What is a Market Action Index (MAI)?

Residential house prices are a function of supply and demand, and market conditions can be characterized by analyzing those factors. Watch this index for sustained changes: if the index falls into the Buyer’s Market zone for a long period, prices are likely in for a downward correction.













The Market Action Index (MAI) illustrates the balance between supply and demand using a statistical function of the current rate of sale versus current inventory.

An MAI value greater than 30 typically indicates a “Seller's Market” (a.k.a. "Hot Market") because demand is high enough to quickly gobble up available supply. A hot market will typically cause prices to rise. MAI values below 30 indicate a "Buyer's Market" (a.k.a. "Cold Market") where the inventory of already-listed homes is sufficient to last several months at the current rate of sales. A cold market will typically cause prices to fall.

The CHULA VISTA market is currently in the Buyer's Market zone (below 30), though not strongly so. The 90-day Market Action Index stands this week at 25 so buyers should expect find reasonable levels of selection.

The market has shown some evidence of slowing recently. Both prices and inventory levels are relatively unchanged in recent weeks. Watch the Market Action Index for changes as it can be a leading indicator for price changes.

Not surprisingly given the overall Market Action Index, all quartiles are in the Buyer's Market zone with several months of inventory given the current rate of demand for homes in the quartile. Watch the quartile for changes before the overall market shifts. Often one end of the market (e.g. the low end) will improve and signal a strengthening market before the whole group changes.

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Don't foreclose! Do a short sale

By Les Christie, staff writerMarch 29, 2010: 2:30 PM ET

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Short sales are the hottest thing going in the distressed-property market, and the trend is expected to get even hotter in coming weeks, when the government starts handing out cash to encourage lenders to close these deals.

"Banks have ramped up short sale approvals," said Duane Legate of House Buyer Network, which connects short sellers with buyers. "They're hiring a lot of the people who once worked in the mortgage-lending industry and moved them over to short sales."

These transactions, where lenders allow homeowners to sell their houses for less than they owe, accounted for 17% of all residential real estate sales in February, up from nearly 13% in November, according to a monthly real estate market survey by Campbell/Inside Mortgage Finance.

And Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500), the country's largest mortgage servicer, has more than doubled the number of short sales it processed in recent months.

Elizabeth Weintraub, a Sacramento, Calif.-area real estate agent who handles many short sales, was amazed at how quickly a recent deal went through. "Bank of America approved it in 24 days," she said. "That flipped me out."

This is a huge change from even just six months ago when the short-sale market was stalled and most people would describe the process has real estate hell. Because lenders stand to lose so much on these transactions, they have been reluctant to make short sales happen, often waiting months before getting back to potential buyers.

Beware: You lost your house but still have to pay

"In the past, many short sales would never come to fruition and the ones that did averaged over half a year to complete," said Chris Saitta, CEO of Equator, which produces short sale software.

"Things would just fall into a black hole and not come out again," added Weintraub.

And even when banks did agree to the sale, the process could be further complicated if the original owner had a second mortgage.

In most cases, the first lender is repaid in full before any money flows to a second-lein holder. And because most distressed borrowers are severely underwater, there's usually nothing left to send on. As a result, second-lein holders are left holding the bag and have been killing many deals.

But that has been changing. For one thing, banks realize that they make out far better financially with a short sale than a foreclosure. "The lenders lose 50% on a foreclosure and only 30% on a short sale," said Glenn Kelman, founder of the real estate Web site Redfin. "And short sales offer a way to get distressed properties off their books quickly."

And on April 5, lenders and mortgage investors will have even more incentives to offer troubled borrowers short sales instead of foreclosing.

Under the new Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives program, borrowers will earn a $3,000 "relocation incentive" and servicers will get $1,500 for handling a short sale.

The investors who actually own the mortgage notes will get $2,000 in exchange for sharing proceeds of the short sales with any second-lien holders. And, finally, those second lien holders will receive up to $6,000 for releasing their claims.

Lenders participating in the program must also determine the market values of properties early on and inform the owners of just what price they're willing to accept. Then, if owners come back to the lenders with bonafide offers, they have to be accepted within 10 days.

Equator's Saiita anticipates a short sale explosion in response to the new program. "The challenge will be handling all the volume," he said.

