Real Estate Headlines, taken it with a grain of salt...

A recent Pending Home Sales Report stated that signed contracts on existing homes slipped in January for the second month in a row. Come to think of it, that may not be a huge surprise since not many people shop for homes during the holidays.

We should be somewhat cautious about buying into the doom & gloom and not erect barriers to our progress just because of a minor setback, like the one we had with last week's Pending Home Sales. Although The National Association of Realtors (NAR) records show fewer signed contracts on existing homes, the drop wasn't as severe as anticipated. NAR's chief economist stated: "We should not expect the recovery to be in a straight upward path--it will zigzag at times."

The most recent general forecast from NAR showed an interesting projection of that recovery. Property re-sales should grow 8.1% this year and an additional 5.2% in
2012. Median prices are expected to be static during 2011 and then increase over 3% next year. Sales of new homes are projected to go up about 5% this year, to over 55% for 2012. Median price will move up a bit in 2011, then up 3.5% next year.

As always bear in mind that this is a National survey and real estate and economies vary geographically. More soon on Ventura County real estate and California…

New Listing!

Ondulando Beauty

4 bedroom, 3 bath in Ventura hillside neighborhood offers quiet location and many upgrades. Remodeled baths, hardwood floors, dual pane windows and a resort-like backyard to relax in. For more info on this and other Ventura homes for sale, visit my web site at http://www.lynnkenton.com/

New Listing!

New Fraud Alert

Many homeowners may not know it, but once you've gotten a loan for your home purchase, that mortgage seldom stays with the same lender. (This is a normal procedure.) As you might expect, a new type of fraud is being played off of this.

In this new scam, someone claiming to be the new owner or servicer of the mortgage mails a letter to the homeowner and instructs the homeowner to now send their payments to a new address.

To avoid falling victim to this type of fraud, the Attorney General's Office is advising homeowners who receive a letter like this to contact the current mortgage servicer (not the number in the letter) to verify that the information in the letter is correct.