Quieter Homes Program for San Diego Home Owners

The San Diego Quieter Homes Program provides neighborhoods under the San Diego International Airport flight paths to apply for free-to-the-owner upgrades to their property to reduce noise within the home. This video will give a quick overview and answer some commonly asked questions about the program and how it might affect you when buying or selling real estate in the San Diego neighborhoods of Ocean Beach, Point Loma, Bankers Hill, Mid-Town, South Park and Golden Hill.

More Information:
http://www.san.org/Airport-Projects/Quieter-Home-Program
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Transcript:

Hey everybody, John Collins, San Diego Realtor. I wanted to get you a little bit of information today about the Quieter Homes project.

Now, one of the great things about San Diego is the accesability to a great international airport. It's right adjacent to downton. If you are living in the main San Diego area, you are probably within twenty minutes of being dropped off and taking off to wherever it is you might like to be going.

With that, comes the cost of some noise polution. Those planes taking off and landing right over our heads. If you've ever been cruising down the freeway just north of downtown you know, sometimes you feel like you can reach up and touch them. Now, the project, the Quieter Homes project, is designed to help people in those neighborhoods out by a city sponsored improvement on their windows and fixtures that will help block out some of that noise and make things quieter in the home, and the city pays for that.

So, what are the neighborhoods affected? I'll link to some maps and some more in depth information if this all sounds like something you want to pursue, but, broad strokes, Ocean Beach and Point Loma, those are on the take off path, so you get a lot of noise there because they're gunning their engines and getting up over the hill there. On the landing paths, you've got Bankers Hill, Mid-town, Golden Hill, and South Park, by in large.

So, if you're in those areas and want to apply, what can you expect? Well, first off, the prioritization of projects is based on where you fall in the flight path, so those most directly under are going to have the highest priority. And also, length of ownership, so the longer you've owned it, the higher your priority. So, it's a function of those two things. From the time that you apply, if you are approved and move forward, it does take a while, maybe two or three years, from application to completion of the project.

Now, if you do go through that process a few common questions and things to expect. What does it cost? Well, the work itself and the parts do not cost you anything. That's what the project does, it supplies those things for you. But, it may be determined that if you're accepted there is some pre-work that is neccessary to make the property suitable, that would be on the property owner. There are meetings you have to attend during the process, and they are mandatory, so you have to be able to be accessible for those in order for the project to keep the project moving along.

The work is warrantied for a year, but then you own it. They aren't going to keep it up for you long term. And one of the things that you give up by letting them come in and fix this is you sign away rights to to come after them later by way of getting them to compensate you for the trouble of having the airport noise, so that is something.

Other questions that you commonly hear around this People hear about the project and they say, "Man, I just replaced all my windows because of the noise. Can I get reimbursed?" Sadly, no. The program does not work that way, they have to do the work in order for it to be covered.

When they do the work, are they going to reassess your home? And this is where you come into some important real estate factors. If you're planning on keeping the property long term are you going to have to pay higher taxes? They are not going to reassess your property based on this work. It's not the kind of work that is going to get you flagged for that kind of review, so that's good news for people who are planning to either hold onto or sell the property.

Another upside for people looking to sell their property in one of those neighborhoods is that if you apply and you are on the wait list, but you decide to sell in that timeframe, you can tell the prospective buyers that they already have their place. That transfers to the new buyer, they don't have to get back in line. So, that's a benefit to them and maybe something you can use to diferentiate yourself from other properties in the neighborhood and give you a leg up.

Fore more information:
http://www.san.org/Airport-Projects/Quieter-Home-Program