The company has already tweaked its software, which 58 servicers use, to handle the new HAFA rules. And that should help reduce the time it takes to execute a sale, which currently averages 88 days.

The boom in short sales may accelerate the end to the foreclosure crisis by cleaning out the overhang of borrowers in distress and replacing them with more stable homeowners.

Plus, these sales are better for distressed borrowers because their credit scores suffer less. Going through a foreclosure can knock 200 points off a FICO score, twice as much as the penalty for a short sale.

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California expands $10K buyer tax credit

State doubles credit to $200M, opens it up to resales
By Inman News, Thursday, March 25, 2010.

Inman News

The state of California has re-established and extended a $10,000 homebuyer tax credit.

The new law, AB 183, signed today by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, allocates $200 million to the credit for homes purchased between May 1 and Dec. 31, and between Dec. 31 and August 1, 2011. That's twice the amount allocated to a similar credit passed for purchasers of new homes last year. Those funds were quickly depleted and builders have been asking for the credit's return ever since.

The state has extended the new credit to first-time buyers of existing homes as well as buyers of new homes. The funds will be split evenly between the two groups, and buyers will have to occupy the home for at least two years.

The legislation had the backing of the California Building Industry Association and the California Association of Realtors.

"The tax credit will help push prospective buyers off the fence, clear out inventory, and jump-start the homebuilding industry, which will help create jobs and reinvigorate the state's economy," said Liz Snow, the building association's CEO and president, in a statement.

"AB 183 also will significantly contribute to efforts to stimulate jobs creation within California's housing market by helping to incentivize first-time home buyers to purchase homes that have been abandoned, foreclosed upon, and returned to the lender; or have been sitting on the market for extended periods of time," said Steve Goddard, the real estate association president, in a statement.

"It is these homes that will require substantial rehabilitation by the new owners, which will in turn generate a tremendous increase in jobs and accessory purchases connected to home improvement activities," Goddard added.

Snow said the credit would be paid out over several years and therefore lessen the blow to the cash-strapped state's budget.

"Additionally, recent studies show that building a new home generates roughly $16,000 in state tax revenues alone, which supports the notion that the credit will more than pay for itself," Snow said.

The Franchise Tax Board concluded that losses to the state's General Fund will equal $200 million: $6 million in 2009-10; $69 million in 2010-11; $67 million in 2011-12; $54 million in 2012-13; and, $4 million in 2013-14.

"The bill appears to represent a blending of policy goals, including: increasing demand for housing by lowering the effective purchase price; decreasing the existing market inventory of homes; and, encouraging construction of new homes. Supporters claim this bill will result in the generation of additional jobs in California. No formal jobs analysis has been conducted," according to a legislative report.

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REOs and Short Sales Account for 50% of California Home Sales

Foreclosed homes taken back by lenders and distressed short sales accounted for nearly half of all residential home sales in California in 2009, according to a market report released this week by the California Association of Realtors (C.A.R.). In 2008, such sales made up 38 percent of annual transactions.

As one of the hardest-hit states by the housing downturn, the Golden State is littered with bank-owned properties and homes facing foreclosure, but the lower prices and increasing buyer appetite for these deals are helping to reduce some of California’s distressed inventory.

The median price of distressed properties declined nearly one quarter to $250,000 in 2009, compared with $330,000 in 2008, C.A.R. reported. Meanwhile, the median price of non-distressed properties decreased only 10.4 percent to $485,000 compared with $541,000 in 2008.

Although one-third of sellers sold their homes for a loss last year – the highest level on record since C.A.R. started tracking net cash losses in 1989 – the lower home prices lured investors. According to the state Realtors association, more than 70 percent of properties purchased by investors were either short sales or REO/foreclosures. The typical investment property had a median price of $232,750.

Lower home prices and a large supply of distressed properties, coupled with federal tax breaks, also encouraged first-time buyers to take the plunge into

homeownership. The percent of first-time buyers increased dramatically to 47 percent in 2009, up from 35.9 percent in 2008, according to the report.

“It is clear that the federal tax credit for homebuyers worked well in 2009 and is continuing to drive home sales,” said C.A.R. President Steve Goddard. “The homebuyers’ tax credit is arguably the most successful strategy employed by the government’s efforts to stimulate the economy.”

