Ben Balsbaugh's (centralvalleyspecialist) Blog

These real estate times can be frustrating, our days can be challenging. If we start each day by thinking negative, our whole day will be negative. The conversations we have in our minds goes on and on and on. Make that endless loop a positive one. I believe that if we make it a practice to start...

There is no secret to success. Success is for everyone. Your life becomes better only when you become better. There is no success without sacrifice. Success is achieved in inches, not miles. The greatest enemy of tomorrow's success is today's success. No advice on success works unless you do. You...

This week I have been thinking a lot about passion. For some of us passion is pouring out of our veins and for others of us, passion isn't even an ingredient in our body. I want to encourage you to be passionate about what you're doing. To help us, I found 5 great quotes on passion and I want to ...

 Here is an article from our local newspaper...  http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090612/A_BIZ/906120307 Ben Balsbaugh PMZ Real Estate ben@pmz.com

I am getting a lot of questions regarding the foreclosure moratorium that goes into effect today. This is not a new law; it's the law that was passed back in February. It is my understanding that this moratorium required lenders to follow specific guidelines before foreclosing. Over the past 4 mo...

Here in the Central Valley, our inventory levels have fallen dramatically. We have more buyers than homes to sell them so we are seeing 4 - 10 offers on everything. I viewed a home last week that had 52 offers on it. Obviously this can be a very frustrating experience for both buyers and agents. ...

Mortgage guidelines continue to tighten, requiring larger and larger down payments. Because of this, we are starting to see more buyers come in with gift funds from relatives. From my understanding, there are some strict rules regarding these gifts that buyer's need to be aware of. For example, I...

What is a short-sale? A short-sale simply means a property is being marketed for less than what is owed to the bank. There are many individuals in this boat, they are attempting to sell their home for less than they owe. For example, they owe $300,000 to the bank, but their home is only worth $15...