Brett Weinstein's (realtyadvocates) Blog

A Modestly Size, Beautifully Updated Bay View Home 580 Cragmont Avenue, Berkeley 94708 Offered at: $699,000 Two+ bedrooms/two baths Newly refinished hardwood floors Living room with fireplace Formal dining room Newly remodeled kitchen features a Bertazonni commercial stove and unique fossil-embe...

A Spacious Traditional Style Home Close to Hilltop Elementary and Tilden Park 218 Purdue Avenue, Kensington Offered at: $769,000 Two+ bedrooms/one and a half baths 1,371 square feet of living space (not including lower level + rooms) Beautiful hardwood floors Large tile floor kitchen with breakf...

In a “normal” sale, the seller has money left over after paying closing costs, commissions and the outstanding balance of any loans/mortgages against the property. This money is known as “net equity”. It is the money the seller puts into her pocket after the sale (but before paying possible capit...

Assuming you have $250,000 for a downpayment (not including closing costs), it is less expensive to buy this $1,050,000 fourplex to owner-occupy than it is to buy a comparable single family home. How? Compare 2334 Curtis Street in Berkeley, a multi-unit residential income property to a 2 -3 Bedr...

SOLD It is an architectural rarity in Berkeley to see such a well-preserved and tastefully updated half-timbered and high-peaked Colonial Revival property. This one built in 1911 by the carpenter Arne Lundgren. Berkeley’s Architectural Heritage Association (BAHA) even produced a little write up ...

  The slogan of Pacific Union GMAC Real Estate reads "Service you Deserve". I can’t help but wonder how this works with clients that have low self esteem, or even self loathing. These people have a day-to-day belief that they don’t deserve anything good. Or how about the criminal or sociopath tha...

Why Do Sellers Still List with Agents Charging 6% (or even 5%)? This is a continually perplexing question for us, and one which probably has several answers. First, we think many sellers don’t realize that commissions are not fixed. The big real estate companies spend a lot of effort training the...

In the October 2007 edition of Realtor Magazine, published by the National Association of Realtors®, the trade organization to which most real estate people belong, there is a section called “Cool Tools.” This is what is promoted as a “cool tool”: Thriving Office "When customers call, have your h...

           Any buyer who goes to an open house can see a big binder on a table somewhere, containing the property disclosures. When the buyer gets half-way serious about the house, their agent then requests a copy of the “packet” from the seller’s agent.  Some packets are better than others. Here...

The typical home sale in Berkeley, Oakland and surrounding areas involves the seller providing a “disclosure packet” to prospective buyers before they make an offer.  There is no set requirement of what is contained in the packet, but it will usually include a pest control inspection, a natural ...