According to a survey conducted by C.A.R. on the effectiveness of the federal tax credit, nearly 40 percent of homebuyers in the state said they would not have purchased a home if the tax credit was not offered.

C.A.R. also noted that the large number of distressed properties led to more than half of all first-time buyers purchasing an REO/foreclosure or short sale property.

According to C.A.R.’s analysis, California’s median home price hit bottom in February 2009 at $245,170. Since then, the median home price has increased steadily in month-to-month comparisons, but remained below 2008 levels throughout 2009. The annual median price is projected to increase to $280,000 in 2010 from $271,000 in 2009, the association said.

Homes priced $500,000 or less dominated the sales mix throughout 2008 and 2009, but C.A.R. says sales of high-end homes started picking up in late 2009, with the number of closings for homes priced $500,000 or higher rising 3 percent, and sales of homes priced $1 million or more experiencing their first year-to-year increase since July 2007.

A separate study by a local newspaper shows that a growing number of Californians are turning to the courts to fight the foreclosure process and prevent their homes from becoming REOs. According to numbers complied by the San Jose Mercury News, the number of foreclosure lawsuits filed in federal court in California has ballooned from just 29 cases statewide in 2005 to nearly 1,400 in 2009.

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Politics Has California Short Sellers Facing Big Bills

What should have been a legislative afterthought is threatening to become a financial purgatory for thousands of California taxpayers hit by the housing crisis.

With less than a month until tax filings are due, struggling Californians who received mortgage modifications or lost their homes in short sales or foreclosures last year face the prospect of huge state tax bills. That's because legislation that would prevent their canceled debt from being treated as taxable income is caught in the latest budget spat between Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and state lawmakers.

Schwarzenegger, a Republican, said this week that he would veto a tax bill passed by majority Democrats. Among other things, the legislation would have mirrored federal tax relief given to those who had mortgage debt forgiven in 2009. In previous years, the state conformed with federal law.

Business groups have objected to an unrelated provision in the bill dealing with penalties for tax fraud, and that prompted Schwarzenegger's veto threat.

The governor has asked the Legislature to pass a separate bill dealing solely with the mortgage issue so he can sign it before April 15. Democrats, the majority in both houses of the Legislature, appear to be in no hurry.

If no bill is signed in the next month, San Diego resident Kate Dalcour said she and her husband could be on the hook for nearly $16,000 in additional state taxes.

Dalcour's husband bought a condo for $300,000 in 2007. Because of a pay cut, he was forced to sell it in December for $175,000 less than what he owed on it.

"It's awful and kind of scary," said Dalcour, a 29-year-old behavioral therapist. "This is money that California would not expect to get under normal circumstances, and it's not very fair."

The political standoff is unfolding in one of the states hardest hit by the real estate crisis.

California had the nation's fourth highest foreclosure rate last month, when one in every 195 housing units there received a foreclosure filing, according to RealtyTrac Inc. The Irvine, Calif.-based foreclosure listings company listed Nevada, Arizona and Florida as the top three states.

According to the National Association of Realtors, 24 percent of home sales nationwide in January were foreclosures, and 14 percent were short sales.

In a foreclosure, a bank typically ends up taking the property after the homeowners fail to make payments on their mortgage. A short sale happens when sellers owe more than the house is worth, and the lender is willing to accept less than the mortgage balance to get out of the investment.

Banks may opt for short sales as an alternative to going through the longer foreclosure process and risk having the property sit empty for months.

Depending on the type of loan, the government can consider the forgiven debt as income and tax it. In California, most first mortgages to buy a home aren't affected, but homeowners can face big tax bills if they default on some types of refinance loans and second mortgages that let them cash out equity.

Congress responded to the growing problem by passing the Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act of 2007, which prevented homeowners from being liable for their canceled debt. The act prohibits such federal taxes through 2012.

California matched its state tax laws to the federal act in 2007 and 2008. It has not passed an extension for 2009, which has left many short sellers in limbo.

Conforming California to the federal standard would help an estimated 16,000 people who have mortgage debt forgiven between 2009 and 2012, according to the California Franchise Tax Board.

Real estate agents said California's political leaders need to act because the tax liability will hurt families trying to reassemble their lives.

"These are people who lost homes, and you expect them to pay $20,000 in taxes?" said Elizabeth Velasco, a real estate agent with Warren Realty who specializes in short sales in Sacramento and the San Francisco Bay area. "They can't even put food on the table."

