Competition can be healthy for kids. It teaches them to set goals, learn skills to achieve what they want, solve problems, and keep trying until they succeed.
It’s true in sports – and in academics.
In Kings County, where many of our San Joaquin Valley homes are located, two of our favorite annual events are the Spelling Bee and the Academic Decathlon
Spelling Bee
While the popularity of texting shorthand may be endangering our collective ability to spell correctly, knowing how to spell is an important necessity for daily life. If your kids are in grades 1 to 8 and studying in public, private or home schools, they can participate in the Spelling Bee. A lot of work is needed to compete: contestants get only one chance to spell a word correctly, or they’re eliminated. (First graders do not get eliminated in the first round.)
With mortgage interest rates bottoming out, there was no place else for them to go but up. This may have prompted you lock in the rates even before you bought one of our SJV homes. However, defying all expectations, rates have continued to drop, prompted mostly by downward economic pressures, such as the exit of Great Britain from the European Union.
This means you may actually be paying less for your home every month than you actually budgeted. So what do you do with the extra cash? The temptation is to take this extra money and simply spend it on more furniture, restaurant outings, or the latest toys. But opportunities for additional income are few and far between. So why not take these overages and apply them where they can make the biggest difference to your budget as in the following suggestions.
A report recently released by Metrostudy on the state of the housing market in California Central Valley reveals good news. Building activity is at the highest level in eight years with annual home starts up 22 percent over the previous year and annual closings up 27 percent.
• Merced County saw the highest gains in annual starts at 134 percent.
• San Joaquin County is up 38 percent and Kings County is up 26 percent.
• The lowest increases were in Tulare County at 17 percent and Kern County at 6 percent.
Although the typical reaction for such high demand is to increase prices, many builders see their own offerings as reaching affordability limits and are thus reluctant to raise prices. The average base price for a new single-family detached home is only up 4 percent to $334,000.
San Joaquin Valley Homes (SJV Homes) celebrates its third anniversary in business this month, the busiest homebuilder in Tulare County is pleased to announce it has closed its 500th home.
“At San Joaquin Valley Homes, we’re proud to be providing quality homes for local residents and work for local contractors,” said Joe Leal, co-founder of Visalia-based SJV Homes. “Selling our 500th home is an important milestone and a major achievement for a smaller local builder that competes against large national builders. We look forward to getting another 500 families into their new homes and closing our 1,000th home before the end of 2017.”
Jose Sanchez and Claudia Ochoa, with their sons Rafael and Jacob, have moved into San Joaquin Valley Homes 500th home.
Visalia-based San Joaquin Valley Homes is celebrating two milestones this month — three years in business and 500 homes sold.
Your new San Joaquin Valley home typically comes with a backyard that allows unlimited landscaping possibilities. So why do most homeowners stick with the standard grassy lawn with playground, or paved grill area as suggested by the model? The things you can do to the rear areas of your home are generally not restricted by local ordinances or neighborhood standards. Try out some of these unconventional options for adding pizzazz your backyard.
Sculpture Garden
This no-water and low maintenance option fills your backyard with a stone surface that has a neutral color, such as decomposed granite or pea gravel. You can then use the surface as a platform for one or two large sculptures or several smaller ones. If your taste and toward the more modern, try abstract forms in stainless steel or colored aluminum. If you prefer something more traditional, use realistic depictions of people or animals in bronze or ceramic. Add a touch of nature by framing the display area with an edging of low-growing foliage or by displaying container plants at each corner.
VISALIA, Calif. – As San Joaquin Valley Homes (SJV Homes) celebrates its third anniversary in business this month, the busiest homebuilder in Tulare County is pleased to announce it has sold its 500th home.
“At San Joaquin Valley Homes, we’re proud to be providing quality homes for local residents and work for local contractors,” said Joe Leal, co-founder for Visalia-based SJV Homes. “Selling our 500th home is an important milestone and a major achievement for a smaller local builder that competes against large national builders. We look forward to getting another 500 families into our homes in the next few years.”
