Adam's Blog

Directory Links that make a difference

Adam Pascu, San Diego Realtor (Keller Williams Realty) — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 19:20:13 -0500

I've been trying to get back into SEO (used to do it for a living) for my sites lately and find I've lost touch a bit. I'm wondering if there are any popular directories out there that you recommend. Free ones are always a nobrainer assuming they are at least formulated in a way that a spider can find my link. With regards to paid directories, these are the ones I'm really looking to get advice from those who have seen their rankings positively effected after they "footed the bill".

One method I have been using is to do a search using a term I am targeting, like "San Diego homes for sale" and then seeing which directories come up in the top 20-30 results. I figure anytime I can get on a page that already comes up for the search term I am targeting is a good starting point.

Anyone have recommendations regarding botw.org? The page I would be on in their directory is not indexed by Google, so I can't imagine this is a good expenditure of my $$...

How about the usefulness of the Yahoo directory these days?

Does DMOZ.org still have editors reviewing sites?

Joeant.com?

Adam

Mission Hills homes for sale

Important Aspects of Hosting in SEO

Adam Pascu, San Diego Realtor (Keller Williams Realty) — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 19:07:19 -0500

I'm looking to both bring up some topics and provide info as well as seek answers from anyone with experience on this matter. There are a couple questions:

1. How important is it to keep your site hosted in one spot? I've heard that SE's prefer to see that a domain is stable and that the length of time the site has been live, as well as the length of time it sits at one host can be of some help. Any thoughts or experience from anyone?

2. How important is it to use one host over another?

3. Does interlinking with other sites at the same host help, hinder, or draw even? Some of this gets down to very technical issues of how close your ip addresses are. It is my understanding that the closer the ip addresses, the less beneficial interlinking becomes. Any thoughts on this?

any other related questions that I am missing?

Adam Pascu

san diego homes for sale

San Diego Real Estate Rebounds!

Adam Pascu, San Diego Realtor (Keller Williams Realty) — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 00:15:10 -0500

With all the doomsday news going around regarding the national and world economy, I thought I'd post something positive about my local san diego marketplace.

What some people don't know is that San Diego is usually ahead of other markets with regards to home sales trends (at least that has been my experience). We hit the peak of our market in the summer of 2005. It was at that point that home sales started to decrease and home values hit their plateau. For 2 years, our market got slowly worse and worse it's biggest downturn started in response to the lending industry crash in August of 2007. Home sales numbers dropped significantly and inventory went even higher. The market was flooded with short-sales that weren't selling and overpriced listings.

But early this year we started to see relief. Sales numbers started picking up and low and behold, the short-sales actually started selling! Foreclosures also weren't messing around anymore - the banks finally decided that they had to underprice the last comp to sell their homes and they started getting multiple bids in the first week. When the summer of 2008 started, we were already in full swing. Every month was slightly better than the last and this even continued past the usual end of summer lull. August is usually a high inventory month, but this August, we saw a noticeable decrease in inventory. And in september, we saw more detached homes countywide go pending than since August 2005.

You can read more specifics at the articles I posted online at a local portal site I write for:

San Diego Real Estate Trends

I can't tell you what the winter will bring, with all the talk about such a poor economy and people wondering what bail out plans will be put in place and will they work. But I can tell you that we are doing well right now. Investors are sounding the charge for immediate "cash flow" after their required 20% down and first-time buyers can afford housing again.

However, I am observing a serious stratification of the market with regards to price. The lower priced market is doing exceptionally well, while the upper end luxury market is moving slowly. It is my belief that the luxury market did not adjust like the lower end did over the last 2 years and since there is a larger disparity between them in price, consumers are not buying - they don't see the value and I don't blame them. The Mission Hills Real Estate market is the luxury market near downtown that I watch the most closely and this is what I am seeing.

Hopefully, this trend will continue and the rest of the country will soon see the turnaround that our market has seen over the last 6 months. If foreclosure numbers start to go down, we might actually be at the bottom of the market and start to see low-end values increase again over the next 2 years.

I look forward to your comments and your thoughts on your marketplace.

Thanks!

