Home Improvements that pay you back

This week I wanted to share this post that I found on the California Association of Realtors website.  

These are generic numbers. If you need any specific guidance, please don't hesitate to email or call me.

For Buying or Selling, it helps to have a guide that gives you straight answers. For more information on buying, selling, or renting out an income property in San Diego, please call Frank Rashid's cell phone at (858) 676-5250 or email him at rashid@rashidrealty.com. More to follow within the next couple of weeks.

Repairs before selling - Part 2

Continuing from the last post, here is a list of other pointers of what you ought to be looking into doing:

Kitchen Improvements
Appliances and cabinets are typically the most expensive items to replace in a kitchen. If you don't have to replace them, you'll save a ton of money. However, if your cabinets are dated and beat-up, your house might not sell if the cabinets aren't replaced.

Kitchen remodels return nearly 100%. According to Remodeling Magazine, the high-end kitchens don't return as much as the mid-range or minor kitchen remodels. Most buyers won't pay extra for a built-in Sub Zero refrigerator, professional 8-burner stove, undermount sink or travertine floors. If you live in the Midwest, your return will be less than for those who live in other parts of the country.

Cabinets
Resurfacing is your best option. This involves attaching a thin veneer to the surface of the cabinets and replacing the doors and hardware . If your cabinets are painted, add a fresh coat of paint and new hardware.

Counter tops, sinks & faucets
Granite counters are not necessary. Simple laminates, newer faucets and sparkling sinks sell. Buyers don't want leaky faucets or stained sinks.

Bathrooms
The national average of recouped cost is more than 100% for bathrooms. New floors, fixtures and lights payoff.

Roofs & Exterior
If your home needs a new roof, bite the bullet and do it. Even though most roofing tear-off jobs take one to two days, buyers shy away from buying a home if the roof needs to be replaced.

Other items you should consider:
Patch cement cracks in sidewalks
Resurface asphalt driveways
Plant flowers
Caulk windows and doors
Replace doorknobs and locks
Fix or paint fences

Conclusion
Overall, buyers want to buy a home that has no deferred maintenance, newer appliances, updated plumbing, electrical and heating (including a/c), modern conveniences and is ready to occupy.

For Buying or Selling, it helps to have a guide that gives you straight answers. For more information on buying, selling, or renting out an income property in San Diego, please call Frank Rashid's cell phone at (858) 676-5250 or email him at rashid@rashidrealty.com. More to follow within the next couple of weeks.

5 signs that it's a good time to sell

Why desperate homeowners could find relief this year
By Dian Hymer
Inman News®

Traditionally, most homes have sold during the spring months. In the current volatile housing market, the time of year is not the most reliable predictor of the best time to sell.

Homes certainly show better in spring than they do on a dark and dreary winter day. Lately, however, weather patterns are hard to predict.

The weather has some effect on home sales. It can slow things down if incessant rain keeps sellers from being able to prepare their homes for sale. However, a bigger influence on the housing market is the overall economic situation and its impact on buyers' psyche.

Normally, the home-sale market ramps up in March or April and stays busy until the beginning of July when the market tends to slow down for the summer. The 2011 home sales went counter to this. The market was active at the beginning of the year, but stalled in April. If you waited until spring to sell last year, you would have missed the best selling opportunity of the first half of 2011.

The early slowdown was partially due to the expiration of the homebuyer stimulus package. The homebuyer tax credit program accelerated home purchases creating a mini bubble in 2010 that was followed by a significant slowdown in home sales.

Negative economic news played a big part in the sluggish home sales during most of last year. The stock market was unpredictable, and the earthquake in Japan had repercussions for many industries. Plus, Greece was on the brink of bankruptcy, and the future of the European Union was in doubt.

Bad economic news and massive uncertainty lowers consumer confidence. Buyers need to have jobs, but they also need to feel confident in their future to take on a major purchase like a house.

