Real Estate Information

Whether Upland residents are looking for a home equity line of credit, a refi, or a new mortgage, when it comes to getting a loan, everyone knows that it’s the credit score that ultimately determines the outcome. Yet when it comes to a working knowledge of what major factors affect your score, a new survey shows that many of us are less certain than we should be.

The Consumer Federation of America is a nonprofit outfit that from time to time releases reports designed to improve that situation. Their latest is a sort of report card on how much average adults understand about credit scoring —  the key factor in getting a loan of any kind.

On the plus side of the report card, CFA says that people who have obtained one or more of their own credit scores within the past year are significantly better-informed than those who have not. No surprise there. Those people tend to know that there are three large credit bureaus (although how anyone who watches TV doesn’t already know that is a mystery to me).

On the minus side, more men than women misunderstand how age and marital status affect their credit scores (those factors have no effect). Men, on the other hand, “are more skeptical than women  about the value of credit repair agencies.” CFA doesn’t go into why that is, but I’d like to think that it’s because they understand that a more straightforward way to repair your credit is to pay all bills on time.

Sandwiched in among the charts and graphs are various bits of good advice for any Upland resident getting a loan. A few bear repeating:

1. Avoid maxing out credit cards; try not to even get close
2. Pay down debt instead of just moving it from account to account
3. Keep track of your credit from time to time, even if you’re not planning on getting a loan right away

If you are planning to become a Upland buyer or seller in the near future, I’m here to help you make the most it. Call me anytime at 909-938-9568.

Brought To You By: Randy Charlton with Keller Williams Realty

When I update Rancho Cucamonga readers about the latest news in housing prices, it’s usually not as ‘latest’ as I’d like. The reason is that there is a delay in most of the truly reliable indexes that measure housing prices. The big indexes are national (Rancho Cucamonga housing prices are another matter), and they have a built-in two-month delay.

We can look at trends and directions, but if there is a change afoot, we won’t be sure of that for about 60 days.

Last week, The Wall Street Journal found a way to present unusually fresh numbers. Reporter Nick Timiraos ignored the S&P/Case-Shiller Index, which reported statistics from back in March, and leapfrogged into April with the first solid news about our much-anticipated spring selling season.

It shows a startling 2.7% one-month increase: the largest March-to-April gain in any of the 17 years since the series was first reported.

“The monthly gain blew away all past Aprils,” said an economist at Credit Suisse. The basis of the reports comes from last Wednesday’s release of the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ producer-price index, which measures prices in the whole economy (at least as seen by manufacturers and wholesalers). It’s a backdoor way to gauge housing prices when you examine prices received by real estate agents.

The numbers showed a 9.1% gain over housing prices from a year ago…and remember, big price rises were already happening by then. The takeaway, per the Journal, “Don’t be surprised to see continued increases in prices and sales in the next batch of housing reports.”

Professors Case and Shiller are certainly standing by to give us those. And in case you would like a more locally focused update on our recent Rancho Cucamonga housing prices, I’m standing by, too — why not give me a call at 909-938-9568 today?

Brought To You By: Randy Charlton with Keller Williams Realty

If you are readying your home for sale this spring or summer, one of my favorite tactics to set your property apart from other Rancho Cucamonga listings is to order a pre-inspection. If you’re not familiar with the term, a pre-inspection is a less detailed, less expensive visual inspection designed to report major conditions certain to be noted in the final. Why add this extra expense? Won’t buyers ultimately get their own inspection?

Yes, they will. But the purpose is not to replace a final inspection — it’s to attract more offers and hasten a final sale by minimizing re-negotiation.

Picture yourself as a prospective buyer. Rancho Cucamonga listings which headline the availability of a pre-inspection report automatically seem to be offered by someone who is proud of their property’s condition and unafraid of what the final inspection will reveal. To skittish prospective buyers, it serves to lessen the "fear of the unknown" that can make buyers hesitate before writing an offer. If there were a formula, it would look something like:

Eliminating objections = Attracting more offers

Pre-inspected listings let you document major conditions that have either been addressed or left for the future owner to remediate as he or she sees fit. By noting how your asking price includes precise dollar allowances for named conditions, you display openness and conviction in the basis for your pricing. Local listings written after a pre-inspection are a lot more likely minimize last-minute re-negotiation: if you have ever been asked at the last minute to knock off $20k from an accepted offer, you know the value of that.

It is worth noting that any serious defects that a pre-inspection identify must be disclosed, for better or for worse. But fear of a major discovery shouldn’t dissuade you: any major defect will certainly be discovered by the buyer’s inspector. The old saying applies: knowledge IS power.

