Your Exceptional Life

I’ve been in the real estate sector since 1976. Longer if you consider that my Dad was a real estate broker and as a kid I used to sit in his office and answer his phone for him. And page through the old MLS books. Sometimes it seemed like his idea of [...]

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The new housing bill has passed and the President is expected to sign it.  It has some interesting components.   If you asked me a year ago about a $7500 credit for first time buyers, I would have just laughed at you.  $7500 didn’t begin to cover closing costs in Contra Costa County.  It’s a different [...]

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Mea culpa
You know, when you’re wrong you need to fess up. I was quoted for an article by Janis Mara in February 2007 and I was wrong. I missed the mark. Majorly. In my defense I didn’t expect banks to fail. Several have failed since then including the most [...]

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In recent years a couple of automated real estate valuation websites have cropped up. The two biggies are Zillow.com and Cyberhomes.com. The way they are set up they take recent sales in your area and factor that into your most recent sale and “guesstimate” what your home is worth. They are chock [...]

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With the way the economy is going, everyone is cutting costs. As part of my body for life regiment, I eat a snack of beef jerky daily. Yesterday I bought a slab of brisket to make my own. I’m planting my own vegetable garden so I don’t have to buy them this [...]

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There’s been a lot of talk in the news and on the street about foreclosures. I am more intimately involved in this than most people, being in the title business. It helps that one of my closest friends is the Junkman. Yesterday, I held an open house for another friend of [...]

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