7 Important Interesting Items That Occurred on December 21 By Michelle Carr Crowe, Silicon Valley real estate guide selling homes in San Jose One of the pastimes I enjoy is learning new facts and interesting pieces of history. Sometimes I come across intriguing stories while reading our local San Jose Mercury News, Mental Floss or  Smithsonian Magazine. Other times I find articles or facts online at The History Place, Brainy Historyor National Geographic Society. Today’s collection of facts was found at DatesinHistory.com. While these interesting items are intriguing, they have nothing to do with selling homes in Palo Alto, San Jose or Cupertino, they just add fun and fascination to life. Here are today’s 7 curious facts about this exact date in history, December 21st. I hope you find t... 12/21/2012

Many Palo Alto real estate agents and stagers may suggest using a plug in type air freshener when selling your Palo Alto home. Is this a good idea? The way a home smells can have a profound effect on how buyers feel about your home. However, some buyers are allergic  to the perfumed smell that comes out of some air fresheners, and some buyers will be concerned that you are trying to cover up a bad smell, like a musty odor. There are arguments for and against using artificail smells. If you want my opinion, here it is:1. If you can fill the house with fresh flowers while you are selling your Palo Alto home, that is better than an artificial air freshener. This is easier to do in the spring and summer. However, you can get good flowers all year round at Trader Joe's or the Farmers markets... 12/18/2012

The answer to the question, "Should I sell my Palo Alto home off market ?" is.... wait for it..... It Depends. The way to get the highest price and the best terms for a house is to give it maximum exposure on the open market.  However, right now the inventory is so low and communication between agents so good, that off market selling of Palo Alto homes with excellent target marketing is giving good results to home owners trying to sell their Palo Alto homes. The most common reasons for wanting to sell your Palo Alto home off market are: 1. Privacy. Some people do not want hordes of people descending on their home, or knowing what their home is worth. 2. Convenience: For some Palo Alto homeowners the amount of work that needs to be done to put a home on the open market is unreasonable. T... 12/17/2012

What is the best way to sell your Palo Alto home when you have pets? In a word, quickly. Selling a home in Palo Alto can be stressful for humans, but for pets even more so. It is very disruptive for our pets to have the house invaded by hordes of strangers, food and litter boxes to be put in different places, and to be locked into small spaces. So what do you do if you are selling your Palo Alto home and you have pets? Let's start with some things that are not a good idea: 1. Leave a sign on the door saying, "please don't let the cat out" and let the cat have the run of the house. No one will remember and the doors will be left open allowing your declawed, helpless cat out. 2. Leave a note saying, "your adorable little dog is totally friendly so just come in." Your fightened angel may g... 12/13/2012

If you are selling your home in Palo Alto that you have been living in for 20, 30, 40, or 50 years, you have probably done a lot of repairs and/or improvements over the years. When it comes time to sell, the disclosures will ask you to list these improvements. The amount of space you are given is fine for someone who has lived in a house 5-7 years but completely useless for many of the long time Palo Alto residents who have spent decades here. Palo Alto is such a wonderful to place to live, there just are not that many people who want to sell their Palo Alto home and move somewhere else. However, if you are one of those people who is going to sell your home in Palo Alto the easiest way to disclose your repairs and upgrades is to make a separate list and add it to the disclosures, not to... 12/10/2012

Last night an email arrived from a past client asking, "What's happening in the Palo Alto condo market?"My reply: "Now, as to the condo market in downtown Palo Alto – it’s hot! Last year we saw single family homes being bought quickly; that has accelerated this year to a near-frenzy pitch. What is new in 2012 is the condo market – that has rebound nicely. Today there are only 2 downtown condos [for sale] on our MLS. There have been 15 listed since 6/1/12. The 2 closed sales likely to be of most interest to you are: ·      1165 Forest #2C – it listed at $995,000, sold 6 days later for $980,000 ·         685 High St #5E – listed for $985,000, reduced to $945,000, sold after 69 days for $928,000. (It is the 2-level model) I’m including links here for more detail: You can pull up those list... 12/06/2012

  If the home in Palo Alto you are selling looks like this you probably need to do something. If the Palo Alto home you are selling looks like this, probably not. The most important thing to remember when selling your Palo Alto home in this very hot market is to answer the question: Can a typical family cook in my kitchen? If the answer is yes, then I would recommend staging before trying to sell your Palo Alto home. A person buying your home can remodel the kitchen to their heart's delight after the fact, but if you spend a lot of money on remodeling before selling your Palo Alto home you could be wasting money by doing something that is not what the buyer wants. However, if your kitchen looks like the top one, it is so bad that most people would probably not want to cook there. If tha... 12/05/2012

