Silicon Valley Real Estate Investor

Do you remember the game of “chicken”? This usually takes the form – at least in the movies – of two guys in cars racing at each other at full speed, heading for certain mutual annihilation. Whoever swerves first loses faces as the coward who flinched first, and the person who doesn’t swerve is considered [...]

This is not related to real estate investments per se, but I wanted to share this funny video I came across. It’s an epic saga (4-minute cartoon) of the dynamic between a homeowner and a listing agent. It captures a conversation between a seller with unrealisting expectations and an agent that, while frustrated, sounds like [...]

Ok, I admit, it doesn’t rise to Dickensian dimensions, but a couple of news articles caught my eye recently and had me scratching my chin, figuring out how, before parsing the minutiae,  I could reconcile their two seemingly contradictory headlines. Oh, the topsy-turvy world we live in!  (Which reminds me, I recently come across a [...]

If you guys aren’t familiar with ForeclosureRadar.com, you should definitely check it out. It is a great resource for researching the foreclosure market, and according to its website, is “ the only web site that tracks every foreclosure in California with daily updates on all foreclosure auctions.”
One of the great things about the site, and something they [...]

A couple of days ago the New York Times came out with an article discussing the rise in mortgage default among the rich. (See the article here but also don’t forget to check out the rich comment stream here.) As a case in point, Los Altos, one of Silicon Valleys’ nicer neighborhood,s was feature in [...]

There is a great article in one of the local real estate blogs on what it takes to buy a home in Silicon  Valley. Nothing gimmicky herem just a solid discussion on the importance of having good credit and a healthy down payment. It’s all-round solid advice.
However, I do have issue with one thing this [...]

The other day I was talking to my brother and he mentioned to me that he was starting to educate himself about home auctions because he was interested in purchasing his next home at auction. This was a new concept to him, but the more he researched it, the more he like the potential deals. [...]

ForeclosureRadar.com recently released its revamped California Foreclosure Report.

This is a must-read for the California real estate investor. The short report draws some interesting conclusions about foreclosure filing rates (123% over last year), inventory levels, discounting, and other statistics.

Over on John Barry’s blog My Life in Real Estate, he mentions an article put out by the Southland Regional Association of Realtors, explaining 5 common myths regarding the sale of REO properties.

This reminder comes at a particularly handy time. With bank foreclosures representing such a large portion of the activity in the market, as real estate investors it’s very helpful to receive a deeper explanation of some of those things we begin to take for granted. Make sure to read the whole article if you have a chance; in the meantime, here’s a high level view of the five common myths that are cleared up.

Both foreclosure activity and Notices of Default dropped sharply in Silicon Valley last month, but no one is ready to call it a trend because the underlying causes are still there – negative equity and delinquent payments.