Okay, so the big banks admit they may not have conducted all of their foreclosures correctly... and now homeowners who were victims of unfair foreclosures can call and lodge a complaint at 1-888-952-9105. According to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal by By Alan Zibel and Nick Timiraos: Bank regulators and the mortgage industry have launched a complaint process to reach out to more than 4 million homeowners to find and compensate any who were harmed by deficiencies in banks’ foreclosure operations. Bank regulators in April ordered 14 large mortgage servicing firms to fix problems in their foreclosure-handling processes. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and Federal Reserve required these companies to hire independent consultants to fix those problems. The industry ... 11/02/2011

In real estate staging, or home staging, we stagers see things we shouldn't see (and really don't want to see.) Real estate agents and prospective home buyers also see all kinds of things that they wish they hadn't. Since many, many a great blog has been shared about this on Active Rain, I will let you remember some of the humorous and sometimes horrible examples, so I won't go into detail. One thing a home owner should see before they agree to a price reduction (assuming that the home is fairly priced to begin with,) is a home staging professional. Actually many of the afore mentioned things we shouldn't see could be avoided if only the home owner had consulted with a home stager prior to listing the home. It could be as simple as decluttering, or addressing that strange, lingering odo... 10/21/2011

                                       Halloween is almost here. Christmas decorating time is near!                                       Let Selling By Design-Staging give you a hand this year.                                 Selling By Design-Staging will: Help you unpack your seasonal decorations. Assist you in decorating your home. Do all your holiday decorating. Help you after the holidays to repack and put your decorations away for next year. Help decorate for holiday parties. We can also help you choose new decorations if you want a new holiday look. Selling By Design-Staging will help take the stress out of your busy holiday season by making your home festive, leaving you more time for other tasks or letting you relax and enjoy the season with family and friends. Call today for ... 10/20/2011

Here are some Great Fall Maintenance Tips for Fresno, CA and other areas.   Via kudzu.com       Have your heating system inspected. Do not kick on the heat until your furnace has been inspected and serviced by a professional. These inspections should occur annually and are intended to identify potential problems and get your heating system ready for the heavy usage ahead. Heating systems that are not properly maintained will run more inefficiently, which will cost more money. Also, units that are malfunctioning can be dangerous, especially if they are leaking harmful gases such as carbon monoxide. According to the Journal of the American Medical Association, 1,500 Americans die each year from accidental exposure to CO, and there are more than 10,000 injuries each year.            Scrape... 10/19/2011

My Neighbors Just Closed an Investment Property....With another Agent.  Yep that is what I said.  Here is the story.   My neighbor called me a few months ago and said they were looking to purchase an investment property for thier parents and asked if I could help them.  Of course I said.  They were focused on this small gated community not too far from where we live.  I started searching for her while I had her on the phone and she said they were intersted in one particular unit there and had already seen it.  I said, "You have, how did you do that?"  We called the listing agent and she showed us.  If we decide to purchase it we want you to be our Realtor.  I told her "sorry, no can do"  If you saw it with the listing agent, you will have to write up the offer through her as she is the ... 10/17/2011

            It’s nearly time to Deck The Halls!                                                  ItDoes that thought fill you with joy the world or make you cringe at the thought of all that work?   “Didn’t we just take down the decorations last week?   Take heart! You’re not alone. Selling By Design-Staging is here to help make your holidays happy.    We can: Help you make room in your home for seasonal decorations by  recommending which home accessories to pack and store until after the holidays when you can then put them back into their original spots.   Unpack decorations. Make suggestions for new decorations if you want a new look.  Do all, or a portion of the decorating, leaving you more time in your busy holiday schedule. We will also decorate for holiday parties!   www.sellingby... 10/14/2011

Last week I posted pictures of a home that was staged by Selling By Design-Staging in which we used the owner's furniture and our accessories. This time I am showing the three bedrooms before and after staging. The master bedroom had only a large dresser and a painting. To save both time and money we opted to use the picture as a headboard. One of the colors in the painting matched the bedding beautifully. The owner had the lamp and table in another room so we made use of it in the large bedroom space. Ideally two matching nightstands and lamps would flank the bed so we had to be creative.   One of the guest rooms before staging. Same bed, rotated and accessorized. The lamp and table were the owner's re-purposed  from another room. Another bedroom before staging. We got another ottoman ... 10/10/2011