Just How Affordable are California Homes for Sale Compared to 2006? by Michelle Carr-Crowe, Silicon Valley guide and San Jose, Calif. real estate agent Are you curious to know just how affordable are California homes for sale as compared to the peak of the market in 2006? You're not alone. Many buyers who were waiting to ensure the market had bottomed out are now scrambling to buy and avoid being priced out of their desired areas to live. In Silicon Valley, cities such as Cupertino, Calif. and Palo Alto, Calif. have already seen prices exceed 2006 levels in 2012. This video by the California Association of REALTORS(r) spotlights California's Most Affordable Counties    Research from the California Association of REALTORS(r) shows, Home buyers needed to earn a minimum annual income of $6... 12/03/2012

The short answer to the question are newspaper ads effective for selling a home in Palo Alto is no. If you need more explanation then I am happy to give it. According to The National Association of Realtors (who studies these things extensively) only 2% of buyers find the home they buy through newspaper and print ads. My guess is in Palo Alto home sales that percentage is even less because we have such a high percentage of internet savy buyers in this area. So, why are there so many huge ads for selling Palo Alto homes? Simple answer, agents are actually advertising themselves more than they are the Palo Alto home they are selling.  That is fine, everyone has a right to promote themselves. However, if you are selling your Palo Alto home then you should be more concerned about how your h... 12/02/2012

Would You Like to Win Market Leader Pro for 6 Months FREE? Enter Now! by Michelle Carr-Crowe While many colleagues at my Keller Williams Cupertino office already subscribe to Market Leader Pro, there are more who wish they had the money to invest in it. ActiveRain to the Rescue! Enter here to enter to Win a FREE 5-Star Marketing System. As part of promoting the RainCamp online conference coming on December 05, 2012 to teach agents how to Build a Five Star Business on a One Star Budget, Market Leader is going to help three lucky agents get off on the right foot in 2013 by giving away three free 6-month subscriptions to Market Leader Professional.  Sorry, current Market Leader Pro customers are ineligible. Click here to Complete the form below and submit for your chance to Win Market Lead... 11/30/2012

The first thing to do when you are trying to sell your Palo Alto home and you find out your brick chimney is cracked is: don't ignore the situation and don't panic, it is not the end of the world. Chimneys of homes built in Palo Alto, unless they are newer homes, were usually built with brick chimneys that do not have metal reinforcements to withstand earthquakes. In the Loma Prieta Earthquake of 1989 many chimneys cracked at the roof line. What this means is that the already weak structures is even more vulnerable to coming down in the next earthquake. Many homeowners are not aware that their chimney is broken and only discover the problem when the home is inspected prior to selling their Palo Alto home.  This potentially dangerous crack can be fixed before the chimney comes down for a... 11/30/2012

The raining season is starting. If you are thinking of selling your Palo Alto home in the rainy season (Dec-March) it really is a good idea. There are many reasons that it is great to sell early in the season rather than waiting until the spring to sell your Palo Alto home. 1. School registration opens at the end of January. Since some of the elementary schools have more registrants than they have places, if you do not register your child when registration first opens they may be sent to a school in a different Palo Alto neighborhood. Many buyers want the school issue settled and do not want to wait until Aug. to find out where their children will be. 2. If a buyer sees your Palo Alto home for sale when there has been 6 inches of rain in the last week they will feel more confident that ... 11/29/2012

  There is nothing I enjoy more than helping a family sell a Palo Alto home left to heirs through probate. I know, it doesn’t take much to make me happy, but I am who I am. Over the years I have developed a system to sell Palo Alto homes in probate and it works really well!    1. Look at a home and see if there are valuables that are worth selling in the Palo Alto home in probate. Many homes are left with enormous amounts of personal property, sometimes with value and sometimes not. For example crappy cars have value, but beautiful over stuffed furniture does not.   2. If there is something of value to sell I usually recommend calling an auction house to come and take over the job of selling the personal property they believe will sell. I like DGW, but there are others. They sell the pr... 11/25/2012

Free Online Holiday Music Channels by Michelle Carr Crowe Whether you love instrumental Christmas classics, smooth jazz, gospel or Hanukkah music, there is a free Internet music channel designed with you in mind. At AccuRadio.com's Holidays Radio online, you can choose any genre of your preferred holiday music, from Celtic to only Rudolph songs to instrumental jazz.  So if you enjoy Christmas and Hanukkah music, tune in to www.accuradio.com  Some of these free online holiday music channels I like include: Classical Christmas instrumental at http://old.accuradio.com/player/slipstream/accuholidays/1083/ Celtic Chritmas at http://old.accuradio.com/player/slipstream/accuholidays/353/ Christian Contemporary at http://old.accuradio.com/player/slipstream/christian/. 11/25/2012

