,Real estate pricing is very localized and while Santa Clara County is seeing pricing lower than expectations, homes in the peninsula and SF are still rising.

My theory is that since there is such massive insecurity in not owning the roof over their heads, surrounding and in some cases burying themselves in junk is like self-medicating against the anxiety.

The response I received is as follows "Your Appraiser is and was aware that sales 1 and 2 (the two units in my condo that were used for the appraisal) have lower level finish It was included in the GLA  due to the fact that these units were all finished at the time of conversion (the condo was created and basement finished in 2005 when a developer bought the former mansion and split it up into units) with similar material and quality.

A little lower than asking (140K and 120K), but with 10K earnest money each.

I paid it off last year.I've had 2 others with same terms, but lower rates. 

Thus, the vacancy rate for this area is lower than 2%.

It wasn't anywhere near the magic ratio of 1.5 rents/purchase price but with a slight bump in rents and if they accepted a lower offer, we might get the ratio pretty close to 1.25 which I was ecstatic about in this market.

After building some rapport, he offered a 23 unit brick complex in a solid location on the New Britain /Kensington line for 300k down then eventually lowered it to 250k down for a length of 10yrs @ 6% and wants 55k per unit.

I'm building a duplex and using a lower cost builder who doesn't do any of the site work. 

I don’t ask for any lower agent fees when selling and she gets paid when I buy so it’s a win/win.