General Real Estate Tips and Advice

In Part 1, we discussed the importance of gathering all your records together to be prepared to discuss and analyze all the factors that will be involved in pricing your Oakland home for sale. However, as you go over all these replacement and repair issues, you will realize that there may be potential problems in preparing your home for sale.  Any serious problems will have to be revealed to future buyers. 

1. Deal With Issues That Must Be Disclosed to Potential Buyers

Most homes have things that need to be addressed--cracked water pipes in the back yard, a chimney that needs attention, or hidden structural cracks that can cause future problems.  Many of these things have come about due to deferred maintenance, or lack of funds to fix them. California…

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1. Sell Your Home Faster By Following the Boy Scout Motto "Be Prepared!"

Once you have selected me as your Oakland real estate agent, you will be asked to collect a lot of information to assist in determining the ultimate sales price of your home.  Some of this information will take time to collect and organize, so begin as early as possible to do your research.  Doing this will save a great deal of preparation time, and we can get your home on the market much sooner.  Even better, with complete and comprehensive information, you can significantly increase the interest in your home because you can prove and justify it's value.

a. Regarding Repairs and Replacements: Most homeowners have repaired or replaced something in the years that they have lived…

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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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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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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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Editing Out Your Personal Items and Furniture.

The best thing you can do before your house goes on the market is to de-clutter and de-personalize your home. Remember, you want the buyers to be able to envision themselves living in your home. You don't want them distracted by thinking"I wonder what kind of people live in this house?" Remove family pictures, knick knacks and collectables. You are going to have to pack these things up when you move anyway, so why not do it now?
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Entryway-Make this area sparkle. This will be the first impression buyers see when they walk through the door.

  •   Remove coats and jackets that might be hanging here.
  •   Remove shoes. If you need to keep some shoes here, think about getting a basket with a top to hide them.
  •   Remove…

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2010 California Tax Credit for First Time Buyers and New Home Purchases

California has a new tax credit for New Home and First-Time Buyers who buy a home that closes May 1, 2010 to Jan 1 2001. A more realistic end date is until they run out of the $100 million budget. This might not be very long as the 2009 credit ran out of funds quickly. The credit could stimulate some home purchases in the lower-end Oakland real estate market but I am not sure if it will have much effect on Piedmont homes for sale.
The state credit is slightly different from the $8000 Federal Tax Credit that will expire at the end of this month. The refundable federal credit went directly to the buyer when they filed federal income taxes. The non-refundable California credit will be a…

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