Widespread Home Price Surge Encourages Monrovia Sellers

The experts seem to have gotten it slightly wrong.

Monrovia real estate observers always expect a surge in activity when the spring buying season gets underway—an annual phenomenon that’s frequently accompanied by an uptick in prices paid. Because of optimism about the national economy and the ongoing nationwide shortage of homes for sale, a continuation of last year’s gradual rise in residential prices had been what the experts expected.

Last week, if CNBC’s Realty Check has it right, those predicted “gradual” price rises took an abrupt lurch upward. “Home prices just took the biggest jump in four years” was the headline, backed up by the new numbers: a surge in March’s U.S. median home prices of 8.9% compared with last year. Monrovia homeowners who track national predictions as omens of Monrovia market trends expected half that increase. By CNBC’s reckoning, March constituted the biggest annual increase in four years.

The reason for the surprisingly sharp increase in home prices is itself no surprise—it’s still the shortage of listings causing a “very very low inventory.” The supply of homes being offered on the market fell 11.9% last month, year over year—which also meant a slight drop in activity. That’s likely to cause a continuing drag on volume for the rest of the year, unless new listing numbers rebound. Since one likely effect of the strong prices should be exactly that—to encourage more sellers to list their own properties during 2018’s peak season—what happens next is anyone’s guess (forecasts are mixed).

Buyers must have braced themselves for this year’s home prices, so CNBC could report that “Buyer demand is still strong, despite higher prices.” Buyer activity could be due to reports like those featured on MarketWatch, which calculated that homeowners of median-valued properties in half of the nation’s largest cities saw their homes’ equity increase “more per hour than their local minimum wage!” Calculations like that could make the most hesitant buyer reconsider the value of remaining on the sidelines.

If your own Monrovia real estate plans are poised for action, I hope you’ll give me a call. Especially if you have been waiting for a seller’s market, your timing looks good!

Buying Your First Monrovia Home Takes a Game Plan

Once you’ve settled on the goal of buying your first Monrovia home, it’s hard to resist getting out there and getting started immediately! No matter if you know how vital it is to stick to a realistic budget on a purchase that’s this substantial, as soon as you’ve begun to save for that down payment, you’ll be hard-pressed not to at least stop by whenever you see an “Open House” sign. Even if it’s in a neighborhood where you know prices are half again what’s in your price range.

There may be no harm in that—but realistically, only if you are already following a delineated game plan. One that’s reality-based. Hard-headed. Businesslike. If not, it’s a better idea to resist the house hunting (even pre-house hunting) until your plans are charted out and underway. The danger in getting ahead of yourself is that buying your Monrovia house is at least partially an emotional undertaking—and falling in love with the wrong house is the last thing you need. What’s at stake is gaining the incomparable feeling that now you control the place where you live (rather than the feeling that it’s the house that is controlling you)!

 Drawing up a game plan that sets everything in motion the right way doesn’t take Pulitzer Prize creativity. Financial guru Dave Ramsey has even boiled it down to “7 simple steps” for buying a house. I’d go further: the most pivotal parts can actually be found in his first three:

1. Save for a down payment
2. Get pre-approved for a mortgage
3. Find a real estate agent

The first step takes no more than a sheet of paper, a sharp pencil, and determination to calculate how much you can realistically set aside each month. The second step comes after your savings are nearing the percentage likely to be required for your down payment. I might disagree with Mr. Ramsey that this comes next—teaming with your Monrovia real estate agent might be a better Step 2. I know that clients sometimes ask me for information on special home loan programs that support discounted down payment percentages.

Once those qualifying steps are out of the way, the remaining steps can proceed like clockwork: 4. Go house hunting; 5. Submit an offer; 6. Get a home inspection; 7. Close on your house.

Of course, this step-by-step is over-simplified, but laying out an advance strategy for buying a house does keep you in the driver’s seat. It also makes it much more likely that the Monrovia house you wind up with will be one that guarantees home ownership will be a joy instead of a burden. When you call me in to help at an early stage, I’ll work hard to make sure that happens!

Surprise and Compromise in Monrovia House Hunting

 A couple of weeks ago the Realtor website ran a 90-second video about How to Buy with a core message that could be helpful to anyone who has set about house hunting in Monrovia. The theme was about the value of compromise—not insisting on a rigid checklist of predetermined criteria to be the be-all/end-all for house hunting ventures. That’s practical advice to keep house hunting budgets in line with reality. The four requirements for which flexibility was advised were:

• Location
• Space (square footage)
• Yard size
• Architectural style

Although too much flexibility for all four would leave shoppers without a place to start, it’s a list that could be useful tool for Monrovia house hunting expeditions—once you decide on an order of importance you attach to each one.

In another way, too, it’s a valuable list to think about: I’d call it the basis for “dream house” searches. Real estate literature often speaks of “finding the house of your dreams” as if that’s how most buyers frame their search—but unless price is literally no object, that’s not actually what most people expect.

For the here and now, the majority of Monrovia house hunting ventures are a lot more reality-based. Today’s buyers are more likely to set out hoping to find what might better be thought of as a “surprise house.” That would be one that has everything they need, most of what they want, and something else: some feature or features that they hadn’t anticipated. It might be an outdoor hot tub or a two-faced fireplace. It could be a one-of-a-kind water feature in the backyard, or kids’ tree house. Sometimes that large or small unlooked-for extra feature turns out to define the property.

House hunting is simply unlike any other kind of shopping expedition—and one that remains an ever-fascinating activity. One of the best parts of our profession is accompanying my clients as they make their own discoveries and arrive at their final decisions. Call me whenever you decide to get started!