San Diego Real Estate Cafe by Krista Lombardi
Archive for the 'Daily Grind' Category
Used Car Anyone?
Was this your Realtor?
Do you remember in 2004 and 2005 when selling San Diego real estate was easy as pie? There were well over 28,000 real estate agents in San Diego county and the general public was annoyed. It was easy money and everyone wanted it.
How about now?
Well guess what. The California Department of Real Estate reported last Wednesday that they are revoking licenses at a record rate. Seems that used car salesmen and come out in all markets.
Looks like the used car salesmen are dropping out and the slimeballs are getting kicked out!
The Dirt On New Short Sale Laws
The dirt on short sales
So the housing crash has left at least 11 million people in the unenviable position of owing more on their homes than they are worth.
Although it seems grim, we are in a much better place than we were in the fall of 2008. That was a scary time.
We’ve had a year and a half of first time homebuyer tax credits, some states are receiving aid to struggling homeowners, and now we have something new on the scene through the HAFA program that we hope will help too.
This federal foreclosure prevention program has been expanded to encourage delinquent homeowners to avoid foreclosure. What it does is streamline the short sale process.
How does it work?
Red Flags That Mean It’s a Real Estate Scam!
You’d think after everything that has happened with the housing economy (and the economy in general) that everyone would lay off the scams. Well they won’t.
Real estate and mortgage fraud are vast. An estimated $4 billion to $6 billion in annual losses result from it according to FBI reports.
Entire communities can be damaged, as we’ve seen recently. Real estate and mortgage fraud can lead to foreclosures, lenders raising rates and fees to compensate for losses, and spiraling home values.
What is scary about this is that the crimes are usually complex and they usually involve more than one party, many times one that seems official, only they’ve duped a logo of a legal entity.
Here are the 5 red flags that a real estate scam is going on:
1. Short Sale Scams
Don’t Get Stuck Between a Rock and a Hard Place With Bank of America!
Bank of America is facing a class action lawsuit, something that I’ve been waiting for for a long time.
The number of despicable actions that Bank of America has taken against homeowners is unfair, irrational, and possibly illegal.
I feel that most of the banks are guilty of this, however Bank of America is definitely the one with the most number of documented abuses.
In case you don’ t have first hand experience with putting a short sale on the market, let me explain before I gleefully fill you in on the details of the class action lawsuit.
Important City of San Diego Phone Numbers
It never dawned on me to print up a list of the numbers for the City of San 
Diego to bookmark and have on hand.
Normally I google them, but why not have them all at your fingertips instead? It’ll take you less time!
Here you go:
Important City of San Diego Phone Numbers
New Program Makes Solar Energy More Affordable for Homeowners
The sun shines every day in San Diego (besides last week), why 
don’t we use solar energy more?
People have been pushing for solar power for years but the big hold up is the cost to use it. It looks like that might change with a new tax program.
A 60-employee panel installation firm that has been behind some of the SAn Francisco Bay Area’s biggest solar power arrays has gone mainstream, scaled up operations and driven down costs but still only generates less than 1% of the nation’s electricity.
Why?
Failing Credit?
43 million people + now have a credit score of 599 or below putting them in a “poor risk” category for borrowing money.
Five or six years ago everyone was living the life of a rockstar, buying up that San Diego real estate and sporting a Mercedes, and now we see the foundation of what we stood on and what sustained us falling away. The credit scores of millions more Americans are sinking to new lows.
25 % of consumers which is almost 43 million people have a credit score below Read the rest of this entry »
Maybe the Russian Spy Listed the White House for Sale?
Redfin, the online real estate company seems to be on a roll. First they list the White House for sale by owner for $10 million and the newest scandal is that they have a Russian spy hired as a real estate agent.
Am I coming down too hard on Redfin?
Like they always say, “You get what you pay for.” Get $1,000.00 back at close, but we don’t negotiate a penny for you. In one Redfin transaction that I had, the Redfin agent was out of town weekly, cell phone turned off and no one to fill in for her in her absence. I’m sure that she could have negotiated a little more for her clients….if she’d been around. I always say that you can save 1%, but I can negotiate $10,000 for you. Which one is greater?
Back to Redfin.
A few weeks ago the real estate website listed a “DC Charmer” as a for sale by owner. I saved the listing for you to see.
Fast forward to today and now we have an alleged spy employed by Redfin.
I Want to Pay the Bank More Money But They Won’t Let Me!
Peace of mind
This is an interesting conundrum!
One of my friends and clients wants to modify her loan from an ARM to a fixed loan.
Guess how long she has been asking the bank to make this change.
One week? One month? One year? Wrong, wrong, and wrong…
She has been calling the bank everyday for one year and a half.
7 Key Points to Combat Toxic Drywall
Homeowners from 37 States across the nation have complained about toxic 
drywall.
What is this phenomenon?
Around 2008 homeowners began complaining that they had houses with smelled like rotten eggs or burning matches.
Rotten eggs? I giggled over that, but apparently it was much worse than just the nasty smell, their walls were turning black. Not to mention that the smell was so bad it was making them sick and the coil for the air conditioners was being eaten away by it, rendering them useless.
At that good old peak of 2004 and 2005, the notorious years which led to our real estate market now, the drywall manufactured in China contained toxins that created this issue.
If you think that you have toxic drywall issues, here are the key things to know:
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