April Unlikely to Bring Showers in Marin: On the County Or the Housing Market

 

Another Gorgeous Spring Day in Marin County

So I don’t know who was chanting “Rain rain go away, come again some other day” back in November, but it sure worked. Looks like it will be a fourth year in a row for the drought Gods, assuming we don’t get pounded in April, that is. It’s northern California and anything can happen in March / April, so I for one am keeping my umbrella and aloha shirts both handy. Luckily the reservoirs in Marin are stocked full of water to get us through the next three seasons. With voluntary rationing in place, we should coast through for another year, at least. Though you should know the definition of “voluntary”.

My brother lives in Mill Valley with his wife and I was talking to them recently about their driveway (try to keep up, it was a pretty heady conversation) and whether or not he should replace it. It had a few normal surface cracks, but don’t we all. Nothing major or what a Home Inspector would call a dangerous “trip hazard”, which is commonly more than a half inch pop up in any slab surface. What the driveway could use, on the other hand, was a decent power washing. It’s inexpensive and can make a tired driveway look new again inside a few hours. “Uhhh, that’s not going to happen”, he said.

Turns out, in his town, or maybe just his part of town, the water waste citizens brigade is out in force on a near-daily basis. He said he tried power washing a couple years ago and people actually pulled over their cars to politely ask him to stop. He did right away, after only 15-20 minutes, but one person even went up to his front door after he had packed it all in, just to make sure he understood about the rationing. So much for “voluntary” thing. At least it explains why his car is always so dirty.

Speaking of which–well, I wasn’t really speaking of this, but lacked a better segue–the housing market continues its slow motor sideways on the inventory side, which means prices are continuing their equal motor up on the appreciation side. Due to the lack of new listings in March, we saw the multiple-offer poker game repeatedly, especially on any home or condo on one story, with level land, close to town and “done”, or ideally, all of the above. Many of today’s buyers can’t or just don’t want to deal with the fix up program and there are far fewer Y’s out there in the DIY scenario. Most are of the YDIFM (You Do It For Me) mind set and ideally you do that before they make their offer to purchase. It’s a trend we’ve seen for the last five years and only continuing as more people choose to spend their weekends at home, not at Home Depot. So if you’ve got a home to sell, my advice is to invest what time and money you need to get it dialed-in and ready to go, or “done” as we call it.

Any questions or help I can provide, I’m here for you.
Enjoy April and all of 2015, wherever you are. As always, feel free to text, email or just call me up the old fashion way. I’m always around.

Ted

415.377.5222 c
ted@gomarin.com

Filed under: Marin Real Estate Blog by Ted Strodder