“Hey Gary. I’ll be selling my rental house and the place is a mess so I plan to evict the tenants and fix the place up. Do you know any good contractors? Also, I heard there’s some law that you have to give the tenant 60-days notice to move out. Is that true?” ***ANSWER: Yes,

“Hi Gary. You sure are the king of foreclosures. My wife and I want to buy one, but need to sell our home first. Will a bank take a contingent offer on a foreclosure?” ***ANSWER: Absolutely no chance. Even if your home is in escrow, no bank will accept the closing as a contingency. Sorry.

“Hi Gary. I’m not ready to sell yet, but I’ve been going to open houses so I’ve got a good idea of what my home is worth…” ***ANSWER: I know that’s not a question, but I’ve got an answer. Going to open houses will NOT tell you what your home is worth! For example, in

“I’ve searched your site and a lot of houses don’t show the square feet, especially in La Jolla. It makes it a lot harder to find homes. Why do some agents leave the square feet off?” ***ANSWER: Two main reasons: 1. The house is so small that the agent doesn’t want to “advertise” how small

“I’ve heard about CalFHA financing. Is that the same as FHA?” ***ANSWER: It’s Cal-HFA, not Cal-FHA. Cal-HFA stands for “California Housing Finance Agency.” To make things more confusing, you can actually combine Cal-HFA and FHA, giving you a Cal-HFA FHA loan. Got it? Cal-HFA has special loan programs for first-time homebuyers, many with low-downpayment options.

“Once I receive an offer on my home, how long do I have to respond?” ***ANSWER: Great question. Believe it or not, there is no specific time frame that I’m aware of. Unless you have another offer coming in, my advice is typically to respond in 24 hours or less. Buying a home is very

“Hi Gary. My friend put his condo on the market and got three offers within a week. And I know of another house that got several offers. I’m looking to buy a home and want to know if the market has picked up.” ***ANSWER: It’s hard to distinguish between a temporary blip versus the beginning

“We should get a free copy of our credit report.” ***ANSWER: This one was from my wife. And it wasn’t a question. So you can bet I got right on it. I googled “free credit report” and clicked to one site that looked free, but after I filled out most of the form, suddenly they

“When we sold our condo in UC a couple of years ago, we had two offers. Our agent suggested we take the lower offer because the buyer had more solid financing. We took our agents advice and everything worked out. But we always wondered how much difference does the financing really make?” ***ANSWER: I don’t

“Hi Gary. I made an offer on a condo last week. The agent wrote in that I had to pay their company a $395 transaction fee? I didn’t get what that was for. Do you know?” ***ANSWER: Some real estate agents and/or firms charge clients an extra fee they call by various names, such as