Big News For Blossom Valley Short Sales: Fannie and Freddie Changes

Great news for people who need to short sell their Blossom Valley or Silicon Valley home!

If you have a hardship, loss of job, divorce, change in financial circumstance from medical or family issue, etc, you can now be considered for a short sale even if you have not missed a mortgage payment.
Freddie and Fannie will now have the same requirements and procedures, which was not true in the past.

This is great news, especially for people who have a sudden change in their circumstances and can no longer afford their mortgages, but do not want to have their credit ruined in order to be able to sell their home.

So, if you have a change in your circumstances which will change your financial picture, and you want to sell your home without ruining your credit, you may have a way to do this.

Be sure to work with professionals who know what they are doing. In short sales, there is no substitute for experience.

If you have any questions about short sales in Santa Clara or San Mateo County please feel free to contact me.

Marcy Moyer
Keller Williams Realty
www.marcymoyer.com
marcy@marcymoyer.com
650-619-9285
D.R.E. 01191194

Is West Oakland The West Coast's Brooklyn?

In 2004 my son left to go to college at New York University which is in the Village. At the time, the Village was The place to be for not only NYU students, but young professionals as well as the artists struggling in NY. When he graduated in 2008 the financial market was in crisis so rents were dropping, and young graduates could still afford (although barely) to live there.

However, by 2010 Village rents were up again, and by 2012 most young people not working on Wall Street had left for Brooklyn. Brooklyn is now the center of the universe for 20 somethings (as evidenced by Girls and everyone I know under 30) The investors who own rental properties in Brooklyn are now blessed with an endless stream of ready and willing renters.

I see the same thing happening in West Oakland. San Francisco is so overwhelmed with start up companies and techies making pretty high salaries, that finding an affordable rental in San Francisco is very difficult, even with rent control in homes built before 1978. Many young people who simply cannot afford the sky high rents of most of SF are moving to West Oakland. This is especially popular for young artists and others in non tech-related fields.

So my advice to Silicon Valley investors looking for rental properties, maybe it is time to look at West Oakland for your long term rental property portfolio. There are plenty of 20 somethings looking for rentals, and your return on investment is better than in many other cities in the Bay Area.

If you have any questions about buying investment properties please feel free to contact me.

Marcy Moyer
Keller Williams Realty
www.marcymoyer.com
marcy@marcymoyer.com
650-619-9285
D.R.E. 01191194

What Makes a Better Rental, a Santa Clara Condo or Single Family Home?

If you are a new (or even experienced Santa Clara investor) you may wonder which makes a better investment, a condo or a single family home in the Silicon Valley? The answer is either, depending on your goals.

The most important question is are you more interested in cash flow or long term appreciation?
Here are the facts:

1. Rents are more effected by bedrooms and square footage than lot size. Dollar for dollar you will get a higher rent per dollar spent with a condo than a single family home that costs the same amount.

2. Condos have HOA fees that Single Family homes do not have, but much of the HOA fee goes towards expenses you would have to pay if it was a single family home such as insurance, landscaping, often water and garbage, and exterior repairs.

3. In the Silicon Valley the value of the land is far superior to the value of the improvement on the land in most cases. So, as time goes on and the improvement depreciates having more value in the land will bring in more appreciation.

So in general, if you are more interested in cash flow a condo may be a better option, and if you want long term appreciation a home would be a better investment.

If you want a balance of both, buy a rental home on a the smallest lot available, which means you would be spending more of your dollars on the cash flow producing part of the investment while still having the land which appreciates.

If you have any questions about buying or selling investment properties in San Mateo or Santa Clara County please feel free to contact me.

Marcy Moyer
Keller Williams Realty
www.marcymoyer.com
marcy@marcymoyer.com
650-619-9285
D.R.E. 01191194

Palo Alto Seniors Have Many Options

There are many people living in Palo Alto who have been here for a long time and have a lot of equity in their homes. They may not have huge retirement income, but there is money in the value in their home if money is needed. The question is what is the best thing to do if a senior needs money? Sell, rent, reverse mortgage?

There is no correct answer. Each option has pros and cons. The first thing to do would be to speak with an accountant or financial adviser to understand the tax consequences of the different options. I just want to give you some broad information about each of these options to help you make an informed decision based on what is best for your particular circumstance.

Reverse Mortgage: The mortgage company will give you a monthly amount, or a lump sum. The interest and fees are paid when the home is sold. These costs are high, but they are ultimately paid by the heirs, not the home owner, under many circumstances. You get to live in your house, off of the money you have in equity. However, once you leave the home for 3 months or longer (in most cases) the home must be sold and the bank repaid. This means if you go into a nursing home for 3 months or longer, the home is sold and the owner pays any capital gains tax at that time as well as paying off the fees and interest on the loan.

