Steven Wang

If you had a short sale, can your till rent a home? Depending on the property, property manager or landlord, more than likely you are not left out in the cold. As long as you are upfront with them you should have a good chance. Landlords and property managers will look at other factors too. Such as whether your credit was effected by the short sale, did you make other payments in time such as your other debt on your credit report, what your current salary is at, if you’ve had any evictions in the past, among other things. If all looks good, landlords may ask for additional deposit. They may also ask for a co-signer if they feel that they need additional assurance that they will get the monthly rent. Some landlords may ask for the entire rent upfront, which is less likely. For more info on property management solutions or what to do as a renter, check out www.cagoldenproperties.com/property-management.

michellemahzari:

Recently, due to rapid price gains, there has been fear of another “housing bubble”. But according to recent reports from Capital Economics and Redfin, no such bubble is forming at a national level.

Capital Economics discussed concerns that home price increases, which are rising twice as fast as…

When you are planning to rent your property, where do you find out how to price it?  You should always check what your most common local resource would be for posting rentals such as local papers, websites such as craigslist and zillow are helpful, or your local real estate professional/property management company.  There you can find similar properties in your area and determine a range for a price you would be asking.  These rentals may differ with your property such as location-court vs by busy street; condition of home- recently upgraded vs original kitchen; type of home-single family 3bed vs condo 3 bed; length of lease- 1 year vs month to month; time of availability- tenant vacating at end of month vs immediate occupancy; and terms of lease-pets vs no pets.  These all effect your  rental price.  Once you’ve determined your asking rental price and you’ve begun to market your property, you will find out within the week if you have priced the property too high.  After 10 days of marketing and no applicant, you may want to reassess your asking price and reduce your rent.  

If you need help renting, try us at www.cagoldenproperties.com/property-management,  we manage over 200 homes.  

Traditionally speaking, when a seller decides to sell their house, they will contract with a real estate agent to market their home and guide them through the contract period.  The seller has certain expectations from the real estate agent on marketing, open houses and tours.  Depending on your negotiations with the agent, you can get them to market the property through print advertising in newspapers, fliers to be distributed in the property and on the exterior brochure box, drive-by radio signal boxes, postcards to be sent to neighbors, personal and association websites and social media such as tumblr.  But the most traditional would be open houses where the agent hosts a time where people can walk through the home, ask questions and get details about the home.  Open houses are usually held on a weekend(s) with a 2-3 hour window where you can drop in and spend as much time within that window as you want in the home.  This is great for potential buyers- they can walk in, feel unpressured by any  constraints, they can imagine where their furniture may belong, they can check any potential neighborhood nuisances at various times in the day, and show other friends or family to get their input.   Buyers are really sold when they are at the open home.  So an open house is great marketing tool to have from your agent.  

However,  open houses should not be overdone.  Having 1-2 open houses on your first weekend is great.  There is buzz on the home and people are wanting to check out the fresh product. The active buyers in the market who will buy within the next month will have already been to the house with their agent or will be at the open house. But once you hit the 2nd and 3rd weekends, the ones that come by the open house are usually the neighbors who missed it the weekend before and just want to check it out or just some passerby's who are there for a looky-loo.  These people just want to get an idea of what the market prices or the floor plan or how to get design ideas from the owner.  If you head into the 3rd and 4th weekend with open houses, others begin to wonder what is wrong with the property or price, sometimes known as the “white elephant”. Offers that may come in at the time will start to reflect reductions in asking price.  

Open houses are great to advertise and get people into your home initially but if your real estate agent passes on the 3rd and 4th open houses, don’t think of them as not doing their job, but that they are actually helping you out by not over advertising your property.

www.cagoldenproperties.com

Our Open Houses for the weekend of 4/13-4/14

29 Kirkwood, San Carlos, Ca  Sat and Sun 1-4

4/14 537 Cottage Park, Hayward, CA Sunday 1-4

29 Kirkwood, San Carlos, CA Gorgeous Single Family Home in the hills of San Carlos. Panoramic Views of the Bay and outside deck  Newly remodeled kitchen with separate entry in-law.  4 Large Bedrooms 2 Full Baths 3160 sqft in Main House and 1 bed 1 bath with living area in-law of 640 sqft. Listed for $1,799,000.     

I received an offer above  asking on our Hayward flip property.  The offer was an all cash offer and closes in 20 days. We were 2 days on the market- not sufficient enough for majority of the buyers out shopping to see the property. This buyer would take the property in it’s “as is” condition and no contingencies. A pretty spectacular offer, and in a normal situation, I’d take it in an instant. The problem? We responded to other agents over the last few days via email that we would not review offers until after our open house on Sunday. Ethically, as a Realtor, and since it was in writing, we would wait til Sunday after 4pm.  That’s what we should do, but upon discussions with seller, they were afraid to lose these well qualified buyers if we lost the momentum.  They wanted me to respond immediately with an acceptance. But does that put me as a professional real estate agent who subscribes to the REALTOR associations code of ethics in a dilemma? Well, as a Realtor I believe my utmost obligation is to represent the seller for their best interest may it be terms or price.  This takes precedence over what I conveyed to any another agent. So let’s accept this offer- and forego working on Sunday!

However, I still have that ethical question nagging in the back of my mind.  Is asking the buyers to wait three days reasonable? and who’s to say I won’t get higher offers? It’s a win win for both my obligation to the real estate agents and to my seller just to wait 3 days, 2 of which are weekend days.

In conclusion, as a buyers agent when preparing to put in a preemptive offer, try it- what are you going to lose?  Worse thing is that they’ll wait til the actual date to respond to your client’s offer.  Best case, they accept and won’t look at any other offers.  With the current multiple offer environment, its a seller’s market they can ask what they want, the question is, how much does that buyer want the house.