If you plan to add your own property to the Rancho Cucamonga listings any time this year, my job is to see that it brings you top dollar. Contact me today at 909-938-9568 to talk over the way we will get that done!

Brought To You By: Randy Charlton with Keller Williams Realty

The Real Estate Staging Association is always telling the world that when you are selling your home, you can expect to spend 73% less time on the market if you use the services of a professional staging company. Although this is an outcome everyone aims for, the cost of full bore professional staging can be a budget-cruncher.

A compromise solution is to combine a little personal elbow grease with some of the ‘inside’ tricks stagers use. When selling your home in Upland as quickly as possible is the goal, it’s worth following through with these staging pointers:

Magic Act

Everyday living creates clutter — but to establish the look of a well maintained, move-in-ready home, the debris has to disappear. You don’t need to be David Copperfield or Houdini, but you will need a dedicated place to store all that stuff out of sight. No place on the property? Go ahead and rent some temporary storage space.

Bland is Better

The Swiss are known for remaining neutral despite centuries of European strife. When it comes to selling your Upland home, avoiding controversy can serve you just as well. ‘Neutral’ means sticking to inoffensive color schemes. Stagers know that when it comes to matters of taste, extreme decorating styles tend to drive off some potential buyers. When it comes to selling your home, creams and beiges create the kind of clean look that’s more universally appealing.

Consistency Wins

When the budget is tight, setting a theme throughout your home may seem beyond reach. So instead of replacing a lot of furniture, see if making subtle changes in home accessories and textiles can’t accomplish wonders. Selling your home in Upland quickly can hinge on such small touches as placing bunches of uniformly colored flowers with matching throws in several rooms. It can create the kind of uniform look that stagers strive to achieve.

If this spring or summer will find you selling your Upland home, don’t neglect your own version of staging. If you are just deciding on your choice for your selling team, give me a call at 909-938-9568: we can start with an in-home consultation!

Brought To You By: Randy Charlton with Keller Williams Realty

With more than 43 million people relocating throughout the U.S. every year, you don’t have to wait until you are surrounded by stacks of cartons to realize how important it is to make your next move the right one. If you’re buying a house in Upland in the foreseeable future, it’s a particularly valuable idea to take the time to chat with some of your potential new neighbors. And while you’re at it, why not bring up a few relevant questions:

Which schools are best? 

School quality affects more than just property values. Especially if you have your own kids, buying a house in Upland is least disruptive when their new school is the best one available. You’ll make the soundest choice by comparing more than one parent’s opinion.

Is there a neighborhood watch?

You will have already aimed for the safest area possible. Now, getting involved with an active neighborhood watch can further ensure your family’s safety. When buying a house, the presence of a neighborhood watch is a good indicator of some solid community spirit…and if there isn’t one, make sure the reason is that everyone already feels secure in the area.

What events are available in Upland?

Buying a house means buying a home base for all your family’s activities. By asking your neighbors which local events and activities they enjoy the most, you’ll get a glimpse of the scope and depth of the cultural life that’s going to surround you. As a side benefit, just inquiring shows you as someone who is sociable — and that you’ll be a good new neighbor to have!

The simple act of reaching out in this way lets you familiarize yourself with a new neighborhood faster, and ultimately leads to a better-informed long term real estate decision. Especially if the area is new to you and your family, buying a house in Upland is actually a one-time opportunity to make a host of new friends. I have tons of information available for future residents. If you’re even considering buying a house in Upland, don’t hesitate to call me today at 909-938-9568!

Brought To You By: Randy Charlton with Keller Williams Realty

Ah, spring is truly in the air…the traditional time when people can fall in love at first sight!

I’ll try not to dampen those springtime spirits too much, but for anyone currently looking into the Rancho Cucamonga luxury home listings, some advice may be in order:

Online love at first sight is a really bad idea.

Those Rancho Cucamonga luxury home listings can indeed be truly alluring, and using your computer (or iPad, or smartphone) to winnow through the current crop of terrific Rancho Cucamonga luxury home listings is a supremely practical approach.

But do remember that any warm glow you experience after checking out a particularly fetching online tour is best held in check until after you have paid an in-person visit. Then the love affair is more likely to be the real thing.

Especially when it comes to the luxury home listings, they have been created by talented professional stagers and photographers (not to mention musicians, when a video is part of the presentation). We work with them to create an immersive online experience, which is all to the good.

