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Today, Claudia from Nations Lending Corp joins us to discuss the supplemental tax bill many of you have received in the mail recently. 

Once you purchase a property, you pay taxes according to the purchase price. The county doesn't adjust that immediately - it takes a few months for them to get the right number. Once it has been adjusted, you receive the supplemental tax bill in the mail. 

Once you receive your tax bill, should you just pay it? If your loan is impounded, you should contact your mortgage company and let them know you received a tax bill. You then want to ask them what the process is so they can pay it out of their impound account. 

If you have any questions about this topic, we would love to chat. Give us a call or shoot us a quick email for the real estate assistance you deserve! We look forward to being your #1 real estate resource in Ventura County!

Selling your Ventura County Home? Get a free home value report
Buying a Ventura County Home? Search all homes for sale

There are a lot of real estate agents in Southern California, so how should you decide which one to hire? Well, today we'll be speaking about what questions you should ask a Realtor to ensure that they can do a good job when selling your home or finding one for you to buy.

1. Are they part-time or full-time? You need a full-time real estate agent if you want the best results. Buying and selling homes is not a part-time job. Besides, you're paying them the same price either way, so why not have someone who is fully committed to selling your home? You want someone whose main job is selling homes and buying homes.
   
   
2. What percent of their business came from listings sold versus buyer sales? Some agents specialize in helping buyers, and some help sellers. You need to pick an agent that specializes in buying or selling depending on what you're attempting to do in your real estate transaction. If you're selling a home you wouldn't want to use an agent who primarily helps buyers find homes.
   
   
3. How many homes did they sell last year? In our market, 5% of the agents do 95% of the work. Also, the average agent only does 3-5 transaction per year. You want to work with someone who sells a lot of homes because this ensures a more smooth and seamless transaction for you.

Hopefully, these questions can help you choose a truly great real estate agent when you decide to buy or sell a home in Ventura County. 

Please don't hesitate to contact me. I'm always here to help you!

Selling your Ventura County Home? Get a free home value report
Buying a Ventura County Home? Search all homes for sale 

Today I wanted to provide you with some easy repairs that you can make on your home before selling it. These repairs are inexpensive and have the largest return on investment for you when you decide to go and sell your home. You don't need to spend a fortune to put some value back in your home when you're selling. 

1. Stage your home. It's a proven fact that homes that are staged well will sell quicker and for more money. You don't need to hire a staging company, you can declutter, organize, and rearrange your own furniture. You'd be amazed to see how differently a room can look if you just remove a couch from it and put it in another room. Simple things like this can make your home more appealing to buyers.
   
   
2. Let natural light in your home. Home buyers love natural lighting, so make sure you open up all of your windows to let the sunshine inside. This also helps to make your home look bigger. One of our secret tips is to remove your window screens to allow for more natural light to get inside.
   
   
3. Make sure that your property shows well. You want buyers to be interested enough in your home that they decide to make an offer. Little things like carpet cleaning and other minor touch-ups can make a big difference when they're all added up. Your home should be absolutely sparkling clean when buyers come inside and look at it. Clean in places that you've never thought to clean.

Hopefully, these tips can help you to sell your home this summer in Ventura County. If you would like more information about these things, please don't hesitate to contact me.

Selling your Ventura County Home? Get a free home value report
Buying a Ventura County Home? Search all homes for sale 

When a buyer opens up escrow, they often ask me what would happen if they found something wrong with the property and were unable to come to an agreement with the seller. They want to know whether the earnest money deposit is at risk in this situation.

The Residential Purchase Agreement, the default contract used by real estate agents, has certain contingencies to protect you. One of these contingencies is the inspection period, which gives you a 17-day default window so that you can order any inspections you want. During this time, you can do a termite inspection, a home inspection, a roof inspection, and any other type of investigation that will ensure you feel good about the property you are about to buy. 

Once the 17-day contingency is over, the listing agent, if he's doing his job correctly, will request that you remove your contingency in writing. Once you do that, you are saying that you are 100% satisfied with the property and that you're not going to back away from the contract. Once the 17-day contingency period ends, but you feel you need more time, you can request an extension. A week, two weeks, or any other length of time a seller thinks is reasonable can be granted. It's not guaranteed that the seller will give you an extension, but it's worth a shot if you feel you need the time.

The bottom line here is that your earnest money is not at risk. The 17-day inspection window, plus any extensions you might get, should be plenty of time to either make a deal with the seller or back out safely. If you have any questions about this topic, or if you need real estate assistance of any kind, please don't hesitate to reach out to me. I'm here to help, but most importantly, I'm here to get the job done!

Selling your Ventura County Home? Get a free home value report
Buying a Ventura County Home? Search all homes for sale 

A lot of my clients have been asking me about home warranties, so I've decided to invite Amanda Wood, a home warranty specialist at Old Republic Home Protection. 

A home warranty is a limited service contract that is intended to cover all the major systems and appliances in the home as they break down due to normal usage and wear & tear. Most plans cover repair and replacement, but there are lots of different coverage options available. Home warranties can be purchased at any point in time, not only during the Escrow period. 

