Real Estate News From Jenell Fontes VanDenBos

Jenell Fontes In the past couple of years Canadians have made up over 30% of my sales and now my Canadians seem nowhere to be found.   Due to the fact that the Canadian Dollar has taken a huge hit in the exchange rate and our home prices have continued to go up, my Canadian clients have had to face a double dose of inflated reality.   I found this really great article that explains the disappearance of the Canadian Home buyer.   The questions begging to be answered is will the strength of their dollar improve anytime soon as I only see housing getting stronger in the next couple of years.   So, even with the escalation in price and deflation of currency I still think the deal are out there and it is still a good time to buy. “What a price Canadians have paid lately, though.   Over the last two years their purchasing power here in the US has declined sharply, and since just last summer it’s flown farther south than a goose, which really should be the...

Jenell Fontes Using the tips from these professional stagers, in a short time you can re-style and bring your home up to model home standards and walking into your “NEW” home you just might fall in love with it all over again.   Step number one to falling in love with your home again is to take a walk through your home as if you had never been there before.   Make a list of all the little annoying things that need to be fixed - the broken drawer, the squeaky door, and the annoying way the closet never quite shuts right. Next, add to your visual list the places in your home that pile up with junk, paperwork or clothes. Lastly, make a mental note about what you love and think of ways to accent those features.    One of the quickest ways to make a difference in your home is to get rid of the clutter. Go through every room with a box and put 10 things in it that you don’t love or need in that room. Box them up, date the box, and put them in th...

Homes over 7,000 square feet are being appraised at a lesser amount per square foot than homes that are equally as nice with similar features and finishes. Meaning that there is a devaluation in these extremely large homes per square foot due to their size. The simple fact is that BIGGER is not apprising as more valuable on a per square foot bases. At first I was a bit surprised by this, so I went to my mom Joanna Roskowick, the appraisal expert for some clerification about this. Here is her explaination of diminishing returns in real estate appraisal. “Now, putting on my appraiser hat.... any excess or huge number square footage above the average for the neighborhood or area has what we call diminishing returns. A good example of this is when had four acres in Watsonville with most properties around us were two acres and some one acre parcel selling at $100 k. We wouldn't have been given $400k for land but $100k for one and less for the other three acres. The total m...

Jenell Fontes Are the days of the” McMansions” and the prestige of owning the biggest house on the block over?   What about overextended family finances and conspicuous consumption… are they too becoming a thing of the past?   Enter the Tiny House movement…   With international attention on CNN, Guardian, Huffington Post, NBC, Oprah and PBS, the Tiny Home movement may be more than just a trend. What is a Tiny House? Ranging in size from an efficient 160 square feet to a spacious 500 squarefeet, Tiny Houses, or Small Houses, are really more of a social movement, where people are downsizing the space that they live in. The goal of living in one, advocates claim, is a simpler life. To be out of debt, living within your means, and enjoying your job. People are joining this movement for many reasons, for some it is a reality of the recent housing recession, financial and even environmental concerns… but for many, to just find more time and freedom.   Regardl...