Nicole Machado

Are you even trying to close this deal??
March 5, 2009 · · 8 Comments

 string_phone1I recently entered escrow on an REO property (Foreclosure) representing the buyers. With any escrow you enter you want to make sure you have your ducks in a row, but when it comes to REO transactions make sure you read the fine print. Some include passive contingencies which mean that if you don’t pull contingencies in writing on the said date written in the contract, they will pull them for you. This runs the risk of potentially forfeiting your client’s good faith deposit, if for some reason you have to end up canceling the transaction. Read more

Kathy Wall

Neither Snow nor Rain nor Heat of Day….
February 16, 2009 · · 7 Comments

It is about 3:30 p.m. and I’m doing an open house in a lovely, although freezing, townhome in Pacifica.   The rain is pouring down in sheets.   The door is open, hoping to encourage someone to come in.  I’m bundled up, including wearing long johns under my slacks, and am suddenly reminded of the postal service motto:  “Neither snow nor rain nor heat of day nor gloom of night shall stay these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.”    It occurs to me that, to a great degree, professional Realtors follow the same creed.  An example of this would be my day today.  Read more

STIMULUS PACKAGE – WHAT IT MEANS TO BAY AREA HOMEBUYERS?
February 13, 2009 · · 9 Comments

Our Broker posted a blog yesterday about “STIMULUS PACKAGE, WHAT REAL ESTATE PARTS MEAN?” Since I am currently working with a few prospective first-time homebuyers, I thought I’d picked their brain during my follow-up calls after the blog was posted. In particular, I asked them “if the stimulus package is finalized and homebuyers will get the benefit of the $8K tax credit, is that a good incentive for you to buy a house now?”  Read more

Shokoofeh Nowbakht

Sellers looking at Contract Terms
February 10, 2009 · · 8 Comments

Buyers and their agents need to be very careful about not only the offer price, but also the terms of the contract. Sellers do not always just accept the highest offer, as one might think.They want to SELL the property and the only way that would happen is Read more

Kathy Wall

Judging a Book by it’s Cover….Always a Mistake
February 3, 2009 · · 8 Comments

At our office meeting this morning we discussed the fact that a large chain restaurant plans to offer free breakfasts to anyone who comes to their restaurant tomorrow.    I won’t be going, because I have been boycotting them for more years than I can remember, after reading (on many occasions and in several locations) that their corporate culture allowed employees to discriminate again African Americans.   I’ve never gone back since.  

This made me think about how important our public image is and how one wrong move can cost us a customer for life.    We need to be extremely conscious all the time about what we say and how we say it, both with our voices our physical gestures, and our written words.    A silly joke that someone finds offensive or the way we discuss a neighborhood at an open house…almost anything can have the potential to lose a client or hurt someone’s feelings. Read more

Nicole Machado

Have We Hit the Bottom
January 24, 2009 · · 5 Comments

I was reading the January/February 2009 edition of the California Association of Realtors Magazine and came across this article I thought I would share. The article has good facts with a positive economic forecast for 2009 and the graph is a great visual representation of the history of the market.

To read the full article click on the thumbnail image of the article below, then click once more on the article to make the content larger.

Jean Joh

Is Your Agent a Twit?
January 17, 2009 · · 5 Comments

Recently, many people in our office have been learning more and more about social networking sites, such as twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, FriendFeed…you get the idea.  One of the questions I hear often is, “How is twitter going to help me get more business?  What good does it do to let people know what I had for breakfast?”  The basic answer for this is that this is just another way to make more contacts, put ourselves in front of more people, and hopefully become known as the “real estate experts” in our area.  But another question comes to mind: “How do my clients benefit from the fact that I’m on twitter and other such sites?”  Here are some reasons why it might be beneficial to you to have an agent actively engaged in social networking on-line:

Read more

Nicole Machado

Open House drawing Black Friday Crowds…
January 12, 2009 · · 8 Comments

With the Holidays behind us, buyers are back on the Real Estate scene scoping out the latest inventory. This weekend I held a home in SSF open. I had over 65 groups come through and even ran out of fliers & ended up staying well after 4pm as buyers kept showing up. I can’t remember the last time I ran out of fliers or had to stay longer then the open house was scheduled. I felt like I was at a department store on Black Friday and everything was 50% off!
The home was a single family fixer, in a desirable neighborhood. I figured there was an abundance of buyers because it was the first weekend of scheduled open houses, come to find out it wasn’t just my open house that faired well to the buyer’s scene, it was everyone’s.
Every Monday morning my office has its sales meetings. In the meetings we take count of how many people came through our open houses. Today the count was 400. Those are huge numbers which gives us all something to ponder… Buyers are out in droves, prices have come down and interest rates are historically at all time lows, has the market hit its threshold? What are your thoughts? All I can say is when it’s your time to buy or sell, it doesn’t really matter what else is going on around you. That’s the beauty of Real Estate.