This is a question that gets asked a lot. Escrow is nothing more or less than a neutral third party that stands in the middle of a real estate transaction and makes certain all of the i’s are dotted and t’s are crossed. They make certain that all of the terms of the contract have …
Category Archives: Buying and Selling
The Escrow Process and Reasons for Falling Out
There are all sorts of reasons why escrow falls through, but they fall into three main categories. They can best be described as failures of qualification, failures of the property itself, and failures of execution. Before I get into the main subject matter of the article, I need to define a contingency period. This is …
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Timeshares, Pro and Con (mostly Con)
I realized that I hadn’t covered timeshares, and decided it was time. I suppose I should define what a timeshare is, just in case. A timeshare is a property where you buy the rights to use it for a certain amount of time every year. The most typical time share is a two week period. …
FSBO Horror and Failure to Disclose Property Defects
I keep getting search result hits for the string “fsbo horror.” It’s an amalgamation because I haven’t done any postings on this specific subject. Both buyers and sellers have problems relating to For Sale By Owner issues. For sellers, the largest issue seems to be properly disclosing all relevant items to satisfy the liability issue. …
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For Sale By Owner – Working Directly With a Loan Officer
Just got a search on “state of california fsbo questions to work directly with loan officers without a agent” This isn’t a problem. Whereas it is the same license, it is two entirely separate job functions. The fact that you are or are not working with an agent has absolutely nothing to do with whether …
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Disclosure Issues and Failure to Disclose
One of the most important things for the buyer in any transaction is confidence that the seller has disclosed all known problems. One of the things most people don’t realize, or act like they don’t realize, is that it’s at least as important to the seller. The California Association of Realtors (CAR) has a program …
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Real Estate Purchase Negotiability
What’s negotiable on a purchase? The short answer is everything. There may be standards and traditions in your area, the same as there are in mine. That doesn’t mean they are not subject to amendment by specific negotiation. Once you get outside legal requirements, anything is subject to negotiation. As long as both (or all) …
What is Real Estate Worth?
One of the most common questions in real estate is “What is this property really worth?” The easy answer is the same as the deepest, most profound one I can come up with, “Whatever you can get someone to pay for it.” It’s the answers in between that you’ve got to watch out for. The …
Leverage – Making a Decent Investment Spectacular
One of the concepts I keep seeing without a decent treatment is the concept of leveraging an investment. Real Estate has this like no other investment. You go talk to a bank about leveraging eighty to ninety or even one hundred percent of your investment in the stock market, or the same percentage of a …
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Did That Slap On The Back Leave a Knife?
One of the things the place I work does to attract clients is advertise foreclosure lists to our clients. Several times a week, people call and ask for the lists, and we say, “Great! Just come on down, fill out a loan package and an agency agreement, and we’ll get them to you fresh every …