I've been a resident of Southern California all my life. I've been a Realtor here since 1979. My family and I moved from Long Beach to Rancho Santa Margarita in 1994. Since 1979 I have been associated with Century 21, for good reason. Century 21 is the best known, highly respected and largest Residential Real Estate company in the World.

     I hold the e-Pro designation and well as the ABR accredidation. e-Pro means that I am a Real Estate Computer expert, ABR is Accredited Buyers Representative.

     Having lived here my entire life, I've seen most of Southern California. From my perspective, Rancho Santa Margarita (RSM) is the perfect place to live. The weather is incredible, the city is very clean and new. The crime rate, well, what crime rate? The schools are outstanding. We are a small city in California terms, but large enough to offer pretty much everything one could ask for. We even have a beach (ok, so it's not the Ocean, but we do have a very large sandy pool for our residents that we call the Beach club).

     RSM has homes to fit every life style, from studio condominiums, to 5000+ Square Foot homes. People are kind and polite. A stroll around our lake will convince you of that.

     Our backyard is the Cleveland National Forest. We are right up against the foothills and there won't be any future building behind us. There is bike riding, horse stables, hiking, fishing, scenic drives beautiful sunrises and sunsets. Saddleback Mountain is our back drop. While we never get snow here in the city, it does snow on top of Saddleback a couple of times each year (that usually lasts a day or two).

     We have most of the major stores in town, and any that aren't here are close by. We have movie theaters, several grocery stores, outstanding restaurants, bookstores, and churches.

     The Ocean is only a short drive where you can drive for miles and miles along our gorgeous coast.

YES!

Lots of people, the vast majority that I speak with, feel this is NOT a good time to sell a home. That implies that it will be better to sell in the future. Following that logic, then sometime between now and that point in the future when it will be a good time to sell, is a good time to buy. Profound? no, that in and of itself shouldn't convince us that the time to buy is now.

I feel it's a great time to buy for a couple of reasons. First off, I do open houses pretty much every Saturday and Sunday. Late last year, Nov. and Dec. it wasn't uncommon to hold an open house for 4 to 5 hours and have NO ONE come by. Since the 2nd. week in January of this year, there has been a steady growth in the number of people coming through. One of the most interesting things that I've noticed, is the number of investors that have been showing up. In all the years that I have been selling Real Estate, I've never seen this before. The last two weekends were quite busy, and most of the people that I spoke with thought that prices are at or very close to, the bottom. Add to that the fact that interest rates are extremely low, and you have an excellent time to buy. Could prices still go lower? Perhaps, but they could also go higher. I often tell people that we'll know we hit bottom 6 months after it's happened. Once all the data is in, and we can see a clear indication of price increases. 

If you already own a home, and are looking for an investment, this is probably a good time, but if you are NOT already a home owner, and are in the position to buy, then you are very fortunate.

Because NOW is a GREAT time to buy!

I wouldn't - Here's Why

Everything is "subject to" lender approval. There is a very good chance that once you submit your offer, there will be other higher offers submitted. Plus, it can take the lender a LONG time to even begin the process. Lenders are seeing a LOT of short sales these days, and many appear to be having a difficult time keeping up. One Lender who we spoke with recently reported that they are receiving 400 to 500 Short Sale applications per day, nationally!!

Can you get a "deal" by purchasing a short sale? Maybe. But it's not going to be the once in a life time deal we are all hoping for. Why? Because the lender looks at the cold hard financial facts. They ask themselves, should we sell the home in a short sale arrangement and avoid the foreclosure process and expense, or would we be better off financially to just foreclose, end up owning the property, and selling it as Real Estate owned? If the lender can sell the home at market value, it would make sense for them to sell at short sale, but if they think they can end up netting more by foreclosing, then that is probably what they will do. The cost to the lender to foreclose isn't all THAT expensive. Then once they do, they can sell it themselves.

Personally, if I was in the market to buy a home right now (and I WISH I was), I would be avoiding the short sales, and concentrating on the REOs (Lender Owned) or the desperate sellers that still have equity.

On the other hand, if I NEEDED to sell right now, I would make sure that my home showed better than my competition, that it was always very easy to show, that it was priced LOW, and that my Realtor was willing to pull out all the stops to get it sold.

Just my 2 cents....