“My wife and I just picked up a couple of rental condos a very good price. We’ve never been landlords before. I know there’s probably a landlording for dummies book. Are there any other books you can recommend?” ***ANSWER: I’ve always liked “Landlording” by Leigh Robinson. It’s an entertaining read, full of great advice. I

“Hi Gary. I recently took my home off the market. I’m very unhappy with my old agent. She kept telling me to reduce price, but I didn’t want to lose all that money, so I refused. I feel she was very dishonest with me, don’t you think so? Her name is XXXXX. Do you know

“Is it a problem if you buy a home with a kitchen and bathrooms that were remodeled without a permit?” ***ANSWER: In my experience, most kitchen and bath remodels do not have permits. Be sure to have your home inspector check them out to be sure they’re done correctly, especially the electrical, plumbing, and gas.

“Hi Gary. We just talked with a mortgage broker and got mortgage loan approval. Buy my wife mentioned that you’ve said some loan approvals aren’t really approvals. What did you mean?” ***ANSWER: When is a loan approval not a loan approval? Sadly, the answer is: most of the time. I recently got an “approval” letter

“I’d like to find out the value of my home. But you can’t really use comps to determine the value. When can you come over?” ***ANSWER: Uh oh. That’s short-hand for: “Scrap the accepted, time-tested way of evaluating homes because that won’t support the crazy price I want. Instead, get out the Ouija Board, tarot

“Hi Gary. I’d like to trade down from my house to a nice condo in the beach. If you find someone who’d like to trade, that would be great…” ***ANSWER: I’d love to help you but… The odds of you liking a specific condo AND that owner liking your specific home AND them being willing

“I’m interested in buying foreclosures in bulk from banks. Can you give me help getting in touch with some of the asset managers you work with?” ***ANSWER: You’re one of many people who’ve contacted me about this. Most are how-to-get-rich-quick-in-real-estate seminar attendees and/or in way over their head. I may be wrong, but I assume

“What’s the difference between a repo, an REO, a bank-owned home, and a foreclosure?” ***ANSWER: A “repo” (repossession), REO (real estate owned by a bank), and a bank-owned home are all the same thing. The term “foreclosure: could refer to any of the 3 stages of foreclosure: 1. When the owner is behind on payments

“Can you tell me about Propositions 60 and 90 and how I can keep my low tax base if I sell my home and buy another one?” ***ANSWER: Prop 60: If you qualify, indeed you can sell your San Diego County home and move your current low property tax base to your newly purchased San

“I’m seeing lots of ads touting short sales, most of which seem priced pretty well. Are they good investments?” ***ANSWER: [NOTE #1: I’m repeating a question/answer on short sales from July as too many people are still futilely trying to buy homes that are short sales and will never close.] [NOTE #2: a short sale