The only drawback comes if we do such a good job that Rancho Cucamonga luxury home prospects fall head over heels.  If reality can’t possibly match the romance of their mind’s eye abstraction, well…just ask a teenager’s parents about what the falling out of love experience is like! Until you have contacted me and we’ve made a real life, in-the-flesh house tour, what we are dealing with is — let’s face it — puppy love.

Seasoned buyers know that stunning photos can’t begin to reveal all the details that make for ‘the real thing.’ Does the kitchen fit a family’s cooking style? Is that gorgeous landscaping a good setting for kids and pets? Is the neighborhood right for a particular family?

If your own home belongs among our eye-catching Rancho Cucamonga luxury home listings, you probably also know that prospective buyers will be genuinely impressed when they visit in person. If that’s the case, I hope you’ll be contacting me soon at 909-938-9568 for a complimentary consultation.

Brought To You By Randy Charlton with Keller Williams Realty

So the market’s recovering, interest rates are low, and you think you’re finally ready to buy a home? Not so fast. buyers across the country are running into a new roadblock: there don’t seem to be enough Homes for sale.

Anyone who has looked at entry-to mid-level homes for sale in Rancho Cucamonga probably knows what I mean. Mortgage rates remain near historic lows, and as the prices of homes for sale continue to rise, fears that we could soon see a repetition of a real estate equity loss seem increasingly unlikely. 

Why the lack of inventory? There are several reasons. Buyers may be ready to buy again, but some sellers are still not in a position to offer their Rancho Cucamonga homes for sale. When the housing market collapsed seven years ago, some homeowners’ equity loss was such that they remain unable to sell. Prices may be on the rise, but some need more time to return to pre-crash values.

Buyers always want to buy at the bottom, but sellers want to avoid selling there. Buyers are watching that bottom fade into the distance, but some sellers, pleased to watch their homes growing in value, are content to wait longer.

NAR says that there were just 1.93 million existing homes for sale on the national market in March, down nearly 17% from the prior year. In a well-balanced market, what had been a six month’s supply fell to just 4.7 months’ worth.  Nationally, homes for sale now stay on the market for just 62 days, down from a median of 91 days only last year. Glenn Kelman, CEO of an online national real estate brokerage, put it succinctly: "Somebody rang a bell and said the boom is back, and nobody wants to be late to the party."

Homeowners who have been thinking about selling are increasingly liking what they see in today’s market — including the prospects for trading up. Even those whose previous evaluations were unsatisfactory are finding it worth another look. If you would like to find out what your home is worth today, give me a call at 909-938-9568!

Brought To You By: Randy Charlton with Keller Williams Realty

Here are three of the most common mistakes sellers make after listing their Upland property for sale.

Proper Insurance

When you have a Upland property for sale, it’s more important than ever to see that your homeowners insurance is up to date. It is highly unlikely that someone will have an accident on your premises, but the increase in the number of visitors makes it prudent to be well covered. Of course you will want to mitigate obvious potential hazards like broken glass or exposed nails — but should also have a foolproof system for making pets a non-issue during showings.

Contractual Terms

With your Upland property for sale, it’s only natural for your primary focus to be on the bottom line: the sale price. When an offer arrives with the right number, it’s tempting to sign on the dotted line and be done with it. But there is more to a purchase offer than just the price. An offer is a contract, and as such, all its terms are equally binding. For instance, there is the matter of the closing date: sellers who accept an offer without paying enough attention to it can be left scrambling for temporary housing when that date arrives.

Contingency Removal

Removing the inspection and loan contingencies on time are key events in the buy/sell timeline – yet these deadlines can easily slip by unnoticed. The wording of the clauses is important, too, because a buyer can have the right to withdraw an offer if he or she is not satisfied with the outcome of an inspection or a loan rate they deem acceptable. Failure to make sure a buyer removes contingencies on time can turn a ‘sold’ property into a property that’s still for sale.

Aligning yourself with an experienced agent is the simplest way to remain aware of these and other common legal miscues — and how to avoid them. With your property for sale, you become a single-purpose business enterprise, and your agent’s knowledge should be a key business asset. Contact me anytime for that kind of assistance! You can always reach me at 909-938-9568 or by email at Randy@TeamCharlton.com.

Brought To You By: Randy Charlton with Keller Williams Realty

When the Wall Street Journal or Forbes run mortgage rate stories as their lead items, those of us who keep an eye on the Rancho Cucamonga real estate market pay close attention. I frequently share what they say here. But when even the non-financial outlets like USA TODAY and the cable TV news channels give top billing to real estate market news, it’s a real attention-grabber.

