The Pros & Cons of Lease Options

Question: Hi Gary. We’re not ready to buy a home but have heard about a lease + option to buy. How do you feel about those? Answer: If you can find one, lease-to-own or lease-option might be a good choice for you. If done right, you can lock in a price on a home and
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This Week’s Crazy Building: Ministry of Transportation

Bank of Georgia Headquarters by Tinalomidze7 is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0
This week’s crazy building is the Ministry of Transportation Building in Tbilisi, Georgia. Completed in 1975 in Soviet Georgia, this amazing work of Brutalist architecture looks something like a 3D tic-tac-toe board. It consists of several crisscrossing prisms of steel and concrete—three vertical, five horizontal. The architect for the project was also the main client:
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Can You Borrow Money for a Home Down Payment?

Question: “Can you borrow the money for the down payment on a home?” Answer: It depends how and when you borrow the money. Generally, banks only want you to borrow from a secured asset: HELOC, car loan, savings account loan, 401-k loan, etc. They don’t like personal loans that are not secured by an asset
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Costs of Selling Your San Diego Home

Question: “Hi Gary. We own a home in Pacific Beach that we’ll be calling you to sell in a couple of months. But for now we just want to find out the selling costs so we can do some planning. Can you help us with this?” Answer: To be fairly safe, you can typically figure
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How do Property Taxes Work?

Question: “I’ve never bought a home before. How do property taxes work? How are they determine how can they change?” Answer: Your annual property tax will be a certain percentage of the assessed value. In San Diego County, it’s 1% + some add-ons which bring it to between 1.1% and 1.2%. When you buy a
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This Week’s Crazy Building: Sealand

Sealand by Richard Lazenby licensed under the terms of public domain
This week’s crazy building is the Principality of Sealand, off the coast of Essex, England. This time around, our crazy building is (depending on who you ask) also its own country. Originally a British WWII naval fort known as Roughs Tower, it was occupied by pirate radio broadcaster Paddy Roy Bates in 1967. By 1975,
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How to Handle Showings with Tenants

Question: “I’d like you to handle the sale of my duplex in Clairemont. How do you handle the showings with the tenants?” Answer: Most duplexes are marketed as “show with offer.” So buyers make offers without going inside, contingent on approving the interior. If they don’t like it, they can cancel their offer, even if
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The Lowdown on Termite Fumigation

Question: “Gary, I had my house tented about two years ago. I believe it is effective for three years, so is it true that I won’t need to tent again should I sell within three years?” Answer: I’m not sure if you’re asking… Does a fumigation kill termites for 3 years? Is there a 3-year
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Buying a Home at a Courthouse Foreclosure Sale

Question: “What do you think of buying a home at a foreclosure sale down at the courthouse?” Answer: For sophisticated investors, it can pay off well. However, there are many very real risks and downsides to buying at a trustee sale: Low supply / high demand: There are very few foreclosures now, but plenty of
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This Week’s Crazy Building: House of Bottles

La casa Ecológica de Botellas by Rodrigo Soldon licensed under the terms of CC BY-ND 2.0
This week’s crazy building is the House of Bottles in Puerto Iguazu, Argentina. After the Argentinian economy went bust in 2001, Alfredo Santa Cruz was reduced to sifting through trash. But in an inspiring tale of lemons into lemonade, he decided to make that trash into a home. More specifically, using a system of over 1,200
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