Art of the Lowball

No question about it. This is a buyer's market (except in Malibu). And in this buyer's market, one of the things buyers are requesting more than ever is the lowball. By lowball, I mean an offer that's not just under asking, but significantly under asking. These are not fun for most people. For obvious reasons. Some agents still won't write lowballs for clients. But with so many houses sitting on the market, some lowballs will be accepted. And that means you can help your clients in the best way possible -- getting them a great deal! But often, it comes down to tact. And while there's a few important things I like to do in preparing and submitting a lowball offer, I found a good article that covers some of them. There's a few additional things I would do, but this is a start. CLICK HERE

Who predicted the credit crunch? ME

OK, I realize that I'm shamelessly tooting my own horn here, but I can't resist. (Sorry, Mom.)

Back in March, I wrote a blog on this site that I also sent out as a newsletter to my friends and clients. In this article, I discussed my review of the current market conditions and wrote specifically about "Access to Money," wherein I predicted that later in 2007 money would be less available for home loans. Boy was I right! Read the original article by CLICKING HERE

Understanding the Countrywide crisis

If you're struggling to put together all the pieces of the past week -- subprime troubles, credit crunch, Wall Street's reaction and, especially the impact on Countrywide -- here's a great explainer I found by financial news site FN Arena: CLICK HERE