Caroline Chai's (sttsou) Blog

I had a lot of buyers asking me about the difference between purchasing bank owned and short sales properties. Below is a quick comparison chart: Property Condition Time Required (From Offer to Close Escrow) Price Bank Owned Horrible to excellent condition depending on the property. Sold as-is wi...

The recent pullback in market price gives homeowners an opportunity to ease their property tax squeeze if the property was purchased after 2003. The deadline for filing "Decline-In-Value Reassessment Application (Prop. 8) is 12/31/08. Here a quick outline on how to lower your property tax: 1. Con...

Being in the real estate business, I heard a lot of horror stories recently about scammers taking advantage of distressed property owners. Exercise common judgment like "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is." Be especially alert, if you need to put money up front or sign over your hou...

It is always very challenging to rent a house that has red, orange, yellow, green, blue, lilac or pink wall or carpet. It will take an extra one to two months to rent those properties and most likely at the lower than market rate. Here's the reason why. Let say if a rental has red wall. Since abo...

Here are some general reasons for using agents as a means to procuring tenants: 1. Interviewing prospected tenants can be very frightening especially for new landlords. Agents do this as a matter of course and can generally ascertain a lot more information by experience and asking the right quest...

If your family is over grown and you need a larger home, it is perfect time to upsize in down market. Here's why. Consider if your current house is worth $350,000 two years ago at the peak of the market and the house you want to upsize to is worth about $550,000. You will need to pay $200,000 to ...

Legal maximum amount of security deposit that can be charged by a landlord in California is two months rent. In reality, deposit amount is charged ranging from $300 to $500 by apartment complexes and up to 2 months by private landlords. Due to the current market situation, most landlords lower th...

Black Friday today keeps off the holiday shopping season. One of my favorite shopping places is Outlet at Cabazon near Palm Springs. It is about an hour away from Diamond Bar via 10 Freeway. The outlet has over 150 stores. Since there are so many stores, it is almost impossible to see them all. N...

This winter, the market is over saturated with rental properties with 5 times more inventory than last year. As a result of that, the market rent drops from 10% to 20% depending on the area. The followings are two main reasons why we are experience such a rapid surge of rental inventories. 1. Du...

For homeowners who are interested to learn more about home retention, Bank Of America and RE/MAX Realty 100 join together to provide a free Home Retention Seminar. The seminar will cover the following subjects: 1. Loan Modification 2. HOPE for Homeowners 3. Short Sales 4. Steps in A Foreclosure ...