Adam Pascu

San Diego Homes for sale

My New Green Housing Website

Adam Pascu, San Diego Realtor (Keller Williams Realty) — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 14:13:16 -0600

Greetings Eco-All Stars!

I have taken on a huge undertaking to build a Green Housing website that is an information site for homeowners to use and go green in their home and everyday lives - from remodeling to recycling to energy conservation and even baby diapers =) While at times, I do focus on what is available in San Diego, I intend the site to be useful to anyone.

I am hoping that you will take a moment to look at my rough draft / outline and give me some feedback on things that are there and things that are not, but should be. Some pages have a full rough draft, but many pages are just topic headers.

Click the link below to view the site:

Green Housing website

In the future, I will have another site built with a list of Green homes for sale in San Diego as well as links to other green listings sites across the country. That is not done yet, but if you are a Realtor and would like to be a part of either marketing green homes on this site, or receiving updates on green homes in Southern California, please contact me.

thanks!

Adam Pascu

San Diego Realtor

Does the Federal Funds Rate Drop Affect My Home Loan?

Adam Pascu, San Diego Realtor (Keller Williams Realty) — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 13:48:25 -0600

The Federal Funds rate is what banks charge each other for overnight loans, which allows banks to lower interest rates to their best customers. Chairman Bernanke lowered this rate by ¾ of a point on Tuesday 1/22, which was the largest drop in 18 years. There is even talk that the fed may drop rates once again when they meet next week. Bear in mind there is not just one rate there are many! Click here for a list of major rates.

Many people incorrectly assume the federal funds rate is directly connected to home loan rates. The health & movement of Wall Street is a better indicator of where home loan rates are. As the stock market rises, investors look to place money in shorter-term stocks, so rates rise. When stocks fall, investors look to place money in more secure long-term investments like home loans. The movement of the ten-year Treasury note highly corresponds with home loan rates. What may cause the common misconception that links federal rates to home loan rates is this scenario: when the market is down and home loan rates are subsequently down, the fed sometimes drops rates to spur the economy - that is why the federal rates and home loan rates do sometimes correspond.

However, the drop in federal rates does have an immediate effect on people who have adjustable rate mortgages or equity lines tied to major indexes like the LIBOR index or Prime. These rate cuts may help those most in danger of foreclosure with lower monthly payments.

So, Wall Street and many foreign markets took big plunges this week after a poor fourth quarter in 2007, which is why home loan rates are currently near all-time lows. With slowing economies around the world, we may see home loan rates once again at record lows in coming months. All of this, of course, is in response to economic woes in the US and around the world. The Fed hopes that lowering rates will stimulate spending and avoid or lessen a possible recession.

So how can I benefit from these market conditions?

Buy a Home: If you are thinking of buying a home, you have an excellent opportunity to not only lock in some of the best rates in history, but our local housing market is near the end of a 2.5 year correction. Find San Diego Homes for sale at my website.
Refinance a Loan: If you own a home and want to stay in it, contact a lender to discuss refinancing. This only applies if your home is worth more than what you currently owe the bank. Call me at 858-761-1707 for a list of the best lenders in town.
Get An Equity Line: If you own a home and have significant equity, you can pull money out with an equity line of credit to do upgrades, repairs, buy a car, or take a 2-month vacation around the world.

Adam Pascu, San Diego Realtor

Energy Bill Legislation: A Blow to Alternative Energy

Adam Pascu, San Diego Realtor (Keller Williams Realty) — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 23:55:53 -0600

On December 13th, the US Senate voted on a watered down version of the bill that left alternative energy supporters agast. By a vote of 59-40, just one vote short of the number needed, the Senate failed to include a tax title in the 2007 energy bill that would have provided investment and production tax credits for renewable energies.

Please read the full blog posted at my new Green Housing website, which is not done yet, but should be in January....any suggestions for what I can add to the site would be greatly appreciated!

thanks,

adam pascu

New Home Construction hit worst in Market downturn

Adam Pascu, San Diego Realtor (Keller Williams Realty) — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 15:59:47 -0600

I wrote this article a few months ago for a local portal that publishes me once/month:

http://www.discoversd.com/articles/sd-real-estate/205.html

The title says it all - talks about main reasons new homes take some of the worst hits during a down market. I also have some ways that I've negotiated good values for my buyers and would like to hear the experiences of other local Realtors as to ingenious ways to get the most for your buyer's when working with builders.

