Roadium Open Air Market Info Booth

Come by and see me at the Roadium Drive-In & Open Air Market. Every Weekend this Summer. I’ll be here to answer all your Real Estate Questions; from How to Prepare to Buy or Sell a Home, Best Remodels to Increase Home Value, Refinancing and Home Values, Fast Free Credit Repair Tips, Home Loan Pre-Approvals from FHA Loans (First Time Home Owner Assistance) to VA & CalVet Loans .

I will also have a weekly raffle for Cash & Prizes and give-aways. Please be sure to Follow Me on Social Media for all the latest. (@GladysSellsRealEstate)

First Time Landlords – Tips for Success

By following these simple steps can ensure, you can be less likely to have tenant issues with your new rental property.

1) PRESENT A GREAT MAINTENANCE FREE PROPERTY

Prior to listing your property for lease, be sure you have addressed all issues no matter how small it may seem.  First time landlords, sometimes think that they can address the smaller issues once the property has been rented.  This is not the good idea, as the new tenant will see the property as problematic and issues that may not have otherwise been of concern become a bigger deal. Use Professional Photos for Listing; this helps to bring a higher level of client/tenant. If they see it is well taken care of they will also take good care.

2) MAINTAIN PROFESSIONAL DISTANCE (FROM TENANT)

First time Landlords often feel they need to be friends with tenant. This doesn’t always work out well.  When a “Friend” non “Professional” relation develops, most times without meaning malice or intent, The tenants can assume that because of the friendship they can do things that were not permitted by lease, or they will use the friendship to get more than was provided or offered in lease.  It is always best to maintain a friendly but “Professional Distance”.  1) Setup separate email address for correspondence with tenants. 2) State the best way to be contacted contact is via email, phone or text, whichever you feel most comfortable.

3) BE PROACTIVE WITH MAINTENANCE

Regular maintenance (ie: landscape/spa maintenance, etc) should be done at regular scheduled times, without the need to be called by tenants. This sends a clear signal that you know what is going on and they will be carful to also maintain good behaviors.

4) SET CLEAR GUIDELINES FOR USE OF PROPERTY

Set clear guidelines for use of the property that is presented to tenant with lease signing. Ie: no smoking on premises, now loud noise or gatherings after a certain time, do not paint or make any physical changes to property without prior landlord approval, no pets, etc.

5) BE RESPONSIVE TO QUESTIONS

Should maintenance issues or other concerns occur, address promptly and clearly. This establishes a trust and responsible relationship with tenants.

6) SCREEN TENANTS THOROUGHLY

With any online listing system, landlords have a built in background and credit screen system that can help to weed out potential problems. Be aware of red flags such as multiple moves with a year, low credit score, etc.  These systems are built into Zillow, Realtor.com Apartments.com, Westside Rentals.com and are generally free to landlords or for minimal cost $20 or so.. They will also provide Applications, and Lease Agreements. (I can also provide these)

MythBusters – Real Estate Edition (Sellers)

1) You can’t buy or sell a house in fall/winter

False: Although in some harsher climate regions listings and sales slow down, in fall winter months, properties that do get listed, on average sell just as well as in warmer months. Slow down is usually due to holiday season and family commitments rather than weather.

2) I don’t need to fix anything before listing for a sale, It’s the next guy’s problem.

False: Attending to minor repairs or deferred maintain items will make you home more appealing to buyer. As they will not see it as a “project”. Tending to cleanup, paint and little fixes will pay for themselves in faster sale at a higher price.

3) Before listing my home for sale i need to empty everything out, leaving it totally empty a blank slate for potential buyer to use their imagination.

False: Well sort of false, you do need to remove overly personal items, (ie: family photos, memorabilia, etc) but leave just enough for people to see how the spaces are used. Professionally “Staging” a home has become common practice in the current real estate market and helps achieve both a higher sales price and faster sale. Buyers require enough furnishings so they are able see how spaces are used. They need to be able to imagine themselves living in the space. but nothing so personal as prevent them from imagining themselves living in the space.

4) It doesn’t matter what my front yard looks like, when buyers get inside they will see how awesome the home is.

False: Home buyer will make a judgment of whether or not they like a home upon the first 30 seconds of driving up or seeing photos online.. FIRST IMPRESSIONS ARE EVERYTHING. In this digital age of “instant gratification” people are quick scanners of info so you need to GRAB THEIR ATTENTION. Good Curb Appeal will DEFINITELY get more buyers in the door and lead to higher exposures.

5) I am gonna list my home at a really high price, and just come down till it sells.

FALSE!!!: This is a common misconception when selling a home.. Simply listing it HIGH will not guarantee the highest sales price. In FACT, it can have the opposite result. All other factor being equal, the home needs to be prices within the “comparable sales price” for you area. Today’s buyers are very informed and have a lot of price comparison resources at their disposal, from Zillow to Redfin To Homes.com. So they will know instantly if you home is priced too high for the area, and will simply pass you over. The longer a property sits on the market there is a “psychological” perception that there is “something the matter” with it. Once this has occurred, the property can become “Stale/Broken” and offers that do come in will be well below the comparable sales prices as it is now viewed as “not as good” since it has taken so long to sell.. Accurate Listing Price will make all the difference!.

source: nar.org, realtor.com, car.org, dre.ca.gov

“5 Reasons Why” Buying a Fixer is a Great Idea!

