Advice / tips on buying real estate (Oakland, Santa Clara: for sale, insurance, assessor)

[Chuck5000]

You're getting great advice in this thread. Bottom line is that if you can afford it, and have the downpayment and can get the schools and square footage you need, buying is better than renting right now, and if you are committed to staying here 10+ years, you won't lose money by buying. (Less than 10 years? People could lose serious money).

You should be getting great advice and referrals from your realtor. If you are not, j88cal is correct.

You might want to look at USGS "shake" maps to make sure you're not buying into a liquefaction zone without being aware fo that.

[Lanienguyen]

From my experiences of 3 times to deal with this process, the 1st priority is Location, location and location. Last down turn few yrs ago, the price went down little or nothing in the great location. It went down 10-20% in the good location, and 40-50% in the bad location.
-Do your homework, such as Flood area from Fema's map.
-Basis inspection won't help you anything. So if you think it's just minor effect, ignore it. From my previous purchases, the building inspection always state " Not reliable for behind the walls". Well, no owner would let you open the walls and inspect them. Even I had hired inspectors, but 2 houses that i bought had a major water damage to the floor/wall structures when I open for remodeling.
-Expect to have 10-20k for unexpected thing above.
-Condo and townhouse have HOA take care the building structure. You need to buy only 6x6 insurances if you buy those kind of property.
Now a day, lots of realtors out there. It hard to know a good or great one. Just remember, people say " The realtor get paid from the seller".

[dburbs1975]

the best realtor is the one that the listing agent wants to work with. period. in a competitive situation that is the only way you will be able to buy.

properties that are sitting on the market > 14 days often have some very major problem. next door to a blighted property, on a street where homeless people are known to park their RV's overnight, EXTENSIVE termite damage due to zero maintenance for the forty years the owners have "loved" the home...

and there's much, much, more.


I advise to go to open houses for a minimum of six months and start reading through the disclosure packets of places you think you want. See what it is like.

Also, call the cities you are considering living in. Palo Alto, for example, will talk to you about a property, and have online parcel reports available for the purpose of lot development, and an online R1 development manual. Mountain view has online resources that are not so robust, but has a booklet online for R1 development rules that is pretty clear. Other cities have less info, and cities with sloped lots have additional restrictions on what can be done on steeper slopes.

I would advise many hours of research on your own before even dealing with a realtor. What you don't know can cost you very dearly here.

[Ultrarunner]

If you are really serious and can do your own searches my best luck is to go with the listing agent which is allowed here... seems to give a slight edge because both sides of the deal are more money to the Listing Agent and the ones I use will also rebate the seller a point if they pick up both sides... so with two offers being the same... mine would actually net the seller and Realtor more...

[jonlovet]

As chuck mentioned, i agree that you are getting good advises in this thread. Also I agree to jk88cal. I am almost in similar situation as you are just that my budget is not that great. I submitted an offer (10k above asking price) and it got rejected because sellers agent enforced 'no appraisal contingency'. My agent wanted to have some other clauses in agreement that would support me but I felt it too risky to go forward with it. On top of that sellers agent was too pushy in time lines which I was in no position to make. for eg, deposit EMD asap. I can't do that because i have to first negotiate with house owner for lease break and do paper work and write a check etc. Conclusion is- I lost the house and there is no house available in the neighborhood I want for my budget at all now. Other house which I was thinking of submitting offer - I can't have inspection contingency. They(sellers agent) gave me inspection report and I have to accept it. Good houses are getting closed in super fast rate (less than 7 days) and there are some calculated risks that buyer has to take.

Napacap: the things you mentioned, you hardly have time to look into those. By the time you present offer with multiple clauses, it is most probably rejected. Even sellers are not willing to take basic things like inspection contingency. And there are multiple buyers which can offer to waive as many clauses as possible. I have a friend whos offer got rejected because counter offer had like 50% downpayment.

[dburbs1975]

^^ correct. if you want a half decent place you need to take for what the seller wants you to pay. best forget about any reasonable contingency that would be completely sane in any other market. I have trouble believing that these tulip bulbs are really worth this much.

[Ultrarunner]

Even coming in 100k over with only one contingency of a survey paid for by the buyer was not enough due to timing... as in being a couple of hours after the acceptance of a lower offer...

[jk88cal]

dburb mentioned about using seller's agent. I agree. If buyer is experience, knows the market and pricing, can negotiate (on paper), and don't need buying agent support; then go with seller's agent. On other hand, first time buyer should have buying agent.

On finding good agents: I recommend not going thru friends' referral, especially if they are first time buyers or only bought couple times. Just because they were able to buy 1 home using their agent, doesn't mean those agents are any good. One suggestion is to use LinkedIn. Search for realtor. Then find ones that have many recommendations, such as 25 or 50+. LinkedIn is a professional network, so recommendations are not anonymous and come from buyers/sellers who are typically working professionals.

On contingency: take a look at this data from 2013.
Just how common are non-contingent offers? | JohnFyten.com

Really, what is the purpose of contingency? For a well prepared buyer, the contingency is nothing but a tool for buyer to back out. If a family is making the biggest purchase of their life, and they are not committed on buying but need a way out, then that is buyers' issue.
- The inspection contingency should be non-issue because seller already have the house inspected. So cost of repair is already known.
- Appraisal contingency: kind of out of buyers' hands. But buyer should know the market. If overbidding, need to have $ backup for 30-40% downpayment
- Loan contingency: Again, if buyer is experienced and gets pre-approved loan, this is also not an issue.
- Contingent upon selling current house: forget this one.

Something I do care about is the lead paint inspection, which is typically not done by buyer. So best to reserved $5k for clean up and repainting, especially for older home.

[Ultrarunner]

I had one contingency... I needed to know the property boundaries on a rural 5 acre plot and was willing to pay for it... everything else was as-is where-is.

[dburbs1975]

the counties have parcel maps.

here is one interesting tidbit I have learned. The agents are lying about the lot size OFTEN in mountain view.

use the Santa Clara Assessor office tool to find the actual plat map and see if you can calculate out the lot size. If the lot has a funny shape, CALL the assessor office and talk to a mapper for an estimate. This can make a huge difference.

We looked a property with listed 8600 sq ft lot in R1 zone in mountain view and a little free 'leg work' proved the parcel was more like 7600. This is the difference between a property that allows legal companion unit and one that does not. The home had an addition that clearly was used in the past as a rental and was not legal. I asked the realtor about the lost size and the answer was "what do you think the lot size is?"

He is a professional bull**** artist.

Be aware of that.