For some of you, this could be a picture of your home! At least your home away from home? The question this week is…where is this? This weeks winner will receive a $30.00 gift card to Peet’s Coffee. All the rules of the road are available to view on the left hand margin and on the bar above. The winner as well as all other correct answers will not be published until Monday morning. All semi humourous jokes, quips, barbs and smart alecky answers will be published immediately. Have a great weekend!

Every once in awhile a client comes to me with a plan to buy another house, yet they need to sell their existing home in order to accomplish that. They want to make an offer contingent upon the sale of that home. In their mind it is the safest alternative because they’re frightened of the idea that, if they sell their home first, they’ll get stuck during an escrow period or a rent back and be forced into a purchase that they really don’t want. They also, in all honesty, feel more in control if they can buy the dream home and then sell their existing home…possibly closing the two concurrently.

While this idea certainly sounds appealing, it’s been my experience that it almost never works out the way people imagine it will. First of all, I’ve probably looked at hundreds of offers while representing sellers over the years and I’ve never seen one of my clients ratify with a contingency offer like this. Why would a seller, particularly in this market, take their place off the market and wait for somebody else to sell their place…a place they know nothing about. The only reason I can think of is if the buyer with the contingent offer does everything the seller wants regarding price and terms. Even then it’s rare! A buyer with a contingent offer loses almost all of their leverage to negotiate…and then they have to aggressively price their original property in order for it to move quickly. Let’s see here 1) pay too much for the new place and 2) sell for too little for the old place…what an idea!

Here’s a really big lesson that I’ve learned in the last 20 years…there is no such thing as the perfect house. If you lose a house that you really, really love…there will be another one coming along that you like just as much. I promise. Sell your existing home first. Price it reasonably, sell it and then go shopping for the new home. There are exceptions of course, like if you have enough cash to buy first without selling, but contingency offers are very problematic. If you sell your original home and have a 30-45 day escrow you can negotiate a rent back of, say, 30-45 days. During that time I know you’ll be able to find a home you really like. I’ve been a part of it dozens of times.

Again, like Thursday’s numbers there’s vast improvement in the market for single family homes as well. Today there are 29 active homes for sale and 17 pending sales. In April there were 41 active and 10 pendings. One of the things that’s really fascinating to me is how many people are out there looking right now. Multiple offers are not uncommon in Foster City again. Here’s some to watch:

900 Flying Fish listed by yours truly for $899,000. Not that I’m at all bashful about touting my own listing, but this house is really quite the amazing location. The 10,000 sq ft, wide water lot is a very rare commodity and although the house needs a ton of work it’s a great opportunity.

11 Coral Ln listed by Jan Majeski of Alain Pinel for $998,000. A tad close to 101 but this is quite the house. Nicely remodeled and seemingly priced right. It’s already got alot of interest.

606 Waterbury listed by Sue Dickey of Alain Pinel for $1,499,000.  Amazing remodel job on this one too! Well worth a look, even if it is on narrow water. It’s one cool house!

Keep an eye on them.

Good job folks! It’s the Hillsdale bridge near Water’s Edge Apts and Pilgrim-Triton. This weeks winner was first timer Serina Wu, who wins the $30.00 gift card to Baja Fresh. Great job Serina! Coming in a close second was Dana Ferri, followed by GS-Dos, Nicole, Ellen, Nancy, Shrikant, Pradeep, Jeff and Erika. Great job guys…very good knowledge! See you this Friday when we’ll do it all again.

I hope I never have to go to this place to sell a house!

Just when you thought you had seen all of the Foster City bridges, I present this one! Isn’t it a nice looking one? The question this week is…where is this bridge? This weeks winner will receive a $30.00 gift card to Baja Fresh over there at Parkside Towers. All the rules of the road are available to view on the bar above as well as on the left hand margin. Thw winner and all other correct answers will not be published until Monday morning. Any and all humourous, to slightly humourous jokes, quips and smart alecky barbs will be published immediately along with all wrong answers. Have a great weekend folks!

Things have certainly improved, that’s for sure. If you click on that link below that says “What’s For Sale?” you’ll see how different it is based upon past posts. Last time we did this, in April, there was 58 units on the market and there was 15 pending sales. When I did it in February there were 3! Today there are 34 active listings and 32 pending sales. That almost seems normal to me. Still, there’s alot of homes that have been on the market for a long, long time. Here’s a few that are worth a look see:

841 Balboa at The Islands listed by the mayor himself, John Kiramis for $718,000. It’s his own place. Really gorgeously updated. It’s one of the smaller 2 bedrooms but it’s been redone for top to bottom.

851 Vespucci listed by Mary Bee of Re/Max Today for $649,900. I like Winston Village, I like the $245.00 dues and this is actually a really nice unit.

880 Meridian Bay listed by Mary Yeargain with Re/Max Today for $629,950. Nice clean unit and it’s priced $50,000 less than an identical unit there. Worth a look.

Once upon a time, Realtors were important. At least we thought we were! One of the big reasons we thought we were so important is because we had a virtual corner on the market of real estate related information. Anything that was useful when determining the value of a property or to simply help you make an offer to a seller had to be acquired via a realtor. We held public record data close to our hearts, we alone knew where the homes for sale were located and we could show them to you in those phone book looking things we all carried around with us in the days before the internet. If there were questions you could rely on us to get the answers for you.

Things have changed! The truth is, we’re really not Real Estate Agents in the sense we used to be…we’re Real Estate Consultants. I’m constantly impressed with how knowledgeable my clients are. I met a young lady in front of a house I was showing her for the second time a few weeks ago and she had a print out of every owner of every house in the cul-de-sac. Most of my clients easily find out who the owners are of the homes they like, they also find out how much money those sellers paid for their homes and exactly how long ago they have lived there. I’ve seen clients find info about permitted (or not permitted as the case may be) additions. I’ve even had clients find out on their own details about registered sex offenders in their neighborhoods. Our culture is a whole lot more transparent than it used to be! Obviously, folks find listings abundantly on the internet and request showings on their own every day.

So, what’s the value of a realtor anymore? If we’re not holding all of the cards like we used to, then what good are we? Good realtors are consultants and I don’t think there’s any shame in that.  A good realtor can help you navigate, with a whole lot less stress, though a foundation problem. A good consultant knows how to read a property and pest inspection to know what’s important on them. A good consultant knows a good neighborhood from a crappy one…or even a marginal one. Sometimes they occur very near to one another too. Good realtor consultants know good lender consultants. Good consultants know how the market “feels” at any given moment and that often could mean the difference between getting a house or not. Perhaps most importantly, good consultants know most of the other good consultants and in this business relationships are incredibly important..sometimes critical. You can learn all kinds of things researching online…but you can’t develop trust with the people who are actually selling the homes you want.

Kind of surprisingly, not as many knew this as I thought. Maybe Taco Bell isn’t as popular as I assumed it would be. Anyway, great job to all those who nailed it! Congratulations to first timer Shrikant Iyer who arrived first and wins the $30.00 gift card to Togo’s at the Metro Center…or wherever else there’s one. Also answering correctly was Trisha, Erika, Jim S, Rowena and Karla. Great FC knowledge folks! See you again this Friday!

If this doesn’t put a smile on your face, nothing will!