One thing I'd add to this article that I've discovered lately is that although the builders are always ready to build another, and hence have a large inventory to sell, they are actually only building a very small number of homes at a time in response to the slow sales market. So after viewing all the models with a builder, I find that there are usually less than 5 homes that will be ready in the next 3 months.

Any thoughts you have on taking advantage of new home construction as a buyer's agent would be most appreciated!

Adam Pascu

San Diego Homes for sale

How the San Diego Wildfires affect Real Estate

Adam Pascu, San Diego Realtor (Keller Williams Realty) — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 09:22:16 -0600

Hello San Diego Realtors,

I wrote a blog that I wanted to get your feedback on regarding how the fires will affect our market. I would especially like to hear from seasoned Realtors that have seen the fires of 03, 96, etc....

http://activerain.com/blogs/apascu

thanks!

Adam Pascu

San Diego Real Estate

San Diego Wildfires & how it affects Real Estate

Adam Pascu, San Diego Realtor (Keller Williams Realty) — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 17:06:22 -0500

Will the San Diego wildfires affect San Diego real estate? The answer to this question is yes, but not nearly as much as you might think. Today we will examine a few distinct aspects of the situation and how they will affect the whole:

1. Lending & home prices
2. Inventory
3. Defensible space
4. Rental market
5. Insurance buyer confidence
6. Construction & contractors

What is happening right now?

Let's start with people who are currently buying. Right now, there are people in escrow who are having trouble closing on their house for a few reasons. If they are in an area affected by the fire or nearby a fire, many lenders are not funding loans until the fires are a safe distance away or completely contained.

Another issue involved with closing deals right now is insurance and home warranties. Some home warranty companies are not issuing warranties on homes anywhere near the affected fire areas. Insurance companies are also being cautious about homeowner's policies.

There is also a short-term effect on buyer confidence, most notably in nearby areas where the fires were centered (like in Rancho Bernardo Real Estate). We had a client looking in Rancho Santa Fe who called us this week, and requested to postpone their home search for now. So a few scared buyers are dropping out of escrow or postponing their home searches.

What will happen in the near-term?

One of the main issues we have is a number of San Diego home owners who will need temporary housing. With a low rental vacancy rate already going on, it is going to be very tough to find a home to rent. In addition, insurance companies are giving homeowners a monthly allowance for renting, making them less discriminating about saving money on their rental. All this will cause a spike in rental rates on top of the rates that have been steadily on the rise for over 5 years.

As of October 28, most estimates of homes lost in San Diego County are at over 1,600 homes. The inventory of San Diego homes for sale will not decline much. The number of homes lost comprises less than 0.5% of the total homes in our county; thus, such a small amount of inventory burnt should not affect the overall sales market. It is possible that a small percentage of investor's homes currently for sale may turn into short-term rentals in order to take advantage of the tight rental market, in lieu of a strong market to sell in.

In the 3-6 month range, we will also see a lot of construction, which will seriously limit the availability of skilled professionals, contractors and even unskilled labor. With all the construction going on, this may help boost our economy a small bit, which always helps the local housing market by increasing the pool of available buyers.

Taking a step back: The history of wildfires in San Diego

To really predict the future effect of this event, we must first examine historical models. Many people are beginning to realize - if they didn't know already - that wildfires have always been a regular occurrence in the county.

Most recently, we had the Cedar Fires in 2003, as well as fires in 1996, and they've been regularly occurring for as long as scientists can tell, even beyond modern records. The frequency and size of these fires are not changing much, although a small trend is that the fires are a little more regular, but smaller in scope. The real difference is that we are now populating the areas of East County where these fires have, in the past, had little effect on our general population.

What will happen in the long-term?

Neither of the last big fires seems to have affected the market trajectory, nor do I believe these fires will have a serious impact or change in our market today.

The savvy buyer will take advantage of the current situation and negotiate a great deal while market confidence is low. We've had an outpouring of support and positive response to these fires, which shows the great quality of our San Diego citizens and their ability to rebound and stay positive about the wonderful area in which we live.

