Does Sunday’s Daylight Savings Ritual Aid Monrovia Real Estate?
It’s close to the end of the line for Monrovia’s daylight savings time. Come Sunday, when our digital clocks are poised to click over to 2 am, they should automatically duck back to 1, returning the 60 minutes we donated last spring. (Well, all the smarter clocks will do that—our Monrovia neighbors will have to make the adjustment manually on duller-witted timepieces).
The daylight savings time adjustment has its boosters and detractors; but, speaking for Monrovia’s real estate community, we’re definitely in favor of saving as much light as possible! The reasons are many, both aesthetic and scientific.
First, there’s the effect of light on potential home buyers. ScienceDaily offers one study that explains “its powerful effects on the brain.” These include non-visual functions having to do with synchronizing our biological clocks. Light conveys a powerful stimulating signal for human alertness. Research is underway to see if those effects can be maximized.
Experienced Monrovia real estate professionals don’t have to be told about the importance of light when it comes to showing properties and conducting open houses. Just about every checklist ever published lists the importance of throwing open the draperies, switching on the lamps and overhead fixtures to brighten as many rooms as possible. Such common-sense preparations are based on something Realtors® agree upon: bright surroundings produce positive, cheerful atmospheres. Not all prospective buyers may be looking for a light and bright home environment, but the lion’s share does seem to welcome well-lit rooms and hallways.
Once the value of light is acknowledged, another area that is being explored deals with the subtle effects of the color of light on how people feel. The Journal of Neuroscience has a number of studies advancing “the understanding of health effects of different light colors” so that “you can design your home or office in a manner that promotes positivity and wellbeing.”
At any rate, I’m all for continuing the daylight savings clock-tinkering rituals as long as they do what they were devised to do: extend summer evenings’ daylight hours. From Sunday until next spring, Monrovia’s Realtors will adjust our showing and open house hours accordingly. For details on those, or any other Monrovia real estate matters, give me a call!
Counterintuitive Move before Selling Your Monrovia House
Long before you’ve decided to put your own Monrovia house up for sale, there is at least one step you can take that might make the whole project more financially rewarding. It’s a step that might seem to be counterintuitive—but when you consider the bigger financial picture, it makes perfect sense.
The action in question has to do with your own credit—which may not seem to be relevant when it comes to selling your Monrovia house. After all, it’s the credit status of the prospective buyers that seem to be what matters—not your own credit, right?
That’s only true as far as it goes. The fact is that for the majority of homeowners selling your house is only Step One. Step Two comes with the purchase of your next residence. Especially if your own financial profile is perfectly acceptable (and bound to become even more solid once you’ve banked the gains from the sale of your current property), it’s a simple truth that an even higher credit score will earn offers of a lower mortgage interest rate on that next house. Even a small percentage point increment can result in a big difference in “cash out” over the long haul.
So, what advance steps can you take to improve your own credit? Aside from those that everyone knows, like paying credit cards on time and, of course, doing likewise for your current mortgage, one counterintuitive step might be to take out a personal loan—even if you don’t really need it!
I don’t offer financial advice, so this would be something you would run by your own CPA or other trusted financial counselor. But as J.M. Simon and Brady Porche write, if you want a top FICO score (“the kind that gets you the best rates, the highest limits”) you’re “going to have to mix it up a bit”—meaning build a credit history that shows responsible use of different kinds of credit. The types of credit used is, in fact, one of the five factors that lenders measure—and it’s said to account for about 10% of a consumer’s FICO score. So establishing a personal loan, financing a retail store purchase, or opening some other previously untapped variety of credit can result in an improved score. Since that can take a while to register, advance planning pays off.
Selling your Monrovia house is one of the major milestones in any family’s life—one that deserves careful preparation and implementation. It’s my job to help make sure that all happens—beginning when you give me a call
What Experts Say about Selling Your Monrovia House Now
From the home sales analysts at Pulsenomics comes the latest findings on how home sellers are likely to fare if they decide to list their properties this autumn. Our Monrovia market is only one data point in national surveys like this one—but Pulsenomics has a history of accurately zeroing in on the direction of real estate activity. For Monrovia homeowners who are exploring selling their house anytime within the next few years, that’s worth checking out.
The major points covered in their most recent release:
- Home value appreciation has improved in 2018 over 2017, with a predicted growth by year’s end of just shy of 6%. Since that’s the bottom line demonstration of the continuing investment value of owning your own home, it keeps home sellers in the power position in negotiations.
- The speed of that same appreciation has begun to slow in more than half of the nation’s metropolitan markets—suggesting that the days when sellers hold the upper hand may be numbered.
- Appreciation in home values remains above the historical average.
- Inventories at the most affordable price points continue to lag—another factor which encourages selling.
The report is a compilation of the opinions of more than 100 real estate economists and experts whose overall prediction is that sellers’ market conditions will likely continue in most places through 2019; then possibly tilting toward buyers at some point in 2020.
The character of the real estate market is one factor that helps homeowners decide if conditions are favorable for selling their house. Another is the actual data—the recorded sales for similar homes in the immediate vicinity—the “comps.” I’ll be happy to share an in-depth a look at how properties similar to your own have been fared recently (with no obligation, of course). Just give me a call!