Bernard Gibbons - The English Agent

Many of us are regular viewers of programs like Weekend Warriors and Landscaper’s Challenge on HGTV and they make it seem so easy. But those of us that have followed their examples know it generally isn’t as easy or as affordable as is often suggested. Sure, the materials for some of these projects may not cost a fortune but that is often all that is considered. The TV producers frequently get contractors to donate their time in exchange for the valuable publicity they receive, so the true cost of the project is never appreciated. Still, it usually makes a good story.

The problem with many home improvement projects is that they simply cost too much to accomplish when compared with the value they add to your home.

The book pictured here, “450 Ideas To Help Your Home Sell Faster“, contains a wealth of information and suggestions for no-cost or low cost things you can do to improve the value of your home. I have acquired distribution rights to this excellent book and my primary intention was to give a copy to all of those sellers I work with who have the time to carry out some cost-effective improvements before placing their home on the market. Having digested the contents, I quickly realized that even if you don’t plan to sell your home for a while, this is an excellent resource for ideas to make it more pleasant to live in. This is no small brochure. There are 52 pages of content covering every room in the house as well as the outside and even the garage. If you would like a copy, send me an email to bernard@bernardgibbons.com. I will send one to you by return email within a few hours. There is no cost or obligation to you and I hope you find it of interest.

If you are thinking about buying or selling anywhere in the San Ramon Valley or Lamorinda and you need advice on any aspect of the process, give me a call and I’ll arrange to meet with you and evaluate your situation. There is never any obligation and I am always happy to hear from you.

One of the biggest headaches most people face when selling their home is how to tie it into the purchase of the home you are moving to. Should you sell first or buy first?

If money is not an issue, there is no problem. Just buy your next home first and then list your existing home for sale. But for most of us, money is an issue so that approach won’t work very often.

First Carry Out A Feasibility Study

Having decided you want to move or you need to move, the first step should be to see if your expectations are realistic. There are two key questions you have to ask yourself. The first one is a two-step question: “How much can I realistically expect to sell my present home for and how much cash will that leave me with after settling the outstanding loan and costs associated with the sale?”

The second question to ask is “Based on the cash I will have available after selling my present home and the amount of monthly mortgage payments I can afford and qualify for, can I realistically expect to buy a home that meets my expectations?”

You will have noted that “realistically” is a key word in each question. Realism is crucial to holding down your stress level.

Answering The Questions

The answer to the first question can be found by seeing what homes similar to yours are selling at now. To do this, you need to use a local Realtor who will have access to such information. Call me or another agent you know and trust, and you should have the answer to your first question within a few days.

A Word Of Warning

Don’t be tempted to shortcut the process by using a web site such as Zillow to get an automated valuation of your home. These are notoriously inaccurate.

The Home Search

Now you know how much you can spend it is time to see what is available. This time the Internet does come to your rescue. There are various ways to use it of course. You can go on to some web sites where virtually every home listed on any Multiple Listing Service in the country can be found. Or alternatively, you can use a web site like mine where you just search homes for sale in the local geographic area where you want to buy. You will still see all of the homes that are listed for sale in the area complete with all the data that is available but the search procedure will be less cumbersome.

Putting It All Together

By now you know if your plans make sense. If not, you can either adjust your expectations or just decide to stay where you are a while. But assuming that you want to make the move, your next step is to get your home ready for sale, another area where an experienced Realtor, such as me, will provide you with lots of help and advice. And then get it on the market.

What If It Sells Too Fast?

While your home is on the market, you should be aggressively searching for the home you want to buy. Then as soon as you agree a sale, you already know which home you want to write an offer for. This is how most people tie the two transactions together. A useful tip is to list your home with the proviso “seller may need a 2-4 week rent-back”. This allows for the fact that simultaneous closings are not always easy to arrange so the move is much better controlled.

Another approach you may want to think about is listing your home “contingent on seller finding a replacement home”. Again, this takes away the possibility of you selling your home and having nowhere to go.