Dalcour, the former condo owner from San Diego, is hoping the Legislature will separate the tax relief provision from the rest of the bill so thousands of Californians won't get tangled up with huge tax liabilities while the state's economy is doing so poorly. California's unemployment rate has been above 12 percent for months.

In a letter to state legislative leaders, Schwarzenegger said he asked for legislation that would protect homeowners, only to receive a bill that "uses these homeowners as leverage to increase tax penalties for businesses."

"They put in a bad element to an otherwise good bill," said the governor's spokesman, Aaron McLear.

Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg blamed the governor. He said Schwarzenegger has fallen into the hands of big business by objecting to a provision in the bill that would penalize companies for underreporting their taxes or overclaiming tax credits. The provision conforms with federal tax rules signed by former President George W. Bush.

Steinberg, a Democrat from Sacramento, said he will continue to push for tax penalties on individuals and businesses that commit fraud, but he would consider sending the governor a separate bill.

"We are not going to sacrifice people who have worked very hard and are unfortunately on the verge of losing their homes," he said. "We're going to do right by them."

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San Diego County housing prices rebound in February

San Diego County housing prices bounced back in February to reach a median $322,000 that was in the range of prices for much of last year, MDA DataQuick reported Monday.

The median, the midpoint of all prices, was up 5.6 percent from January’s $305,000 and up 13 percent from February 2009. The January median price had fallen 7.5 percent from December’s $330,000, reflecting an active market in low-cost homes and little activity in move up properties.

February’s numbers represented the highest year-over-year increase since March 2005, a few months before the median peaked at $517,500 and then fell to a low of $280,000 in January 2009.

But housing experts caution that January and February do not usually set the pace for sales and price trends for the year because of their traditionally low volume of activity.

Single-family resale homes had a median price of $358,500, up 3.9 percent from January’s $345,000 and just about the same as the December median; the figure was 12 percent ahead of year-ago levels. Condo resales stood at $219,500, up 8.9 percent from January’s $201,500 and nearly equal to the median price in December; it was 12.6 percent ahead of February 2009’s $195,000. The new-home median, including condo conversions, was $460,000, up 13.3 percent from January’s $406,000 and the highest since last May; it was 1.8 percent higher than in February 2009.

Sales in February stood at 2,465, up 6.2 percent from January but 8 sales lower than in February 2009. Single-family resales were below year-ago levels, down 4.2 percent, a reflection of the low inventory of homes for sale, especially low-cost distressed properties, as lenders try to modify loans rather than initiate foreclosure proceedings. Many analysts expect foreclosures to increase this year and thus lead to more sales but perhaps lower prices overall.

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South County Appeals to Upper End Market

BE THE FIRST TO VIEW THE SOUTH COUNTY EDITION OF DREAM HOMES MAGAZINE TODAY!




McMillin Realty is dedicated to changing the perception of Chula Vista and the South County their main vision is that South County is the premiere living destination in San Diego County. Let's get the word out!

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It's Tax Season, Do You Know Where You Stand With Your Property Gain/Loss?

Sale of Residence - Real Estate Tax Tips

You may qualify to exclude from your income all or part of any gain from the sale of your main home. Your main home is the one in which you live most of the time.

Ownership and Use Tests

To claim the exclusion, you must meet the ownership and use tests. This means that during the 5-year period ending on the date of the sale, you must have:

• Owned the home for at least two years (the ownership test)
• Lived in the home as your main home for at least two years (the use test)

Gain

If you have a gain from the sale of your main home, you may be able to exclude up to $250,000 of the gain from your income ($500,000 on a joint return in most cases).

• If you can exclude all of the gain, you do not need to report the sale on your tax return
• If you have gain that cannot be excluded, it is taxable. Report it on Schedule D (Form 1040)

Loss

You cannot deduct a loss from the sale of your main home.

Worksheets

Worksheets are included in Publication 523, Selling Your Home, to help you figure the:

• Adjusted basis of the home you sold
• Gain (or loss) on the sale
• Gain that you can exclude

Reporting the Sale

Do not report the sale of your main home on your tax return unless you have a gain and at least part of it is taxable. Report any taxable gain on Schedule D (Form 1040).

