Realtor: “Don’t Call Me, I’ll Call You” “How about never? Is never good for you?” —New Yorker cartoon, showing two people scheduling a get-together. About 2-3 times a year, I handle a deal opposite an agent who seems to have a perpetually full voicemail box. Which begs the question: “is that on purpose, or are...Read More
Better Than Blueprints: The “Jumping-Up-and-Down” Test One of the issues that can come up for downsizers moving from a single-family home to multi-family housing (condo or townhome) is privacy — specifically, noise. I don’t know about townhomes (see below), but I do know a surefire, albeit not-so-scientific way to test how quiet a given condo...Read More
Contractor: “Uh-oh, I Think I Just Hit Some Kind of Line!” When someone lists their home, their Realtor is responsible for having the utilities (gas, electric) marked before the “For Sale” sign is installed (confession: at bigger brokers, our front desk automatically takes care of that for us). But, what if the owner is (re)doing their...Read More
“Something-for-Nothing” vs. “Nothing-for-Something” Editor’s Note: President-elect Trump has his negotiating secrets, I have mine. Or did — keep reading . . . 🙂 Ever wonder what the secret(s) to successful negotiation are? By definition, every deal is unique. And, when it comes to buying and selling homes, it’s always a negotiating advantage to know more about...Read More
Post-Election Aftermath: Stock Market Boom, Bond Market Bust Overshadowed by all the political fallout the last week is the election’s effect on interest rates: up, quickly. According to Edina Mortgage’s Steve Mohabir, subsequent to the election, interest rates for a 30-year mortgage for well-qualified borrowers jumped a huge (“Yuge??“) 50 basis points, from 3.5% to over...Read More
Serving the Country, or Himself the Next 4-8 Years? Once everyone recovers from our collective, national OMG moment, what’s next? For the approaching Trump Administration, I’d argue that step #1 isn’t making key White House personnel decisions, appointing Cabinet members, or (God forbid), tweeting in response to inane provocations. Rather, it’s putting his business interests...Read More