Rent Out your home: Rentals in Palo Alto are scarce and are fetching large sums. You can probably rent your home for enough money to pay for care in assisted living. You would not have to sell your home and pay the capital gains tax so there would be more equity preserved for your heirs. However, you are still responsible for any repairs that may be needed, which could be expensive, and you will need someone to manage the property once you move out.

Sell: Prices in Palo Alto are back to their peak levels. Homes rarely sell under a million dollars, with 1400 square foot Eichlers and ranches easily selling in the 1.4-1.6 million dollar range. That is plenty of money to pay for expenses if you need assisted living. However, once you sell you need to pay capital gains tax, and you need a safe investment that pays you income to help pay the expenses you need in your retirement living situation.

This is never an easy decision, and it requires excellent profession advice to determine what is best for your situation. My best professional advice is make this decision early so that your plans can be carried out in a systematic way rather than after a crisis has occurred. This will enable you to focus on a change in health or family circumstance, not "What do I do now?"

If you have any questions about buying or seling homes in Palo Alto please feel free to contact me.

Marcy Moyer
Keller Williams Realty Palo Alto
www.marcymoyer.com
marcy@marcymoyer.com
650-619-9285
D.R.E. 01191194

Bank of America Comes into the 21st Century With Electronic Signatures

I am so excited about this news! I know, it doesn't take much for me to get excited, but this is really big news in my opinion.

Up until now if you were involved in a Silicon Valley Bank of America Short Sale they did not take electronic signatures. This would have been ok if the bank could sit with you in your conference room and look at the offers. We all know this does not happen and the paperwork will often be faxed several times before B of A gets to see a document. Since they cannot accept illegible documents it made things harder for the participants.

Also, despite the sometime lengthy process of a short sale, Bank of America will often say they need a document now, and not being able to get electronic signatures is sometimes tough.

Now, for any new short sales, you can send all documents with electronic signatures. This makes me very happy. As a Silicon Valley Short Sale Specialist anything that can make a short sale more efficient is ok with me.

So if you have any questions about short sales in San Mateo or Santa Clara Counties please feel free to contact me.

Marcy Moyer
Keller Williams Realty
www.marcymoyer.com
marcy@marcymoyer.com
650-619-9285
D.R.E. 01191194

Keep In Mind MediCal Wants Pay Back From That Redwood City Estate

I am not a lawyer and do not play one on TV. If you are in this position PLEASE CALL YOUR PROBATE OR TRUST LAWYER to determine how to deal with this situation.

I got a call from a nice young man who asked me to help sell his grandmother's home in Redwood City. The grandmother had recently passed and the young man lives in Modesto so he wanted to sell the home. He was appointed the Personal Representative of the estate and had full authority to sell the home.

The home is worth about $300,000, there is a mortgage of $100,000 and a MediCal bill of $180,0000, going back to 1992. So in effect, even though he is the sole heir to the estate, he will not receive any money for the sale of this home.

You may ask yourself "A MediCal bill? What is that about?"

In order to receive MediCal benefits you cannot have enough assets to pay your medical bills. You may own a home which you will not have to sell while you are alive, but once you die, the home will have to be sold to pay off the MediCal bill, or as much as is possible after the mortgage and estate settlement costs are paid.

If you do not own a home, or have other assets MediCal will not be paid back.

It is a very good idea to discuss with your lawyer and relatives how you are going to deal with this issue before you go into a nursing home or pass.

As a Redwood City Trust and Probate Real Estate Agent, I am not going to tell you what to do with your home before you pass, but you should talk to a lawyer about what the options are for your family, or loved ones, or charity before it is past the point where that discussion is pointless.

If you have any questions about Trust or Probate Sales in San Mateo or Santa Clara County, please feel free to contact me.

Marcy Moyer
Keller Williams Realty
www.marcymoyer.com
marcy@marcymoyer.com
650-619-9285
D.R.E.  01191194

Don’t Hold Up Mountain View Probate Sale: Get Your Letters Certified

And by certified I don’t mean on Sesame Street.

There is nothing worse than getting to the closing of your Mountain View probate sale and finding out, oops you can’t close.  Or even worse, you are an out of town Personal Representative on this Silicon Valley Probate Sale and you are told there is a hold up. You need a CERTIFIED COPY OF YOUR LETTERS OF ADMINISTRATION in order to close the sale. Where are they? Did you leave them out the house? Did you leave them with your attorney?

Make sure that you have these letters in the certified form in your possession so that you can get them to the title company so that you can close this escrow.

There are many things to remember when you have the responsibility of an estate, whether it is a large or small one. There is a lot of paper work. You probably are dealing with mounds of paperwork from your deceased loved one as well as from the court.