More Than One Home

If you have more than one home, you can exclude gain only from the sale of your main home. You must pay tax on the gain from selling any other home. If you have two homes and live in both of them, your main home is ordinarily the one you live in most of the time.

Example One:

You own and live in a house in the city. You also own a beach house, which you use during the summer months. The house in the city is your main home; the beach house is not.

Example Two:

You own a house, but you live in another house that you rent. The rented house is your main home.

Business Use or Rental of Home

You may be able to exclude your gain from the sale of a home that you have used for business or to produce rental income. But you must meet the ownership and use tests.

Example:

On May 30, 1997, Amy bought a house. She moved in on that date and lived in it until May 31, 1999, when she moved out of the house and put it up for rent. The house was rented from June 1, 1999, to March 31, 2001. Amy moved back into the house on April 1, 2001, and lived there until she sold it on January 31, 2003. During the 5-year period ending on the date of the sale (February 1, 1998 - January 31, 2003), Amy owned and lived in the house for more than 2 years as shown in the table below.

Five Year Period	Used as Home	Used as Rental
2/1/98-5/31/99	16 months
6/1/99-3/31/01		22 months
4/1/01-1/31/03	22 months
	38 months	22 months

Amy can exclude gain up to $250,000. However, she cannot exclude the part of the gain equal to the depreciation she claimed for renting the house.

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This hard hit market is an opportunity for many first-time buyers

The housing market decline that has triggered a wave of foreclosures and deeply eroded recent home equity gains is also opening the door to ownership for renters who can meet tightening lending standards.

With the departure of the easy credit terms that triggered the mortgage market meltdown, lenders have raised the bar on who can qualify for a home loan. But those with high credit scores and money for down payments are finding that many homes are priced to sell, particularly in entry-level neighborhoods hit hard by mortgage defaults.

To compete with bank-owned homes, other sellers have been forced to cut their prices. For renters who watched the median price of a home rise from $185,000 a decade ago to $517,500 at the height of the recent housing boom, June's countywide median of $370,000 seems like a bargain, said Gary Kent, a real estate agent who began selling foreclosures when the housing boom ended.

So far landlords have reported no large outflow of tenants. But Kent said one sign that some previous renters are entering the market is that few of his recent bank-owned sales have been contingent on the buyer selling another home.

While sales volumes remain relatively low, an influx of renters into the foreclosure market "is definitely happening," Kent said. "I am selling a lot of foreclosure properties. Most of these buyers are renters."

In Spring Valley, one of the communities where foreclosures are common, "a condo that may have sold for $300,000 in late 2005 might now go for $150,000 or even less," he said.

While beneficial to some, some analysts say the recent dip in prices hasn't returned true affordability to the marketplace. A recent study by Homes for Working Families and Moody's Economy.com found that reduced home prices haven't come close to erasing "the negative effects of the housing market bubble" in metropolitan areas like San Diego County.

Tighter credit and higher unemployment are "largely offsetting any declines in the monthly debt service burden of being a homeowner," said Kathryn Murray St. John, a spokeswoman for Homes for Working Families, a nonprofit group dedicated to improving home affordability.

For many renters, the combination of a lagging economy and tighter credit means their prospects for home ownership are actually worse than before home prices began dropping, said Delores Conway, director of the Casden Real Estate Economics Forecast at the University of Southern California.

"What will ultimately restore affordability is if the credit crisis ends so we have loan availability," she said. "Right now the consumer is very stressed about high energy prices, high housing costs, whether they are renting or paying a mortgage."

Among renters who have benefited from the market downturn are Roy and Julie Blackman of Clairemont. The couple recently went into escrow on a single-family home.

Julie, 32, is a civil engineer. Roy, 39, is an irrigation technician. The couple moved to San Diego in 2002, when home prices were soaring. Since then they've been biding their time, waiting for prices to drop within their reach.

"We've been married 11 years," said Julie. "We've been renting the whole time. I wanted to stay in Clairemont where I grew up. We decided to hold out. When we saw things start to go down, we kept an eye out and waited for stuff to get below $400,000."

They recently found a 1,450-square-foot home near Clairemont Square that they purchased for $385,000. They paid 3 percent down with a loan insured by the Federal Housing Administration and another $10,000 in closing costs. Their monthly payments will be about $3,000. With two incomes and no children, it's within their means.

