158 Belvedere Terrace, Santa Cruz, CA

Click Here to Get Directions

$1,599,000

2bed - 2bath - 1458 SQFT/5053 sqft lot
Property Video | Photos | Maps & Local | Schools | Print

Classic Santa Cruz cottage home on Belvedere Terrace. Step into this 1950's charmer and take in the city views from your dining room. Warm wood floors through out, kitchen has buttery yellow tile, with breakfast nook, pantry, guest closet and laundry. Two large bedrooms with big closets, bath has shower and tub. Gracious living room has gas fireplace with views and room for large sectional. Basement is finished out for home office or study or storage. Two car garage with small bathroom, sink and shelving and it is so sweet for a garage. The landscaping has been…

91 Views, 0 Comments

Read Full Post

311 Mar Monte Ave, La Selva Beach, CA

Click Here to Get Directions

$1,579,000

3bed - 3bath - 0.37 acres lot-Solar, bonus room and huge lot! BEst Surf spot
Photos | Maps & Local | Schools | Print

Nestled in this small, charming community, is a large home ready to move in combined with the never-ending sandy beach. Enjoy, scenic bluffs, Manresa Beach, long beach walks or sand castle building all made easy with private beach access. You will come here for the many attractive activities you can enjoy, and you will fall in love with this home. Open beam ceilings, hardwood floors, large bedrooms and updated baths. The primary bedroom is super-sized with room for a king bed, office and lounging, walk-in closet with sizable, updated bath.…

91 Views, 0 Comments

Read Full Post

When I first started real estate 20 years ago, you could buy a home for a rental, or whatever you wanted, wherever and rent, rent, rent. And as time has gone by, it has become more and more restrictive to buy a home just to rent it out, especially for a short-term rental.  “The magic sentence, which is” 29 days or less. The journey of a “29 day or less rental home has become very restrictive” and there's a lot of things that need to be in place and a lot of things that need to be done.

The first step of buying a rental is establishing the area you want to be in. Next step is to call the county who has a dedicated permit rental employee on staff. Here you can find out about the wait for the permit, the length of the list and how it works in the area…

111 Views, 0 Comments

Read Full Post

When you watch the national news, it is very confusing. You will hear that the market's going down, the market's going up, the interest rates are going up, the interest rates are going down, and that's all true. It does change all the time and up and down are the new normal. We tend to look at these larger pictures and then we apply them to a smaller area, which would be ours. But I will caution you not to do that.

I found a website and I was using it during the pandemic because I really wanted to understand who was coming here and where people were moving. You might have already been on it. It's called How Money walk, http://howmoneywalks.com. Click on data and then look at the map and go to California and go to Santa Cruz. And you will see we have…

123 Views, 0 Comments

Read Full Post

Secrets Realtors Cannot Tell You!

I was having coffee with a client, and she was telling me she had a rough time with someone who did not tell the truth. And we got into this conversation about the different languages that are spoken in America. And she goes, well, it kind of boils down to, you know, English....and, lying, I added, lying is the second language in America. It is in style. This was not a political conversation we were having, we were talking about scammers out there online, people who lie about who they are. Both of our phones were ringing with spam calls at this time. We talked about having to be so guarded and people don't tell you the truth about things and they don't tell you the truth about who they are, and they make personas. It is hard to know what their real…

182 Views, 0 Comments

Read Full Post

Things are happening out in the world, and there is a lot of general reporting on the real estate market, but here I will talk about what I know which is the Santa Cruz County market. Currently, we are seeing very low inventory levels. Only 170 listings county wide and prices range from $10,000 million to $399,000 as you can imagine that equates to very few listings that fit the location and budget of the average buyer.

I had a conversation with a seller recently and I said, “you know what? We talked about your home going on in May, and I still stand by that right now.” It is still pouring rain. It's still snowing in some parts of our county, and it is slowing the market down or basically stopping it even more than Covid did. Sellers are holding back…

146 Views, 0 Comments

Read Full Post

Why You Need a Trust!  I interviewed a trust attorney to explain why estate planning is so important. Watch the video and read this guest blog issue.

When it comes to putting off or refusing to create an estate plan, your mind can concoct all sorts of rationalizations: “I won’t care because I’ll be dead,” “I’m too young,” “That won’t happen to me,” or “My family will know what to do.”

But these thoughts all come from a lack of real education about estate planning and the consequences to your family. Once you understand exactly what planning is designed to prevent and support, you’ll realize there really is no acceptable excuse for not having a plan, provided you are able to plan and truly care about your family’s experience after you die or if you…

160 Views, 0 Comments

Read Full Post

This Real Estate Market for the new year, I am going to tell you a little bit about where we've been, where we're going and a little bit about where we are. Happy New Year! For Santa Cruz County in 2022, we had about 1480 sales. The average sale price was $1.47 million, appreciation was 10.2% for 2022. For people who were worried about buying and paying too much because prices were going down last year, you have absolutely no worries. And I think overall you really shouldn't worry. I think your property is going to appreciate just fine. 43 year average appreciation is 8%. Taking record of this, started in 1979, do you know the average sales price in Santa Cruz County was $74,998!  Video below and podcast is bottom right hand corner.

Can you even…

173 Views, 0 Comments

Read Full Post

Are you thinking of buying a house in Santa Cruz County in 2023 I'm here to prepare you and get you ready first, get your running shoes. I'm only kidding. Well, maybe not so much. I saw property online last night. I emailed my buyers and I said,  “Hey, we should check this one out.” It hasn't even been on maybe eight, 10 hours. My client said they want to see it. And I was informed there was already an offer on it. I think this is how the early part of 2023 is how it's going to be. So how do you prepare? First, get your pre-qualification letter or your pre-approval letter from your favorite lender. Make sure you understand what the interest rates are doing, if possible.


Talk with the lender to see about having the seller can give you credit…

165 Views, 0 Comments

Read Full Post

Four fun facts about Santa Cruz. If you're local you may already know these facts and if you're not and you're just thinking about Santa Cruz or like Santa Cruz, this should be pretty fun.

#1 Did you know we have tsunamis here? Our earthquake, the Loma Prieta Earthquake of 1989 is super famous. It is a big deal. We had a few deaths unfortunately, and we had some buildings fall and we also lost some very iconic buildings.


We've had fires. We have even had a mudslide, that was a result I believe of the earthquake in Ben Lomond, Love Creek. We've also had mudslides on Highway 17 that have closed the road. And we've had tsunamis and I thought that was kind of interesting because when you think of all the things that go on in the world, so many…

270 Views, 0 Comments

Read Full Post