San Diego Real Estate Blog

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Top 10 most expensive properties in San Diego

San Diego 10 Most Expensive Homes For Sale!!! -Rina Podolsky Carmel Valley Home For Sale-

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Here is a look at the most expensive properties currently for sale in the SAN DIEGO area.

The homes were selected by asking price, not by price per s.f.

 

It is interesting to note that the list  is equally divided into 3 areas that are dominating the most expensive chart:

• 3 properties for sale in Rancho Santa Fe
• 3 properties for Sale in Del Mar
• 3 Properties for sale in La Jolla.

 

This homes, have been on the market for  an average of 338 days, ranging from 78  to 1,170 days listed

 

The average asking price per s.f.  is $5462.79. ranging from $1,335 to $17,191.78

 

Another area that is noteworthy although non of the properties for sale in Coronado did not make it to the list, if we extended the list to the top 20 we would certainly see a few homes in the Coronado market making it to the most expensive properties for sale list.

 

To view information on each one of this homes, click on each of the images.

 If you would like more information on any of these or other homes s well as more data and statistics, please contact us, we will be happy to assist you!

 

 

 



 

$18,000,000 to $21,000,000

Rancho Santa Fe 5,487 sf $21,000,000

Del Mar 2,885 sf $21,000,000

Rancho Santa Fe 12,889 sf $21,950,000

La Jolla 11,000 sf $25,000,000

Carlsbad 10,000 sf $29,000,000

La Jolla 10,000 sf $$29,950,000

Rancho Santa Fe 3,000 sf $29,950,000

Del Mar 6,551 sf $39,000,000

Del Mar 10,164 sf $61,000,000

The information fron this post is appromiate and was based on MLS data. Should be checked by buyer.

Foreclosure Moratorium Lifted

The ink wasn’t even dry on the newspaper (or this blog for that matter) regarding some of the largest banks putting all foreclosures on hold for what analyst thought would be a long time, and here comes Bank Of America proving them wrong and making us re-write our news and commentary pieces.

What happened? On Monday BOFA announced that it is lifting the foreclosure halt Partially, only on those states that have judicial foreclosures, that is, states that require a court to approve the Foreclosure, the ban will be lifted, these states, were the first ones to be put on a foreclosure freeze last week and the first ones to be put out of it.

BOFA said is that they will resume foreclosures in 23 courts starting october 25. They also said they are very confident and have reviewed their process and find it to be sound. As for the rest of the foreclosures in non-judicial states, those will resume soon after the bank begins refilling amended affidavits.

It is estimated that 30,000 foreclosures will resume now and 102,000 will resume thereafter the corrected affidavits are in place.

GMAC who also declared a temporary moratorium is also lifting the halt and moving forward with the foreclosure process.

The question remains, why halt the foreclosure process one week and bring it back to working order the next? Could they really have sorted out the state of this foreclosures in a short week? I highly doubt it specially when we are talking about institutions that have continued to make mistakes, and who take 9 months to approve a short sale.

Now don’t get me wrong, I did not want a moratorium knowing that it would mean for these homes to start accumulating on the banks  inventory, instead of them coming at a steady pace into the market. We learned that lesson already. However, Now that the fact that there might be serious questions about the banks process not only on the foreclosure end, but on the ownership of some loans, even if it is a small technicality, has hit the mass media, there WILL be reactions from many ends, legal reactions that is. And that will only tie up and bring more complications and cost more money. So, in conclusion, I am glad they lifted the moratorium but I hope that their process is really as clean as they say and that the banks are as confident as they claim to be because they will have to prove it in court.

TimesFootnote:
Since I last published this last night, there is already an update that I deemed pertinent to this note. This morning there was an article on the LA Times http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-bank-of-america-loss-20101020,0,5193498.story , it states that some of the investors that bought faulty mortages from BOFA have sent a written request to the bank, asking that they buy back improperly procesed loans. BOFA has so far refused to do so.