1) Save $100’s of Thousands on Purchase Price (see below examples source data: themls)

3 Bed 1 Bath, 1650 sqft to 4 Bed 2 Bath 1650 sqft
2 Bed 1 Bath, 1084 sqft to 2 Bed 2 Bath 1304 sqft
1 Bed 1 Bath, 1020 sqft to 3 Bed 2 Bath 1600 sqft

2) Increase Equity (value) Faster. The above renovations took place over a 6 to 12 month period and averaged an 32.67% Increase in value. Compare this to the “Historical Average Stock Market Return” is 10% according to S&P 500 as reported by NerdWallet

3) Get a Home in a Neighborhood/City that may otherwise be out of reach.

4) Use increased equity for further updates with specialized financing;

Renovation loans are mortgages that let you finance a house and improvements at the same time. With a renovation loan, you can pay off improvements over a longer period of time and at a lower interest rate than other types of financing. Options include:

FHA 203(k): Offered through the Federal Housing Administration, FHA 203(k) loans allow lower income and credit scores than conventional mortgages. They can be used for most improvement projects.

VA renovation loan: The Department of Veterans Affairs recently updated its VA loan guidelines to include the purchase and renovation of a home. A VA-approved contractor is required, eligible projects are somewhat limited and your lender may charge a construction fee.

HomeStyle: Guaranteed by Fannie Mae, HomeStyle mortgages require higher credit scores than FHA 203(k) loans. But almost any improvements are eligible, including “luxuries” like a pool or landscaping.

CHOICERenovation loan: Guaranteed by Freddie Mac, this mortgage allows improvements that help homes withstand natural disasters, among other upgrades. And borrowers can make repairs themselves, prior to closing, to earn a down payment credit.

A fixer-upper mortgage may also help cover your mortgage payments if you have to live elsewhere while improvements are in progress, and may include extra funds in case projects exceed the estimated cost.

5) You get a home EXACTLY as you want style, finishes, features. Be it Modern, Traditional, Classic or Transitional. You get to choose.

Click Here to See Fixers Currently Available

Driving Inglewood, California’s Real Estate Boom! Tour The New $5 Billion Sofi Stadium.

SoFi Stadium, Inglewood California

Home to the Los Angeles Rams and the Chargers, the new NFL SoFi Stadium is the most expensive venue ever constructed.

Video hosted by Fred Mills.

IT’S the most ambitious stadium ever constructed.

Designed like no other and covering almost 300,000 square metres, SoFi Stadium is partly set below ground to avoid the LAX flight path and boasts open sides, a vast canopy roof, shimmering lights and an 80-million-pixel video board.

Easily the most expensive stadium built by mankind to date, the venue will become home to the LA Rams and the Chargers – and is set to host the Olympic Games in 2028.


Above: Set in a 300-acre entertainment complex, the SoFi Stadium would become one of the greatest venues ever conceived (image courtesy of SoFi Stadium and Hollywood Park). 

When sports mogul Stan Kroenke took control of the St Louis Rams in 2010, he set about bringing the team back to LA.

With a large area of land acquired in Inglewood four years later, the team officially returned in 2016 and temporarily played at the LA Memorial Coliseum, while work to construct their jaw-dropping new home began.

Owned by the Rams, the Chargers would relocate from San Diego and share the ground as tenants.

By almost every metric the building is in a league of its own.

It’s the most expensive venue ever built and the stadium is the largest in the NFL by floor area. There’s almost 300,000 square metres of useable space. The near-70,000 seat capacity can be expanded to 100,000 – and there are 260 luxury suites.

Above: While SoFi’s scale is off the charts, its ground-breaking design is what sets it apart (image courtesy of SoFi Stadium and Hollywood Park). 

HKS Architects wanted a clean break with the Colosseum-style format that most new stadiums still follow today and devised a unique hybrid approach.

It has all the advantages of an open-sided outdoor venue – with cool air able to flow around the arena – and the protective benefits of an enclosed stadium.

Consisting of the main arena and a separate 6,000-seat performance space, the entire venue sits under a 90,000 square metre ETFE roof canopy suspended by a double cable net support system.

Above: The roof’s support system is the largest of its kind in the world (image courtesy of SoFi Stadium and Hollywood Park).

The use of a specially manufactured white metal for the canopy gives the roof a different appearance depending on your proximity to the stadium and the time of day.

From a distance, the roof appears as one solid piece, but the presence of small holes in the surface up close gives it a more translucent look. And while the canopy shines white in the daytime, it reflects the LA sunset at dusk and teams with colour changing LEDs at night.

At the venue’s heart sits the double-sided Oculus – an 80-million-pixel, 360-degree, 4K display.

Above: SoFi Stadium is home to the largest video board ever created for a sports venue (image courtesy of SoFi Stadium and Hollywood Park).