Although they had been looking at foreclosure homes, the home they chose wasn't a distressed sale. Built in 1957, it was in move-in condition, unlike many bank-owned properties they had visited.

"When we saw good paint on the walls and flooring it was like, `Wow, we can actually move into this house without re-doing it,'" Julie said.

While landlords have seen no great decline in renters because of lower home prices, there has been a small rise in vacancies. In a spring survey released last month, the San Diego County Apartment Association found that the average rent was $1,201, an increase of nearly 3 percent over the association's fall 2007 survey. At the same time, vacancies were up.

The study found a 4.8 percent vacancy rate countywide, an increase from the 3.4 percent reported in the fall poll.

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Real Estate Overview by Popular Community

Normally I give a general snapshot of the market by zip code. It is useful information and helps us see the big picture, however, sometimes it is interesting to see how the market is reacting in our own community.

So here are a few statistics in some of the more popular areas of East Chula Vista.


RANCHO DEL REY
The median sales price for homes in Rancho Del Rey, Chula Vista for Nov 09 to Jan 10 was $360,000 based on 59 sales. Compared to the same period one year ago, the median sales price increased 6.7%, or $22,500, and the number of sales increased 1.7%. Average price per square foot for Rancho Del Rey was $198, a decrease of 1.5% compared to the same period last year.

There are currently 40 resale and new homes in Chula Vista including 93 homes in the pre-foreclosure, auction, or bank-owned stages of the foreclosure process. The average listing price for homes for sale in Rancho Del Rey was $721,257 for the week ending Feb 24, which represents an increase of 4.2%, or $28,802, compared to the prior week.

EASTLAKE
The median sales price for homes in Eastlake, Chula Vista for Nov 09 to Jan 10 was $217,500 based on 58 sales. Compared to the same period one year ago, the median sales price increased 13.7%, or $26,250, and the number of sales decreased 33.3%. Average price per square foot for Eastlake was $184, an increase of 4.5% compared to the same period last year.

There are currently 16 resale and new homes in Chula Vista, including 80 homes in the pre-foreclosure, auction, or bank-owned stages of the foreclosure process. The average listing price for homes for sale in Eastlake was $318,735 for the week ending Feb 24, which represents an increase of 2.7%, or $8,485, compared to the prior week.

EASTLAKE GREENS
The median sales price for homes in Eastlake Greens, Chula Vista for Nov 09 to Jan 10 was $330,000 based on 70 sales. Compared to the same period one year ago, the median sales price increased 8.6%, or $26,250, and the number of sales decreased 4.1%. Average price per square foot for Eastlake Greens was $189, an increase of 3.8% compared to the same period last year.

There are currently 20 resale and new homes in Chula Vista, including 89 homes in the pre-foreclosure, auction, or bank-owned stages of the foreclosure process. The average listing price for homes for sale in Eastlake Greens was $397,968 for the week ending Feb 24, which represents an increase of 8.1%, or $29,665, compared to the prior week.

OTAY RANCH VILLAGES
The median sales price for homes in Otay Ranch Village, Chula Vista for Nov 09 to Jan 10 was $339,250 based on 106 sales. Compared to the same period one year ago, the median sales price increased 7.2%, or $22,750, and the number of sales decreased 26.4%. Average price per square foot for Otay Ranch Village was $178, an increase of 1.1% compared to the same period last year.

There are currently 51 resale and new homes in Chula Vista, including 154 homes in the pre-foreclosure, auction, or bank-owned stages of the foreclosure process. The average listing price for homes for sale in Otay Ranch Village was $317,656 for the week ending Feb 24, which represents a decrease of 0.1%, or $462, compared to the prior week.

THE WOODS
The median sales price for homes in Eastlake Woods, Chula Vista for Nov 09 to Jan 10 was $619,000 based on 16 sales. Compared to the same period one year ago, the median sales price decreased 3.7%, or $23,500, and the number of sales decreased 27.3%. Average price per square foot for Eastlake Woods was $179, an increase of 4.1% compared to the same period last year.

There are currently 13 resale and new homes in Chula Vista, including 22 homes in the pre-foreclosure, auction, or bank-owned stages of the foreclosure process. The average listing price for homes for sale in Eastlake Woods was $991,560 for the week ending Feb 24, which represents an increase of 3.3%, or $31,283, compared to the prior week.

