a difference in your life and your children’s lives. The opportunity knocks. Are you going to answer?..

Sincerely,

Fresh start! New Company! Good bye, Prudential, Hello Allison James!

Here I am!

Sitting in my new office on 1st ave, Downtown!.. My boxes are still not fully unpacked and the cork board I just set up is completely empty.. Feels good. Anxious, but good!

I did not take this decision lightly. I loved working with Prudential California Realty on 5th ave, right in the heart of Gaslamp District. My manager, Delton Garcia was an amazing and priceless person and taught me a lot. I also worked with the real estate giants like Gregg and Debbie Neumann, Ken Kaplan, Ann and Dale team. It was really inspiring to see those teams closing up to 20 deals a month at times. Also their professionalism is unparallel and I am proud and honored to have worked by their side.

Another great thing about Prudential was the training. They do spend amazing amount of time training the new agents and providing all the support they need.

I dove in to real estate with all the passion and ambition I had. It turns out it’s not as easy as it looks! It takes a special person to sell real estate and I want to tell you I RESPECT greatly my collogues, especially if they are really successful in it.

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I was right!!!! The Downtown market has turned around already!.

As I was blogging months ago about the changes being made in 92101 zipcode, we are already starting to feel the differences.
I, together with tens of other realtors are currently working with clients and having a HARD time finding them properties! Wow, what a change! Just couple years ago, we had all this inventory we couldn’t get rid of, over supply and crazy discounts of the listings prices.
Look where we are right now! No inventory, nothing in the process of being built and a steady demand of the buyers! We represent buyers and there are multiple offers on almost every listing! We are actually WAITING for properties to come on the market in certain buildings. The game is changing, isn’t it?

Since 2009, the inventory Downtown keeps decreasing. The new construction that we had in surplus ( which added to the market crash here ) is almost all gone. We have less then 40 units left altogether for new home sales in 92101 zip code. That’s comparing to around 800 new units 2 years ago and around 400 units last year. So 40 new units and currently 293 resales. You can see it on the building like Sapphire Tower, they actually raised their prices last month, since they have only a couple left..
In the last couple months: Solara Lofts San Diego – 1551 4th ave, in Cortez Hill, unit 205, from $260, 000 listing price sells for $283,000!
Discovery San Diego – 850 beech street, unit 318 sells for the full listing price ALL CASH in 3 weeks! Another unit 209 in that same building just sold for $22,000 ABOVE the listing price.

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New Year, New Real Estate Market Tendencies.

Wow.. This is pretty crazy, I was just working for the last 3 hours on this blog and after almost finishing and even editing the text, I accidentally pressed escape and Everything got deleted.. Wow.
I’m pretty bumped out since I wrote a very detailed long blog, but what can I do? It is what it is, I don’t want to give up on this article so I will just try to give you a quick recap of what I was trying to deliver.
So here we come, it’s 2011. Actually one month in already. Probably getting ready for the hype of February’s Love Holiday! Hopefully people will buy condos for their loved ones as gifts!
But jokes aside, let’s see what was going in the downtown market trends in 2010.
There are 69 total projects Downtown San Diego, among which, 53 are Sold Out.
11 projects are actively selling totaling 1895 units among which 1559 are already sold too. We have only 336 condos available. Considering that this data is couple months old and the current rate of selling 150 condos per month, with no new construction coming on the market, I can safely assume that we have around 100 new condo units left Downtown San Diego. Read the rest of this entry »