All Forum Posts by: Gary Smith

I didn't mention I'm renting an apartment.

I can't imagine they'd give me a straght answer.

My lease is up in 2 days. I want to move, but don't have a place yet. And I don't know if I can get a place.

I want to do a month-to-month lease at $50 more, but someone told me the rent could be raised higher. But rents aren't being raised these days.
And if I went back to a 6 month lease, it would be at the price of the month-to-month lease. Is that true?

Perhaps the owners ot the site should close it down for "maintenance"

Yes, they aren't going after the people higher up. How about our wonderful government? And at the state of the union speech, Bush would say how great things were going...."Homeownership has never been higher". Yea, because he perpetuated a lot of the fraud that made Home ownership possible.

Well, the gov owns the land outright. True, the people are supposed to own the gov, but the law wouldn't uphold the constitution.

But a few years back, California DID kick out the governor.

And put in.......... Arnold Schwarzenegger. Wasn't that supposed to fix everything?

I'm currently paying $1300 renting a good apartment in Sacramento, CA. Could I likely find something cheap enough to make it worth moving. Or, stay put.

There's 3 adults in our household: 1 can't find work, 1 works part-time. But we do have $20,000 in savings.

I'm taking into concideration:
- moving expense and time
- location and crime
- Cheaper places are likely to have other expenses

And are the ads for $1000 rentals just scams or really bad areas?

Are rents likely to go down or up as the economy getts worse?

I was also thinking - If I could somehow buy a home, then if I can't pay the mortgage, maybe I can get in on one of those bailouts(half joking). If I go broke as a renter, I suppose I'm screwed.

I recently moved back to Sacramento CA after 3 years in WA. I'm looking to buy my first home this winter - to live in, and as an investment.

With so much advice from RE gurus, I'm wondering what my personal 1st priorities should be, and what I can skip.

For instance: I have 4 credit cards. My credit score is around 770(Should I still use Carlton Sheets "Credit persuit strategy"?)

I haven't been employed in 6 mo. (but I make a little money on my own) (edit: Not much chance of getting a job here...even temporary agencys aren't eccepting people to sign up)

I have $15,000 in CDs.
I have 2 banks. I'm thinking of eliminating one. Or is there an advantage staying with them?
At the bank I've been with for 15 years, I'm approved for a 40k loan.
And, in todays conditions in CA, I don't know if I could get a loan, or the best way.

Based on this info, what should I do now?

Thanks for all the input.

But I want to correct some things:

One problem is the home is 25 miles into a rural area. No one has come out here. So I made the video as a substitute.

It [size=18]is [/size]cold(30-50 degrees). It did look better in the fall. But the plants lost most of their foliage. The high quality pics on the MLS are from summer. I'll cut that video of the front.

19" :)
But yea, I'll remove the TV, and the statue.

A RE broker I know said we should make a video, and no one dissuaded me from doing it. But our current agent doesn't want to use the video.
I'm not a RE agent. I don't know how to incorporate a video into marketing.

It is on the MLS, but no showings. We almost had one; they didn't show up.

The market has slowed, but there were some comps that sold. Maybe one big problem is the area is rural, so it's more unique. It's tough to get comps that are similar (no cape cods, acreage varies alot). And the upstairs is one big room that can be turned into whatever the owner wants to do with it. I've wondered if that's a negative.

I heard you can post listings at Realtor.com. I signed up but can't see how to put up a listing.

That's what I was shooting for. I wanted to show more dimension than a picture does.

We dropped the price again. We still haven’t had anyone look at the house(5 months on the market).

We made a video and put it on youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yW32nG-v5z8
I’d like some opinions on the video, and the home.

What other sites can I put the video on?

My partners and I built a spec home(our 1st deal) and it had two appraisals at $700k.

After 3.5 months, no one had shown interest in the property. We dropped it from 720k to 650k
And now after 4.5 months, our RE broker wants to reduce it more. One of my partners agrees. I don't trust his judgement. This would mean making hardly any profit.

The property is in western Washington; rural area; waterfront; 3500 sf; the market is still going up in price, though sales are slowing. There may not be a bubble here to burst.

What's the lowest percentage we should go below the appraisal?