Rancho Santa Fe Homes / A Guide for Buyers and Sellers

Bitten by the Rancho Santa Fe Home Improvement Bug?

Unless money simply isn’t an issue, the financial implications of remodeling are definitely something to consider. When it comes time to sell your Rancho Santa Fe home, the new buyer will usually not pay for over-improvements. This means that if you have the smallest home in an area of larger, more expensive homes, home improvements may make very good financial sense. However, if you already have the largest, most expensive home in Rancho Santa Fe, more improvements may make you more comfortable but may not bring you a good financial return. You may find that it is financially wiser to sell and move to a different home that already has the features you want to add.

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

In the early years of your Rancho Santa Fe mortgage, nearly all of every monthly payment is interest. This means you are only paying off a tiny bit of the loan principal, but it is good news in terms of tax savings.

The monthly payment for a $100,000, 30-year, 8% mortgage on your Rancho Santa Fe would be about $734. In the first year of your mortgage, $7,970 of your $8,805 payment or 91% would be deductible as mortgage interest. Even in the tenth year, almost 81% of your payments would be deductible. What this is worth to you depends on your tax bracket but this tax savings built into the home-buying equation is why you can afford to make higher mortgage payments than your current rent payments without squeezing your budget. There is no similar tax subsidy for renters.

What Makes Rancho Santa Fe Sell?

Books have been written about this topic but to be concise, successful sale depends on six factors: Price; Terms; Location; The Home’s Condition; The Home’s Accessibility and the Marketing exposure the Rancho Santa Fe receives.

Price is what a willing seller and a willing buyer agree on. Price is determined by the current market, which fluctuates causing home values and prices to fluctuate. Often Rancho Santa Fe that does not sell is over-priced for the current market. Terms can vary as well. Some owners want payment in full, some are willing to carry a second.

Location is a major consideration in pricing and desirability for Rancho Santa Fe. Has the neighborhood gone to pot or does it look like a street at Disneyland? Are there open spaces nearby or is the home located in the middle of commercial district?

Rancho Santa Fe APPEAL

A large part of the appeal of the real estate market in any area is the architecture or the style of the homes themselves. The appeal of Rancho Santa Fe is its appropriateness to the region in terms of style, history and weather conditions.

Rancho Santa Fe BENEFITS

A benefit is an advantage or something that promotes or enhances well-being. A Rancho Santa Fe benefit might be its location, its home styles, its diversity and/or its proximity to major highways, employment, education and shopping. Whether or not any of these factors are or are not a benefit depends entirely on the point of view of the potential buyer. For example, being close to a major airport might be important for someone who flies a lot and an annoyance to someone who never flies and dislikes the noise of airplanes flying overhead.