Silicon Valley Real Estate Info

There were 27 properties on today’s Cupertino/Sunnyvale broker’s tour.  5 properties were being re-tour and 22 were new listings.  Although I was unable to visit every property, I did have a favorite.  Drum roll please…..
I liked 1537 Ashcroft Way in Sunnyvale.  Listed by the Levy Team of the Sereno Group, this 3 bedroom, 2 bath home [...]

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There has recently been a lot written about the relatively new appraisal regulation called the Home Valuation Code of Conduct (HVCC).   The gist of the HVCC is to ensure that the loan broker/Realtor doesn’t unduly influence the valuation of a property by pressing the appraiser for an artificially inflated value.  It does so by preventing those who are most likely to benefit [...]

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I recently met with a potential seller who had a great question regarding title policies.  When they bought their house, they bought a title policy.  If they sell their house, they’ll be buying another title policy.  They wanted to know why they had to pay for a title policy when they bought their home and [...]

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RSVP, the Realtor Service Volunteer Program, is an annual community volunteer program supported and sponsored by the Silicon Valley Association of Realtors.  The nuts and bolts of the program is to provide household assistance like cleaning up neglected landscaping, gutters, washing windows, replacing smoke detector batteries, flipping mattresses and moving furniture for seniors or the home-bound [...]

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In real estate, the size of a home matters!  When representing Los Altos home buyers, verifying a property’s size (in square footage) can be troublesome.  Usually, the size of the home and lot (in square feet) is auto-populated from city/county records into the multiple listing service (MLS) information.  Most of this information is correct but [...]

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It always seems that with a softening in our local real estate market, there is an increase in real estate related lawsuits.  When the real estate market is good (and appreciating), buyers are happy.  But when it softens, buyers are looking for someone to bail them out.  According to four prominant Silicon Valley real estate attorneys, we are seeing [...]

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When I began selling homes in Los Altos 15 years ago, a consumer’s knowledge of the Title Insurance product was relatively low.  Today, that level of knowledge isn’t much better.  What I have found is that the consumer assumes that the cost of title insurance is somehow fixed and rather than investigate, they take the recommendation of [...]

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My usual routine in the morning is to get up, let the dog out of her kennel and then check my e-mail.  This morning my e-mail had a shocker.  I received an e-mail from one of the Account Managers at the Los Altos Branch of Financial Title Company indicating that Financial Title Company was closing its doors [...]

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This is an update to a post I wrote on February 26th, 2008 titled “Crime In Your Neighborhood? Check It Out Online!.”   Crimereports.com now includes crime statistics for the cities of Los Altos and Sunnyvale. 

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Over the past several months, ATMs (Automated Teller Machines) in Los Altos and neighboring cities have been hit hard by clever criminals. 
A Los Altos Arco gas station ATM was “skimmed,” and criminals made off with over $100,000.   Over 150 people who used their ATM/debit cards at an Arco gas station in San Jose sufferred a similar fate.  However, they lost approximately $195,000 in [...]

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