Simon Mills of Mills Realty - Blog

How To Merengue Featuring Man's Best Friend DWTS is just around the corner and it is about time that you get up off the couch and start learning how to dance.  For your first dance you have been assigned a Latin dance called the Merengue. Be sure to keep your position closed and hold your partner...

Doom and Gloom Recent reports show that we currently have more than a 12 month supply of housing inventory.  This means that based on the sales activity of the last 12 months it will take more than 12 months to sell all the active properties on the market today.  Keep in mind that during that ti...

By far one of the best places to spend a Summer evening in Los Angeles is at the Hollywood Bowl.   Get a box, take a picnic, get there early and enjoy a great bottle of wine with your friends and family.  It is truly a unique Los Angeles experience.  If you plan right and are fortunate to get a n...

     The first rule is your home is not worth as much as you think it is!  I think it is human nature that the majority of us feel that what we own is worth more than it really is.  We really need to be unemotional and ask ourselves would I pay the asking price for my home.  Keep in mind that eve...

The "Dongle" (who came up with that term) is finally here.  For those that don't know this is the iphone adaptor that allows you to open up the Supra infrared i-box.  No longer do iphone users have to lug around an additional piece of hardware that didn't even work that well.  Now with a $60 adap...

I am often asked what the benefits of a short sale over a foreclosure are.  Most real estate agents would agree that the borrower's credit score is affected less with a short sale, but there are not any real facts to back that up. When was the last time you filled out a Uniform Residential Loan A...

Here is the scenario that led me to this revelation... I have been working on a short sale for 14 months and have finally received an approval from the lender and the property is now in escrow.  The buyers want to do an inspection, but there is no power and the seller has no money to pay to get i...

The economic downturn and the current real estate market have made HOA's (Homeowner Associations) very hard pressed to collect their monthly payments from homeowners.   I am often asked by seller's facing foreclosure or trying to negotiate a short sale if the HOA back dues that they owe will be w...

The economic snowball effect is reaching the pace of an avalanche.  First it was bad loans putting pressure on home prices and now unemployment is adding to the downturn.  The circle is vicious as unemployment fuels the borrowers to miss their payments and the bad loans have spooked banks from le...

Fannie Mae Eases Credit To Aid Mortgage Lending.  This was an article headline from the NY times on September 30th, 1999.   Fannie Mae was under "increasing pressure" from President Clinton's administration to expand mortgages to moderate income people.  The problem was that moderate income peopl...