FSU CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY FRESNO STUDENT HOUSING MULTI FAMILY FOR SALE FRESNO CALIFORNIA CA Cardinal Creek Apartments 4647 N Chestnut Ave., Fresno, CA 93726 62 Units 85 Beds 1 Mile to Nearest Edge of Campus 20,932 Students (17,937 undergraduate) Listing Courtesy of Litton-Fuller Group Contact Grant Ancevic of Student Housing Investments, LLC for More Information 10/08/2011

The house was beautiful, the pool, one of a kind. Everything was clean and fresh. So what was the problem? No bling, no pizazz, no wow factor because there was no home staging, that is until Selling By Design-Staging of Fresno CA. stepped in. The real estate agent wanted the house warmed up a little to show off its fabulous features. The owner, who lives out of town agreed, but wanted to keep costs low. Selling By Design-Staging had only a few hours before the open house. The race was on! We rearranged furniture, added accessories and finished with only 30 minutes to spare. Here are the results. Living room before. Living room after This area, obviously meant for an entertainment center, needed something to fill the void and provide warmth. Part 2 will feature the bedrooms. 10/07/2011

Housing Deals Woodward Park Homes Fresno, CA. 93720If you are looking for a deal on a Woodward Park Home in Fresno, CA. 93720, you may want to check out what is available for sale now.  Home buyers that I help find homes often are not drawn to what Fresno has to offer in new construction homes or anything built after 2000.  Some of their hindrances to newer homes in the area is that they feel that they were not built well because they were built during the housing boom with 'studs' that are not actual 2X4s and that they would have been built very fast in an assembly line fashion.  Other complaints seem to be that the design/architecture is not appealing to them.  If you find yourself with those beliefs, maybe a Woodward Park area home fits your style.  When I mention the housing deals o... 10/06/2011

Here are the latest market statistics for Single Family Homes in North and NW Fresno and Clovis, CA for September 2011 per our local MLS as of 10/6/11                             Active          Pending        Sold      Total     Avg Sales Price       DOM 93722 -                 91                  113         102       306     $144,313              68 93723-                  18                   14           5          37      $229,380             57 93711-                  31                   38          27        96       $226,969              92 93720-                  40                   62          38       140      $250,475              65 93730-                  15                   19          18         52      $355,431             118 93704-                  17             ... 10/06/2011

NEW SCAM ALERT - JURY DUTY BULLYING Pass this on to your grown children and anyone else you can think of. This has been verified by the FBI (their link is also included below). Please pass this on to everyone in your email address book. It is spreading fast so be prepared should you get this call. Most of us take those summonses for jury duty seriously, but enough people skip out on their civic duty that a new and ominous kind of fraud has surfaced.             The caller claims to be a jury DUTY coordinator. If you protest that you never received a summons for jury duty, the Scammer asks you for your Social Security number and date of birth so he or she can verify the information and cancel the arrest warrant. Give out any of this information and bingo! - your identity was just stolen.... 10/04/2011

Chelsea Knolls II Move Up Homes Fresno, CA.  93720Chelsea Knolls II in Fresno, CA. 93720 is definitely a move up neighborhood.  You can find this community at the North East corner of Champlain and Ft. Washington.  With some 54 sales tracked in the Fresno Association of Realtors MLS dating back as far as 1999, the average price of a home in here has been $586,420.  The highest sale in the neighborhood was for $1,100,000 and the average price per sq. ft. has been $172 over the past 12 years.  Being that Chelsea Knolls II is slightly closer to Ft. Washington Country Club compared to Chelsea Knolls I, the price of homes has been slightly higher and the style/quality of homes seem to be a notch above Chelsea Knolls I.  Chelsea Knolls II is a move up home community in Fresno because of its l... 09/22/2011

Chelsea Knolls I Luxury Homes Fresno, CA. 93720If you are looking for an above average neighborhood with mature landscaping and a custom feel, Chelsea Knolls offers such qualities.  There is a Chelsea Knolls I & II but this post will only be about I.  This community is just East of Woodward Park on the other side of Friant.  It is also just South of the Ft. Washington/Friant shopping center.  Just to get to this community you need to drive down a street that is heavily landscaped and the trees and shrubs are very inviting.  Most of the homes in this neighborhood are on lots that are elevated from the street and some driveways are substantially inclined.  I do not know exactly why the designer/developer did this but it seems that flooding of these homes would never be a problem. Over the... 09/21/2011

