Check Out My New Guide for San Diego Home Buyers

Looking to sell your San Diego home? Get a free home value report Buying a San Diego home? Search all homes for sale FREE Special Report for Home Buyers   Today, we’ll talk about my new home buyer guide. It’s called, “How to Avoid Paying Too Much.” I offer this guide because many people are
Read more
No Comments

Getting Stepped-Up Basis in Your San Diego Home

Question: “My wife inherited a home six months ago and moved in. We don’t really like the neighborhood and would love to sell and move now. But her dad paid next to nothing for the house, so we have to wait until we’ve been here two years or we’ll pay taxes on the sale, correct?”
Read more
No Comments

Leave Buyers Alone When Showing Your San Diego Home

Question: “I’ve heard that when your home is for sale, you should leave when buyers see it. But I want to be there so I know what people think and make sure the agent tells them what they should know about my home. What do you think?” Answer: You sound like what agents call “the
Read more
No Comments

The Pros & Cons of Lease Options

Question: Hi Gary. We’re not ready to buy a home but have heard about a lease + option to buy. How do you feel about those? Answer: If you can find one, lease-to-own or lease-option might be a good choice for you. If done right, you can lock in a price on a home and
Read more
No Comments

This Week’s Crazy Building: Ministry of Transportation

Bank of Georgia Headquarters by Tinalomidze7 is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0
This week’s crazy building is the Ministry of Transportation Building in Tbilisi, Georgia. Completed in 1975 in Soviet Georgia, this amazing work of Brutalist architecture looks something like a 3D tic-tac-toe board. It consists of several crisscrossing prisms of steel and concrete—three vertical, five horizontal. The architect for the project was also the main client:
Read more
No Comments

Can You Borrow Money for a Home Down Payment?

Question: “Can you borrow the money for the down payment on a home?” Answer: It depends how and when you borrow the money. Generally, banks only want you to borrow from a secured asset: HELOC, car loan, savings account loan, 401-k loan, etc. They don’t like personal loans that are not secured by an asset
Read more
No Comments

Costs of Selling Your San Diego Home

Question: “Hi Gary. We own a home in Pacific Beach that we’ll be calling you to sell in a couple of months. But for now we just want to find out the selling costs so we can do some planning. Can you help us with this?” Answer: To be fairly safe, you can typically figure
Read more
No Comments

How do Property Taxes Work?

Question: “I’ve never bought a home before. How do property taxes work? How are they determine how can they change?” Answer: Your annual property tax will be a certain percentage of the assessed value. In San Diego County, it’s 1% + some add-ons which bring it to between 1.1% and 1.2%. When you buy a
Read more
No Comments

This Week’s Crazy Building: Sealand

Sealand by Richard Lazenby licensed under the terms of public domain
This week’s crazy building is the Principality of Sealand, off the coast of Essex, England. This time around, our crazy building is (depending on who you ask) also its own country. Originally a British WWII naval fort known as Roughs Tower, it was occupied by pirate radio broadcaster Paddy Roy Bates in 1967. By 1975,
Read more
No Comments

How to Handle Showings with Tenants

Question: “I’d like you to handle the sale of my duplex in Clairemont. How do you handle the showings with the tenants?” Answer: Most duplexes are marketed as “show with offer.” So buyers make offers without going inside, contingent on approving the interior. If they don’t like it, they can cancel their offer, even if
Read more
No Comments
TOP