Home Buying Tips

• House Inspectors: Choosing The Right One...
  A qualified house inspector is the surest way to discover a house's not-so-obvious problems. Most professional inspectors are from some type of construction background, such as engineering, architecture or contracting. Their responsibility is to crawl beneath the floors, squeeze through the attic and generally comb the house's structure and mechanical systems for shortcomings. They give the buyer a complete report; with this, the buyer can decide whether or not the house is a good deal, or at least put together a "punch list" of items that must be fixed (it isn't unusual for this report to contain about 50 items). The fee for this service generally runs from about $300 to $500 and up. Continue article...
• Common Myths About Working With Real Estate Agents
  Get started by avoiding these common myths about real estate agents. Continue article...
• The Perfect Escrow - Does it Exist?
  Very simply defined, an escrow is a deposit of funds, a deed or other instrument by one party for the delivery to another party upon completion of a particular condition or event. The California Escrow Law – Section 17003 of the Financial Code – provides the legal definition. Continue article...
• Try selling home without agent
  About 85 percent of home sellers use real estate agents to list and sell their houses. Continue article...
• Property Lines Not Always As They Appear
  Fences do not always follow the boundaries of the property. This will only be the case if the seller had the property surveyed and had the fences built on the property line. Often, sellers do not go to the expense of having surveys performed when they put in fences. The fences end up where the owners think the property lines end. Sellers may replace old fences that were built by previous owners who may not have known the location of property lines. Continue article...
• Pros and cons of old and new homes
  When deciding between an old or new home, the list of pros and cons is lengthy. Continue article...