Licensed since 1984, San Diego real estate broker Gary Kent is a recognized authority on real estate. In addition to selling over 5,500 homes for clients, he has been an expert court witness, trainer of other agents, and he does seminars on home buying, home selling, and investing. Gary has sold homes for The Salvation Army, dozens of major banks, and Fannie Mae, amongst others. You can find Gary on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.

San Diego Foreclosures

“Is it really true that with a no-documentation loans that you can just claim any income and obtain any size loan? That must be why there are lots of foreclosures now.” ***ANSWER: No and yes. No doc loans have to make some sense to the loan underwriter (decision maker). I once received an offer on
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Sellers vs. Buyers

“When I sell my home, I plan to sell it As Is. It’s not my job to make repairs for some buyer. If they don’t want to buy my place, that’s tough. I’ll just sell it to someone else.” ***ANSWER: Whoah. Simmer down now. Take a breath…and let it out. That’s better. Now, to my
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Is It Time To Buy?

“Hi Gary. My wife and I want to buy a home here in San Diego. We’ve been sitting on the sidelines, watching the market, watching what prices do. We’re really seeing much cheaper prices on homes lately. Do you think the timing is right to buy a home now?” ***ANSWER: Excellent question, and probably the
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Sub Prime Lender

“My name is XXX and I’m a roommate of XXXX. I emailed a lender asking his opinion on the sub prime lender collapse going on right now and if it will effect loans in about 3-6 months. He said: There is no sub prime lender collapse, just major changes to how they do business. Lenders
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Money Made From Remodeling

“Hi Gary. I recently read that when you sell your home, you only recoup 79.4% of the cost of a kitchen remodel. But my kitchen was really busted up and I’ve got to think I’ll get more than that back. What do you think?” ***ANSWER: You’ve hit the nail on the head with one of
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The Seller Should Fix It

“I was in escrow buying a home in January and had the home inspected. The inspector found several items that he told me the seller should fix. But the seller refused to fix them all, including a broken pool heater and replacing the roof, which was old but didn’t leak. I wasn’t too happy when
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San Diego Buyers Market?

“Hi Gary. My wife and I want to buy a home here in San Diego. We’ve been sitting on the sidelines, watching the market, watching what prices do. We’re really seeing much cheaper prices on homes lately. Do you think the timing is right to buy a home now?” ***ANSWER: Excellent question, and probably the
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San Diego Real Estate Investments

“With the prices down, I’m seeing a lot of good deals. I’m a first time investor and don’t really know what I’m doing. I have $55,000 available. What do you suggest?” ***ANSWER: An ideal investment for you is a small 2BR condo in an established complex. Condo prices have been hit the hardest, so you
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Calculating Home Value Online

“Can I find out my home value online?” ***ANSWER: Not exactly. Two types of websites purport to tell you your home value online: 1) automated; 2) agent/referral. Automated sites use complex but flawed software to calculate values, typically less accurate than most owners’ estimate of value. This is due to incomplete/inaccurate info about the home
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San Diego Property Tax

“We’ve been driving around pulling property flyers from for sale signs. Why don’t the realtor flyers show the taxes on the property?” ***ANSWER: Because the taxes the current owner is paying is irrelevant. In California, properties are reassessed when they’re sold. The approximate rate is 1.1% of the price per year. And that goes up
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