In 1970, folk rocker Steven Stills sang the song,,,, If you can’t be with the one you love, "Love the One You're With".

Real Estate sales in 2011 were a little bit like that song.

The number of available For Sale homes on the San Mateo Mid-Peninsula was 11% lower in 2011 than in 2010 and 30% off of its peak during the boom. Because of the limited number of available homes to choose from, some buyers are having a hard time finding the home that they love. Many of these buyers don’t want to wait for the home that they love, for fear of the interest rates going up.

My buyers of this house in San Mateo had been renting it for several years, but didn’t really love it. We looked at several other homes to buy, but they couldn’t find anything that fit their needs.

Rather than miss the opportunity to buy with record low interest rates, we made an offer to the owners of the house that they were renting to buy it. The offer was accepted and now my client owns the home. The best thing was that they didn’t even have to move.

After they bought the home, I connected them with a local architect who is helping them turn the home into something that they really do love.

With today’s Technology, You don’t even have to be in the country for me to Sell Your Home…Chris Eckert’s Condo sale in Hayward Park

I recently sold this Condo in San Mateo’s Hayward Park:

217 – 8^th Ave. San Mateo

The owner was being transferred to Frankfurt Germany, so she hired me to sell her Condo.

Prior to leaving the United States permanently, she would be traveling almost every day. This meant that it would be difficult to sign the important documents for the transaction in person.

For most of the documents, we decided to use Docusign. This would allow her to sign documents no matter where she was, even from her cell phone.

The most challenging signatures that we had to worry about were the final closing documents. Since she was likely to be in Germany by the time we were ready to close escrow, she would not be able to come into an Escrow/Title Office in the US.

Closing documents must have a “wet” signature(handwritten), so we could not use Docusign. Most countries outside of the US do not have Title or Escrow companies where you can go to sign documents. In order to get an official US document notarized, foreign travelers have to make an appointment and go to the US Embassy. My client was reluctant to deal with the US Embassy in FrankFurt Germany, since they are notorious for having long wait times for appointments.

The alternative that we came up with was to have her sign a “Limited Power of Attorney” so that one of her friends could sign the closing documents for her. The friend would not take possession of any of the proceeds from the sale, since the money would be wired directly from the Title/Escrow office to the Sellers bank account.

Fortunately, the property sold so fast that the Seller was able to stop at the Title/Escrow Company on her way the airport. We ended up not needing the limited power of attorney or the US Embassy.

If you know someone who may have challenges in selling their home, call me and I can help find a way to make it easier.

Selling a home with City Building Code Violations, by Chris Eckert

On Tuesday, we FINALLY close escrow on one of my listings in the North Shoreview neighborhood of San Mateo.

1514 Monroe Ave – San Mateo

Staging by Kerry Roth – Décor Staging

It only took us 6 days to sell it, but 3-1/2 months to close escrow, and it isn’t even a short sale.

The property was listed for $475,000, and we received 8 offers, all for over asking. We took the best offer, which was $503,000.

Everyone was congratulating me on selling it so fast, until I got that dreaded call from the City of San Mateo Code Enforcement Officer saying……..”Chris, this is Officer xxxxxx from San Mateo Code Enforcement. We received a complaint about an illegal in-law unit at the property that you have listed. You are going to have to pull this house off the market, until I can come out an investigate it”

My client, an Investor, purchased this house directly from the prior owner. The prior owner was facing foreclosure and had IRS tax liens against the property, so he was anxious to get out. The prior owner reported to the Investor that there had been code violations regarding the in-law structure in the past, but that he had corrected them ((I should note here that I didn’t even know the Investor at the time of the purchase or I would have verified with the City of San Mateo that the code violations were taken care of))

When the Code Enforcement Officer visited the property, he cited the In-Law structure as being completely illegal. He indicated that it did not meet current building codes and might have to be torn down. The Investor was terrified, since the In-Law structure; with its full bathroom was what really added significant value to the property. In addition to the code violation with the In-Law structure, the house was also cited for having other improvements made without permits (rear deck, remodeled kitchen, no handrails leading to the 2^nd floor, new electrical service, etc). All of these improvements had been done to code, but without the necessary city permits.

