When preparing the house for sale, homeowners have a clear choice: A) Keep a low budget and do it yourself (DIY) or B) Go Pro and make some money. The difference is actually like day and night. On the DIY project with a low budget, the house most likely will take time to sell and the offering price will reflect the quality of the materials used and the level of workmanship. Getting professional help is the way to go, it will impress would be home buyers, it will show well, it will sell faster and will bring in more money because it will give the impression that the house has been well taken care of, home buyers usually pay more for quality. Home buyers look at a lot of homes for sale before making an offer, and usually can spot those that have been poorly dressed for sale. There is the ... 05/31/2011

One of my best friends is seriously thinking about walking away from his mortage via a strategic default. But his guilt and sense of moral obligation and ethical responsibiliies are killing him. He wants my opinion... he bought his home in 2007 for about $850,000 and it is now worth only $550,000. His payments are going to almost tripled the amount he currently pays in about a year.  A strategic default occurs when a homeowner stops paying their mortgage even though they are still financially able to do so. I told him the standard Realtor talk: I could not tell him what to do, he needed to talk to a his bank about possible options for a loan modification, also to talk to his CPA to understand potential tax liabilities, and to a lawyer for potential legal ramifications, and to consider t... 01/30/2011

 During a recent listing presentation, I met the beautiful grandaughter of the octogenarian homeowner willing and ready to help grandmother with the delicate issues of selling the home. A young, smart, beautiful professional teacher, she was in town for a few days with the purpose of helping grandma with the move, and she brought her newborn baby girl with her.    After the customary "Cooks' Tour" of the house, we sat down in the living room where grandma was, to go over the paper work, schedule open houses, hours of brokers tours, when and how the house will be shown, etc. But the baby started crying, so the mother excuse herself and went to tend to her daughter, she come back a few minutes later with a small blanket covering the baby, she was breastfeeding her, and sat a bit tilted aw... 04/01/2010

Could this possibly happen? Are Short Sales now becoming Long Sales? In this case the escrow closed, buyer moved into his new home and 30 days after that, he received a visit from a Realtor who told him to move out because the bank had acquired the property via a trustee sale. Once escrow has closed, the issues of the prior owner cannot affect the new buyer of the property. After all, a title insurance company is responsible for the transfer of a clear title to the new owner, and the only lien should be the new mortgage that the buyer acquired in order to buy the property. Every property sold with any type of financing is required to have title insurance. In a typical transaction when a borrower stops making payments, a Notice of default (NOD) is recorded 90 days after missing the first... 03/15/2010

The local real estate market is showing signs of life! Finally! we are sensing more activity at open houses and sales at all price points. It does appear that home buyers are more aware of what this market is offering to them right now and they are finally taking the plunge. The $8,000 credit to first time buyers is a big pull plus fix interest rates below 5% shown all over the news is a confirmation to them that this market is turning around and if they don't buy now, they could simply miss the boat entirely. Spring time is the PERFECT time to buy a house. I predict that as we get closer to the November 30th deadline for the $8,000 tax credit there will be a rush of first time buyers trying to get into the market, but probably they will not find by then the number of properties availab... 03/27/2009