Oakland Ca Real Estate Blog

Getting the Clutter Out When Selling

Wednesday, February 6th, 2008 at 7:25pm. 330 Views, 0 Comments.

Sometimes sellers need to list their house while they remain living there, and this is fine but the selller must be able to remove much of their personal belongings from the home. This means minimizing pictures and the like, as well as excess furniture.  

In general it's easier to sell a home when it is vacant, because it allows the seller to prepare the home with only one thing in mind...selling it. There's no need for personal belongings or clutter when the house is vacant, and it's allows greater access because appointments don't have to be made in order to see the home. When you make it easy for other agents to show the home, it helps the odds of getting it sold quickly.

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The Importance Of Taking Things Step By Step

Tuesday, January 29th, 2008 at 1:39pm. 213 Views, 0 Comments.

If you are thinking of buying real estate, the very first step you should take is to get in touch with a competent mortgage professional who can pre-qualify you and let you know where you stand in terms of getting a loan.

Now if you make hundreds of thousands of dollars per year or plan on paying cash for your real estate, then you don't need to be as concerned about the pre-aprproval process. However for everyone else, it's where the rubber meets the road so to speak. I speak with new potential home buyers every week, and it amazes me how many of them would like to start viewing properties before they have even spoken with anyone about financing. It has always been true that pre-approval is the first step to be taken, before even looking at homes,…

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Keeping A Long Term Perspective On Real Estate

Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008 at 12:59pm. 204 Views, 0 Comments.

Just like the stock market, real estate will always be a long term investment. Our hot market from 2002-2005 led many people to believe that real estate is a get rich quick scheme, where you can simply flip homes one after the other and turn a profit. This may have been true for several years, and it may be true for a handful of experienced investors, but for most people real estate should be a long term investment that you plan to hold for a minium of five, but realisitcally 10-20 years.

Over this time period there may be ups and downs in the real estate market, but after 10-15 years you can almost be certain that will have gained equity during that peroid. When you own real estate, the market is only "bad" for you if you NEED to sell. If you don't,…

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Bank Of America Buys Countrywide

Friday, January 11th, 2008 at 11:31am. 315 Views, 0 Comments.

It's no secret that Countrywide has been in trouble since the mortgage industry began having problems. This is because Countrywide was holding over half of all the sub-prime mortgages that were made to borrowers, and of course the sub-prime loans are the loans that are having the highest rate of default.

Although they laid off over 15,000 employees, their troubles were deep and as of yesterday they were taken over by Bank Of America. B of A has purchased Countrywide for $4 Billion in stock options, which now makes Bank of America the nations largest lender.

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TIC's Can Be a Headache

Friday, January 4th, 2008 at 2:56pm. 225 Views, 0 Comments.

They have been common in SF for years, but only in the past several years have we started to see TIC or "Tenant In Common" units for sale. Unlike a condo, ownership as a TIC means that instead having a deed to the property, you own a 25% or 50% (depending on how many units) interest in the whole building.

Perhaps the biggest drawback to TIC's is the financing that is associated with them. Lenders view TIC units as a higher risk compared to conventional condo units, therefore they require larger downpayments and charge higher interest rates on loan for TIC real estate. I have seen several TIC real estate projects in Oakland in the last couple of years that were on the market for months and never sold because of the fact that it is so much harder to…

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Happy New Year!

Tuesday, January 1st, 2008 at 12:28pm. 301 Views, 0 Comments.

Well 2008 is upon us!  Time flies so quickly it seems these days, and years are starting to fly by like a blur! Most of the analysts believe that during 2008 we will see continued pressure on housing prices, mostly due to the fact that more foreclosures are forecasted to happen over the next year.

However for those who are ready to buy, the current market offers some great pricing with less competition among buyers than previous years.

So cheers to the new year!

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Oakland Market Still Stronger Than Most

Wednesday, December 26th, 2007 at 4:07pm. 221 Views, 0 Comments.

Fortunately Oakland and the surrounding East Bay Area is still one of the most desireable places to live, and this means that even in the toughest markets there is still more activity than in other counties. All you have to do is go one hour South, or Northeast and you will see markets that are much touger than our own.

San Joaquin and Contra Costa counties in particular are being hit extremely hard by the mortgage and foreclosure problems. And while these problems affect Oakland as well, we are a little more insulated from them because of the desireablility of Oakland real estate.

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Oakland Finally Getting Some Rain!

Saturday, December 22nd, 2007 at 4:30pm. 300 Views, 0 Comments.

We have been warned several times during the year that the Bay Area hasn't been getting enough rain and snow to fill our reservoirs past the 3/4 level. There has been talk that some parts of northern California would be put under water rationing ordinances to conserve water, unless our reservoir levels rise.

Luckily, the past couple of weeks have brought a series of storms, and the forecast is that we will be getting rain for most of the week. Two to three inches of rain and several feet of snowfall will help a lot, because we rely heavily on the melting snow pack to fill the reservoirs when they melt. It's easy to take water for granted, but every now and then we are reminded of how our water supply is not "guaranteed". Over the coming years, we will…

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Oakland Will Keep Seeing Foreclosures

Wednesday, December 19th, 2007 at 9:19pm. 217 Views, 0 Comments.

Although the government struck a deal to freeze mortgage interest rates for five years on adjustable rate loans, the reality is that only a small percentage of the people who are in trouble will actually benefit. So the Oakland real estate market will continue to be tough for sellers for at least another year or two I feel.

There is another group of adjustable rate mortgages that is due to reset early next year, which will most likely cause more foreclosures to come onto the market over the next year or two. There will likely be more legislation and programs to help offset these problems. There are new 40 and 50 year loans coming into the marketplace now, and there is still talk that the FHA will raise it's limits for high cost areas such as the Bay Area.

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Interest Rates Are Volatile

Tuesday, December 11th, 2007 at 8:55pm. 261 Views, 0 Comments.

Many people expect that mortgage interest rates will fall every time the Fed cuts the "Prime" rate. In fact, cuts in the Prime rate can actually make mortgage interest rates rise. What's happening is that when the fed lowers the rate, it allows more people to spend money, and the more people spend the higher the rate of inflation is. The lenders don't like inflation, so they see that as added risk to the economy, thus forcing them to raise mortgage interest rates to compensate for the risk.

If you were going over rates with your mortgage person a month ago and you were quoted a 30 yr fixed loan at 6.15% interest, then it's possible that a month later you could get a lower (or higher) rate. We are still in the midst of a pretty serious shift in the…

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