Now What? The foreclosure halt and its consequences explained

First it was GMAC halting foreclosures in 23 states, then JP Morgan Chase said it will delay the process of more than 56,000 foreclosure proceedings and from there all the way to Bank Of America announcing last week that it was pausing foreclosure proceedings in all 50 states while they review the process and paperwork for “defects”.

Today it was announced that California will be joining a task force created as a multi-state inquiry into foreclosures.

All this comes when it seemed like foreclosures where starting to ease up.

But what is this latest crisis all about. What is it that the banks are corned with at this point of the game?

Lets start by a quick explanation of the life of a mortgage .

Once a mortgage is created, it does not usually stay with the bank or institution that originated it. Mortgages will change hands several times through its life span. When a mortgage gets sold and changes hands the new owners have to get an “assignment”  from the buyers. An assignment is a document signed by both buyer and seller acknowledging the sale of the loan, this note has to be attached to all other documents and delivered to the new owner.

It gets a little more complicated from here. Many mortgages are the “securitized” this means that it get pooled in with a a large number of other mortgages by an investment firm and becomes part of a pool of mortgages that will be sold off in slices to different investors as an investment vehicle. Then someone is assigned with being the one in charge of properly dividing the money that comes in from the monthly mortgage payments and also of foreclosing on the ones that have stopped paying. This person is called the “servicer” . When a mortgage is securitized, what happens to the note, who gets the note? Neither the investor nor the servicer gets this note or assignment, not even the investment vehicle has the assignment, instead they go to a repository company and the transfer is noted in an electronic base.

So where did the break down occur? well, at the height of the mortgage wave, Notes were coming in at such a fast pace and paperwork was not being filed, revised or monitored. This was the barely -doc to no-doc era and so paperwork was more of an afterthought in many cases and this lack of concern went from the origination of the loan all the way to all the transfers.

Making matters even more complicated is the  fact that some of the institutions went under or were acquired by larger ones.

You might ask, how does dis impact the foreclosures and why if that had been happening for all this years, why the halt now?

Well, there were warning signs and some people did raise their concerned voices but they were not paid attention to, probably because the crisis  and the bubble burst seemed so large and that was the main concern, so it was until  Jeffrey Stephan a loan officer for GMAC admitted in a deposition to the signing of about 10,000 foreclosure proceedings per month for five years straight without reviewing the paperwork properly, that serious cracks in the process were revealed in a very public way that caught so many people’s attention and brought forth a probe into  GMAC (Ally) foreclosure proceedings starting a chain reaction to other banks since Jeffreys signed foreclosures for other institutions as well.

Initially the halt was done in 23 states that had what is called Judicial foreclosures. This means, that their foreclosure process, requires the lender to go through a court process and file a claim and turn in the appropriate paperwork which includes  a sworn and notarized affidavit of a loan officer and submit the mortgage documents.

Often, however, judges will issue foreclosure orders without the mortgage documents so long as the borrower doesn’t contest this point.Once the do this the get the court approval to move ahead with the foreclosures.

As I said not all states require this, some states, like California, do not need to get a court approval in order to complete a foreclosure. So the first states where the pause was enacted where those where the bank had to initiate a court process and had been required to turn in paperwork which in many cases was nowhere to be found, so how could they have foreclosed with court approval without all of the paperwork in order?

In many cases the foreclosures were not contested by anyone and so in those cases the banks went ahead and foreclosed even with the missing assignment documents, but in some other cases there are allegations of banks  and evidence has been produced to show that notarizations have been faked, documents forged.

Even though the situation looks worse in judicial states because there is forgery that was sent to court involved, this dies not exempt the other states from misdoings so, that is why the halt was extended in many cases to all 50 states.

In many cases, the notes do exist it will just take a big effort to find them and complete this files propperly. So this might sound like it is simply a case of paying to much attention to a paper trail. However, the fact that all this got through the banks, that there are allegations of forgery and in many cases there simply are no notes or assignments, this has the potential to become a huge mess.

