A mansion is for sale in Beverly Hills that has an amazing history-and an amazing recovery.  It is located at 805 N Linden Street, and was designed by renown architect Wallace Neff. It is a handsome Spanish styled home, and is located in one of the most famous neighborhoods in the world. This neighborhood is unique, and one which is long renown to be the home of motion picture and television stars both past and present.  Approximately 40% of the homes here sell for 3 million to 10 million dollars.  This one is being sold for $6.995 million, and has a huge amount of space for use by the buyer.  It has a total of 6246 square feet.

This particular home has a very unique distinction.  In 1946, Howard Hughes, the famous millionaire and aviation pioneer,…

1638 Views, 0 Comments

Read Full Post

San Francisco Bay is one of the most inviting recreational areas in the United States.  You can see bulky container ships moving slowly among the graceful sailboats that are racing each other from one point to another.  Every portion of the bay has sweeping views of some portion of the city that the Gold Rush built. 

Recently, I was able to get out on the water with some friends, and really began to appreciate all that the area has to offer.  We went on one of the best ways to see it in comfort-The Oakland/Alameda Ferry.  Whether you have a home in Oakland, or one in Alameda, it is just a short trip to their ferry terminal. We left from Alameda's terminal because the parking is often easier, and then, after a brief stop at Jack London Square to pick up…

1667 Views, 0 Comments

Read Full Post

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…

1529 Views, 0 Comments

Read Full Post

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…

1478 Views, 0 Comments

Read Full Post

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…

2020 Views, 0 Comments

Read Full Post

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,…

1762 Views, 0 Comments

Read Full Post

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…

4226 Views, 0 Comments

Read Full Post

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,…

1652 Views, 0 Comments

Read Full Post

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,…

2785 Views, 0 Comments

Read Full Post

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…

1571 Views, 0 Comments

Read Full Post