You may be surprised how valuable your neighbors can be when it comes time to sell your Alameda Bay Farm Island home.  They can be a huge asset, or they can be a huge liability, depending on your approach.

Most homeowners who are preparing to market their home are given suggestions and ideas about how to dress up their kitchen, fluff up their bedrooms and shine up their bathrooms, but all that effort can be wasted if the neighbor next door has piles of trash, or there is a car on blocks in view right outside the rear window.

It's possible that you have gotten used to this, or decided that it was not worth alienating the neighbors by asking them to clean up THEIR home.  What was once something that you tolerated has now become an obstacle in getting…

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With the current downturn in Redwood Heights home sales, anything that sellers can do to make their home more attractive is worth considering. Whether a potential buyer is looking at a home online, or seeing it in person during an Open House, a bright, clean, and well laid out home will attract attention, and interest. Since homes are often a reflection of the individual owner’s tastes and interests, they might not always have the wide appeal that would interest a broad spectrum of buyers. Knowing this, most agents will encourage sellers to simplify and declutter their homes. Just this simple act has been shown to add $2000.00 on to the sale price of the home according to HomeGain.com. The ultimate goal is to interest as many people as possible, and to…

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The central information source for all real estate agents about the current housing market is the Multiple Listing Service (MLS). I use it as a source of an immense amount of detail regarding the prices of homes for sale, their location, their appearance, their size in terms of square feet, the number of bedrooms, bathrooms, and so much more. I also use the MLS to assist buyers in finding homes that are within their price ranges, and that fit their needs for their ideal purchase. Additionally it is an invaluable source for informing my sellers as to their competition when pricing their house for sale.

Recently, the research division of Better Homes and Gardens Mason-McDuffie Real Estate analyzed the sales and purchase information in Alameda County for…

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My job, as your agent, is to get the best possible price when selling your Piedmont Home. To arrive at the correct price depends on many things, but one thing is certain--while the term “Location, Location, Location” is often heard as to a key element in selling your home, perhaps “Price, Price, Price” may be right up there next to it. You may be in one of the best neighborhoods in town, but if you have priced your home in such a way that no one is going to even consider buying it, you have lost your major advantage of the home’s location. To start you on your path to sell your home, I will prepare a Market Analysis for you. This will be a written presentation for you to review and consider. In this presentation, I will show you what other Piedmont homes,…

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At one point or another, visitors to Oakland look up into the Oakland hills, and say “What is that?”. Commanding a hill, and bright white in the sunshine, is the Oakland Mormon Temple, an architecturally stunning building that is 170 feet high sitting on 18.3 acres. It is located in Lincoln Heights neighborhood and adjacent to the Redwood Heights and Oakmore neighborhoods. Whether you are a tourist or resident, the building invites one to visit. It has an outstanding view of all of Oakland, and Alameda. Famous landmarks in San Francisco can be seen clearly, including the Bay Bridge and Candlestick Park. Once you arrive, however, there is more to see than the view.

Visitors are encouraged to walk the grounds. Running from the entrance towards the temple…

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A recent trip to Jack London Square made me aware of the amazing variety of things for a family to see and do there. While you can go any day, planning your trip to coincide with some of the scheduled events there make things so much more fun for you and your children. It is located at the foot of Broadway in Oakland, where Broadway meets the Oakland Estuary. On the Estuary you will see boats of every size and description from the huge container ships loading their cargo, to the yachts in the adjacent harbor, to the little kyacks in the water trying to avoid them all. If you are looking for adventure on the water, the San Francisco Bay Ferry docks there, and leaves for San Francisco on a regular basis. From there you can go to the Ferry Building,…

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Whether you live in an Oakland bungalow, or a large Piedmont mansion, you want your home to have the very best in curb appeal. The good news is that you can make things special, and do it on a budget. The hardest part is stepping away from your home, and seeing it as your neighbor or a future buyer might see it for the first time. That can be a interesting experience. What you see as cozy and cute, might be seen as crowded and small by an outsider.

Here are some inexpensive corrections to improve the approach to your front door

a. Clean up your walkway. Remove weeds between the cracks, level any paving stones.

b. Sweep and rake everywhere, removing all debris under the bushes and plants and in gutters.

c. Pull up all dead plants and outdated,…

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For those who love old Hollywood, modern elegance and Long Island Sound, check out the old Saybrook home formerly belonging to Katharine Hepburn, currently on the market for 28 million. For that sum it could be yours, all 8300 square feet, three and a half acres, (15 rooms, 7 1/2 baths), replete with a romantic history. Subdivided into three lots there are options for buyers as to how much or what part of the estate they would like to buy. I want to refer to this special home as old, since Hepburn's family originally built it in 1912 (for $2400.00), and rebuilt it in 1938 after destroyed by hurricane, but it is anything but old these days. Purchased for 6 million in 2004, a year after Hepburn's death, by Frank Sciame, a construction executive, the whole…

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Part 2 of my Moving and Packing tips.

Tips when packing.

Once the box is packed you need to label the contents so you can make sure the movers (or you) can get the box to the right room in the new house. Is usually recommended labeling the box for where it goes, not where it came from. If you are using new boxes, there is usually ample places to write the contents and mark the rooms but if you are using used boxes, you might need to cross out someone else’s writing. This can get messy so try a color code instead, that way the movers (or your friends) don’t need to figure out your handwriting. Get a selection of colored sticky dots at the office supply store, and slap a sticker on the top and a side or two of the box. Make a map of your house and place…

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Once you’ve finally bought your new East Bay home it is time to move in and for many people, this process is one of the most difficult thing to do. Here are a few tips to make the process easy and pleasant.

1. Preparing for the Movers

If you are planning on having professional movers there are still many things that you can do to streamline the packing and unpacking jobs. The first step is to start with the right materials and start as early as possible. If you are planning on moving a month from now you can begin packing items you know you won’t need in the next month. The garage and the storage areas are great places to start. Many of these areas might still have unopened boxes from the last time you moved.

Materials.

It is important to have an…

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