A Modestly Size, Beautifully Updated Bay View Home 580 Cragmont Avenue, Berkeley 94708 Offered at: $699,000 Two+ bedrooms/two baths Newly refinished hardwood floors Living room with fireplace Formal dining room Newly remodeled kitchen features a Bertazonni commercial stove and unique fossil-embedded limestone counters and floors Stunning Bay views from kitchen, living room, rear bedroom and spacious deck Downstairs "plus" room can be a large family room or third bedroom with full bath Small front and rear yards One car attached garage with skylights converted to finished space for office Close to commute bus line via Spruce Street as well as the great open spaces of Tilden Park Visit www.RealtyAdvocates.com for more information and PHOTO TOUR

A Spacious Traditional Style Home Close to Hilltop Elementary and Tilden Park 218 Purdue Avenue, Kensington Offered at: $769,000 Two+ bedrooms/one and a half baths 1,371 square feet of living space (not including lower level + rooms) Beautiful hardwood floors Large tile floor kitchen with breakfast nook and Bay window Living room with fireplace Living area overlooks quiet rear garden and patio Front bedroom with double closets Main level bathroom with skylight Downstairs tile floor mudroom and laundry area Warmly finished lower level + room perfect for kids play and home office Spacious basement workshop area and wine cellar One car attached garage with interior access Two-level rear yard and vegetable garden Garden storage shed Close to the much-in-demand Kensington Hilltop Elementary (check availability) and Tilden Park. AC Transit buses also nearby. Visit www.RealtyAdvocates.com

In a “normal” sale, the seller has money left over after paying closing costs, commissions and the outstanding balance of any loans/mortgages against the property. This money is known as “net equity”. It is the money the seller puts into her pocket after the sale (but before paying possible capital gains taxes). Unfortunately, there are a growing number of sellers who, due to a variety of reasons, find that they owe more on the property than it is currently worth. They are “upside down”, or have “negative” equity.

There are two ways to handle “negative” equity. First, if the seller had the funds available, he could pay off the negative equity by writing a check to the lender(s) at the close of escrow. This way the lender gets paid in full and there are no adverse consequences to the seller’s credit rating. The second way is with a “short sale”. The assumption here is that the seller does not have a load of cash to make up the deficiency. It is also often that a seller in this situation has stopped making payments on his mortgages and is suffering from a degraded credit rating because of this. Foreclosure could also be on the horizon.

With a short sale, the seller (or seller’s real estate agent) asks the existing mortgage holder(s) to accept less than the outstanding balance on the loan. Under the right circumstances, a bank will agree to this because it will be less costly to them when compared with their only other alternative: foreclosure.

How does an agent get the lender to agree to a short sale? Having successfully closed 5 short sales recently, here’s what I’ve learned: it takes technical skill, a lot of patience, and an understanding on how to negotiate with the bank employee ultimately left with the decision to approve the sale.

 

Visit http://www.realtyadvocates.com for Part II - The How-to's  of Short Sales

Assuming you have $250,000 for a downpayment (not including closing costs), it is less expensive to buy this $1,050,000 fourplex to owner-occupy than it is to buy a comparable single family home. How?

Compare 2334 Curtis Street in Berkeley, a multi-unit residential income property to a 2 -3 Bedroom/2 Ba single family home in the same neighborhood, in roughly the same move-in condition, that would cost you approx. $625,000 today.

Read how at Realty Advocates' Blog

SOLD
It is an architectural rarity in Berkeley to see such a well-preserved and tastefully updated half-timbered and high-peaked Colonial Revival property. This one built in 1911 by the carpenter Arne Lundgren. Berkeley’s Architectural Heritage Association (BAHA) even produced a little write up on this one.

At some unknown point in its history, it was converted to a triplex, and in 2004, a fourth unit was created in a newly enlarged basement area.

