Peninsula Real Estate Guru

Arn’s Real Estate Advice, Counsel, and News for Peninsula Buyers and Sellers

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Entries from July 2008

2008 will bring change to FICO score calculations

December 23rd, 2007 · No Comments

The Wall Street Journal reports that Fair Issac will change the way their credit scores are calculated. The new system will be more forgiving on an occasional late payment but will be harder on repeat offenders. The FICO score developed by Fair Issac is used overwhelmingly my most real estate lenders.

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Tags: Credit Information · Sub-Prime Mortgage Issue · Real Estate Finance

Bay Area Foreclosures

December 17th, 2007 · No Comments

The San Francisco Chronicle ran an informative and illiminating article Sunday on Bay Area Homes in Foreclosure.
6,557 Bay Area homes and condos were foreclosed on my lenders in the first 9 months of the year.
Of these, nearly 1 and 6 (a little under 1,000) were owned by individuals who lost more than 1 property to foreclosure […]

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Tags: Credit Information · Sub-Prime Mortgage Issue · Real Estate Finance

What is the real estate market doing in other areas?

December 15th, 2007 · No Comments

Altos Research provides real time real estate information to real estate professionals and investors.
In their December Real IQ Housing Market Update; 20 major metropolitan markets are analysed.
The report indicates:
Listing inventories over the past 3 months have declined in all markets except for Las Vegas, Detroit, and Miami. San Francisco had one of the largest decreases in […]

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Tags: USA real estate · Real Estate Data

Real Estate Data: How helpful to the consumer?

December 15th, 2007 · 1 Comment

There is almost an unlimited amount of real estate data available to real estate professionals and consumers alike.
The amount and availability of data is so different than it was when I entered the real estate business in 1978. Back then, there was no computerized database of mls listings. Each agent carried around a little black […]

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Tags: Real Estate Data · Real Estate

1326 American Way Menlo Park has sold

December 15th, 2007 · No Comments

1326 American Way is under contract - like 5 days on market !
Wonder what it sold for?

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Tags: Menlo Park Real Estate · Cool Listings · Real Estate Data

A true market barometer !

December 12th, 2007 · No Comments

We see countless reports about average and median prices going up or going down.
This kind of data while giving some information about the market always needs to be taken with a grain of salt. At any given time in any given market, certain price ranges may be stronger than others. So if in a given […]

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Tags: Menlo Park Real Estate · Real Estate Data

Leverage and Return on Real Estate Investments

December 11th, 2007 · No Comments

Chris Smith, Real Estate Investing in the Real World in a recent post indicates that when a real estate investment starts to produce a good cash flow, it may be a good time to sell/exchange that property in order to increase the leverage on your invested dollars to maximize return.
Here is how the concept of leverage works […]

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Tags: Investment Real Estate

What can you buy for around a Million Dollars in downtown Palo Alto?

December 9th, 2007 · No Comments

Downtown Palo Alto is a fabulous place to live. One can walk to numerous fine restaurants and excellent shopping. CalTrain is nearby and Stanford University is just across El Camino from downtown Palo Alto. There are several smaller parks in the downtown area.
On tour this Friday, I saw 4 smaller properties all listed around $1,000,000.
Gina […]

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Tags: Downtown Palo Alto Real Estate · Palo Alto Real estate

Why do we have an errant golf ball disclosure law?

December 7th, 2007 · No Comments

Warning ! This is not a true story but rather just something my whimsical my mind came up with……however, the moral of the story is true…..many disclosure laws are the result of some legal action that arises from the sale or purchase of real property. 
Several years ago, I was showing homes in the Cupertino Foothills near Deep Cliff Golf […]

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Tags: Real Estate Humor

The top 10 ways Not to sell your house !

December 6th, 2007 · No Comments

#10
Don’t allow a keysafe to be placed on your home.
#9
Require by appointment only showings and insist that you the seller be home when the showings occur.
#8
Failure to spend any time or money getting your property in excellent showing condition.
#7
Refuse to remove your family tree mural with photos tracing your family’s history back to the Civil […]

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Tags: Real Estate Data · Uncategorized