Just treat the Letters of Administration like gold, since this is what proves you have the right to sell a home that does not belong to you. If you can not find anything else, find these and you can deal with the other papers later.

If you have any questions about buying or selling Probate Sales in Santa Clara County or San Mateo County  please free to contact me.

Marcy Moyer

Keller Williams Realty

www.marcymoyer.com

marcy@marcymoyer.com

650-619-9285

D.R.E. 01191194

Something For Palo Alto Seniors To Think About

Today I pulled into my Midtown Palo Alto driveway around 2:30. Like most of the homes in midtown there is only a one car garage, and after you put the washer and dryer in it there is no room for a car. Most people park in their driveways, which today was very fortunate.

When I opened my car door my neighbor from across the street called out "Marcy I need help!" His garage door was open and I ran across the street. Ed was lying on his kitchen floor after falling in the driveway and crawling back to the house. Quite a feat for this feisty 88 year old man. His wife Char was out shopping and he had been alone on the floor for about an hour.

I called 911 who showed up in less than 10 minutes and took him to Stanford. Char came home and I drove her to Stanford. She was shaking and obviously quite upset. As we drove over she said, I guess we will have to move now.

I don't know. Ed's hip is broken and he will have surgery. I don't know if they will be able to maintain their independent life style or not. I do know they have not made contingency plans.

I also know that moving from a home of 20-40 years into assisted living is a huge step. Decisions should be made carefully as the options are varied. It takes careful planning and a lot of input from family and financial advisers to make the best decisions. Buy or rent? Nursing home or continuing care? A program with steps of care? How many meals per day? Who are the doctors? How much does it cost? What city? Should you stay close to home or go to where your kids are? What do you do if you have pets?

I also know that making that decision during a crisis is not ideal. While many people say the only way they are leaving their home is in a wooden box, that is not always the case. Sometimes life changes in a heartbeat and you need to go some place to get some help even though you may be years from that wooden box.

So if you are reading this, or if you have parents that are in this position, please think about what you want to do if you need more help than you can get living at home. The choices are varied, so investigate carefully, and hopefully you will be able to make this decision methodically and not while you are in a crisis and forced to do something immediately.

Marcy Moyer
Keller Williams Realty
www.marcymoyer.com
marcy@marcymoyer.com
650-619-9285
D.R.E. 01191194

Watch Out For Blossom Valley Short Sales When The Seller is a Realtor

I was reading about short sales, as I do every Sunday morning on a great site for short sale information Short Sale Superstars. There was a discussion about a Bank of America Short Sale that had been approved, and then denied after the approval, a few days before closing. The reason:

The seller was a real estate broker and the listing agent works for the seller. The buyer used the listing agent to represent her.

Surprise Surprise, B of A said this is not an Arm's Length Transaction and rescinded the approval.



There are multiple things wrong with transaction so let me see if I can organize the problems coherently.

1. All short sales must be an Arm's Length Transaction and an affidavit needs to be signed by all parties saying they are not related to each other in any way. The listing agent works for the seller so that is not arms length.

2. The seller may be offered a closing incentive by the bank, but is not allowed to receive any money from the buyer. Since the buyer is using the the listing agent who works for the seller and would have received commission for the sale, a portion of which would go to the broker, then the seller is getting money from the buyer.

3. Again, since the listing agent works for the seller and would get commission from the sale, a portion of which would go to the broker, the seller would be receiving money from the sale outside of the closing incentive.

4. The buyer has agreed to a dual agency and is entitled to the information that the listing agent works for the seller and that this can cause potential problems with The Arm's Length Transaction.

I do not know if the seller was trying to pull something over on the bank, or if he was just not familiar with short sales but this was totally avoidable.

Buyers: get your own agent to represent you.

Sellers: If you are a broker, get a different company to represent you. If you are an agent, get another agent to represent you, not your broker, and ask the bank if it is ok to be represented by someone else in your campany first, not after you are about to close.

If you have any questions about buying or selling a short sale in Santa Clara or San Mateo County please feel free to contact me.

Marcy Moyer
Keller Williams Realty
www.marcymoyer.com
marcy@marcymoyer.com
650-619-9285
D.R.E. 01191194

Even in Palo Alto's Heated Market, Overpricing is Not a Good Idea

Everyone knows Palo Alto's housing market is hot, homes get multiple offers, and sales can be wildly over asking price, but that does not mean a seller can price his/her home at any price and get these results. As a long time Palo Alto real estate agent I can assure you that today's buyers are more informed than any buyers from previous years.