There is lawsuit written all over this one from so many sides that it will look like lawyers playing fields.

Homeowners who have been paying their mortgage regularly are wanting to make sure the one they are paying actually owns the note, and if it turns out they don’t, well they will be suing for money paid to an institution that had no rights. Now there are those who properly securitize the loan and did not get the assignment note, they are looking into lawsuits from investors because tis bonds usually include a representation and warranties that the bank has obtained all documentation related to the mortgages included in the loan.

Without going into detail on this one, there is also a problem between senior and junior liens, and when the froze the foreclosure process, senior leans are responsible to pay junior liens some money even when the mortgage is not bringing in any, until this mortgage is foreclosed, so this puts senior liens in a delicate position.

And then, what happens if a note is never found? who owns that mortgage? Is the homeowner free and clear? who is he supposed to make payments to? If they stop making payments, who will have the right to foreclose?

Now let’s take it a step further. What will happen with all those people whose home was foreclosed and sold? If they come after the bank and actually prove that the foreclosure was improperly done? Their home was already sold, there is a new owner who might be facing a legal battle he did not sign up for.

Finally, if this situation takes a year to correct, once the halt is lifted, we will find ourselves with a wave of foreclosures that had been accumulating instead of slowly coming into the market at a regular pace, how will this new flood be absorbed by a weakened market?

 

 

Since the news on this one broke I have also been hearing some homeowners not currently in default that are not happy to hear that so many people will be living rent/mortgage free for a year (or two) while they are doing things correctly.

We should be paying attention to this one closely!

Carlsbad School Shooting. Lessons to be learned?

The breaking news came in and what I heard was one of parents worst nightmares. To hear that a local elementary school had been the victim of such  a violent act. On Friday October 8, 2010, A single gun shooter jumped the fence at the campus of Kelly Elementary in the Carlsbad area and began shooting at the kids.

The gunman managed to hit two second grade girls, 6 and 7 years old, they were both shot in the arm and both were eventually flown to Rady Children’s Hospital and are expected to recover fully from the gun wounds. But what about the mental scars that these kids, all of the kids that lived thru this ordeal will carry with them?

This was a case of a horrible situation with the best possible ending thanks to both construction workers who were working on a campus project and reacted bravely and quickly and to the fact that the gunman was a poor shooter and did not reload.

For many of us the question remains, can incidents like this one be prevented? are our school campuses too easy to access and a prime target for anyone who wants to make a statement or who looses their sanity?

First of all, everyone who knows something about securing an institution will tell you that if someone wants to seriously target any school, will find a way to do so, even if the campus was a closed off institution. Not only would it be very costly to re-design our schools and add security to each and every one, it might prove to be a deterrent but not a unusrpassable solution. And of course there is the matter of the cost of doing all this at a time where there are no funds available to keep teachers in the school roster, much less pay for everything that this would require.

Now, it is also true that new schools are still being built and many of them pay little regard to school safety from an intrusion point of view, so if we are building new schools, I believe we should be trying to make them as safe as possible from the get-go.

There should also be an assessment of the current schools to see if there are small steps that can be taken in each case to help prevent at any rate, an intrusion scenario.

However, I believe that the most important action we can take at this point is training. We need to train people on campus as well as students on how to react if such a scenario were to occur. Unfortunately, most schools do not have construction work being done at all times which means they wont all have well fit, willing and able construction workers to come to the rescue. And it should not be left up to chance to see if someone happens to be there that can aid the children.

We as parents need to prepare our kids as well and make sure that they know how to react in bad situations such as this one. We need to sit down with our children and discuss what happened and what they should do in a similar case. Many time we ourselves don’t know what is the right way to react so we need to get the school district to put such training and information out there so that it is available for everyone. We need to work as a community, keeping a constant eye out for things and people who may seem out-of-place or out-of-order in and around our schools and we have to let the authorities know immediately.

So going back to my question, are s to be learned from this incident? My answer is yes, in every incident there are always lessons to be learned. In this particular one I would say the most important ones are to be aware of our surroundings, be prepared, make sure the children are also aware and prepared and to work as a community.