Building a super stadium in this particular location came with some serious challenges.

With the site sitting close to LAX, the project team had to adhere to strict height restrictions and engineers set around 30 metres of the venue below ground – ensuring it could be big enough for the Super Bowl, while keeping it low enough to avoid disrupting flight paths.

The stadium also sits next to the Newport-Inglewood fault line. To protect the structure against possible earthquakes, the large columns that hold up the roof are fitted with isolators at either end to absorb seismic energy and prevent damage to the canopy.

Breaking ground in November 2016, record rainfall a year later delayed the stadium’s completion from 2019 to the 2020 season. The stadium found itself at the mercy of external events again in 2020 as the pandemic swept the world.

Above: The venue is now around 97% complete (image courtesy of Drone World).

Originally set to open in July, social distancing measures on the site mean that completion has now been slightly postponed while an inaugural event by Taylor Swift has been cancelled.

Despite these setbacks, the new stadium – with its unparalleled scale, cutting-edge features and trail-blazing design – is about to give LA the world-class venue it’s long waited for.

Add in SoFi Stadium’s planned hosting of the Super Bowl in 2022 and the Olympic Games in 2028, and its status as an icon is almost assured.

Narrated by Fred Mills. Additional footage and images courtesy of Chargers, Drone World, Google Earth, Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, Los Angeles Rams, Phillip Kalantzis Cope/CC BY 2.5, Ron Reiring/CC BY 2.0, SoFi Stadium and Hollywood Park and Tim Case/CC BY-SA 3.0.

We welcome you sharing our content to inspire others, but please be nice and play by our rules.

Credits: The B1M

Millennial’s Top 10 Housing Markets

WASHINGTON (June 4, 2020) – The National Association of Realtors® identified 10 markets with favorable conditions for millennial homebuyers during the coronavirus pandemic. In alphabetical order, the markets are:

  • Austin-Round Rock, Texas
  • Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, Texas
  • Des Moines-West Des Moines, Iowa
  • Durham-Chapel Hill-Raleigh, North Carolina
  • Houston-The Woodlands, Texas
  • Indianapolis-Carmel-Anderson, Indiana
  • Omaha, Nebraska/Council Bluffs, Iowa
  • Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale, Arizona
  • Portland, Oregon/Vancouver, Washington
  • Salt Lake City, Utah

“Record-low mortgage rates have improved housing affordability, bringing more buyers into the market, and multiple offers for starter homes could become common in these metro areas,” said NAR’s Chief Economist Lawrence Yun. “With relatively better employment conditions and a strong presence of millennials in these markets, more new home construction will be required to fully satisfy the housing demand as the economy reopens.”

NAR identified the top 10 metro areas for millennial homebuyers by analyzing current housing affordability, local job market conditions during the coronavirus pandemic, the share of millennials in the area and inventory availability in the largest 100 metropolitan statistical areas across the country.

“Nationally, millennials make up the largest share of homebuyers and these metropolitan areas, in particular, offer great opportunities to realize the dream of homeownership,” said NAR President Vince Malta, broker at Malta & Co., Inc., in San Francisco, CA. “As states and cities begin to reopen, millennials will play a significant role in the housing market’s recovery.”

Nationwide, the typical household can afford to buy 40% of the homes currently listed for sale compared to 34% a year earlier, according to the Realtors® Affordability Distribution Score, a collaboration between the National Association of Realtors® and realtor.com®. The score measures the affordability of current for-sale homes overall as well as at different income levels. In these top 10 markets, affordability increased more this year than it did nationwide. For example, a household earning $100,000 in Dallas can afford to buy 56% of homes currently listed for sale compared to 45% last year.

According to April 2020 employment data, employment declined by an average of nearly 13% in the largest 100 metro areas compared to last year. However, in Dallas, Houston, Salt Lake City and Phoenix, employment dropped 8% from a year earlier.

The 10 markets listed had a smaller share of workers, on average, in industries most affected by the pandemic-induced economic lockdown. For example, in Durham and Des Moines, 15% and 17% of employees, respectively, work in industries at high risk from coronavirus. The average for the largest 100 metropolitan areas is 21%.

Another common factor among these markets is better-than-average inventory availability. For Des Moines and Omaha, the number of active listings in April 2020 increased by 5% and 1%, respectively, according to realtor.com®. However, inventory declined 18% on average in the largest 100 metro areas.

Three in 10 residents in these markets – 30% – are millennials. With millennials making up the largest cohort of homebuyers, these areas are expected to see many of their millennial residents become homeowners.

To view NAR’s Top 10 Most Favorable Areas for Millennials During the Pandemic report, visit https://www.nar.realtor/research-and-statistics/research-reports/top-10-most-favorable-areas-for-millennials-during-the-pandemic.

June is National Homeownership Month and NAR encourages current and future homeowners to visit https://homeownershipmatters.realtor/ or search #CreatingHome to learn more about the benefits of owning a home as well as policies and programs that promote homeownership.

The National Association of Realtors® is America’s largest trade association, representing more than 1.4 million members involved in all aspects of the residential and commercial real estate industries.

credit: National Association of Realtors