But the real feature of this property is the upstairs "owner's" unit. This comprises approximately 1,248 sq feet of light-filled living space, 2+Br/2Ba, gleaming hardwood floors, spacious rooms, and entirely new electrical/plumbing/heating systems starting from 2000. The master bedroom is behind the east facing, hill-view balcony and features a walk-in dressing room with its own washer and dryer! The master bath has a sumptuous 2person glass block shower stall. The kitchen, dining and living areas blend together under a dramatic open-beam cathedral ceiling. A 3rd bedroom or family room opens from here, as does a north and west facing deck with a gas line for endless bbq-ing. Need more storage? No problem here: there is a large stand up attic accessed from a pull-down stair, plus a ground level storage room for your bicycles.
View this home with Photo Tour and full property details at Berkeley Residential Income 4 Plex for Sale

 

 

The slogan of Pacific Union GMAC Real Estate reads "Service you Deserve". I can’t help but wonder how this works with clients that have low self esteem, or even self loathing. These people have a day-to-day belief that they don’t deserve anything good. Or how about the criminal or sociopath that likes himself just fine but is really evil. He might deserve to be hung from a tree. So if these folks go to Pacific Union, will they live up to their slogan?

Brett Weinstein

Why Do Sellers Still List with Agents Charging 6% (or even 5%)?

This is a continually perplexing question for us, and one which probably has several answers. First, we think many sellers don’t realize that commissions are not fixed. The big real estate companies spend a lot of effort training their agents to focus on the service-side of their pitch and not on their fees. To support their rigid pricing structure, many agents will argue that if you pay less, you will get less. Its all a smokescreen, of course. There is no shortage of unhappy sellers who paid 6%.

Loyalty is another reason, as sellers will often return to the agents who helped them buy their house initially. And although we certainly cherish the same long-term relationship with our former clients, we continue to work towards having sellers take a closer look at a comparable service that will cost thousands of dollars less.
Brett Weinstein

In the October 2007 edition of Realtor Magazine, published by the National Association of Realtors®, the trade organization to which most real estate people belong, there is a section called “Cool Tools.” This is what is promoted as a “cool tool”: Thriving Office

"When customers call, have your home office project the image of an established, successful company that is bustling with activity. Play the Thriving Office CD in the background to bring the sounds of an office to your home. The CD features two 39-minute tracks, "Busy" and "Very Busy," and contains such sounds as ringing phones, typing keyboards, and mumbling voices. $12.95"

Isn’t this great. The group responsible for instilling the “Realtor Code of Ethics” to its 1,366,869 members is endorsing fraud. Brett Weinstein

           Any buyer who goes to an open house can see a big binder on a table somewhere, containing the property disclosures. When the buyer gets half-way serious about the house, their agent then requests a copy of the “packet” from the seller’s agent.  Some packets are better than others. Here’s how.

A good packet will contain a current pest control inspection from a locally known and reputable company. Next will be a general home inspection report, written in narrative form, also from a locally known and reputable inspector.  If the general inspection revealed specific and serious defects, i.e. a suspect foundation or an exceedingly old furnace, these findings would be followed through with specialty inspections, i.e. engineering or heating contractor. Next up would be a video inspection report of the sewer lateral. Lastly, you would find disclosure forms completed by the seller with their specific declaration of defects, malfunctions, hazardous materials, work done with/without permits, natural hazards, earthquake retrofitting and lead based paint.

A “not-so-good” packet can come in two forms. The first would be a very “skinny” packet, perhaps with just a pest report from an unknown, out of area inspector. Or the seller just replies “don’t know” to just about every question.

The second is the exceedingly “fat” packet. A fat packet might have all the good stuff included but it is buried amongst a ream of only marginally relevant, and often, very old information. The seller’s agent might even include all the disclosures from the previous sale, even after a house has been completely renovated. Some of these fat packets have been 150 pages, or more!

Whenever you see a fat packet, you can be sure that at some point in the past, the listing agency (not necessarily the agent him/herself) has been sued for failing to disclose something. The fat packet is strictly a lawyerly response to the question “what is important to disclose?” Answer: “Don’t try to figure this out. Give them everything!”

Now, I’m certainly not advocating that a seller shouldn’t disclose something from a previous sale, or distant history.  But the listing agent should take the time to cull the packet for the most relevant and timely info and place this first. The rest of the stuff can be given to the buyers after their offer is accepted, assuming the buyer has an inspection contingency.

Needless to say, unnecessarily fat packets are a pet peeve of mine. On my listings, I spend a lot of time thinking through what does, and doesn’t belong, in the packet. I make sure the info is presented in a logical sequence, and that most, if not all questions about the condition of the property are easily answered. This way, the buyer can feel comfortable making their offer “as-is” subject to their own inspections. If I’ve done my job right, then the buyer’s inspectors won’t come up with anything that I didn’t already cover in my packet.

Brett Weinstein