If you would like to read the complete story on the School Shooting you can find it at http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/oct/08/carlsbad-police-respond-to-reports-of-shots-at-a-s/

If you have any comments, feedback is always welcome

Top 10 Restaurants in San Diego

This past week I asked on Facebook and twitter for peoples top 10 restaurants in San Diego. Although I have not tried all of them I decided to pass along the most frequently recommended ones along with mt own favorites. I have ordered them according of number of times each one was recommended. I have also set the goal of going to each and everyone of this restaurants and giving you a review.

1.- PIATTI

2182 Avenida De la Playa, La Jolla

858-454-1589

http://www.piatti.com

2.CUCINA URBANA

505 Laurel St, San Diego

619-239-2222

3. MARKET RESTAURANT & BAR

3702 Via De La Valle, Del Mar

858-523-0007

http://www.marketdelmar.com/

4.-BENCOTTO ITALIAN KITCHEN

750 W Fir Street, San Diego

619-450-4786

http://lovebencotto.com

5. ACQUA AL 2

322 Fifth Ave, San Diego

619-230-0382

http://www.acquaal2.com/

6.- BUSALACCHI”S ITALIAN RESTAURANT

3682 5th Ave, San Diego

619-298-0119

http://www.busalacchisrestaurantssd.com/

6. SAVORY

267 N. El Camino Real # A, Encinitas

760-634-5556

http://savorycasualfare.com/

7. HASH HOUSE A-GO-GO

3628 5th Ave, San Diego

619-298-4646

http://www.hashhouseagogo.com/

8.- KENSINGTON GRILL

4055 Adams Ave, San Diego

619-281-4014

http://www.kensingtongrill.com/

9.- EL BIZCOCHO @ RANCHO BERNARDO INN

17550 Bernardo oaks Dr, Rancho Bernardo

858-675-8550

http://www.ranchobernardoinn.com/bizcocho/

10.- ISLAND PRIME

880 Harbor Island Drive, San Diego

619-298-6802

http://www.cohnrestaurants.com/restaurants/islandprime/

There are some restaurants that I do want to mention even if they did not make the top ten because they were mentioned and/or because They are long time favorites.

• Urban Solace
• Kitchen 1540
• Lou and Mickey’s
• Blue Boeheme
• Hanae sushi
• Bankers Hill
• Q’ero
• El Callejon
• The Prado
• Oceanaire
• Baleen
• Sky Room
• Taka
• The Palm
• Romesco
• Poseidon
• Sbicca
• Delicias
• Thyme
• Candelas

If you have a review in any of these restaurants or any other ones that you think should have been on this list please let me know.

How to buy a Short Sale….Succesfully Carmel Valley Real Estate

In past posts we have talked about the different type of sales, covering Foreclosures, Short Sales, Deed in Lieu, and regular Sales. However we have done so from a seller’s perspective mainly.

I very often work with buyers and in this market, most people who initially approach me to help them find and purchase a home, will bring up the idea of snatching a great Short Sale for them to purchase at an amazingly discounted price. Some of them will have already heard some of the horror stories of people waiting months on end for the bank to approve the sale, yet many have no idea what it really implies and all the emotional and labor intensive process that a short sale can be. As an agent, a very important part of my job is to prepare my clients to what lies ahead, so when any new client approaches me, I ask them to give me at least 20 minutes of their time just so we can go over what I consider the ABC’s of buying : 1) A Short Sale  2)Foreclosure  3)Regular Sale. Only after they have heard what each of them entitles will we come up with a specific search plan for them.

So when it comes to the Short Sale portion, there are basically 6 points that I consider crucial for them to understand and be aware:

First, The timeline is what we call a moving target, it is NOT set in stone and will shift as we move along, so if they are in a situation where they have a set date by when they have to be living in their next home, short sales might not a good choice. Banks are taking anywhere from 60 to 130 days average to approve a short sale. Although some lenders like World Savings have set up faster programs where they are able to approve a short sale in as little as 7 days, and then on the other end of the spectrum I have seen others take as long as 9 months to approve a short sale, specially in the higher end loans where the bank will be forgiving a considerably higher amount of  debt.