Jose Sanchez is the new owner of the 500th home sold by SJV Homes. His contract closed this week on a 1,574 sq. ft., four-bedroom home in Savannah in Tulare. To recognize this special moment in the company’s history, SJV Homes presented Sanchez with a check for $500 and a $500 gift card to Lowes to buy those extra things families need when they move into their new home. Lowes also donated a barbeque grill.
As it does every four years, the summer Olympics return in August to celebrate sporting achievement from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Even if you don’t fly to South America, you can enjoy all the pageantry from the comfort of your own home. If all this excellence inspires you or your family members to participate in athletic competition, the Central Valley has plenty of options to offer. Joining a sports club may not only fuel the competitive dreams but enhances your Olympic viewing since you’ll be watching events with a trained eye.
Track and Field
With minimal equipment requirements, distance efforts ranging from sprints to marathons, and activities that include running, jumping and throwing, track and field yields the largest number of competitors at the Olympics. USA Track and Field lists over two dozen member and non-member track clubs in the Central Valley. The Kings River Track Club in Reedley is typical. The membership fee includes uniforms although separate entry fees are charged for meets. Both group and personal training are available.
Conventional wisdom would have you believe that millennials are not interested in home ownership. Eschewing the materialistic culture of the previous generation, they would rather rent apartments so that they can focus on experiences rather than add possessions.
Laying those claims to rest is the recently released “How America Views Homeownership” survey by Ipsos Public Affairs. It shows that millennials have a greater desire to own a home than other age groups. About 40 percent of those 18 to 34 definitely will or probably will buy a home in the next two years compared to 19 percent for those 35 to 54 and nine percent for those 55 and over.
The desire to own property is also stronger among Latinos at 33 percent and African-Americans at 30 percent compared to 22 percent for the general population.
The entire point about buying one of our new homes in Visalia, CA, is to foster family togetherness. You look forward to enjoying the spacious rooms and well thought out floor plan with your spouse and kids. Yet, they spend most of their time away from your residence wandering around the city with their cell phones aimed at strange properties.
Your loved ones have just been enticed by Pokémon GO, the latest in online amusements.
What is it?
Pokémon, which is short for pocket monsters, started about 20 years ago as a game on the Nintendo Game Boy system. It then evolved into a franchise that included a trading card game, TV series, comic books, movies, and merchandise. Players collect cartoon-like monsters that could become more powerful by doing battle with each other.
Construction permits for the county’s three largest agencies are on the upswing over the last six months.
Visalia and Tulare County are also reporting the best fiscal year figures in years. In Tulare, single-family home permits this year are ahead of last year, while 2016 commercial activity has already eclipsed 2015 totals and is the highest total over the last five years.
“It’s a successful period and we are moving along,” said Jeff Killion, Tulare Planning Commission chairman.
A big reason that you sprang for that extra bedroom in one of our San Joaquin Valley homes might be so that you could set up a home office. This space can be used to work on household accounts, telecommute to your employer, or run a small business. To get the best out of your new working space, follow these tips.
Get It Built for Work
If you already know what bedroom on the floor plan you want to use as a home office, we can help you maximize your workspace. Have us install low-maintenance flooring, such as wood or tile, and use easier-to-clean satin or semi-gloss paint on the walls. Eliminate fancy details and moldings in favor of something simple. When you’re in the room, you want to spend most of your time tending to business rather than cleaning.
At any of our San Joaquin Valley Homes developments, we do everything that we can to make home-buying an upfront, easy, and convenient process for you. Unfortunately, we can’t say the same for moving into new housing because that procedure is out of our control. We can offer some tips on how you can find the best movers.
1. Get recommendations.
Ask family members, friends, co-workers, and members of your church and social circle for the names of moving companies. Broadcast an appeal on social media stating where you’re moving from and moving to. Do not depend on services that find you a mover because some of them are scams.
Once you have the names, research them on Yelp or Angie’s List. Get information about the companies from the Better Business Bureau to look up any complaints and from the American Moving and Storage Association to see if they’re a member. Finally, search for the company on Rip-off Report and Moving Scam to ensure that they’re legitimate
San Joaquin Valley Homes has broken ground on new homes in Viscaya, a master-planned community in Dinuba.
