Category Archives: Real Estate

Real Estate

What is My House Worth?

Ready to sell your home, than how do you value it? I’ve worked with many sellers over the years and here’s what I hear from some of them. But first, a funny video from Youtube that illustrates our perception of values: .

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RJOGzFuVBE

Some comments I’ve heard from sellers:

1. I built this home and I know how well it’s built and I want to sell my home for —— (It’s too bad we can’t value a home this way)

2. I need to get this much for my house. (It’s too bad buyers will only pay market value for a home and not what a seller needs to get)

3. I don’t care what the market is, I know what my house is worth. (It’s too bad buyers will only pay market value for a home)

4. If I can’t sell it for what I want, I will not sell it. (Than why put it on the market?)

5. The house up the street just sold for —————— and my house is better, so I should get a higher price for my home. (Maybe, you don’t know if the seller of that house gave concessions to the buyer, which reduced the actual price paid or what other variables might be involved.)

The only way to set a value of the sales price of your home is to have a Realtor® do a comparative market analysis (I do them for you for free) or get an appraiser of your home.

So if you are ready to sell or want a free comparative market analysis, send me your e-mail me at

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Please fill in your home address and any other information that you think would be helpful.

Real Estate

Want to Buy a Foreclosure? Be Ready For Multiple Offers

house-sold

It seems like the real estate market is coming back with some what of a roar. Want to buy a foreclosure? Be ready for a shock. Agents are getting multiple offers on foreclosure homes. The number of foreclosures and distressed properties are drying up.

Cesar Dias, became some what famous for his “foreclosure tour” in Stockton, CA, in which he packed potential buyers on a bus and ferried them around to some of the thousands of distressed properties. The tour is now history. For every listing that comes out, there are ten buyers, said Dias, an agent for Approved Real Estate Group. According to Dias, “We had a lot of inventory last summer. Now we are down to 1,500 listings, down from 5,000.”
Continue reading Want to Buy a Foreclosure? Be Ready For Multiple Offers →

Real Estate

Zillow.com has Complaint Filed Against Them by NCRC

house-listed-on-Zillow

The National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC) filed a consumer protection complaint to the Federal Trade Commission alleging Zillow.com is misleading consumers, real estate professionals and financial service providers.

Humm, I don’t know too many consumers, real estate professionals and financial service providers that put much stock in home prices by Zillow.com or other on-line valuation services. Zillow.com states you are looking at home values, not home appraisals. How could Zillow.com come up with an accurate price of your home by just using data from recent sales? To begin with, an appraiser, in order to get a true value of your home, has to look at the exterior and interior of your home in order to find homes similar to yours. Then after finding homes that were recently sold and that are similar to yours, adjustments, plus and minus, have to be made on the homes he finds that are similar to your home to account for neighborhood, landscaping, etc. Continue reading Zillow.com has Complaint Filed Against Them by NCRC →

Real Estate

Pending Homes Sales Continue Upward

upward-sales-chart

Home sales continue upward in Nevada County, increasing by 7% for the period April, May and June of this year compared to the same period last year. Nationwide, they have continued upward for the fifth consecutive month, the first time in six years for such a streak, according the National Association of Realtors®
Continue reading Pending Homes Sales Continue Upward →

Real Estate

Mortgage Companies Profit From Foreclosures

fat-banks-252x300

The White House has asked mortgage executives to come up with the manpower to stop precarious loans from becoming foreclosures, but a New York Times story says finance experts say a lack of bodies isn’t the problem. It’s greed.

Mortgage companies collect fees for appraisals, insurance, legal services and other administrative busywork when homes go into foreclosure, and many make more on delinquent loans than they do on those in good standing. So unless homeowners’ loans are through businesses that values their ability to keep roofs over their heads above the bottom line, they’re out of luck:
Continue reading Mortgage Companies Profit From Foreclosures →

Real Estate

Super Real Estate Agent, Millionaire to Pauper

Miami-condo-views

This is an interesting story of how much money you can make in real estate and lose it just as fast.

It’s the perfect morning at Carlos Justo’s Miami penthouse — warm and bright, with luxury yachts powering through the sparkling blue Atlantic Ocean some 30 stories below.

Carlos Justo, a 53-year-old real estate agent, has been awake since 3:30 a.m. but he shows no sign of fatigue. His eyes scan back and forth, from the high rise condos, to the water, and back to the condos.

An assistant, sitting at a glass table with her back to the stunning view, is talking business. She wants to know whether he will receive any commissions or checks anytime soon.

“Right now, we don’t have any money,” Justo says. He continues talking. Fast. Pacing back and forth, he gazes out the window.
Continue reading Super Real Estate Agent, Millionaire to Pauper →

Real Estate

Shall I walk Away From My House? Part 2

house-underwater

Thinking of walking away from your home because your property values have dropped to below what your mortgage is? You might consider that if you do walk away, what are you going to do? You’ll have to rent, your credit score will be ruined for seven years and you will have lost the home that you call your own. A home in which you could gain a profit from in the future. A case in point is the story of David Bach.