Did You See This? US 30-year Mortgage Rate Hits Record 3.31% As reported by Christopher S. Rugaber of the Associated Press, the US 30-year Mortgage Rate Hit a Record 3.31% today, November 23, 2012. This is great news for homebuyers currently in escrow, and buyers seeking to purchase homes in 2012 and 2013. It's also good for current homeowners seeking to refinance their existing loans to achieve lower rates. In Silicon Valley, many areas, including Cupertino, Saratoga, Palo Alto and parts of West San Jose have seen home prices return to their 2005-2007 highs, enabling newer homeowners to refinance. If you're curious whether selling a home, refinancing or buying a home makes sense for you in the next few months, Just Call 408-252-8900 for a free, no-obligation consultation. 11/23/2012

People make communities great. The ideas, friendship, things and wealth we enjoy is the result of people around us. Our children become great amazing people who will do many wonderful things in large part using the skills and curiosity nurtured by their education. I can help my community by helping my local schools. I believe that by supporting my local schools I help my family, my neighbors, and my country become better and stronger. I am a Chinese immigrant to the United States. Like many immigrants I believe strongly that my children need to have a good education. However I no longer have children in the Palo Alto Unified School District. Even college is mostly behind us. Yet I still believe strongly in the future value of our local elementary and high schools to my community and to ... 11/16/2012

When selling a home in Palo Alto one of the biggest questions is, "how should I price it?" The market is so tilted towards sellers, what should you do to get the maximum amount when selling your Palo Alto home? Should you list, high, low, or at market? Some agents and Palo Alto home sellers like to price their homes very low in order to generate as many offers as possible with the idea that this will get you the best price and terms with 5-20 buyers bidding on your home. Here are the pros of under listing your Palo Alto home: 1. You will probably get many offers and someone who is really motivated to buy may offer more than they might have if there were fewer offers. 2. Contingencies will probably be waived by the buyer in an attempt to be more competitive. Here are the cons of under li... 11/14/2012

Many home buyers ask themselves and their real estate agent "Should I buy a new home or should I build a new home?" The time involved in building a new home is considerable. I've published a diary of my own experience building a new Palo Alto home at http://julianalee.com/diary.htm. In my own case, I chose to make a significant business change during the first part of building my home. The time I needed to spend on business caused me to halt progress on my new home. After I restarted the project, the time spent making decisions about materials, appliances, lighting, paint, etc was considerable. Building a new house can take a considerable investment of your time. Is it likely that your new home will be worth more than the dollars spent building it? Yes, in my own experience I felt my ne... 11/13/2012

Stanford football on the San Francisco Peninsula, gave me the perfect time to say thank you to my clients and some of the folks who help me keep my clients well cared for.  Nearly 4 dozen of my guests enjoyed a delicious meal provided by ABC Bar-B-Que and a winning performance by our home team Cardinal. Relaxing at tables spread under eucalyptus trees in Arboretum Grove provided an ideal venue for our tailgate and an easy walk to Stanford Stadium to watch the Cardinal battle the visiting Oregon State Beavers.  The day was “California at its autumn best”.  With snow falling in the Sierra Nevada mountains not all that far away, we sat outside in light sweaters under mostly sunny skies. One of the many attractions of living on the San Francisco Peninsula is Stanford University and all its... 11/10/2012

Palo Alto homes and condos are leading Silicon Valley in demand due to increased employment in the area and lack of homes for sale in surrounding communities.  Of 59 homes now on the market (not including those in escrow), only 10 are priced under $1M. Here are Palo Alto homes and condos for sale under $1M as of November 9, 2012.  To view photos and the MLS listing for a property, click on the property’s Price.   Price Location Bed/Bath Sq. Feet $995,000 555 Byron Street #305 2/2 1,548 $948,000 3282 Berryessa Street 2.3 1,519 $805,000 1104 Trinity Lane 2/1.5 1.045 $800,000 1103 Trinity Lane 2/2.5 1,130 $799,000 750 University Avenue 2/2 1,313 $649,000 412 Pepper Avenue 2/1 748 $528,000 4250 El Camino Real #A107 1/1 885 $515,000 4250 El Camino Real #D232 2/1 880 $450,000 2464 Bayshore Ro... 11/09/2012