Both home sellers and home buyers can purchase coverage, and home sellers are charged per day while home buyers are charged yearly. When sellers work with us, they don't have to go through the phone book looking for plumbers or other technicians when something pops up during the listing period. Old Republic has a vast network of technicians that can help you if you're using their services. 

Hopefully this information has been helpful to you, but if you require anything further, then please don't hesitate to email or call me. Always refer to me as your #1 resource for real estate in Ventura County!

Selling your Ventura County Home? Get a free home value report
Buying a Ventura County Home? Search all homes for sale 

If you plan on selling your home, you're likely wondering how much your home is worth. With more people than ever turning to the Internet to find their home's estimate, we want to warn you about the pitfalls of using websites like Zillow. 

When I discuss home values with clients of mine, they usually quote the price that Zillow told them. The question is, how accurate is Zillow? Can you trust it? To find out, I found some stats on the Zillow website. I found that in Los Angeles, Zillow's estimate is only accurate within 5% only 37.9% of the time; the other 63% of the time, the valuation you get is only within 10% of the true market value. 

I know that 10% doesn't sound like a lot, but you need to put it in context. If you have a $500,000 home and Zillow gives you an estimate that's off by 10%, you could underprice or overprice your home by $50,000! Is the convenience of Zillow worth $50,000 in equity? Probably not.

The goal here isn't to badmouth Zillow, but to make sure you're an informed seller! Really, your safest bet is to work with a real estate professional. We can find the true market value of your home and price it strategically to get it maximum exposure!

If you have any questions about this topic, or if you would like real estate assistance of any kind, give me a call or shoot me an email. I would love to hear from you!

Selling your Ventura County Home? Get a free home value report  
Buying a Ventura County Home? Search all homes for sale

Today we are going to talk about what your agent can do for you, as a seller, to make sure you maximize the value on the sale of your property in case it doesn’t appraise. 

The reason I wanted to talk about this topic today is because we have recently had some properties for sale that didn’t appraise to the price the buyers were offering. Luckily, we were able to address these issues up front before they went under contract, and were also able to negotiate a higher price in appraisal value.

What we did was counter-offer the multiple buyers on the table, and asked them to remove their appraisal contingency up front. Meaning that if the property appraised below the price they were offering, they were willing to come up with the difference in cash to make up the difference between the appraisal value and the contract price. The buyer who really wants your property will do whatever it takes to buy it.

If the gap is too big from the appraisal to the price, you can also have them remove it up to a certain amount to reduce the buyer's risk but maximize the sale of the property. Let's say the price is $500,000 and the appraisal is $560,000. You can counter them back to remove their appraisal contingency up to $10,000 dollars as well. This means that the buyer has committed up front, if the property doesn’t appraise, to pay $10,000 over the appraisal price. 

At the end of the day, if you are in this situation and follow our strategy, it’s great news for the buyer and seller. If you have any questions for us, feel free to give us a call or send us a quick email. We look forward to hearing from you!

Selling your Ventura County Home? Get a free home value report
Buying a Ventura County Home? Search all homes for sale

Recently, many buyers going into escrow ask us if they should hire an inspector. These buyers want to avoid spending the money on an inspection. My suggestion to all buyers: yes, get a home inspection!

Instead of thinking of inspections as additional costs, approach them as an additional investment. If you're buying a $500,000 home and there's a serious issue, would you rather know before or after closing escrow? Most buyers would want to know before!

Hire a professional home inspector to examine the property. We've had situations where the inspection finds major problems with the roof, plumbing, or electrical systems. That way, the buyer can either negotiate with the seller about the repairs or the buyer can walk away.

Inspections are important. With inspections, the buyer is 100% aware of the condition of the property, and can make an educated decision on what's best for their family.

If you have any questions for me, give me a call or send me an email. I look forward to hearing from you!

Buying a Ventura County Home? Search all homes for sale

My team and I have heard from a lot of sellers lately. Although these sellers had no trouble selling their homes due to low inventory, they cannot find that next dream property. Don't give up on your hopes and dreams yet. Today, I'll go over three of our proactive techniques to help you find a home that's not listed on the MLS. Check it out!

Expired Listings

• Using MLS data, my team and I go back six years, looking for properties that were listed but didn't sell. We reach out to those homeowners and ask about their real estate plans for 2016. Often, we are able to connect our buyers to one of these homeowners.

For Sale By Owner Properties

• We also reach out to For Sale By Owner properties that are listed on sites like Craigslist and Zillow. These properties are great options for buyers who cannot find anything on the MLS in their price point.

Neighborhood Searches

• Let's say you're looking in a specific neighborhood, like the Victoria Estates tract. My team and I will make a map and call homeowners in that area. We ask them personally about their plans for real estate in 2016. This is a great way to find motivated sellers for our buyers.

So, if you want to find a property but your dream home is not on the MLS, give us a call. Using our proactive techniques, we can find you the right property at the right price. We look forward to hearing from you!