Santa Cruz County Days of Inventory

All things must pass. No matter how the gardening at your Santa Cruz home went this year, it’s getting time to move on and change with the seasons. Here are some tips to help you:

• Dig those sweet potatoes. Harvest sweet potatoes before the first frost, or they will be ruined. If you wake up and find the frost has hit before you had the chance, run out there immediately and at least cut the vines off at the base of the plants. This may stop damage to the roots, but you still need to dig your sweets before the next frost. After digging, cure them by keeping them in a warm, dark place like the attic of your Santa Cruz home. This sweetens them up and gets them ready for storage. After curing, store them somewhere that never goes below 40 degrees; they can…

Contract activity for pending home sales has risen for six straight months, a pattern not seen in the history of the index since it began in 2001, according to the National Association of Realtors®.

The Pending Home Sales Index, a forward-looking indicator based on contracts signed in July, increased 3.2 percent to 97.6 from a reading of 94.6 in June, and is 12.0 percent higher than July 2008 when it was 87.1.  The index is at the highest level since June 2007 when it was 100.7.

Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, said the housing market momentum has clearly turned for the better.  “The recovery is broad-based across many parts of the country.  Housing affordability has been at record highs this year with the added stimulus of a first-time buyer tax…