Rancho Santa Fe Real Estate Guide / Help for Buyers and Sellers

Rancho Santa Fe Disclosure Rule

Tell All is definitely the rule for anyone who is selling Rancho Santa Fe real estate in today’s market. Let the Buyer Beware can easily come back and bite you in a delicate spot—your pocketbook.

Today, those selling a home or any Rancho Santa Fe are expected to disclose all known material defects that are not readily apparent to the buyer. A Material Defect is usually a physical condition that would affect a buyer’s decision to purchase the home or what price to pay for the home. A leaky roof is definitely a Material Defect. If a Rancho Santa Fe seller tries to disguise the leak by painting the interior ceiling and walls without fixing the leak, the truth will come out the next time it rains. Chances are the first call the buyer makes will be to his attorney.

Bitten by the Rancho Santa Fe Home Improvement Bug?

Before you finalize your decision regarding remodeling versus moving, it is wise to get a professional estimate of your Rancho Santa Fe home’s current value, the actual costs of moving to a different home and the estimated return on investment of the most common types of home improvement. I’ll be happy to provide you with a complimentary analysis of your home’s current value. Simply call or E-mail me whenever you are ready. As for improvements that traditionally bring the highest rate of return on investment, here are some statistics. Kitchen remodeling and adding a bath tends to bring rates of return with averaging anywhere from 85% to 95% return on your dollars spent. Compare that with the 64% return on investment for adding a home office.

Building Rancho Santa Fe Home Equity

A popular question from prospective Rancho Santa Fe homebuyers relates to building home equity. Buyers like to estimate how much a home may increase in value based upon past appreciation. One of the many advantages of home ownership is that appreciation is based on the home’s market value rather than on the actual dollar amount invested or the down payment so that a $100,000.00 home that appreciates 5% is now worth $105,000.00, especially in Rancho Santa Fe.

With a typical 30-year loan, most of your monthly payment goes toward interest payments with only small amounts going to the principle in the early years. Only half the principle is repaid in the first 23 years of the loan. You can build Rancho Santa Fe home equity faster by choosing a 15-year loan instead of a 30-year loan.

Green Remodeling Your Rancho Santa Fe

Reduced material waste and resource conservation. When remodeling your Rancho Santa Fe, there is often a large amount of construction waste: 136 million tons of waste annually, or about 20% of the waste in landfills, according to the EPA.

If you are planning to remodel your Rancho Santa Fe anyway, going green offers money-saving advantages. In addition to increasing the value of your home, you will cut monthly operating costs, reduce waste and improve overall health.

Rent or Buy Rancho Santa Fe

For most people, the chance to trade nondeductible rent payments for mostly deductible mortgage payments is a powerful inducement to trade a rental home into a Rancho Santa Fe of your own. This is by far the single most important reason why people decide to buy their first Rancho Santa Fe.

However, whether you are considering your first Rancho Santa Fe investment or planning to move up, the number crunching necessary to figure out how much house you can afford depends on two calculations: one for actual monthly outlays, the other for the true, after tax costs.

The Benefits of Selling Rancho Santa Fe

If your Rancho Santa Fe holdings consist of both a personal residence and a rental, you can sell your personal residence and exclude up to $250,000 ($500,000 for a married couple) on the gain. Then you move into your rental, live in it as your personal residence for two years and then sell it, again benefiting from the $250,000 or $500,000 exclusion. This is true even though most or all of the increase in value occurred before you converted the property to your personal residence.