SAN MIGUEL RANCH
The median sales price for homes in San Miguel Ranch, Chula Vista for Nov 09 to Jan 10 was $449,000 based on 53 sales. Compared to the same period one year ago, the median sales price increased 21.4%, or $79,007, and the number of sales increased 1.9%. Average price per square foot for San Miguel Ranch was $183, an increase of 7% compared to the same period last year.

There are currently 19 resale and new homes in Chula Vista, including 50 homes in the pre-foreclosure, auction, or bank-owned stages of the foreclosure process. The average listing price for homes for sale in San Miguel Ranch was $401,723 for the week ending Feb 24, which represents a decrease of 4.3%, or $17,863, compared to the prior week.

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McMillin Unveils "Millenia" and Introduces New Vision for the Future

03.05.2010 – More than 200 elected officials, civic and business leaders from both sides of the U.S./Mexico border packed into Frida’s restaurant in eastern Chula Vista Wednesday night to learn of the plans for The Corky McMillin Companies' new town, designed to be the epicenter of the sprawling Otay Ranch community.

Chula Vista Mayor Cox, along with Scott McMillin, chairman of The Corky McMillin Companies, took turns addressing the enthusiastic crowd before dramatically unveiling the name Millenia to a warm round of applause.

The mayor began her remarks by putting the long planning process in context.

“For the last 20 years, McMillin and the city of Chula Vista have had an extraordinary partnership,” she explained.

Reflecting the clearly forward-looking spirit of the project, she continued, “McMillin has always built for the future, including creating jobs for our kids and our community.”

Scott McMillin elaborated on the ambitious goals Millenia embodies.

“This project is going to be the heart of eastern Chula Vista. We wanted to develop a project where you could do it all: live, work and play.”

Millenia is a 210-acre mixed-use community – roughly the same size as three Qualcomm Stadium footprints. McMillin describes it as a “smart, energy-efficient, pedestrian-oriented, well-planned community that fundamentally changes how neighborhoods are created and thrive.”

A hybrid of suburban and urban neighborhoods, Millenia will be the urban center of the award-winning 23,000-acre Otay Ranch community. It will include more than 3.4 million square feet of commercial space (office, civic and retail) and about 3,000 homes. The San Diego Association of Governments designated Millenia a Smart Growth Urban Center. Attention to practical, livable details throughout Millenia is unmistakable.



“We envisioned a dynamic and energetic community, that is safe and secure, accessible and optimistic,” explained Todd Galarneau, McMillin’s project manager. “Millenia will have a strong employment and civic component, and a variety of housing types in a series of compact, walkable districts.”

“What’s great,” exclaims Galarneau, “is that the entire community is woven together with parks, plazas, town squares, biking and walking paths that offer recreation, relaxation and socializing.”

Not only is foot travel enjoyable and convenient, but transit is too, by virtue of Millenia’s central location. Adjacent to the state Route 125 and on a planned express transit route, Millenia will link downtown San Diego with the international border.

“Millenia is a regional center as much as it is a neighborhood. It’s a new way of building community,” Galarneau added.

Millenia is pioneering the integration of LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) standards and goals at a neighborhood design level, one that is less dependent on cars and more people friendly. One simple example: making walking easy and fun will get people out of their cars for community trips. Fewer drivers mean less air and water pollution. It’s so innovative, in fact, that the design is part of a national research project by the National Energy Research Center’s Center for Sustainable Communities, the U.S. Department of Energy and the California Energy Commission.

“Tonight is the story that the partnership between business organizations, the city and the community can create opportunity and a place that everyone has been dreaming about for the last twenty years,” McMillan said. “Because of the great community and the civic support, this project was possible.”



Founded in 1960 by Corky McMillin and now celebrating it’s 50th year, The Corky McMillin Companies has built more than 30,000 homes, 16 mixed-use master-planned communities, more than 20 community parks, college dormitories and 2,000 military residences on seven bases. The company is building in San Diego, Imperial Valley, Visalia and Bakersfield, California, as well as in San Antonio, Texas. The Corky McMillin Companies is also the company behind the redevelopment of Liberty Station, which was voted Base Redevelopment Community of the Year by the Association of Defense Communities. For additional information on the company, go to mcmillin.com or visit www.milleniasd.com for information on the project.

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