The home interior is studio white with blonde floors, wood and bamboo, throughout. The kitchen and bathrooms have been updated with granite and tile. Much light flows through the ample windows and skylights.

This home just listed on October 26th and will be held open on November 1st from 1-4pm. Agents can view on lockbox after November 2nd but must call to set an appt. Call Deena Willis 626-432-4615.

Located in Old Town Pasadena

Offering more than 1000 square feet, the living room / media room has a wall mounted flat screen television complete with surround sound speakers. The wood floors have been customized with dark bamboo giving it a very rich ambiance. Custom window treatments add warm accents to the spacious interior. You will enjoy the luxury associated with the master suite with its dual closets and tiled relaxing bath.

This unit is only one of a few that offers an outdoor patio. Step out of your living / media room onto the balcony and enjoy the mountain views. This will become the gathering place for the annual parade and fireworks displays as your view is front and center.

Many Attractions Are A Short Walk Away

This unit is offered at $479,000. Call 626-432-4615 for an appointment to view today.

230 Monterey Rd., South Pasadena

Located at 230 Monterey Rd., it features 3 bedrooms and 3 baths with a total of 1373 square feet per assessor. This two story home offers a tiled entry, open living room with fully mirrored wall, fireplace and wet bar. The kitchen is very bright with a garden window, tiled counters and bar service or sitting area adjacent to the dining room.

Upstairs the master bedroom has two closets and a private bath. The other two upstairs bedrooms share a central bath. All baths feature tiled floors.

The unit is accented with decorative plantation shutters and carpet throughout. A laundry area is located inside and is designed for stackable appliances. The unit comes compete with an appliance package including refrigerator, washer/dryer and microwave.

This 14 unit complex is gated and offers two underground parking spaces. The Homeowner Association fees are $310 per month and include trash and water.

Start Your Pasadena Home Search

1. Favorable Interest Rates – rates on 30 year fixed money loans are fantastic. Want to get your rate even lower, consider buying down the rate by paying 1 to 2 points. This might make sense if you plan to stay in your house at least 5 years.
2. First Time Buyer Tax Credit – if this is your first home you will probably qualify for the $8000 federal tax credit. What could be better than a gift from Uncle Sam? You could look at applying the tax credit to the mortgage buy down or point reduction above, giving you the advantage of lower monthly payments.

Is Now the Time to Buy?

That’s a decision you and only you can make. Some people think the market will continue to decline resulting in lower prices. Consider your long term goals. If you plan to sell in the next two years, then who knows. But if you plan to live in the house for the next several years then now could be the time. You should speak with a tax professional and allow them to run a couple of scenarios for you. Look at the cost of renting and then the cost of buying along with the tax implications. Many times it can be a simple math problem, and the answer lies within the tea leaves.

When I performed the search for Pasadena homes priced under $400,000, there were 60+ homes that popped up on my list meeting the pricing criteria.

Pasadena April Sales

Home sales for the month of April were right at 100 units. I think if this volume could be maintained then you will see the housing market recover, and we might even see volume of 120 units around the June – August time period.

Interest rates which are currently around 5% will be the key to housing market salvation. If they begin to increase all bets are off. Once rates begin to rise, homebuyers head for the sidelines and take a “wait and see” approach.

The housing statistics are recapped in the slideshow below. Sometimes housing data can be pretty dry, so I have tried to jazz it up and make it more interesting. There is a small icon in the lower right hand corner that will allow you to increase the size of the presentation.

How would you like to have the most recent up2date information on South Pasadena Real Estate delivered right to your inbox?

Would you like to know if there is a new listing, a price change or what the house down the street just closed escrow for? If you are searching for a home, having instant information can be critically important when that special house hit’s the market?

Now suppose this information could be delivered to you in real time, saving you the time and trouble of having to search for it.

There is a wealth of information available as long as you know where to look and what to look for. Almost too much. Many websites offer incomplete data pertaining to home values. Most of the information available only displays current listings for sale, but how do you know what the actual selling price was?

Real Estate Brokers

We Made the Process Easy. Up2daterealestate and The Property Concierge have joined together to bring you the most innovative program available to increase your knowledge and awareness of the local real estate market.

Since we study the local housing market and bring you the latest news on South Pasadena real estate values, we wanted to introduce you to the latest advances in technology that can actually enhance you real estate experience. Hopefully the next time you are in the market for real estate services you will think of The Property Concierge, a Broker that understands technology and how to effectively use it to market and sell homes.

Selling Your Home?

We can set you up with the information you need. We will construct a custom search of similar homes in your area. You will receive a current status of all the properties on the market and be sent new property alerts once the criteria of a home changes or a new listing hits the market.

Looking to Buy a Home?

If you have been searching for that unique property in one of South Pasadena’s many desirable neighborhoods you can now have immediate access to all of the properties in the area. See what’s just listed, or get the price of a property that just sold, and be notified of any price changes as they happen.

Keep up with Neighborhood Values

This service is offered to homeowners as well. Since a house is probably your biggest investment, wouldn’t it be nice to watch the local real estate market as it happens around you? You will be able to judge the value of your home by the local properties that are within close proximity to your home.

