Silicon Valley Real Estate Blog

Between the speculation and pricing madness during real estate booms, people actually buy houses so they can live long, happy lives there.  

But home buyers should know — particularly if one of your goals in buying a house is achieving a more stable lifestyle for yourself and your family — that losing a house is a fairly easy thing to do.  Here are five common ways people lose their houses.

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Feb.05.2007 [ Filed under: Bay Area Real Estate, Home Buyers, Mortgages, Silicon Valley News ] 4 Comments »

Can you imagine a world where everyone had to buy a house using only cash on hand?  Very few people would own a home if the world were like that.

Lenders know this and have come up with a number of loan types (they call them products) that ostensibly help people get into their dream houses.  Some of these products, however, carry more risk to you than others.

The most notorious of these loans is the option ARM, sometimes called a "pick a payment" mortgage and it is as dangerous as it is powerful. 

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Feb.02.2007 [ Filed under: Bay Area Real Estate, Home Buyers, Mortgages ] Comment Here »

You've probably heard all the perks about buying a house and how it's the centerpiece of the American Dream.  But the American Dream is less about possessing the house itself than the improvement you expect in your lifestyle when you own a home.

As a real estate agent, I want you to be deliriously happy after buying a home.  To me, that means there are times when I recommend to clients that buying a house isn't the right way to go yet, particularly when the financial risk of keeping your home takes away from the enjoyment of it. 

Here are five times when I counsel clients to wait on buying a house.

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Feb.01.2007 [ Filed under: Bay Area Real Estate, Home Buyers ] 15 Comments »

My-currency.com is getting a lot of ink after Silicon Valley's VentureBeat coverage of this new real estate site. 

The differentiator of this site is that people can tell the site what they think a piece of real estate is worth.  The opinions of all the people who express an opinion is aggregated into a CrowdValue, which is my-currency's official value of the real estate in question.

The name CrowdValue is loosely based on the book The Wisdom of Crowds by James Suroweicki in which Suroweicki asserts that collective thought is often smarter than the individuals who participate in it.  Really?

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Jan.31.2007 [ Filed under: Bay Area Real Estate, Home Buyers, Home Owners, Silicon Valley News ] Comment Here »

Boston has a reputation for very expensive housing.  Situated between the Atlantic Ocean and the Charles River, land is obviously limited there and because of local zoning and historic building laws, expansion (both upward and outward) is very difficult. 

I mention Boston because their cost of living index is in the same ballpark with Silicon Valley — not quite as high, though pretty steep nonetheless.

But there's an enormous difference between Boston's median house price of $375,000 vs. Silicon Valley's $745,000, according to Businessweek.com. Does that mean we'll see Silicon Valley's real estate prices plummet to Boston's level?

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Jan.30.2007 [ Filed under: Bay Area Real Estate, Home Buyers, Silicon Valley News ] Comment Here »

Local station CBS5.com reports that existing home sales dropped sharply in 2006 across the country. 

2005 was the peak of this recent real estate boom and during that year a whopping 40% of all home sales were to investors or people buying vacation homes, even according to David Lereah, chief economist for the National Association of Realtors.

The dip in 2006 makes perfect sense.  As Lereah says, "A lot of those people have left the market."

Impact on Silicon Valley: Look Around at the Central Valley

The article mentions that analysts have predicted prices will continue to fall in "formerly red-hot markets" like California.  Are you waiting for a large price decrease in Silicon Valley?

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Jan.26.2007 [ Filed under: Home Buyers, Investors, Silicon Valley News ] Comment Here »

Did you know that the agent you use to buy your house may not actually represent you, but the seller?  It may not sound like there's a big difference, but if you have a personal conversation with them — for example, telling them the most you'd be willing to pay — they will, and are obligated to, tell the seller!

That's definitely not information you want the seller to know, and if you can't tell your agent what your true needs and parameters are, how is that person going to find you the right match at a reasonable price?

They can't.  But you can protect yourself and it usually won't cost you out-of-pocket.

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Jan.14.2007 [ Filed under: Bay Area Real Estate, Home Buyers, Silicon Valley News ] Comment Here »

In Part 1, we talked about the financial half of deciding how much house you can afford.  But how happy you are after buying the house depends on how well you balance the financial of your decision with the psychological ones.

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Jan.09.2007 [ Filed under: Bay Area Real Estate, Home Buyers, Mortgages ] 2 Comments »

What if you had one magic number that would tell you everything you needed to know about a house?  That number would tell you whether to even look at the property, if it had some hidden problem, and how much you should offer for it.

Think that's too good to be true?  It is, but people do this every day.

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Jan.08.2007 [ Filed under: Bay Area Real Estate, Home Buyers ] Comment Here »

As with most decisions when buying a house, figuring out how much house you can afford is half financial and half psychological.  My goal as a real estate agent is to see you deliriously happy after buying a house and how happy you are after your purchase depends on how well you balance the two.  This is part one of a two part article on how much house you can afford.

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Jan.04.2007 [ Filed under: Bay Area Real Estate, Home Buyers, Mortgages ] 2 Comments »

Getting a mortgage and buying a house involves around 300 sheets of paper.  And many people are intimidated by the monumental stack of formerly living trees or the terms they don't know printed on them.  But with only a few key concepts, you can usually protect yourself from getting very ripped-off.

When looking for a mortgage, most people know to look at the rate, terms, amortization, and monthly payments.  While these are obviously very important characteristics of a loan, the key item to look out for — one that careful people good at math miss — is a prepayment penalty. 

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Jan.03.2007 [ Filed under: Bay Area Real Estate, Home Buyers, Mortgages ] 1 Comment »

Your FICO score is the number makes-or-breaks your ability to buy a house and determines whether you get the best rates or get charged enormous fees. You can directly affect the strength of your credit and, in turn, how much your dream house really costs you.

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Jan.02.2007 [ Filed under: Bay Area Real Estate, Home Buyers, Mortgages ] Comment Here »