Probably the best news I received yesterday was that the House approved the homebuyer tax credit extension, giving buyers who are already in contract another 3 months to close escrow and still get the tax credit. The bill still needs to be passed by the Senate and signed by President Obama, but w
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06/30/2010
OK, my hand is in the air, and I vote for roofer. When the temperature hits 115 in Sacramento, the last place anybody on Earth should want to be is on top of a hot tar roof. I mean, given the types of jobs a person can do in the construction industry, sweating in the hot summer sun some 10 feet i
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06/29/2010
I have never particularly liked The Beatle's song: You Say It's Your Birthday. It's on The White Album. It's a jarring tune. Not that there's anything wrong with jarring because I love the Foo Fighters, for example, but it's situated in the wrong place on the soundtrack. When I bought that album
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06/28/2010
Some real estate agents don't want to say anything to a home seller that sounds negative about a home. I suspect they are afraid of offending the seller. Besides, lots of sellers don't notice the negative aspects of their home, especially after a number of years go by. They get used to it, whatev
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06/27/2010
I have noticed something peculiar happening in the Sacramento real estate market. Now, ordinarily, I do not pay much attention to what other agents are doing because, quite frankly, it's none of my business. My business is to write weekly articles for my homebuying website at About.com, sell my l
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06/26/2010
You would think that since my days are so consumed by real estate that I would dream about real estate at night. But I rarely do. Oh, there is probably subliminal crap in my dreams, stuff from my subconscious that I'm not even aware of slipping into my dreamland adventures, but I can usually figu
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06/25/2010
The California Housing Finance Agency (CalHFA) is launching a "Keep Your Home" initiative on Nov. 1 that is designed to pay down mortgages, up to $50,000, for qualified homeowners in foreclosure or in danger of going into foreclosure. CalHFA announced it will allocate $700 million for the program
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06/24/2010
My husband heard a strange rumbling in our attic yesterday. Rock 'n' roll may have turned me half deaf, because my husband often hears things that I do not. Sure enough, by evening, it felt uncomfortably warm in the house. Our compressor had stopped running. Well, it's one of the reasons we have
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06/23/2010
If you want to see something really gross, pick up your keyboard, turn it upside down and vigorously shake it. What you see on the tray, apart from the usual crumbs of pizza crust and bits of chocolate chip cookies, is stuff that falls off of you every day. You are shedding like crazy. Eyelashes,
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06/22/2010
Sometimes, people think I have all the answers. Well, I don't. I don't have a crystal ball on my desk, either. I can't predict the future. Couldn't tell ya if it was gonna rain tomorrow. OK, in Sacramento, in June, highly unlikely. And although I've never put my shoes on backwards, I have been kn
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06/21/2010
