Licensed since 1984, San Diego real estate broker Gary Kent is a recognized authority on real estate. In addition to selling over 5,500 homes for clients, he has been an expert court witness, trainer of other agents, and he does seminars on home buying, home selling, and investing. Gary has sold homes for The Salvation Army, dozens of major banks, and Fannie Mae, amongst others. You can find Gary on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.

New Listing: 1838 32nd Street

Check out our new listing, a Pinterest-worthy house on 32nd Street in South Park! Its unique features include slate counters made from reclaimed billiard table, fir hardwood floors taken from a Boeing warehouse, and a “foodie” kitchen with a roll-up door opening onto a spacious deck. Interested? Give us a call today at (858) 457-5368.
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This Week’s Crazy Building: Raja Gopura

This week’s crazy building is Raja Gopura in Murudeshwara, India. A gopura is an ornate monument tower at the entrance to a temple. At 20 stories and a staggering 237 feet, Raja Gopura is one of the tallest on earth. Two life-size elephants guard the steps leading to its gateway. This is the entrance to
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Funding Your Residential Rental Purchase

Question: “I have several rentals and want to buy another property, perhaps a little house. I’d like to come up with as little cash as possible. What do I need to put down?” Answer: To buy a residential rental, you’ll need at least 20-25% down, plus closing costs of around 3%. But here’s a good
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Should You Get a Stager for Your San Diego Home?

Question: “I’ll be selling my 1-bedroom condo that’s worth about 200K. At what point is it worth hiring a professional stager?” Answer: In my opinion, a good stager will return at least 3 and up to 10 times the fee, depending on the cost and the home price. Because your condo is small, it should
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How Do Homesellers View Contingent Offers?

Question: “My wife and I want to buy a house. We don’t want to list our condo unless we have a house to buy. So we’ll have to buy contingent on selling our condo. How do homesellers look at contingent offers?” Answer: A bit cross-eyed. Homesellers do not love contingent offers because they must wait
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This Week’s Crazy Building: Iceberg Apartments

Isbjerget by Slaunger licensed under the terms of CC BY-SA 3.0
This week’s crazy building is the Iceberg Apartments in Aarhus, Denmark. Called “Isbjerget” in their native Danish, these 7- and 8-story apartment buildings are the result of a competition-winning design from Dutch studio seARCH. If it wasn’t obvious from the name (and the picture), the buildings were inspired by the jagged shapes and pristine whites
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Should You Handle Evictions Yourself or Hire a Lawyer?

Question: “I have a tenant who’s not paying the rent. Do you think I should handle the eviction myself or hire a lawyer?” Answer: Hire an attorney. Landlord/tenant law in California is very much skewed in the tenant’s favor. If you try to handle the eviction and make the tiniest mistake, your entire eviction could
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Can You Sell Without Paying Taxes on the Gain?

Question: “I’ve heard about avoiding taxes when you sell your home. There’s some rule about owning and living in the house two years. My wife and I rented a house nine years and finally bought it in 2012. Then in 2013 we moved to Seattle. So we didn’t own and live in it at the
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Make Sure Your Home Offers Are Realistic

Question: “I found a fixer-upper house in Del Mar listed at a good price. It needed a lot of repairs, which I took off the price and made an offer. But the seller rejected it. Any advice on how to convince them to take my offer?” Answer: Yes, raise your offer. I could be wrong,
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This Week’s Crazy Building: Fisheries Development Board

Office Building of Fisheries Department, Hyderabad , India by Nagaraju Raveender licensed under the terms of CC BY-SA 3.0
This week’s crazy building is the Fisheries Development Board! The Fisheries Board building cost roughly $5 million to build. Completed in early 2012, the building was designed to resemble a fish in keeping with the department’s area of focus. Little information is available about this bizarre structure. It seems surprising that the designers would take such an unusual approach,
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