In Fresno CA, as in all cities across the country, there are various degrees of quality in the investor remodels, or flipped homes. Real estate agents and home staging professionals have seen them all, from homes placed on the market by those who simply " put lipstick on a pig,"  in the effort to make a fast buck,  to well done homes offered by  serious, quality minded investors. Having had a bad experience with a "pig in lipstick" reno., Selling By Design-Staging was somewhat gun shy when an agent called and said she had an investor client who had two homes that needed staging asap.We had vowed never to stage a remodel that was not something in which we could live, but agreed to see the properties. What a pleasant surprise! This investor had done quality work. The homes looked fresh, c... 09/12/2011

In the world of professional home staging we are always faced with the challenge of making homes look beautiful on very limited budgets in order to save our clients money. I have been asked a number of times where I get my staging inventory and how much I have to pay for it. I love a deal and I love to brag about where and how I got it. I know it's supposed to be tacky to talk about how much one paid for things, but in the interest of continuing education, here are a few of the pieces I have collected as well as the prices and locations of the purchases. Hope it helps others boost their  staging inventory for less. Love seat-garage sale,$40. Slip cover- Big Lots-$30. Coffee table-Wal Mart online (came with two end tables) $20 for the set. Accessories and table setting-Tuesday Morning fr... 08/31/2011

9 Steps to Pass the DRE Exam & Get your California Real Estate Sales License http://www.dre.ca.gov/exm_home.html TOTAL = 22 weeks minimum (about 6 months) and $670 total 1)   Enroll & Complete Courses (8 weeks; $215) a)   Real Estate Principles, Practice, & Finance b)   Enroll at RealtyPro Academy at discounted rate of only $215 c)    Minimum 60 days d)   Get Transcripts (course completion certificates) 2)   Apply for Exam & State License (1 week; $305) a)   Complete DRE form RE 435 (Combined Salesperson Exam and License Appl.) i)     Type our company name and license # into “Part C”. b)   Submit 435 to the DRE with: 1)    Transcripts (from Step 1) 2)    Official Birth Certificate (can submit later if needed) 3)    Exam fee ($60) and license fee ($245) = Total ($305) 3)   Get & Submit F... 08/28/2011

Today's real estate market, like the overall ecomomy is suffering. Why then would home sellers and their agents willingly throw money away by leaving home staging out of their marketing strategy? Why not just take a ten to fifty thousand dollars and burn it in a bonfire? Sounds silly doesn't it? Why would anyone do that? They would not of course, but when a seller does a price reduction, maybe two or three, it is money lost. Assuming that the house has been fairly priced when put on the market it should sell,(allowing for the economic downturn) at around the same price and within the same time frame as it's competition. So why are there often large differences in days on the market as well as sales prices in comparable homes? Usually it comes down to appearance, or home staging. "But st... 08/23/2011

Destinations by Granville Homes Fresno, CA. 93720Destinations by Granville Homes in Fresno are located on Teague Ave. between Willow and Chestnut.  You will find these homes on the north and south side of Teague.  Granville Homes have been known for having nice stone accents on their elevations.  Many of their homes seem to be very large, especially the two stories.  The largest home in this development is just over 4,500 sq. ft.  Some of those come with a 6th bedroom.  The smallest homes you can get in this neighborhood are about 1,600 sq. ft.  Destinations by Granville Homes in Fresno brings over 30 years of quality home construction in the Central Valley.  As a company, Granville hopes to bring features from luxurious custom homes and put them in their homes at more affordable prices... 08/17/2011

St. Jude Dream Home Giveaway Fresno, CA.  93720As of Today, you have 92 days left to be eligible to win the St. Jude Dream Home Giveaway in Fresno, CA.  St. Jude Children's Research Hospital is the only National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center devoted solely to children.  St. Jude is recognized internationally as a pioneer for research and treatment of children with catastrophic diseases such as cancer.  De Young Properties is building this home right now.  De Young has also been a participant with the popular HGTV "Extreme Home Makeover" and "Showhouse Showdown." The St. Jude Dream Home Giveaway in Fresno is located at this address and has the following features: House Address: Chestnut Grove 8541 North Matus Fresno, CA 93720   House features:   built by De Youn... 08/13/2011