Adam Pascu, Realtor

Stay on top of the San Diego Real Estate market on my website.

San Diego Real estate news headlines

Adam Pascu, San Diego Realtor (Keller Williams Realty) — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 15:42:26 -0500

Have you ever looked at the news headlines regarding local or national real estate and been shocked by the conclusions made?? I have. It never ceases to amaze me what these writers get away with by using the type of scare tactics that should be saved for little children being told not to go straying into the woods alone.

Whenever I get done reading the article, I always find that the writer has some statistic that they are referencing to make the conclusion written in the headlines. But to get from the statistic to the conclusion is usually a large stretch and utter simplification.

Click here to read the blog I wrote for DiscoverSD on this topic of San Diego Real estate news headlines:

I appreciate any feedback you have on using statistics to reach a better estimate of home values.

Saving on your power bill for using "green" products

Adam Pascu, San Diego Realtor (Keller Williams Realty) — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 18:01:40 -0500

Hello,

I personally feel that I will pay more for a product that better maintains/effects OUR environment than a less expensive one that burns fossil fuel all day long, but not everyone feels that way. Money still motivates - always has and always will to a certain degree.

So I found an insert in my last power bill (San Diego Gas & Electric) that suggested I can save money on my power bill by using/purchasing "green products". Here is the link:

http://www.sdge.com/residential/rebates_services.shtml

Is there anyone in the area that is familiar with going about this? What I am looking for, if possible, are monetary benefits to using green products. If we can find products that are about the same cost, or less (even if it takes time to realize those savings), it will be much easier to promote green products and help protect OUR environment.

I welcome your comments,

adam pascu, REALTOR

Mission Hills Real Estate specialist

ps. If you noticed my deliberate usage of "our environment" rather than "the environment" i hope you will continue this usage. Using "the" denotes the environment as something other, something foreign, and this needs to be changed. It is clear that we are connected to our environment, a part of it, and our language needs to reflect that. People have a natural tendency to help that which is connected to them and disregard that which is foreign, so let's do something simple by using language to correct the public viewing of OUR environment so that we can gain support in bettering things!

$$ Savings from the energy company for your client homeowners

Adam Pascu, San Diego Realtor (Keller Williams Realty) — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 17:46:57 -0500

Greetings Eco-All Stars,

I have recently joined the community and this group - this is my first post, so I hope it is a useful topic for discussion. I recently received a notice in the mail from my local power company (San Diego Gas & Electric) with my bill. It was a "helping you go green to save green" note.

They listed a number of energy efficient products such as "A/C, house fans, friedge, pool pump with motor, insulation, and water heater" as items that could qualify to save you a credit on your power bill.

They gave the following website for more info: http://www.sdge.com/residential/rebates_services.shtml

This is the first I've heard of this and wanted to know:

1. Does anyone have any first-hand experience with how feasible it is to get credits from your power company for purchasing such products?

2. Anyone in San Diego familiar with this? Are other areas making similar offers or are we in one of the more progressive areas because of our power problems (can you say rolling blackouts =)?

In addition....

3. I am planning on sending out a "Green homes" email to my local clientele/sphere. Along with this above URL, energystar.gov and irecusa.org, I was wondering if anyone else had some good links as resources that I could send my homeowner friends/clients.

Thank you so much!!

Adam Pascu

San Diego Homes for Sale

Reposting Uniquely written content/articles & search engine duplicate content

Adam Pascu, San Diego Realtor (Keller Williams Realty) — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 14:43:10 -0500

I wanted to see if anyone has any thoughts on this topic for me. Obviously, it is not kosher to copy and paste an article written by someone else (i.e. plaigerism - a federal offense). If you like their article, link to it and make your own comments regarding the topics the original author discussed.

So my main question is how best to post articles that I write in different spaces across the web. For example, I am now writing articles for DiscoverSD.com (view our profile here). I would like to post articles that I write on various websites to reach a larger audience, however, I am concerned about duplicate content with how it relates to search engines. Basically, the idea is that if a search engine finds 2, 3 or 4 different pages on the web that have the same text in them, they disregard all but one of them as duplicate content and will not be available in the search engine index.

