Pacita's Quick Bytes of Real Estate

People who are moving outSince the real estate market values of properties in the Bay area are rising, it is a quandary for homeowners who are finding themselves needing to vacate for different reasons.Some folks are considering accepting jobs elsewhere, but are nervous that should they decide to...

It's quite sad that three of my sellers have had to deal with their respective  tenants from hell.  My sellers lost so much money by renting to these tenants who trashed their properties. It makes you wonder how people can live like that, and cause so much  Dirt and destruction Garbage in the yar...

My client asked me to take a look at a property he wanted to sell. The location sounded great --- in a historic district near downtown Oakland. I told him I wanted to first see and take pictures of his property which at that time was tenant-occupied.    TRASHED! I made an appointment with the ten...

This afternoon, I received a call from someone inquiring about a "listing" on Zillow. When I checked the address, I saw that property which listed for around 1M, sold for $1.4M in Sept 2014 after less than 2 months in the market. However, it is on Zillow again, "for sale" at $950K. Something didn...

It's the American Dream to own a home My client is a single woman, a social worker serving several cities in Alameda County, CA.  She's not a wealthy woman....she is someone who scrimped and saved for her future. Years ago, she reached for the American dream and bought her first home --- a duplex...

Many moons ago, and the first time I applied for a mortgage to buy a house, the rule I was told is that cost of housing shouldn't be more than 30% of my income. Another "rule" is that cost of housing to buy must not be more than 2.5 times my yearly income.  Seemed like good rules to me. And I fel...

Many real estate agents don't do, have never done, and will never do floor time --- the real estate practice of assigning an agent to take care of people who walk in the office, or who call in for real estate questions.   Some think floor time is a waste of time.... But how much of a waste can it...

I am engaged in a back-and-forth Facebook post about who caused the economic collapse --- which of course points to the housing bubble bursting. Yes, the market is recovering; and yes, there are many changes in lending. So hopefully, we won't ever have another crisis like that.  The discussion wa...

The seller tried for years to refinance his property. However, his loan was sold to a loan servicing company. He was led to believe he can get his loan modified. The loan mod person told him to get a one-year lease from his tenants who were at that time on month-to-month. Big mistake!  The servic...

There was a time when I religiously blogged about many things, and not always real estate related. However, in recent months, I practically dropped out of sight because taking care of my elderly parents became a priority.   Year 2011 was when things started to really go downhill for Mom who was h...