Second, although it varies greatly in each case, I have seen a trend lately of banks not covering closings cost of a short sale and most of the time they will not pay for money owed to the Home Owners Association So it will be up to you as the buyer to bring some extra cash to the table and cover those extra expenses, this sometimes makes that initial price you offered and got an acceptance on, not such a great deal after all. Be very careful that you ask all the  necessary questions before you open escrow, have the listing agent disclose to you what the bank has agreed to pay for as soon as they know and most of all, ask them if there are any back payments to the HOA, any other liens, back taxes, etc.

Third, Don’t assume that because it is not a foreclosure the home will be left in good shape. Many of the short sales will have delayed maintenance issues, some will come up during the inspection face, and some will come out a little while after living in the home so it is highly advisable to buy a service insurance policy at least for the first year after purchase. Also, you will need some extra cash to fix up the property once you buy it, it is a house that has been lived in and that will need some repairs.

Fourth, Don’t fall in love with this property, an acceptance of your offer does not mean it is yours. Although your chances of buying this home did increase by getting an acceptance, it still has to go thru a long approval process and then there is the pending auction date you have to beat, many people assume that since the bank has approved the short sale, that means that they have cancelled the foreclosure proceedings and that the home is now ready to close. Sadly, one is independent of the other, sometimes the bank will grant you an extension on the auction date just so you can close a sale however more and more lately, banks have started to be less agreeable to grant extensions, they will allow one but no more than that and they WILL sell it in auction two days and even one day prior to the closing escrow date, so be very vigilant of those auction dates and if there was an extension on the auction date, make sure that it has gone into effect.

Fifth, On a typical transaction you have 17 days to complete all of your inspections before you are required to remove your contingencies, in many short sales situations, since ironically you are running against the auction date clock and some times because the bank has requested it so, you only have 5 days to do all your inspections, so make sure you have all your inspections ready to go in a moments notice as soon as you open escrow and know beforehand what you are willing to accept and what will make you pull out of the deal.

Sixth, Expect to be making offers along with people who are looking for investments and are all cash. If a short sale is looking like it is a good deal, there will be some competition so make sure that along with your agent you know how to write an attractive offer that will increase your chances of getting accepted. There are some key points that banks and therefore listing agents are looking at to select the offer that will get the house.

Probably right about now you are ready to give up on short sales altogether, however, the fact is that many of the homes that are for sale in today’s market, are short sales and they will be around for many years to come still, so it is not the best idea to discard any short sales as an option unless you are really pressed for time. Short Sales are a reality so it is wiser to learn how to deal with them and what to expect, it is also smart to have an experienced agent guiding you to the process and even better yet if there is a solid qualified short sale negotiator dealing with the short sale part of the process, one that knows exactly how to deal with the specific bank that holds all of the loans on this property and that has a proven track record of succesful closings. Be aware that sometimes, the agents will have NO information from the bank for a long period of time, so bear with them but stay on top of it.

The one thing that I tell my clients is to keep their emotions in check and to keep looking, hope for the best but don’t close your options just yet. Once you are in escrow and have a clearer picture you can stop actively looking but don’t start mentally placing the furniture just yet…keep a clear head and be realistic that this deal might not happen.

And last, please, whatever you do, DON”T make any big purchases that will disqualify you or affect your income debt ration making your own loan a new issue to deal with, this sometimes only comes up at the eleventh hour when there is not enough time to correct it, so help and don’t hurt your chances when you are trying to close an escrow on a short sale.

Update: Del Mar Union School District being sued

Just as an update to my last post regarding the DMUSD inner turmoil. Since I last wrote that post, The previous Superintendent has filed a lawsuit against the school district for breach of contract.