Buying Before You Sell

Provided that your home is listed for sale at a realistic price, there is nothing stopping you writing an offer on another home, Contingent on you selling your present home. Contingent offers are not the most attractive offers to a home seller but provided that the buyer’s home is priced realistically, a seller will sometimes consider it.

Other Options

If you really want the most stress free sale and purchase, I recommend that you consider selling first, then renting on an interim basis while you find your next home. Yes, it means moving twice so there are some added expenses but a number of clients of mine have done this and they say it was definitely worth it, not just for relieving the stress but it also gave them time to find the prefect home.

If you are thinking about buying or selling anywhere in the San Ramon Valley or Lamorinda and you need advice on any aspect of the process, give me a call and I’ll arrange to meet with you and evaluate your situation.

I wonder how many of my readers even know of the existence of this little restaurant. A relative newcomer to the Danville restaurant scene, it is nestled down a short walkway off Hartz Avenue, just a little south of the Veterans Hall.
It may be small but it makes terrific use of every inch of space. To get to the entrance, you pass by the outside dining patio, then on entering, you find yourself in what feels like a very stylish, yet informal, wine bar where there is a lively buzz of conversation, a long bar with stools, surrounding an open kitchen, and as many tables as can sensibly be fitted in. And they do need every table. Mangia Mi is obviously becoming one of Danville’s most popular eating places for those in the know.
Sylvia and I visited for an early dinner on a Tuesday in September. We expected to find a pretty empty restaurant, but already it was filling up. They don’t take reservations, incidentally, and it does get full, but people seem happy to wait for a table while they have a glass of wine. As it was a beautiful evening, we took a table on the patio and enjoyed a glass of chardonnay while we perused the menu, where the emphasis is on quality, fresh ingredients and relatively simple but authentic Italian food.
We both passed on the appetizers and went straight to the entrees where Sylvia decided, for a change, to have a pizza, where they had five or six varieties to choose from. Her selection was the “Carni Suprema” - Marinara, mozzarella, pepperoni, sausage, meatballs, and caramelized onions. This was a thin crust pizza with a generous amount of topping and we both agreed it was delicious. The small (ten inch) one was just right for one person (plus a small slice for me).
For my entrée, I had one of the day’s specials - grilled prawns with a mango salsa, served on a bed of mesclun sald. I wondered if I needed a side dish with that (the menu had a few sides) but our waitperson thought probably not and she was right. This dish comprised six or seven enormous prawns that had been cooked to exactly the right point on a grill and tossed in a phenomenal mango salsa. Very, very tasty.
As this is an Italian restaurant, I figured that a tiramisu for dessert would be a good test of authenticity, and they passed with flying colors. In fact this may have been the best tiramisu I have ever tasted.
If all of this sounds like it may be expensive, nothing could be further from the truth. All of the main courses are under $20 (even a filet mignon!) and most are under $15.
Don’t miss Mangia Mi. This is now one of my favorites. Read more about them on their website at www.mangia-mi.com.

Buyers and sellers are still asking me if the real estate market has bottomed out and if prices are going to rise any time soon. In view of the contradictory reports you read in the national press, this is not surprising. One week we are in recovery mode, the next week we see predictions of a "double-dip".

It really doesn't matter what you read on a national basis. It is really all meaningless because real estate is local. How can you expect to see similar markets in California and Ohio? Even the East Bay and the South Bay have vastly different markets to each other.

The best indicator of the market is to consider like against like. So as I have done many times before, I will review the selling prices of the average 4 bedroom home in the our local areas, over the last 4 quarters. That should be a good indicator of the direction in which prices are headed.

There Are A Few Surprises

Take a look at the chart below. Obviously there is nothing to make you think that dramatic price changes are taking place but it is fairly obvious that prices are certainly not on the increase.

In the 94582 zip code of San Ramon (that is primarily Gale Ranch and Windemere), prices seem relatively stable, while in 94583 their appears to be a slow but steady decline. Danville appears to be following suit, as does Walnut Creek apart from a slight blip, whereas Lamorinda (the communities of Lafayette, Moraga and Lafayette) seems more stable.