That’s what happened last week. USA TODAY’s online headline focused on the 15-year fixed mortgage rate, “at a record low 2.61%.” The cable news channels talked about record low rates, too (although if you hit the ‘pause’ button long enough to read the TV graphics, you saw that the national average for 30-year loans was still a shade away from the actual record low).

Never mind that; it’s still surprising that mortgage rates continue to linger at such tempting lows.

The reason is hardly a secret: the Federal Reserve is holding rates down to energize the real estate market — a key element of the overall economy. Yet, with existing home sales notching up in the first quarter at the briskest pace in four years, you would have thought that mortgage rates would have been loosened up at least somewhat. And with new home sales doing their best since 2008…

Of course, it doesn’t matter what anyone expects: the results of dipping mortgage rates is just plain good news for everyone in the Rancho Cucamonga real estate market: buyers and sellers alike. Those low mortgage rates act to offset the rising U.S. house price index. The result for buyers is a more valuable home without the expected increase in the monthly payment. What more of an inducement to enter the real estate market could there be?

In short, if you’re considering whether it’s time to buy (or to sell your current home and trade up without busting the household budget), last week’s national and local market signs are even clearer than they have been recently. There are definitely opportunities out there! Why not give me a call for an up-to-the-moment Rancho Cucamonga real estate market evaluation?

Brought To You By: Randy Charlton with Keller Williams Realty

For a shopping and dining experience unlike any other in the Inland Empire, head to Victoria Gardens in Rancho Cucamonga. Home to nearly all the name brand favorites, including Abercrombie & Fitch, American Apparel, Lane Bryant, Macy’s, JCPenney, Coach, and Sephora, as well as a few treasures you may have never heard of (such as Past, Present, and Future Hall of Famers; The Art of Shaving; and Crown Books), Victoria Gardens is an upscale, outdoor shopping center designed to invoke the feeling of a historic downtown. Murals depicting the area’s rich agricultural heritage along with beautiful trees, roses, and fountains decorate the landscape.

In addition to some of the best shopping in the region, Victoria Gardens offers a number of quick-serve restaurants sure to please everyone in your shopping group, including Chipotle Mexican Grill, Gyu-Kaku Japanese BBQ, Johnny Rockets, and Shakey’s Pizza. There’s also a Starbucks, Jamba Juice, and several fast-food stops.

Have more time? Enjoy a sit-down meal at one of the center’s other many restaurants: California Pizza Kitchen, The Cheesecake Factory, Crepes de Paris, Fleming’s Prime Steakhouse & Wine Bar, Kabuki Japanese Restaurant, King’s Fish House, Lucille’s Smokehouse Bar-B-Que, P.F. Chang’s China Bistro, Paisano Ristorante Italiano, T.G.I. Friday’s, and more. For a real treat, make sure to check out the jazz brunch at Ra Pour Restaurant & Lounge, offered every Sunday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Additional Services

Victoria Gardens is more than just a typical mall. Anchored by one of the community’s most beautiful libraries, Victoria Gardens is home to attractions that include a community playhouse, a children’s carousel, a fully operating, children’s ride-on train. A plethora of service establishments treat visitors to a haircut and hot towel treatment at 2% Chop, the center’s new gentleman’s barbershop, or visitors can work up a sweat at Pedal Spin Studio. In addition, there are several optometrists and beauty salons, a real estate office, an insurance company, a picture studio, a jewelry repair shop, and a bank located in the center. Additional services available to visitors include stroller, wheelchair, and umbrella rentals; ingoing and outgoing facsimiles and photocopies. First-class U.S. postage stamps, Choo Choo Monga Express tokens, and California lottery tickets also are available for sale.

Special Events

Each Friday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Victoria Gardens hosts Victoria’s Farmers Market on South Main Street. Shoppers can browse vendors’ offerings of homemade artisan goods; sample delicious treats; smell freshly picked flowers from local beds; and pick from aisles of locally grown organic and conventional produce. During the summer, the center also hosts community concerts.

Getting There

Victoria Gardens is located near the intersection of I-10 West and I-15 North in Rancho Cucamonga. From Day Creek Boulevard, the center is accessible from North Main Street, South Main Street or Versailles Street. Omnitrans bus routes 60 and 66 also service Victoria Gardens.

To discover the unique experience of Rancho Cucamonga’s Victoria Gardens for yourself, visit http://www.victoriagardensie.com/.