Which Loan is Right for You?

Prudential California Realty is Central Coast’s Real Estate experts. Our first priority is you – always. It is our goal to provide you with the most innovative real estate services on the Central Coast.

As we have written about in the past, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo are great areas for buying a home. In fact, they are better than great considering San Luis Obispo is America’s Happiest City and neighboring Santa Barbara has just as much to offer.

With that in your mind, you might be wondering about what type of home loan is best for you. You know you need one, but like a lot of people, you may not be an expert. So which loan is best for you? For example, are you looking to build a home, have a loan that is easier to manage than most, or do you have bad credit? No matter what your situation, there are loans options for you.

Our Wells Fargo Home Mortgage partner, Bob Franklin, can help you. Understanding that your mortgage should provide features that fit your unique homebuying needs, he can assist you with providing the flexibility to help you manage the homebuying process and your home asset the way you want to. We know what you want and we help you get there.

If you have not applied for a home loan yet, but you are looking to increase your chances, take a look at our blog from last month where we tell you that the best tips are:

• Study and improve your credit
• Keep all of your financial and official documents nearby
• Studying what type of loan your situation may call for

Part of improving your credit involves paying down your debt including monthly payments on cards, student loans, credit cards, etc.  While you do that, keep checking your credit score from all three credit bureaus.  Preparing yourself before you delve into the homebuying process will save you from quite a few headaches. Furthermore, do not do anything that could potentially damage your credit even more like making large purchases.

After that, cultivate your patience.  While we will assist you from the beginning to the end in the loan process, it is not always a day in the park while we work to get you to where you want to be.

If it is time to start reviewing the types of loans that are most appropriate for you and your needs, browse our page to see the wide array of mortgage products we have available.

If you have any questions or you are ready to start this process, we encourage you to call us at (805)489-2229 or on our toll-free number (800)417-2310.

Talk to you soon!

Decorating Green for the Holiday Season

Prudential California Realty is Central Coast’s Real Estate experts. Our first priority is you – always. It is our goal to provide you with the most innovative real estate services on the Central Coast.

In our last post, we told you about preparing your home for the fall season. That is the work side of things. In this post, we want to talk about the play side of things, but in a greener, more responsible way: decorating your home for the upcoming holiday seasons and keeping it ‘green’.

What benefits do we have by decorating ‘green’? Like all other ‘green’ solutions, decorating ‘green’ is meant to save energy. With the availability of products out there, it should be no problem finding energy efficient options that are as easy on the wallet as they are on the environment. Not only do you save energy, and money in the form of electric bills and having to replace items like energy efficient light bulbs in the future, but you can appear tech savvy to friends and neighbors while showing people you care about the environment.

The question is: how do you decorate your home for the upcoming holidays (Halloween, Thanksgiving, etc.) while also being environmentally conscience?

The question has a long list of answers, but our “solution motif” is: Rethink and Recycle.

Under “rethink”, look for products made locally, perhaps within 100 or 200 miles. While that seem like a far distance, it is much closer than most countries, so even if the product that you are buying may not be categorized as ‘green‘, the fact that less energy was used to obtain it means you are playing a role in being friendlier to the earth. And remember, like we said in an earlier post, 25% of San Luis Obispo’s residents work for themselves. Shopping local not only helps the environment, it supports local business owners and employees who keep the city alive.

Another idea is to recycle or repurpose items you already have. For example, before you go and throw away last year’s (or last decade’s) holiday decorations because they seem outdated or no longer operate to their fullest capacity, think of other ways they can be used. We found some great examples of this on this website. That should give you the idea that lots of items can fulfill purposes they are not originally designed for.

We know that everyone has their own specific ways for decorating their homes, so these are just some ways to supplement your ideas. Do you have an idea of something we should have included? Perhaps something outside of our rethink and recycle motif? If you have an idea we have not thought of, we invite you to share it in a comment section below and show the world how San Luis Obispo does the fall holidays.

Thanks and have fun decorating all fall, cause soon enough, it will be time for the winter holidays!

Preparing Your Home for the Fall Season

Prudential California Realty is Central Coast’s Real Estate experts. Our first priority is you – always. It is our goal to provide you with the most innovative real estate services on the Central Coast.

As we kick off the fall season, we start to see lots of wonderful things happening around us.  The temperatures cool down and give us a break from the harsh summer extremes we spent months sweating through. Holidays start popping up, blossoming our celebratory and gift-giving nature. We also start to see our neighbors start to take care of fall projects around the house, which might spark some of us to start doing the same.

These projects are important no matter what stage you are in during the home ownership process, whether buying, selling, getting ready to do either, if you have just moved in, or you are simply content with where you are. Fall projects are important for curb appeal and to maintain a sense of order and beauty around your property, earning you admiration and respect from neighbors and house guests.

That being said, what fall projects should you put at the top of your list? We put the efforts into two categories:

1. Cleaning up your yard
2. Revitalizing your yard

This article from Realtor.com states you should clean up your yard, protect areas that can be damaged by the upcoming winter season, and various activities for your plants and garden. We recommend reading it because it offers some great ideas and helps you prioritize all the weekend work you have ahead of yourself.

Clean Up Your Yard

Any solid effort, small or large, requires preparation. Cleaning up your yard should be your first step in reinvigorating your yard and preparing it for the fall. Rake any leaves, clean up debris, trim trees and bushes, and prune shrubs. Walk to your street and look at your house with a “new eye” and see any particular place you think could use a little effort.

Revitalize Your Yard

Now that your yard is all cleaned up, it’s time to get creative. Your home’s exterior is now like a blank canvas, and you, as homeowner, are the artist. What will you paint?

The single best idea is most likely to start in your garden. Mums are a great flower to plant in your fall garden. Other colors to keep in mind for anything decorative include our traditional fall colors like rust, brown, sage green and darker hues of yellow. Another great fall plant is the pansy.

Consider other festivities you may be participating in this season. If you will be celebrating Halloween by carving pumpkins and putting them on your porch, consider planting flowers that the pumpkin’s colors can complement.

Think about a theme you can place around your efforts. How about getting people into the holiday spirit? Add a wreath to your front door to help bring in the holidays. Lawn decorations can be fun, but don’t forget that with most things in life, less is more.

For additional home exterior ideas, you can take a look at our post from last May where we discussed ideas on improving your lawn and everything else outside of your home.

As you prepare your home for the fall season, start thinking about other ideas you have. If you think of something we missed, please share it with us in a comment by clicking “Leave a Comment” below. As summer wraps up, we wish you all a wonderful fall!