Digging A Little Deeper

So what is it that holds prices steady at best or contributes to a continuing decline, albeit at a very slow rate? The answer is related to two factors.

We are still seeing a high proportion of distress related sales throughout the East Bay. People who are having problems making their loan payments, are being forced to attempt a short sale or just accept a foreclosure.

More short sales are being approved now than used to be the case and the banks are getting more efficient at the process but there are still many foreclosures taking place. Bank owned foreclosures can often represent an excellent deal for a buyer but the down side is that today's bargain price becomes tomorrow's comparative sale that an appraiser has to consider when valuing a home for new purchaser in the area. The consequence is that appraisals are often considerably lower than was anticipated by both the buyer and seller in a transaction and then the transaction either gets cancelled or (more often) gets the sale price re-negotiated downwards. All of this conspires to hold down prices.

When Will Prices Start To Increase Again?

I don't ever expect to see the kind of increases we experienced in 2004 and 2005 but we will see homes appreciating in value in the foreseeable future. The determining factor is when the short sales and the foreclosures start to peter out and that will probably not be for a couple more years.

This does not mean that you should not buy or sell. These are great times for first time buyers and the low interest rates are good for all, but inevitably, they will soon start to increase.

If you are thinking about selling but you don't know if it makes sense for you, give me a call and I'll arrange to meet with you and evaluate your situation. My contact details are on the cover. There is never any obligation and I am always happy to hear from you.

I've dined at many steak houses on both sides of the Atlantic but I was surprised to realize recently, that I had never had a meal in an Outback Steakhouse. And I had even worked for an Australian company for 6 years! It seemed like it was about time...

In case you don't know, the Outback is an Australian themed steakhouse restaurant. Although beef and steak items make up a good portion of the menu, the concept offers a variety of chicken, ribs, seafood, and pasta dishes. They emphasize consistently high-quality food and service, generous portions at moderate prices and a casual atmosphere suggestive of the Australian Outback.

Interestingly, the Outback is part of the same company that operates the considerably more upmarket and expensive Fleming's Steakhouses, of which we have a local branch in Walnut Creek. I wondered how impressed we would be with the Outback considering the low price-point of most menu items.

Sylvia and I visited their Pleasant Hill location quite early on a Friday evening and already the restaurant was almost full. We had not made a reservation and we were fortunate to get a table. This is a very popular restaurant and I would definitely make a reservation in the future.

In many ways, the Outback is not that dissimilar from many other steakhouses with its subdued lighting and a shortage windows etc. Where it does differ is that it is clearly a casual dining establishment as opposed to fine dining and the clientele spans a wide range of age groups. While we were there, we saw numerous families and quite large groups as well as couples and smaller parties.

Neither Sylvia nor I wanted an appetizer. Not that we weren't tempted but we wanted to leave room for dessert.

For our main courses, we both chose steak dishes. Sylvia had Filet Mignon with Wild Mushroom Sauce. The menu described this as sliced filet and she was expecting fairly thin slices. When it arrived, it turned out be quite sizeable thick slices of steak that were tender and tasty and covered in a generous portion of a marsala and mushroom sauce. Quite impressive!

I opted for one of their seasonal specials, the Prime Rib and Crab Cakes combination. Was I glad I had skipped the appetizers! The two crab cakes were delicious and would have made an excellent appetizer in their own right, while the 8 oz slow roasted prime rib would have been a very satisfying main course, even without the crab cakes. Full of flavor and exceptionally tender. Both dishes came with vegetables and garlic mashed potatoes but they happily substituted "Aussie Fries" for the potatoes and they were also cooked just right.

We ended our meal with a shared New York Style Cheesecake with Raspberry Sauce and this totally came up to our expectations. So as you will have realized by now, we thoroughly enjoyed our visit to the Outback and we will be back again before very long.

One thing to note - the wine list could be more interesting. Not that this was an issue for us as we often take our own wine to reaturants. In this case we took along an excellent bottle of Chardonnay, for which they charges a meager $5 corkage. That is the lowest I have ever heard of.

You can read more about The Outback and read complete menus on their website at www.outback.com.