Is it a coincidence that real estate and regret and remorse all start the same, are they related? Regret is a big part of the business of real estate.

For me as an agent it is every day. Did I say the right thing, did I do the right thing, should I have gone to that appointment?

This business is so fraught with minefields, two weeks ago I was texting back and forth with a seller about listing her home and how great the market is, all was going well until we got to price. I went over the listing process, all by text then told her a number which is a number she had mentioned in past conversations and boom she stopped communicating, three years of discussions done. My regret I should not have texted the listing price should have insisted on a…

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For months I have been faithfully posting blogs. There has been much to comment on, I post on inspiration. I did lose my mojo this last month I became busy and all was well. It was not well, I did not see the Tsunami that had hit real estate here in Santa Cruz county and the whole nation. The pull back of a pandemic did not prepare, buyers, sellers, real estate professionals and all the supporting players for the wave that was going to overwhelm us.

I thought I understood what was happening the market was picking up as it does in January. It starts very fast and then February gently moves along and another surge comes in March. The market did follow that pattern. What was different was the buyers were not playing around. The buyers that have come…

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Have you been asked this question before? I have a new listing and I got a very excited call from a buyer. She wanted to see the home as soon as possible almost out of breath! I said "okay we can get you in, do you have an agent?" She said "yes, I am waiting for him to call me back" I said very nicely "okay, have him call me." She sounded a bit defeated I think she wanted to see the property right away but that was not going to happen. We have to make appointments with tenants and put the logistics together. But mainly I want her agent to show her, go over it with her to help her consider if it is a good fit. 

I happen to work with buyers and sellers and as a listing agent these calls are a common occurrence.

In past years only agents called…

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Buying a home is a scary prospect and I typically find that buyers who are not scared are either not really going to buy a house or have bought a home before. And some have had experience through family or friends and the prospect is not that worrisome. 

Why is it scary? There are lots of reasons…

For a couple this can signify a bigger commitment than marriage because now there is mortgage. Mortgages are not easy to dissolve and may prove harder to dissolve than the marriage.

Fear of the unknown, the housing market goes up and down and where it will go nobody knows.

Buyers worry about their jobs; people’s jobs are no longer stable. This fact has changed in the last 5 years. People get laid off or have to move for their job quite frequently.

…

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There once was the idea that agents should not be paid so much, and we often do get paid a lot of money. I will not go into what we pay to stay in business here. We are one of the last professions that has not been arbitraged and had our commission's turned into scale. Kind of like travel agents and other industries that have just been decimated by the online revolution. I started in 2004. There was no Zillow, and the internet was not really anything at that point. Because speeds were so slow, not a lot could be done with real estate with all the pictures and information. The internet speed increased and made real estate more viable online and Zillow came in.  2010 is when they came to all the real estate offices and they became more known to the…

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What are real estate disclosures? I will preface this by stating I am absolutely not an real estate attorney nor should this be considered legal advice.  Disclosures are pieces of information about the property, neighborhood, anything relevant to the enjoyment of the home. These can come in the form of inspections, reports, bids, receipts for work done, agent observations, agent comments and sometimes the neighbors. Seller disclosures are questions asked of the seller to impart everything they know about a property and one disclosure is required by law.  As realtors we have great liability with disclosures so there are many approaches to the delivery of disclosures.

When should they be given. I am going to be hung out to dry on this when I say…

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Regularly I find money on the ground if you see the photo I found this $50.00 bill. I found one last year too and countless coins. I am not lucky, I am just always looking. I find money on the streets regularly. But I also find it my pocket. What I mean is are you studying your bills for loose change. Just last month, I reviewed my cell phone bill and realized I am still paying insurance on older model phone. I typically keep insurance for one year and cancel. I forgot. I cancelled that and paid off the balance of the phone cost and took my cell phone bill from $135.00 to $89.00. Call your cell company and ask them what would better suit you and how you use your phone look for extra charges. 

What about refinancing your home loan, it is popular…

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Here is an idea for new year's resolutions you can keep! and no, I'm not talking about weight loss and I'm not talking about the lofty goals you may have for some personal transformation.

I'm talking about your house. If you're a buyer, seller, homeowner, I recommend a process that my husband and I have been doing since 2007. This is a list of stuff that we want to get done on the house, get redone or improve. And we do it every year. So we make a list of stuff. In 2017, 18 and 19  we did get some fixes, repairs and upgrades done and some we did not. Then 2020 we might actually have to torch this list because with COVID and life, we just didn't get to a lot of what we had planned done. But what we put on paper. We have lots of different things we…

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Proposition 19: New Property Tax &

Inheritance Rules for California

On November 3rd, California voters approved Proposition 19, a measure designed to give homeowners more freedom to change residences while closing tax loopholes on inherited properties.

 The measure, set to go into effect early next year, has two distinct parts, the first of which allows homeowners who are 55 or older, disabled, or lost their home in a natural disaster to transfer their tax base to a new home up to three times anywhere in California.

Previously, homeowners could only take advantage of a tax base transfer once in their lifetime, and only if they bought a replacement home in certain California counties.

The second part outlines the requirements for retaining…

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The idea of a foreclosure wave always gets attention. If you are looking for a deal the indicators of another foreclosure or short sale wave of the last mortgage meltdown years is not going to happen. We do have a few of commonalities of that time that could lead someone to this conclusion. There are climbing unemployment numbers, there are inflated house prices, and buying frenzies.

But what we do not have is unqualified loans being given out. The loans are based on income and triple verified, employment is double and triple verified, buyers are getting standard loans of 15 and 30 years with 20% down. AND while there are a lot of sales the sales volume is not at all what it was at that time. The loans are qualified with real buyers, with real incomes…

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