Sharon McClain, The previous Superintendent for DMUSD was fired on March 13 with “cause” However she nor the public were told what such cause was. The Districts Board only said that it was a personnel matter and could not be addressed in open session. However, since then they have not addressed it, not even after McClain’s lawyers sent them a letter requesting to know the cause for her termination. That letter did not receive a response from the District So now McClain is suing the district for a years salary and other monies owed to her.

The current School Board is up for re-election in two months and McClain’s lawyers said they are going to wait for the new board to step in to take this matter any further, since they believe the new members will be less personally invested in the matter and maybe they will be able to reach a more amicable and less costly agreement.

McClain was the second Superintendent to be terminated without explanation in the past few years.This has been very costly in a time where money is being cut from education and donations are harder to find. This has caused a large discontent toward the current Board amongst School district parents, many of them who used to be much more willing to support the district through donations have either cut back or stopped doing so because they feel their money is being wasted due to the mismanagement of this board instead of the money going toward the children and their education.

San Diego County Top Schools

The scores used to calculate the ranking the schools in the San Diego area, are based on their API score , this is a number that ranges from 200 to 1,000 and it is derived from the performance of public school students in grades 2 to 11 that take the California standards Tests. API Scores are the categorized by sub-group, this relates to their, ethnicity, race, origin and special conditions such as: English learners, Economically disadvantaged and or students with special needs.

The Standard tests target score was at 800 points and anything over 900 points is considered very succesful. According to an article from Del Mar Times newspaper “”Forty-six percent of all California schools are now at or above the overall statewide target API of 800, up four percentage points from the year before,” according to a press release issued Sept. 13 by the California Department of Education. “This includes 51 percent of elementary schools, 40 percent of middle schools and 25 percent of high schools.” In this article you can also see the breakdown of how the different groups scored in their API in each area , to view this article go to  http://www.delmartimes.net/news/274493-local-elementary-schools-dominate-api-list
This year’s API scores yielded an interesting situation, having 6 of the 10 Top schools concentrated in one single School District. Six of the Top ten schools are within the boundaries of the Del Mar School  Union District, this district encompasses those schools that serve the 92014 and part of the 92130 zip codes, which belong respectively to Del Mar and Carmel Valley areas.

The Del Mar Union School District  (DMUSD) has a total of 8 Elementary schools, out of which, 5 of them have scores of 950 or higher, 2 have a score of 948 and one has a score of 924 being this the lowest score in the district, As a whole the  DMUSD has a score of  961, up 2 point from the previous years scores. This despite some inner political problems that the district has been facing. James Paebody the Districts Superintendent  acknowledged that the Del Mar Union School District has experienced challenging issues and turmoil in the past few years but said the focus never wavered from student learning and achievement.

Del Mar	2010 Growth	2009 Base	Change
Ashley Falls	952	955	-3
Carmel Del Mar	943	948	-5
Del Mar Heights	965	948	+17
Del Mar Hills	923	924	-1
Ocean Air	981	975	+6
Sage Canyon	973	976	-3
Sycamore Ridge	965	959	+6
Torrey Hills	955	962	-7
District overall	961	959	+2

Within the 92130 zip code of Carmel Valley there are homes that are zoned  within the boundaries of the Poway School District and there are 3 schools that belong to the Solana Beach School District, two of them serving grades k to fifth and Solana Pacific which serves fifth and sixth grade students. This school district also includes Solana Santa Fe in Fairbanks Ranch which  is a K-6 school, and the two  more schools in  Solana Beach proper, Solana Vista serving grades K-3 and Skyline with grades 4-6.

Within San Diego this are the Top 13 Elementary Schools according to their API.

Schools in the spots 1,2 and 4 all belong to the San Diego Unified School District yet they are all within the 92037 zip code that belongs to La Jolla.