“In an interview with the AOL.com personal finance Web site, Walletpop.com, Bach said about 50 percent of homes in foreclosure are there because their owners walked away from underwater real estate. He calls that “stupid, short-term thinking” and recalls a condo he bought in New York City in 2003. He put down $600,000, then property values dropped and he lost all his equity. “I was bummed,” he said.

But the loss wasn’t permanent. Four years later he sold the condo for $3.65 million – and made a $1.5 million profit, after commissions and taxes.

Some people might have thought it was “logical” to walk away, he said. “But it would have cost me $1.5 million.”

We are not going to be in a recession forever, and real estate values will increase again. You always have “experts” who predict the world is going to end and bad times will last for an eternity. Don’t listen to them; look at the economic history of this Country, the economy cycles up and down. We are in a down cycle now, but we’ll soon be out of this downturn and property values will go up.

Real Estate

New Rules Protecting Home Buyers Effective Now

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Since the days of the Wild West in doing home mortgages, more and more tightening of appraising and mortgage lending is occurring. I think the changes are for the good, since you can blame the banks, wall street and some large mortgage companies who are no longer in business for the meltdown we had in the housing market.

There is so much double talk in some mortgage companies, such as advertising low teaser rates to lure you into doing business with them. Once you start working with these companies, the true cost of the loan becomes apparent. I always advise my clients to work with their local bank or mortgage company, rather then an online mortgage company. My experience with them is that they tell you the rate for your mortgage upfront and that’s what you get.

The locals know the market better, and in Nevada County and other Gold Country Counties that is very important. These counties tend to have a variety of homes, and there are few if any major subdivisions. Getting a comparable home to the one you may buy is sometimes quite difficult. Unlike a large city, where you may have a thousand homes that are similar, here you are lucky to find another home similar to yours.

Anyhow, the new rules that revise the disclosure requirements for mortgage loans under Regulation Z (Truth in Lending) went into effect July 30, 2009. The revisions implement the Mortgage Disclosure Improvement Act (MDIA), which was enacted in July 2008 as an amendment to the Truth in Lending Act (TILA). It is possible that these new requirements may cause delays in getting loans, and if you are purchasing a home, it may delay your closing date.

The MDIA requires creditors to give good faith estimates of mortgage loan costs (“early disclosures”) within three business days after receiving a consumer’s application for a mortgage loan and before any fees are collected from the consumer, other than a reasonable fee for obtaining the consumer’s credit history, according to information from the Federal Reserve. The MDIA also requires early disclosures for loans secured by dwellings other than the consumer’s principal dwelling, such as a second home.

In addition, the rules would implement the MDIA’s requirements that creditors wait seven business days after they provide the early disclosures before closing the loan; and that creditors provide new disclosures with a revised annual percentage rate (APR), and wait an additional three business days before closing the loan, if a change occurs that makes the APR in the early disclosures inaccurate beyond a specified tolerance, according to the Federal Reserve. The rules also would permit a consumer to expedite the closing to address a personal financial emergency, such as a foreclosure.

Real Estate

Foreclosures of the Rich & Famous

Former NBA star Vick Baker's home lost to foreclosure
Former NBA star Vick Baker's home lost to foreclosure

It seems like no matter how much money some people make, some of them don’t seem to be able to manage their money.

It’s not like a person who has worked hard all their life, suddenly loses their job and is forced to sell their home. But making millions of dollars and not preparing for an economic downturn seems ludicrous compared to someone just getting by.

 For example here is slide show of 20 Rich & Famous people who have recently been through foreclosure. Apparently glamorous celebs can and do fall back on mortgage payments, taxes, and (occasional) alimoney? 

Click Here To Watch A Slide Show Detailing The Foreclosures Of The Rich & Famous

Business, Real Estate

Economists Optimistic That Market Is Upward Bound

economic-upturn

Well, you can get a room full of economists and get a room full of different opinions. But according to USA Today it seems that two-thirds of the economists agree that we may have hit bottom. Here’s the article, let’s let a little sunshine in.

“Economic recovery is still a few months away, say economists surveyed by USA Today, but two-thirds of them think existing-home sales have bottomed out.

Both housing and automotive markets “have the potential to generate some quite large percentage increases,” says Bill Cheney, chief economist at MFC Global Investment.

Overall, economists say unemployment won’t peak until the first half of next year and credit markets will remain tight.

“I think (the recovery) is going to be anemic,” says Allen Sinai, chief economist at Decision Economics. “I don’t think consumers have the wherewithal to buy a lot of cars and a lot of houses.”

For full story, click here: USA Today, Paul Davidson; Barbara Hansen