Sign Up is Easy and Free!

Click the Home Value Key on our home page . If you are selling or just want to know the neighborhood activity, please complete the simple information requested and tell us as much about your home as you can.

If you are buying a home, provide as many details as possible with regards to what you desire in a home including square feet, lot size, bedrooms and baths. Also, include the price range in which you are searching.

Once the information is received, email notifications should begin to arrive within a day. Only complete requests will be honored. Partial and incomplete submissions will have to go to the back of the line. Sign up is easy and so is cancellation. We think you will enjoy the benefits of having a better appreciation of the home values in your neighborhood.

Offered @ $579,000

Located in southwest Pasadena in the San Rafael hills, this home sits up on a bluff with views to the north. Over the treetops, you can see the San Gabriel’s while relaxing in your living room, enjoying the fireplace. The San Rafael neighborhood is one of Pasadena’s most desirable places to live. Its winding roads meander through tree lined streets that zigzag up and down the hillsides, which add to the beauty and diversity of Pasadena.

1620 Pleasant Way

This property offers 3 bedrooms and 2 baths in approx 1519 square feet. Just off of the master bedroom is a separate reading room or an ideal space for an office. The home exhibits many of the original building characteristics including bathroom and kitchen tiles and cabinets. A highly desired feature, a separate dining room is also centrally located just between the living room and kitchen.

The home does include central air conditioning and a 3 car garage. The lot size is 5698 square feet and the house was built in 1947. The sloping landscape utilizes a low maintenance ground cover. The floors are a wood style laminate.

Pasadena Homes for Sale in Zip Code 91105

Enclosed are a list of other homes for sale including the San Rafael area. Set up your very own VIP account, create your search criteria and be notified when new listings hit the market.

The latest “I’ll get mine before the bank” approach has to do with the aforementioned short sale. When a property is sold “short” it means the lender is agreeing to accept a payoff for less than the amount owed on the property. This procedure is widely viewed as an acceptable alternative to a foreclosure. In the current environment, a short sale seems to be more acceptable and banks are more willing and cooperative in avoiding a costly and timely foreclosure. It’s best to step up and face the lesser of two evils, because the alternatives just seem to get worse. The loss does appear to be minimized, saving the bank additional time and money down the road.

This past week, our office presented an offer on behalf of our clients on a particular property that was sold as a short sale. The proper process is to disclose this fact, since additional time is involved. It also lets everyone know your agreement is dependent upon bank approval and they have the final say. Before presenting the offer communication was reached with the seller’s agent. The previous accepted offer had now fallen through as is often times the case. Buyers decide to move on, instead of waiting and waiting while the bank goes through its bureaucratic process of obtaining signatures on the transaction. Then the other agent played the “nibble” tactic. Except it wasn’t a nibble, it was a mouthful. He let us know that his seller required an additional sum of $15,000. And oh yea, by the way, this is an agreement outside of escrow and the bank is not to privy to the agreement.

We now have a situation where nothing is in writing to confirm this statement of the seller’s agent. Just our word against his. We could have a chosen to ignore this, but we can’t. A call will be made to his managing broker, providing the details and we are also exploring our contact with the lender to inform them of the proposal made to us.

There are at least two issues here: 1) the seller is not to receive any money in a short sale transaction and 2) not disclosing the terms in the purchase offer is a fraudulent act, not to mention the IRS would probably be interested. I have a low tolerance for cheats and an even lower tolerance for crooks in our industry. They make it harder on the ones of us out here who are trying to run ethical businesses. If this was a precondition of the seller in order to list the house for sale, this agent should have just walked away. Surely it’s not worth losing your license for. The other complicating issue provided we do have the best offer on the property, is they are under no obligation to accept our offer or submit it to the lender.

We may soon see the laws changing in regards to properties in default. The financial institutions that are taking huge monetary losses will require that each and every offer be submitted to them for review. The burden of decision will now be in the hands of the bank who have a vested interest and not in that of the delinquent homeowner, who is hoping to just make an exit.

New Mortgage Rate = LIBOR + 2.250 percent

In October, when LIBOR was above 4 percent, a homeowner’s ARM may have adjusted to 6 1/2 percent.  Today, that same ARM would move to four-and-a-quarter.
As a strategy play, it might make sense to let your ARM adjust because the rate will remain low, but with fixed rate mortgages hovering near 5 percent, locking up a long-term rate may be smart, too.
Talk to your loan officer to review all of your choices.

1. If you didn’t pay mortgage insurance prior to refinancing, you won’t have to pay it after refinancing — even if your loan-to-value exceeds 80%.
2. All refinances require income verification — even if the original mortgage was a stated income loan.
3. Second mortgages cannot be paid off using loan proceeds — they must be subordinated

There are other guidelines, too, and both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have dedicated portions of their website to the Making Home Affordable program. To the layperson, unfortunately, the information may be a bit technical. 
Even the government’s fact sheet can be a little dense at times.
Therefore, if you have specific questions about the Making Home Affordable program and your own eligibility, first check to see if Fannie or Freddie is backing your loan.  If they are, pick up the phone and call your loan officer to plan next steps.
The program ends June 10, 2010.