Rank	API	School	District
1	983	Torrey Pines	San Diego Unified
2	982	La Jolla	San Diego Unified
3	981	Ocean Air	Del Mar
4	974	Bird Rock	San Diego Unified
5	973	Sage Canyon	Del Mar
6	971	Pacific Rim	Carlsbad
7	965	Del Mar Heights	Del Mar
7	965	Sycamore Ridge	Del Mar
8	963	Solana Pacific	Solana Beach
9	957	Dingeman	San Diego Unified
10	955	Torrey Hills	Del Mar
11	954	Deer Canyon	Poway
11	954	Del Sur	Poway
11	954	Scripps	San Diego Unified
11	954	Stone Ranch	Poway
12	952	Ashley Falls	Del Mar
12	952	El Camino Creek	Encinitas
13	950	Curie	San Diego Unified

For more information you can check out the 2009-2010 Accountability Progress report at http://api.cde.ca.gov/AcntRpt2010/2010SchSummary.aspx?allcds=37103716069355

When a family is looking for a home it is very important to take the school boundaries into account, not all districts will accept transfers from other districts easily, some may not even be able to accept intra district transfers within the same school district depending on policies and amount of students attending each particular school so, if schools are an important factor to you in the purchase of your home, be sure to look at boundaries and speak to the particular school district you are interested in before you go ahead and buy a home.

New Real Estate practice “Private Transfer Fees”

When purchasing a new construction home directly from the builder, you go through a different process than when you buy a home as a re-sale property.

Even in this market, where builders are trying to come up with incentives to sell their properties at  a faster pace, they are still the ones calling the shots on most of the terms of the transaction, specially when it comes down to the contract and legal terms to be used.

In most cases this is understandable, it cuts legal cost, makes the process simpler and cleaner. However, you as a consumer should not take for granted that everything you are signing is standard and acceptable. There is for example a “Flip Tax” that some developers are attaching to some properties.

What is the Flip Tax?  It is also called a Transfer tax and how it works is, you buy a house, when you try to sell it some years later, it turns out you have to pay a 1 percent to the builder of the home. This fee is written into the Rules and Regulations of the neighborhood and will remain in place for 99 years. During those years, every time this property is sold, the seller is required to pay the builder that 1 percent fee. What it really is, it’ a private Transfer Fee.

Transfer fees are not entirely new, they have been in place for a while however they traditionally would go to a charity or to a Homeowners Association to be used for the maintenance or beautifying of the Neighborhood. What is entirely different in this case, is that the money goes back to the pockets of the developer as profit.

Who came up with this concept is a company originally from Texas called Freehold Capital Partners. They are selling the concept to developers all across the country, and they are taking it one step further. The idea is to bundle this  properties and sell the revenue they promise to investors, giving the building company’s some upfront cash.Acording to their calculations each home will have a 5 percent income from future transfer fees.

The way Freehold is selling this concept is by claiming that just like an author has monetary rights to their creations, so do the builders since they have created a beautiful home. According to Jennifer Hiller from express news, Freehold’s predecessor, Freehold Licensing actually attempted to sell this concept some years ago to independent homeowners. She said that on their website they wrote,“Maybe you planted a tree, added on a room or re-habed a home,” the Web site said in 2007. “Fifty years from now, when a family is enjoying the property that you improved, and making a profit by selling the property you improved, why shouldn’t you benefit? Of course you should.”

So far there has been some effort to legislate this type of fee. Four states: Florida, Missouri, Oregon and Kansas have all banned such practices, other states such as California have imposed some limitations, Freehold has found a way to go around some of this limitations. 

Critics say such fees could taint entire neighborhoods, making it difficult to sell homes, and could complicate title records for decades. If the fee is not paid by the seller, a lien is placed on the property and the title becomes muddy. This coul mark the neighborhood as hard to sel and there is the possibility of some legal action from some of the owners against such builders, if that happens this could also affect the chances of a potential buyer finding a loan for such property.

Bottom line is, make sure you read what you are buying into, never assume that what you are signing has been reviewed and will protect you just because it has been signed by everyone else. And if you are not finding this clause in what you are reading, you should also ask the salesperson out right to make sure it is not there.