This Week’s Crazy Building: Raja Gopura

This week’s crazy building is Raja Gopura in Murudeshwara, India. A gopura is an ornate monument tower at the entrance to a temple. At 20 stories and a staggering 237 feet, Raja Gopura is one of the tallest on earth. Two life-size elephants guard the steps leading to its gateway. This is the entrance to
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Funding Your Residential Rental Purchase

Question: “I have several rentals and want to buy another property, perhaps a little house. I’d like to come up with as little cash as possible. What do I need to put down?” Answer: To buy a residential rental, you’ll need at least 20-25% down, plus closing costs of around 3%. But here’s a good
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Should You Get a Stager for Your San Diego Home?

Question: “I’ll be selling my 1-bedroom condo that’s worth about 200K. At what point is it worth hiring a professional stager?” Answer: In my opinion, a good stager will return at least 3 and up to 10 times the fee, depending on the cost and the home price. Because your condo is small, it should
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How Do Homesellers View Contingent Offers?

Question: “My wife and I want to buy a house. We don’t want to list our condo unless we have a house to buy. So we’ll have to buy contingent on selling our condo. How do homesellers look at contingent offers?” Answer: A bit cross-eyed. Homesellers do not love contingent offers because they must wait
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This Week’s Crazy Building: Iceberg Apartments

Isbjerget by Slaunger licensed under the terms of CC BY-SA 3.0
This week’s crazy building is the Iceberg Apartments in Aarhus, Denmark. Called “Isbjerget” in their native Danish, these 7- and 8-story apartment buildings are the result of a competition-winning design from Dutch studio seARCH. If it wasn’t obvious from the name (and the picture), the buildings were inspired by the jagged shapes and pristine whites
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Should You Handle Evictions Yourself or Hire a Lawyer?

Question: “I have a tenant who’s not paying the rent. Do you think I should handle the eviction myself or hire a lawyer?” Answer: Hire an attorney. Landlord/tenant law in California is very much skewed in the tenant’s favor. If you try to handle the eviction and make the tiniest mistake, your entire eviction could
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Can You Sell Without Paying Taxes on the Gain?

Question: “I’ve heard about avoiding taxes when you sell your home. There’s some rule about owning and living in the house two years. My wife and I rented a house nine years and finally bought it in 2012. Then in 2013 we moved to Seattle. So we didn’t own and live in it at the
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Make Sure Your Home Offers Are Realistic

Question: “I found a fixer-upper house in Del Mar listed at a good price. It needed a lot of repairs, which I took off the price and made an offer. But the seller rejected it. Any advice on how to convince them to take my offer?” Answer: Yes, raise your offer. I could be wrong,
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This Week’s Crazy Building: Fisheries Development Board

Office Building of Fisheries Department, Hyderabad , India by Nagaraju Raveender licensed under the terms of CC BY-SA 3.0
This week’s crazy building is the Fisheries Development Board! The Fisheries Board building cost roughly $5 million to build. Completed in early 2012, the building was designed to resemble a fish in keeping with the department’s area of focus. Little information is available about this bizarre structure. It seems surprising that the designers would take such an unusual approach,
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What to Do With Your San Diego Home After Improving It

Question: “I just finished renovating my condo. It has never looked this good in the 20 years I’ve owned it, so I’ve decided to keep it and rent it out…” Answer: Since you did so much to your condo, be sure to get a big security deposit from a potential tenant. You may even want
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