The neighborhood will have 84 single-family houses with three- to four-bedrooms ranging in size from 1,443 to 1,872 square feet. The homes will have open floors plans and two- to three-car garages. Prices start in the low $200,000s.
Construction on the model homes will begin this month with a grand opening scheduled for September.
Viscaya, at Saginaw and Euclid avenues, is the builder’s seventh neighborhood in Tulare County and its tenth joint venture with Presidio Residential Capital. For more information, call 559-732-2660.
You love your smartphone. It’s a combination calculator, filing cabinet, communication device, and information finder. You even sleep with the device recharging on your night stand. Lucky for you then that your indispensable can prove even more useful now that you own one of the homes for sale in the Central Valley. Just be sure to download these apps, which work for both IOS and Android devices.
Homestyler
The exterior of your new home is going to look just as good as what you saw in the model. That’s because both were created by professionals. As for the interior, you most likely won’t have the benefit of a decorator for your spaces. You won’t need one with AUTODESK® Homestyler, which lets you start with a photo of your room or one of its built-in empty spaces. You can then add fixtures, art, rugs, and 3D furniture to transform your interiors. As a bonus, you get pics of professionally decorated rooms for inspiration
It’s hard to know sometimes who to believe when it comes to real estate. Listen to one expert and he recommends buying property now because of the low interest rates and rising values. Listen to another and she says to hold off because the dearth of inventory makes it a sellers market.
No less a rental authority than Apartment Therapy avoids the question of unpredictable timing by taking a different tack. It recommends that you look at the following signs that it’s time to stop renting and start buying.
DINUBA, Calif. – Local homebuilder San Joaquin Valley Homes (SJV Homes) has broken ground on the last parcel in Viscaya, a master-planned community offering 84 single-family homes at Saginaw Avenue and Euclid Avenue in Dinuba. Model construction will begin in mid-July 2016, and a grand opening is scheduled for September 2016.
“This new community in a very desirable area of Dinuba will offer premium family homes at affordable prices,” said Joe Leal, co-founder for Visalia-based San Joaquin Valley Homes. “We expect it to be very popular.”
DINUBA, CA — Local homebuilder San Joaquin Valley Homes (SJV Homes) has broken ground on the last parcel in Viscaya, a master-planned community offering 84 single-family homes at Saginaw Avenue and Euclid Avenue in Dinuba. Model construction will begin in mid-July 2016, and a grand opening is scheduled for September 2016.
“This new community in a very desirable area of Dinuba will offer premium family homes at affordable prices,” said Joe Leal, co-founder for Visalia-based San Joaquin Valley Homes. “We expect it to be very popular.”
Having a camera on the smartphone in your pocket makes it handy to take photos when the mood hits. In fact, when you decided to buy a home in the San Joaquin Valley, you probably took photos of the models and the neighborhood to share with friends and family. Here are a few more shots to take for organizing your life.
Walk Through
After your new home is built and you check it out with a walk-through, take pictures of the empty spaces. You can then document any changes you want made or any issues that need correcting. When you’re ready to buy furniture, window coverings or other accessories, you have pictures of the space that you can refer to, instead of relying on memory.
Scraping together enough money for the down payment on a home can be a challenge. And even if you do have the funds, having extra cash on hand can help with unexpected costs. The following are some of our favorite ways here at San Joaquin Valley Homes to help you and your family save for down payment money.
Week-Number Challenge
The Week-Number Challenge demands that you save dollars equal to the number of weeks that you’re into the challenge. For example, on week one, you save $1. On week 2, you save $2. And on week 3, you save $3, up until week 52, where you put away $52. You’ll end up with $1,378 by the end of the challenge. That may not seem like much but why not get every member of your family into the game? The little ones can contribute one cent, two cents, etc, all the way up to 52 cents. This gives them a financial investment in your next property.
If you feel the end result is still too small, up the ante by ten, so that week one saves $10, week two saves $20, up to week 52 for $520. This strategy ends up with $13,780 by the end of the challenge – enough to buy a $393,000 home if you qualify for an FHA loan with a minimum payment 3.5% down.
