To help consumers with that very question and to overcome confusion about title insurance, the California Land Title Association has just launched the CLTA TitleWizard web site.

On this web site you may enter the zip code and selling price of the property in question. You also enter whether you are the seller or buyer and if the property has sold within the previous five years.

After entering all information, the web site lists the cost of title insurance available from the CLTA Member insurance companies.

Keep in mind, however, that your Realtor may have a relationship with a particular title insurance company or representative who can provide a rate that is lower than those published on the CLTA TitleWizard web site. The best procedure would be to review the TitleWizard results and then ask your agent to get a quote for the cost of title insurance through their contacts.

Keep also in mind that not all title insurance policies are identical. Some which are more expensive may provide more coverage than the others. You should review the…

One way to help determine the quality of the education your children will receive is to review the results of the annual testing required by the State of California Department of Education.

This link to the 2007 CST Results will direct your web browser to an interactive page on the California Department of Education web site. This page has a form which allows you to enter the county, school district and school of interest. After you have entered the appropriate information, click on the “View Report” button to display the complete test results for your selection. If you would like to see a report for the entire state, county, or school district, just leave out the information in the fields following your desired grouping.

The table below has been compiled from the 2007 CST Results to show the average test scores for the school districts and schools that might be of interest to residents considering the purchase of a home in Corona del Mar, Laguna Beach, Newport Beach or Newport Coast. The various districts and schools are listed, in descending order, by…

This article demonstrates how to locate the schools serving a particular address located within the cities of Corona del Mar, Laguna Beach, Newport Beach or Newport Coast.

While following through this example, the reader may perform a mouse click on any of the accompanying illustrations to open the particular Laguna Beach Unified School District
or Newport Mesa Unified School District web page from which that illustration was taken.

In the case of the Laguna Beach schools, the school district has provided an Acrobat PDF file showing all street names in their district. Each street name is followed by an abbreviation for the school that services that address. An example of the address page is shown in the following illustration:

In the case of the Corona del Mar, Newport Beach and Newport Coast schools, the school district has provided an interactive web search page. To locate the schools that service any particular address one just needs to enter that address into the appropriate areas of the search form and press the “go” button. The page will then display a map of the school locations and the written…

What will be the amount of the annual property tax? – is among the first questions frequently asked by many potential property Buyers.

This article discusses the technique for gathering information regarding tax rates and the method of calculating the property tax that will be assessed the buyer of a property.

It is assumed that the property is located in California and that the transaction does not involve a Proposition 60 or Proposition 90 transfer of assessed tax base. Although the following example is for a property located in Orange County, the same techniques would apply for any California county. Each county has its own way of making the information discussed in this article available to the pubic and the reader may need to perform a little research to collect the necessary data.

While following through this example, the reader may perform a mouse click on any of the accompanying illustrations to open the particular Orange County Tax Collector web page from which that illustration was taken.

The property for this example was recently listed and sold through the SoCalMLS system. The address is 1723 Miramar Drive in Newport Beach and the listing price of $3,595,000 will be used as an assumed sales price. All information…