What I plan to do, is write the original article for discoversd and then repost a summary of the article here on active rain with a link to the original article on discoversd.com.

If anyone has any comments on this, I would like to hear it. I've seen a lot about reposting other people's content, but nothing yet about reposting your own uniquely written content.

thanks!

adam

First Quarter for San Diego real estate

Adam Pascu, San Diego Realtor (Keller Williams Realty) — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 17:01:44 -0500

2007: First Quarter for San Diego real estate

Stats on the main players in the real estate marketplace:

1. Inventory for detached homes throughout the county went up about 30% during Q1 2007
2. Foreclosure rates are near an all-time high. Read an article
3. We've had 21,066 new listings in Q1 2007 compared to 23,534 from Q1 2006 & We've had 6067 closed sales in Q1 2007 compared to 6794 from Q1 2006. Read stats from the SD MLS
4. Average rents for all types of (rental) units increased 5.8 percent over last year (Union-Tribune, 1/16/07)
5. Interest Rates have remained steady. From the Federal Reserve website
6. Demand to live in San Diego is very high. Read an article

A discussion on these market factors:

Inventory:
This is pretty cut and dry economics - supply vs. demand. With a higher supply than usual in the past couple years, prices have dropped. While the 30% rise in the first quarter is normal for seasonal variation, the base inventory was already higher than usual at the beginning of the year. Here's some recent history on inventory. From 2000 to 2004 (our biggest boom market in recent history), about 2 out of every 3 new listing sold resulting in a 66% sale rate. In 2005 it was about 45%. In 2006, it was 35%. Currently, we are at about 30%. Bearing in mind that 2000-2004 were boom years, a normal rate would be about 40%. Visit my website to search all San Diego Homes for Sale.

Foreclosures:
Here is a scenario that typifies what is happening with foreclosures: a person buys a house with a risky loan in 2003-2005. They had a 2-year adjustable interest only loan. After 2 years, they were hoping to gain significant equity & refinance - instead, their home value dropped and they couldn't refinance. Their monthly payments went up 25% and they were unable to make their mortgage payments, so the bank repossessed the home. What this does is increase the inventory with homes that have motivated sellers (aka the bank). A foreclosure is not a home that is going to go at much, if any, below market value - the bank still has a financial interest to get the most money they can - they are simply realistic sellers that are motivated and willing to sell at a competitive market value. I have access to most Foreclosures on the market & can send you some if you like - bear in mind that these homes are usually "fixers".

Rental Rates:
When you rent a home, you have zero tax write-offs. When you own a home, all the interest & property taxes paid are tax write-offs. In the early stages of a loan, most of your monthly payments are interest (or in an interest-only loan, all). So when you compare rental rates to mortgage rates, you must include tax write-offs to balance it out. Let's take a $500,000 home in Clairemont as an example. At 100% financing, mortgage payments will be about $3300/month including property taxes on a 5-year Interest Only option. Tax write-offs will be about 30%, which equals about $1000/month. Monthly rent on this home is about $2000. When you subtract tax write-offs from the mortgage payment, you'll see that most renters are paying close to the full mortgage payment they would have to own the same home. Currently, renting in the average price ranges is almost the same dollar after taxes as owning with $0 down!

Interest Rates:
The Fed has not raised the Federal Funds rate since June of 2006. Home loan rates have, subsequently, remained very steady in the last 6-9 months as well. This is one of the X factor's for predicting the future of the housing market. An interest rate hike could affect a buyer's purchasing power more than a 5% decrease in home values.

Local Area Demand:
San Diego is well-known for its wonderful weather and high quality of living. Baby Boomers with disposable income are seeking out spots like San Diego to retire to/invest in. Many young professionals and students pay high rents to live in our city. Unemployment is low & construction permits are down limiting the amount of future new housing inventory. So although some buyers are being fickle, there is a great demand in San Diego for a well-priced home.

I hope you have found this useful and I appreciate any feedback you have for me. I also appreciate your referrals - if you know of anyone thinking of buying or selling real estate in San Diego, I would be happy to work with them. Visit our new team 73 degrees website of San Diego Realtors, coming soon...