Hang up FIRST or risk getting caught with your PANTS DOWN!! Sometimes the things you say can backfire on you if you don't follow this adage. I spoke with a colleague yesterday and he informed me of this experience. He was on a phone call last week regarding a transaction where he is the listing agent. Let's call him 'John' for anonymous sake. The buyer's agent called him to check on the status of her buyer's offer. She asked a few questions about the property which he answered. She was playing hard-ball indicating that her client cannot go up on the pricing any further. As is his common courtesy, John normally does not hang up the phone first until the other party does. Otherwise, they may think he may have abruptly hung up on them. For this one particular instance, he waited for the ag... 02/14/2010

San Gabriel CA Real Estate - Closed SALES for January 2010 Below is a Market Statistics for HOMES SOLD in San Gabriel CA. There were a total of 26 closed sales, 14 of which were Standard Sales while the remaining were either Bank Owned REOs or Shortsales. Of the 26 homes sold, 18 were Single Family Homes, 3 Condos, and 5 Townhomes. Average Days on Market were shorter for Condos (43) vs Townhomes (57) and SFR (79). Average prices SOLD for SFR, Condos, and Townhomes were 603k, 305k, and 480k respectively. Total sales volume for the month ending January 2010 was slight above $14 million. Average SOLD/LIST price was as follows: SFR:            98.4% Condos:       96.2% Townhomes: 99.8%    Type: Single Family Residence (18)           List Price  ADOM  Selling Price  SqFt  Min  399,500 3 399,... 02/03/2010

Agent does not answer calls only email. Is this how you operate your real estate business? Is it getting you anywhere? As I was searching for properties to send to my clients, I stumbled upon a listing which had the verbage shown above. It states that the agent will not respond by phone but only communicate via email. I know technology is great and that we cannot live like dinosaurs but not answering any phone calls is rather ludicrous. I called the phone number anyways and got a voicemail which states that to leave a message as it is an answering service. Wow! Is that high tech or what?! How can you NOT afford to answer the phone? With the fast paced society we are in, it makes sense to pick up the phone. Many consumers nowadays will move on to the next person if they don't get a live ... 02/01/2010

Are you the TOYOTA of the Real Estate Industry? Toyota recently recalls over 2.3 million of its vehicles which had a gas pedal issue. As you can see, the news was widely publicized which hurt the image of TOYOTA. They are known to have reliable cars which require very low maintenance. This is the reason why they have many returning consumers due to their exemplary experience of owning a Toyota. I know for a fact that their cars are reliable because many of my family and friends owned one. The great thing about Toyota is that they took actions to rectify this problem once they realized the problematic situations they were faced with. They did what they can to arrive at a solution to make the necessary repairs. Toyota cited problems with "certain accelerator pedal mechanisms" and said it ... 01/31/2010

If you are living in San Gabriel or are thinking about relocating to San Gabriel, you've come to the right place.  This post will be updated monthly, around the first week of the month, for the previous month and will give you key real estate market indicators for San Gabriel California.  Bookmark this page and visit it each month to see how San Gabriel homes, condos and townhomes are faring in today's real estate market. If you are already a San Gabriel homeowner and would like to get a monthly email sent to you with real estate activity around your San Gabriel home, please click here and order your real estate monthly market report.  You will not be contacted by me or anyone on my team and the information will be generated automatically via email based on the criteria that you list. I... 07/24/2008

Can we close a RE deal in hours or shorter?  A Real Case (III): No Upset Housing in Some Areas of Southern California? 12-06-2007 16:20Just got back home and receive an email alert from an asset management.  Here it is:Posting Type:AgentProperty Type:Single FamilyAddress:6**2 M******* AVE SAN GABRIEL, CA View Map:Bed / Bath:3 / 2Year Built:1967Square Feet:1502List Price:$550,000.00After a few clicks, Here is the sold date and price:Recording Date05/02/2006  Land $530,400   Improvements $132,600  Now, the listing price is $550K.  Take 10% off to reach its possible market price at $500K.  Obviously it is 25% off its peak.  I was in that neighborhood almost everyday.  At the first galance, it is amazing.  As you know, generally a foreclosure Katrina will hit condo market hard first.  How c... 12/06/2007

Nov. 23, 2007 09:00A Real Case: Who cares about Average Price or Median Price! (I) Just got an email alert informing me a new REO listing up in San Gabriel, CA, 30 minutes ago.Here is the REO listing Info at the free website: Posting Type:AgentProperty Type:Single FamilyAddress:1**8 ******* SAN GABRIEL, CA 91776View Map:Bed / Bath:3 / 2Year Built:1929Square Feet:2548List Price:$699,900.00  Description:R.E.O Bank owned THIS IS AN OLD TIME CHARMER LOCATED IN A PRIME AREA. NEAR EVERYTHING. SPACIOUS 2 BEDROOMS DOWNSTAIRS AND ONE PENTHOUSE UPSTAIRS. 2 FIREPLACES,living room,dining room, family room, breakfast nook,cental air and heat,2 car garage and plently space for parking, all offer must be summited with green river addedendum. e-z to show call agent for combo codeAfter 5 clicks on my co... 11/23/2007

San Gabriel is a pretty large city, but is divided mainly in three parts.  The main two sub areas are North San Gabriel (falling into the 91775 zip code) and South San Gabriel (falling into 91776 zip code).   North San Gabriel is more desirable because it has wonderful elementary schools and is closer to San Marino.  It has beautiful tree-lined streets and mainly consists of Single Family Residences.  South San Gabriel is a little more densely populated.  It has Single Family Homes, as well as condos and townhomes.  There are also apartment buildings.  It borders Alhambra.There is also a relatively small area of unincorporated San Gabriel which has homes that have access to award winning San Marino schools.  Not too many people know about that area and quite frankly, unless you have a l... 02/26/2007

Getting a loan is an integral part of the real estate transaction since very few people have the amount of readily available cash to buy a home without financing. The first step is to fill out a loan application (1003). Once the lender has the borrowers completed application the underwriting process can begin. Underwriting is the process of evaluating a borrower`s risk factors before the lender will make a loan. The lender determines the ability of a borrower to pay the loan and determine if the value of the property is sufficent to repay the loan un the event of a default by the borrower. An underwriters main purpose is to determine if the borrower and the property itself meet the minimum standards established by the primary lender and the secondary market investor. once both the borro... 11/15/2006