Doug Jones's (dougj) Blog

Until a few minutes ago I did not know the word chatbot. Our IT person put aChatbot on my www.dougknowsrealestate.com page. It is interactive and answersresidential real estate questions quickly -- wait there's more. We have asked it questions in English, French and Spanish. So the Chatbot is mul...

I tell those who ask about buying in San Jose that now is not the time to buy; but, get ready. It seems like this economic misery has been with us forever but it has only been a short while and 'this too shall pass'. Nothing in this physical world lasts forever. Gas Prices up. Food Prices up. Mor...

I am not a fan of San Jose Real Estate prices. As with many large cities the home prices can be way too expensive for most and buying a home seems unreachable.Years ago I lived and worked in Orange County California and my friends had just gotten married  and started their careers as attorneys. T...

Interest rates and home prices are in many ways tied together. When rates go down so many times the home prices go up and when rates climb the home prices will go down. That was not the case when we had stagflation. Stagflation has occurred twice in the U.S., once between 1974 and 1975 and again ...

A customer sent me an email asking when is it a good time to buy. Instead of re-writing the contents here is the email I sent to him.I will have a funny answer. The answer is always "Buy Now" I made a loan 3 years ago for a Chef who was buying for the first time and he had not completed his incom...

Well, for an individual buyer the rate is determined by a lot of factors: primary home or investment home, loan size, Loan to Value, credit score, credit history, debt ratio, type of income, job history, job stability, w-2 or 1099 pay, self employed. I am sure there are others I have not listed. ...

7/12/23.  The Wall Street Journal today has a front page article Fed Hikes Don't Go Far Enough For Some Investors. In the article there is a quote from an analyst  "When you're looking at where deals are pricing, it is simply not that onerous to borrowers". This analyst wants the Fed to raise rat...

Like 99% of the people in America I always have multiple projects going on. In my case, some succeed and some don't. That is probably a matter of focus and enthusiasm toward the project. For a real life example let's say I am doing Project  A, B, and C. I noticed that Project A was going great fo...

"How can I prepare my home to maximize my listing price? This was a question sent to me this morning from someone I have done business with. I am in California and the person asking the question is in California and the Capital Gain has hit many by surprise so I even address that issue.The answer...

Todays Wall Street Journal has an article "Death Cleaning" Trend Pushes Aside Tidying Up.  That caught my attention because over the past three years I have sold 8 houses where the owner(s) had passed away and the Gentle Death Cleaning process was undertaken by the children in most cases. Of thos...