The first piece of advice I have for buyers who want to get a fantastic bargain is to find a good buyer's agent. Nothing else will make as much difference as a good buyer's agent who is dedicated to...
I've seen many new home developments with vaulted ceilings, mini-vineyards, huge houses on little tiny lots...Why can't some developer built some homes for us regular people? A normal sized home with plenty of closet space and a decent (not...
One of the most common things I'm seeing as I roam about the East County looking for bargains: Agents not doing their jobs. Even when there were 40-plus sellers per buyer, single family detached homes that are priced appropriately were...
I have said repeatedly that buyer's markets are not the time to be selling a property if you have any choice. There is one exception: People looking to turn around and buy a more expensive property. If you're looking to...
(This was originally written February 16, 2006, but it's relevant still) One of the occasional questions I get from people has to do with why the housing bubble got so big (or if you're one of those still in denial...
For a period of several months when the market started imploding, I got mass messages from basically every lender I do business with, saying it's time to "get back to basics". My favorite A paper lender became the last to...
If you read the papers and the congressional record on the housing crisis, you might think yield spread is the central culprit for the entire meltdown. You would be wrong. Yield spread is a beneficial tool, offered voluntarily by lenders,...
Many people are unaware how profoundly lending policies influence the market for residential property and the various kinds of housing and methods of construction. So I am going to go over the various gradations in available loans for various types...
I was looking through some real estate listings and saw one property described as: "Contractor's special, first time buyers and investors. House needs TLC." Does contractor's special mean u better be a contractor if you wanna buy this place? It...
One of the things I've heard and read other agents complaining about is that they can't find qualified buyers to represent. Welcome to Unintended Consequences 101. The way that the market had been working is this: Young, often unmarried, buyers...
One of the hard things to get through to sellers is to understand the characteristics of the sort of buyers they need in order to have a successful transaction. If a given set of prospective buyers can't afford the property,...
Somebody asked me that. Well, I'd want to set some aside for liquidity and reserves, in case something happened where I needed money now. invest those funds in a diversified mutual fund and money market portfolio. Once that's done, I'd...
Here are the facts of the situation, whether you're talking about San Diego or Manhattan, the Bay Area, Los Angeles, or any of the other densely packed, high cost areas where all the employment and career opportunities are. Fact 1:...
Okay, I did an article called Why Renting Really Is For Suckers (And What To Do About It). Fairness demands that I do a companion article on situations where buying is not a good idea. There actually are some. First...
Be prepared for trouble before it happens, know how strong your position is or isn't, and don't ever overplay your hand. Real estate transactions are the largest transactions most folks get involved in. Even small percentages of $500,000 or more...
The first thing to consider is that maybe you shouldn't. You never want to get involved in a bidding war. There's a classic riddle I ask every single one of my buyer clients at least once. "How often does...
When things went south in the real estate market, I saw more changes in the lending industry in a few months than the previous five years. But those changes mostly restored us to the place we were a few years...
I have been asked by more than one person how to measure desirability of real estate objectively. Fortunately, the Phoenicians did all the hard work for me three thousand years ago when they invented money. Precisely what that measurement unit...
The negative amortization loan is a very popular loan with certain kinds of real estate agents and loan officers. It has two great virtues as far as they are concerned. First, it has a low payment, and despite the fact...
A lot of advice gets given to choose a "top producing" agent. These highly corporate offices may have the name of an individual agent attached to them, but they are in fact transaction mills. They have done pretty well for...
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