Wendy Hooper's (wendyhooper) Blog

Home Buyers get ready to share a little more pain Mortgage rates are again historically low, with 30 year fixed rates hovering between 4.50 - 5.00%.  This is fantastic news, considering we once heard rates would be inching closer to 6.00% by the end of 2010.  What happened?  Not being an economis...

There are some incredible purchase programs for First Time Home Buyers in Orange County, California.  At last count, First Timers accounted for 41% of all buyers here.   Per the CAR (California Association of Realtors) 2010 Buyers Survey, these newbies have an average of 23.1% down payment.   So...

That's all I could think of as I watched myself in a preliminary draft of an Epson Corporation commercial featuring me as a local Realtor expert.  No, I couldn't find fault with what I was wearing, what I was saying, or how I was saying it. I spend so much time doing my homework, cultivating a p...

  There's been fantastic news coming from the mortgage underwriting universe these past few months.  BUT, they just had to temper it with some not so helpful changes.  Buyers are getting dizzy staying apace of the changes in our industry.  Here are some of the recent updates that we're finding mo...

They don't call California "The Land of the Lawsuit" for nothing.  There were 36 new laws passed in 2009 that impact California real estate sales in one manner or another, ranging from new property disclosures to agent licensing disclosure on all media intended for clients. Here's a quick recap ...

It's been painful trying to educate Buyers and Sellers about our current market.  Rationale is out the window - literally.  More often than not, I need to remind clients to stop listening to the media and to focus solely on their competition.  Yes, they do usually look at me as if I've lost my mi...

I wish I had the answer... the Secret Sauce, the Magic Potion, the Crystal Ball.  You know THE ANSWER.  Are we, or are we not, at the bottom of the OC real estate market yet? According to the experts, market equilibrium (where the buyers and sellers are again on equal footing) is reached when inv...

This is my dog Titus.     Well, and me.  He has humbled me from the moment he came home with us.   I may think that my clients love me and appreciate me for the hours of research I do for their every market report, or for the additional time I take to painstakingly stage their homes in order to g...

                                                       I was laughing with one of my team agents the other day, while good naturedly competing to see who could find the most ridiculous notes within an MLS listing.  She definitely won, finding one where the hapless listing agent had noted the home...