“Hi Gary. My wife and I thinking about selling our home. What’s your marketing plan?” ***ANSWER: Great question, and here’s an even better one: “What is your complete plan to sell our home?” Marketing is but one of several key steps to successfully selling your home. Here they are the major things you hire an

“How do banks price their foreclosures?” ***ANSWER: Great question. Typically, my bank clients will get price opinions from me, an appraiser, and another agent. They then analyze all three opinions and come up with a price. Occasionally, the size of the loss the bank is eating impacts their pricing. Of course, this has nothing to

“Hi Gary. My wife and I make good money, over 100K, but we haven’t saved for a down payment. Can we still buy a home?” ***ANSWER: Yes! Because you have a high income, you won’t qualify for any government down-payment assistance programs. However, you still have three great options: 1. VA If you or your

“Are you always required to fumigate your house for termites when you sell?” ***ANSWER: Not necessarily. I’ll explain when you do have to fumigate, but first let me correct three myths about termite fumigations: Myth #1: “You’re legally required to fumigate when you sell.” Over the years, many of my clients have believed this. There’s

“Hi Gary, I have thought about possibly trading my home for a townhome, so you might tell me about how many people do that. Thank you…” ***ANSWER: AS I mentioned in a recent newsletter, a literal trade (as in “I’ll trade my property for yours”) is rare because for that to happen: * You’d have

“I want to buy my first home soon. I definitely don’t want a condo and I can’t afford house in a very good neighborhood. I want to find an area that’s getting better, not worse. So how I can tell if a neighborhood is improving?” ***ANSWER: Great question. Most of the tips I can think

“Awhile back you talked about how bad those Find-An-Agent websites are. I agree completely. I recently used one because I had to sell my mom’s home in Los Angeles. The agents they put me in touch with were awful. But those sites say they’re top agents. Do you know how they screen them, if at

“You’ve been talking about questions to ask when you’re deciding on an agent to sell your home. What about just asking how long they’ve been in real estate?” ***ANSWER: Thursday, one agent who was also a mortgage broker (bad news already!) told me it was illegal for the bank/seller to ask his client to prequalify

“Our family is growing and we’re running out of space. We’re expecting our third child and we’re trying to decide if should stay and add-on or sell and move up. What advice can you give us?” ***ANSWER: My best advice is to ask yourself these questions: 1. Do you love where you live? Does your

“A bank foreclosure just came up that we think is about 10% under-priced. My wife and I want to buy it to live in and would like to get a good deal. The main thing is to get the home, but of course we don’t want to overpay. Do you recommend we offer below, at,