Most buyers looking at a specific neighborhood are as informed about values as most realtors helping them. They know what has sold, and for how much and they know how the recent sales compare to your home, so don't think you can fool them.

If you price your Palo Alto home a lot under market value you will get many offers and a price over asking. If you price your Palo Alto home at market value, you will not get as many offers, and you will not end up with a price wildly over asking, but you will probably end up at the same price as if you priced it wildly under value.

However, if you over price your home it will sit, and you may end up getting less for your home than if you priced it realistically the first time.

Palo Alto real estate is precious. The inventory is at historic lows. The prices are now back to about what they were before the crash. So be smart and take advantage of this wonderful time to sell and price your home correctly.

If you have any questions about selling a home in Palo Alto please feel free to contact me.

Marcy Moyer
Keller Williams Realty
www.marcymoyer.com
marcy@marcymoyer.com
650-619-9285
D.R.E. 01191194

What A Palo Alto Executor Should Look For In An Appraisal Contingency

The market is roaring in Palo Alto and most homes are getting multiple offers. If you are a Personal Representative for a Palo Alto Probate Sale, or a Successor Trustee for a Trust Sale how do you know which is the best offer? How do you choose from the embarrassment of riches, especially if you are not from the area and are not familiar with area?

If you follow these steps you should be fine.

1. If you have an all cash offer with no contingencies that is the highest of all offers. Pick that one.

2. If you have an all cash offer for less than a financed offer it may still be the best, but it may not be.

3. If the financed offer has no appraisal contingency and it is higher than the cash offer you can make an argument that that is a better offer because it is higher. If the buyer is pre-approved and the house does not have to appraise for offered price the risk of the transaction falling through because of of the loan not being approved is small.

4. If there are multiple offers with financing contingencies and appraisal contingencies things get a little more complicated. It is very likely that there will be offers that will over what the appraisal will bear.



5. When Number 4 happens I counter offers by asking the agents what will your client do if the home does not appraise for the value you have offered. This is important because if you have a home worth $800,000 and the buyers have offered $850,000 but subject to appraisal, they may have really just offered $800,000 if the home will not appraise higher. So, what I want to know is what is the buyer going to do if the home does not appraise for what was offered.

6. Take the offer that you feel has the best chance of giving the estate the best realistic price based on what the buyer is capable of doing vs what they have offered to do.

Even in this crazy Palo Alto seller's market, negotiations still matter, and you will not automatically get what you are offered, so hire someone who knows what he or she is doing and get the interests of the estate protected. Also, if the agent you are interviewing does not know what a Personal Representative or a Successor Trustee is, interview someone else for the job.

If you have any questions about selling a home in Trust or Probate in Palo Alto please feel free to contact me.

Marcy Moyer
Keller Williams Realty
www.marcymoyer.com
marcy@marcymoyer.com
650-619-9285
D.R.E. 01191194

Why Should I Put My Palo Alto Home On The Market In The Fall?

Fall is officially here. You can tell, not because the calendar says September 21 has come and gone, not because there are a few maple trees with leaves starting to turn, not because football season is in full bloom, but because getting to Half Moon Bay is a bear, especially on the one hot day of the year since June. I just wanted to take my labradoodle Demi to the harbor in Half Moon Bay for a good swim and some quality ball catching time. Here she is in her beach robe after a hard swim.

The way you know it is really Fall is that everyone in the bay area is trying to get to Half Moon Bay to pick pumpkins for Halloween and it is not even the week-end of the Pumpkin festival.

But back to business. One of the most common questions I am asked: is it a good idea to put MY PALO ALTO home on the market in the fall since school has started and the Holidays are upon us? My answer most years is yes, but this year it YES YES YES!!!!!!

As a very long time Palo Alto realtor I can tell you that these things are true:

Right now the inventory is still at historic lows, and will likely get lower in November and December

There are hundreds of buyers out there looking

Interest rates are at historic low levels

The stock market is doing well which is where the down payment and sometimes purchase money is coming from

The European Financial Crisis seems to be under control at this moment

We are not imminently about to go to another war

Many out of town buyers are in the area during the holiday season.

Will you get more for your home if you wait till next spring? Maybe, but maybe not. Will you sell your Palo Alto home easily and for a good price right now? Yes.

Will taxes on the profit be higher after Jan 1 than they are right now? Probably

Should you gamble and maybe get more next spring or maybe not? Your choice.

So if you want or need to sell now do not let the fall dissuade you from doing anything but trying to get to the beach when everyone else is trying to get their pumpkin.

If you have any questions about buying or selling a home in Palo Alto please feel free to contact me.

Marcy Moyer
Keller Williams Realty
www.marcymoyer.com
marcy@marcymoyer.com
650-619-9285
D.R.E. www.marcymoyer.com