John Buys Bay Area Houses Blog

You can sell a house without a realtor in the Bay Area two ways. Selling it yourself usually takes 60 to 90 days. A cash sale to a local buyer can close in as little as 7 days, or whenever you choose. Here's how each works and what it costs.

How do cash home buyers calculate their offer? They start from what similar homes nearby have sold for, subtract the work your house needs and the cost of closing, then name one number. You choose the closing date, anywhere from 7 to 90 days.

Owned solar panels sell with the house. A lease, a power purchase agreement, a solar loan or a PACE assessment has to be taken over by the buyer or paid off. Here is how each one works in a California sale, and what happens to your net metering plan.

Paying a tenant to leave is legal in California, but San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley each set the steps: a notice of rights before any offer, a filing with the city, and days in which the tenant can cancel. Here is how buyouts work, and when selling with the tenant in place is simpler.

San Mateo sits at the midpoint of the Peninsula, twenty miles from San Francisco and twenty from San Jose , and that position is the entire argument for living here. The best neighborhoods in san mateo sort less by prestige than by which compromise suits you: more lot and more driving, or less square footage […]

Crime statistics in this region tell a story that reputations miss by years. The safest cities in the bay area cluster in predictable places, Danville and San Ramon in the East Bay valleys, Palo Alto and Saratoga near the Peninsula’s edge, Fremont among the larger cities, yet safety varies block by block within every one […]

Ask ten residents about living in oakland ca and you will hear ten different cities described, which is precisely the appeal. The flatlands near the lake, the hills above the fog line, and the BART-connected corridors each offer a different daily rhythm at a different price, generally well below San Francisco across the bay. This […]

Alameda is an island, and nearly everything about daily life there follows from that one fact. The city sits in the estuary across from Oakland, reached by two bridges and a pair of tubes, with a ferry that lands downtown San Francisco in about twenty minutes. Living in Alameda CA means fewer ways in and […]

Heirs can sell a Bay Area house with a reverse mortgage, and escrow pays the loan from the sale. HUD gives the family about six months after the last borrower dies, with up to two 90-day extensions, so who signs and when matters from the first letter.

You can sell a California house you still owe on. Here is how escrow orders the payoff demand, why it runs higher than your balance, what happens to a HELOC and the deed of trust, and what to do if you owe more than the house is worth.

An underwater mortgage changes the math of a sale before any buyer walks through the door. Needing to sell house for less than you owe is not a dead end, though. California leaves you several defined exits: bring cash to cover the gap at closing, negotiate a short sale, or work out modified terms directly […]

Renovation math in California starts with a hard truth: labor and permits here cost more than almost anywhere else in the country, and Bay Area projects sit at the top of that range. Anyone asking how much does it cost to renovate a house should really ask two questions, what the work will cost and […]

In California, the agent under a durable power of attorney can usually sell a parent's house. Here is what escrow and the title company check, why the power gets recorded, what a living trust or a conservatorship changes, and why the power ends when your parent dies.

Knob-and-tube wiring does not care what decade it is. Thousands of pre-1980 Bay Area homes still run on electrical systems that inspectors flag on sight, and the cost to rewire a house in California lands well above national figures once permits, labor rates, and the state’s code requirements enter the estimate. Complete projects commonly range […]

Most California homeowners who set up a revocable living trust never picture selling the house while they are still here, and then circumstances shift. A move closer to family. A health event . A property that has quietly become too much to maintain. Selling property held in living trust before death is generally straightforward, because […]

Termites are ordinary in Bay Area housing stock. Redwood framing, mild winters, and a century of wood sitting close to soil mean a pest report with findings is nearer the norm than the exception. Selling a house with termite damage is therefore less about concealing a defect and more about controlling the paperwork before a […]