Southern California Wildfires

Okay, I think we can veer from the real estate talk to focus on the devastating wildfires that have affected so many friends in Southern California.  This is the largest mass evacuation due to a natural disaster in California history per www.sfgate.com.  The San Diego Association of Realtors www.sdar.com is assisting the city of San [...]

Has your listing expired?

If it has, ask yourself what went wrong.  The days are over of being able to put a sign on a property, put it into the MLS, do one or two open houses, and wait for the battle to begin.  No, aggressive marketing techniques need to be implemented in order to sell a home quickly.  [...]

Short Sale or Foreclosure?

This is somewhat a continuation of yesterday’s post on refinancing yourself out of your equity.  If you are in danger of foreclosure, getting your financial institution to approve a short sale may be your only way out of several years of bad credit, bankruptcy, etc. 
A short sale is when the mortgage company takes less than [...]

Please Do Not Fund Your Lifestyle By Refinancing…

I know this may be a touchy subject, and not something that everyone wants to talk about.  It’s like that big elephant in the room.  I felt the need to bring it up, because I have seen this to be a bigger problem lately.  I have always been a supporter of pulling an equity line [...]

Rent or Run?

With all of the problems in the real estate market, some are choosing to rent rather than buy.  Actually, it should be said that some have to rent and cannot buy.  This is pushing up the demand for rental units, and an increase in the rents.  According to Realty Times, www.realtytimes.com, rents have increased 3.3% [...]

30-Year Mortgage Rates Still Low

The rate for a 30 year fixed mortgage is currently 6.11% according to Inman News www.inman.com.  It’s a great time to jump in and buy.  Right now you have people who are skeptical about buying because of everything we are hearing on the news.  You also have a large percentage of people who no longer [...]

Selling Your Home: Comparables, Communication, and Cost

If you’ve ever sold a home, then you can relate to the scenario I am about to describe.  The agent who you want to list your home is at your dining room table.  He or she is going through their whole presentation on what they do to market your home to get top dollar and how they [...]

Why not sell smartly in San Francisco?

So you’re thinking of selling your SF home?  Chances are, if you are in a single family residence, that your home is quite old.  Chances also are that you have a lot of equity in your home due to the increase in San Francisco real estate prices in the past several years.  Whatever the case [...]

SF Condos still Cookin’

I promised statistics, so here we go.  The following are statistics for condos in all of San Francisco.  If you would like statistics specific to a particular district, email me at melissa@buysellSFhomes.com.
The following is data that I pulled from the San Francisco MLS, www.sfarmls.com. 
Sold condos from 9/14/06-10/14/06 – total of 176
Average List Price – $764,226
Average [...]

Drumroll for…San Francisco….please!

Well, here I am joining the wonderful world of blogging.  Just back in San Francisco from the California Association of Realtors conference, I am now starting my own blog.  I learned a lot in the past couple of days.  Most importantly, I got the point that you, the consumer, wants and needs information regarding real [...]