Advantages of Cash Offers on San Diego Homes

Question: “Gary, a question. As the seller, what is the difference between a cash offer and one where the buyer gets a mortgage? Essentially, what’s in it for me? Are my closing costs lower with cash?” Answer: Your costs aren’t lower. What’s in it for you is: Your sale is more certain Possibly a shorter
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Is It Legal to Pretend to Have Other Offers?

Question: “My wife and I have our home for sale and just got an offer. My agent said to get the price up, we should basically pretend to have other offers and make something called a multiple counter offer to the buyer. I have a very bad feeling about this and really don’t want to.
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Is an Offer Considered Accepted if It’s After the Expiration?

Question: “I offered on a house and the sellers countered back, giving me 24 hours to respond. I did accept it, but a couple of days after the deadline. I saw the sellers when I had my home inspection and all seemed fine. They even told me they’d leave me the refrigerator, which wasn’t even
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This Week’s Crazy Building: Casa Milá

Casa Mila by Rob Shenk is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0
This week’s crazy building is Casa Milá in Barcelona, Spain. Also called “La Pedrera” (“The Quarry”), this strange, modernist-style building was the last public work by world-renowned architect Antonio Gaudí. It was built for land developer Pere Milá and his wife. Like Casa Batlló, another of Gaudí’s later works, there are bonelike structures that make
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[VIDEO] Pricing Blunder #3: Trusting Appraisals

Should You Be Trusting Appraisals? Long-time Realtor Gary Kent reveals the costly mistakes people that make when selling a San Diego home. Blunder #3 is trusting that a real estate appraisal will offer an accurate value of your home. Why shouldn’t you trust a real estate appraisal? There are a few reasons. Appraisers tend to
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This Week’s Crazy Building: Tokyo Big Sight

Tokyo Big Sight by heiwa4126 licensed under the terms of CC BY 2.0
This week’s crazy building is the Tokyo Big Sight in Tokyo, Japan. While it may look like some futuristic spacecraft or a supervillain headquarters, it’s actually a convention center—the largest one in all of Japan. Officially called the Tokyo International Exhibition Center, it was completed in 1996 for nearly $2 billion. It’s well known in the
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[VIDEO] Pricing Blunder #2: Devious Agents

Devious Agents Offer Unrealistic Prices San Diego Real Estate Agent, Gary Kent reveals the costly mistakes people that make when selling their San Diego home. Blunder #2 is falling prey to real estate agents who say they’ll get you an unrealistic price for your home. By itself, a real estate license is NOT a good
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Refinancing Home Loans to Avoid Disaster Later

Question: “On my house and four rentals I have all adjustable mortgages and everything is going great. The rates vary from 2.5% to 3.5% and you can’t touch rates like that on fixed rates.” Answer: You didn’t ask, but I’m going to give you some advice. The conventional wisdom is that rates will go up
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Avoiding Big Taxes When Selling Your San Diego Rental

Question: “Hi Gary. I’m not sure what to do. I want to sell my rental house in UC, but am facing a big potential tax bill. You’d said it’s worth about $800,000 and I paid $150,000 for it. As we discussed, I do have some interest in buying a home here in the Bay Area
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How to Know What Repairs to Ask For

Question: “I plan to buy my first home soon and want to learn as much as possible. I know I should have a home inspection done. But how do I know which findings are serious and what to ask to be repaired?” Answer: Great question! There are only 6 major systems of a home: Foundation
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