Here is where I get to brag about only doing business in a small geographic area J. Because I am so involved in the local community where I sell (eg:Rotary, Chamber of Commerce, etc), I immediately knew who to call. The person we called was not only a local Architect, but also served 2 terms on the City Planning Commission, so he knows the local ordinances and all of the people at the city. The Investor hired him to represent the property and get everything into code compliance.

The Architect did some research and found that the accessory structure met the seldom used city code definition of a Home Occupation Accessory Structure and could therefore be legalized. That meant that we did not have to tear it down. The Architect also applied for permits for all of the other work which had been done and after 2 inspections, got that approved too.

When we initially were hit with the code violations, the Buyers got scared and backed out of the transaction. After the Architect was hired, I arranged for the Buyers to meet with him, so that they could understand the City Approval Process and the timeline for getting everything approved. Feeling comfortable, now that everything was in the Architects hands, the Buyers committed to buying the house once again.

Throughout the entire 3-1/2 month approval process the buyers were kept informed and stuck with the purchase. They are happily closing escrow on their Very First Home on Tuesday.

What I have written here hardly does justice to the hundreds of phone calls, voice mails, city meetings, emails and missed deadlines that it took to put this deal together, but the Seller and Buyers are happy with the end result.

What are the lessons learned from this transaction?

· Do business with a local Realtor who specializes in an area. That way, if something goes wrong your Realtor will know who to call to resolve it.

· Don’t rely 100% on what the Seller says about the house. Verify permits and possible code violations directly with the city.

I am in contract right now with a buyer on a $1,000,000+ property. The buyers have very high incomes, their credit scores are in the high 700’s and they are putting 30% down.

This sounds like a loan that any lender would be happy to have and yet we are still having to jump through all kinds of silly hoops.

First, the underwriter wanted to know where a $4,000 deposit to their checking account came from. These people are putting down $318,250 and the lender is worried about where a single deposit of $4,000 came from.

Now the lender is concerned about a USED Washer & Dryer that the Seller is leaving behind. We couldn’t get $500 on craigslist for these. The lender is requiring that we get a bill of sale for them, or create a separate addendum specifying that “The Washer & Dryer have no value and that they did not affect the sales price of the property”. I just don’t get this. What if my buyers agreed to pay $500 extra for a house(they didn’t), so that the sellers would leave the Washer & Dryer? That is only .0047% of the home price.

My only job here is to get the home for my sellers, so I am doing whatever the lender wants, but a lot of it seems like a waste of time to me.

When is a Realtor like a Travel Agent?

NO, it’s not what you are thinking. It’s not when a relocation buyer has you spend the whole weekend showing them around the area and then they decide NOT to take the job.

I was just thinking about this the other day.

My wife and I are taking a 2 week vacation to Europe this year. We have never been there before, so this is very special for us. It’s going to cost us about $15,000, so we want to do it right. We spend 2 days in Venice, then take a small cruise ship along the Dalmatian coast to the Greek Isles and end up in Athens Greece.

We booked the whole trip through Nancy Harmon – Travel by Trellis.

I could have booked this all myself online and probably saved thousands, but what would I have really missed? Would I have spent more of my time researching this than I saved in money?

In an effort to save $$$, I may have missed out on things that I didn’t even think about. One example is that The Travel agent got us a great hotel room in Venice, one that has a balcony over the canal. She actually stayed there herself, so she knows firsthand that it is good.

I don’t care about how much commission the Travel Agent is making, all that we care about is that we are paying a fair price for the trip and that we get what we want. Isn’t that the same with a buyer or seller? Aren’t they OK paying our commission, as long as they get what they want and pay a fair price for it?

How many times has a Seller hired a discount agent because they could save some commission, without ever knowing that the agent had one of the worst List Price to Sales Price ratios in the area, or that the agents % of expired listing was higher than most of the other Realtors in the area?

How many times has a Seller tried to sell FSBO(For Sale by Owner), because they didn’t realize how much skill it actually took to sell a house? (eg: ForSalebyOwner.com Founder Uses Agent to Sell Home)

I will report back to you in late October to let you know how happy I was that I chose to work with a FULL PRICE Professional.