HOUSE HUNTING TIP: The best time to sell is when consumer confidence is on the upswing; interest rates are low; unemployment is decreasing; the economic news is mild; and there are more buyers in your local market niche than there are sellers. A high-demand, low-inventory market gives sellers an edge.

The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index fell in March 2012 to 70.2 (1985=100), down from 71.6 in February, when it was up sharply.

Lynn Franco, director of The Conference Board Consumer Research Center, attributed the improvement in consumer confidence in February to less pessimism about current business and employment conditions and more optimism about the short-term outlook for the economy and job prospects despite a rise in gas prices. Franco said the moderate decline seen in March was "due solely to a less favorable short-term outlook."

Interest rates are currently at historic lows and are expected to stay low for the rest of the year. Even with low rates, buyers have had difficulty qualifying due to rigid mortgage approval underwriting.

Capital Economics, an analytics firm, expects the housing crisis to end this year partially due to lenders loosening credit. According to Capital Economics, one indicator of loosening is that banks are now lending 82 percent of loan-to-value (LTV), compared with a low of 74 percent LTV reached in mid-2010. This means qualified buyers need less cash to buy, which should lead to more sales this year, although higher home prices are not expected.

These positive indicators combined with a drop in homes for sale at the end of 2011 and a decrease in unemployment may provide an opportunity for sellers in spring 2012, provided their homes are priced right for the market. A major surprise on the economic front could change the picture.

THE CLOSING: Regardless of the economic indicators, the best time to sell is when the time is right for you.

For Buying or Selling, it helps to have a guide that gives you straight answers. For more information on buying, selling, or renting out an income property in San Diego, please call Frank Rashid's cell phone at (858) 676-5250 or email him at rashid@rashidrealty.com. More to follow within the next couple of weeks.

Apartment Vacancies Decline in U.S. to Lowest Rate Since 2001

By Hui-yong Yu

Apartment vacancies in the U.S. fell to their lowest level since 2001 as home seizures and a growing pool of young adults forming households boosted rental demand, according to Reis Inc. (REIS)

The vacancy rate fell to 4.9 percent in the first quarter from 6.2 percent a year earlier, the New York-based property- research company said in a report today. It was only the third time since Reis began gathering the data 31 years ago that the rate was less than 5 percent.

While low vacancies are helping to boost the performance of apartment properties nationwide, “risks may manifest later in the year” as multifamily developers pick up the pace of construction to take advantage of rising rents, Victor Calanog, head of research and economics at Reis, said in the report. Photographer: Chip Chipman/Bloomberg
.Renters are competing for a tightening supply of units as more homeowners are displaced by foreclosures, stricter mortgage-lending standards block purchases and young people move out on their own. In the three months ended March 31, 7,342 apartments became available, the fewest number of completions since Reis began publishing such data in 1999.

When vacancies drop below 5 percent, “effective rents tend to spike as landlords perceive that tight market conditions allow for greater pricing power,” Reis said in the report.

Effective rents, which take into account such landlord concessions as a free month, climbed almost 1 percent from the previous quarter to an average $1,018, the largest increase since the last recession began, according to Reis.

While low vacancies are helping to boost the performance of apartment properties nationwide, “risks may manifest later in the year” as multifamily developers pick up the pace of construction to take advantage of rising rents, Victor Calanog, head of research and economics at Reis, said in the report.

Reis expects about 70,000 units to open for leasing this year, about double the supply growth in 2011. Next year, the firm forecasts 150,000 to 200,000 new units in the 79 primary markets it tracks.

For Buying or Selling, it helps to have a guide that gives you straight answers. For more information on buying, selling, or renting out an income property in San Diego, please call Frank Rashid's cell phone at (858) 676-5250 or email him at rashid@rashidrealty.com. More to follow within the next couple of weeks.

Warren Buffett: I'd Buy Up 'A Couple Hundred Thousand' Single-Family Homes

Appearing live on CNBC's Squawk Box, Warren Buffett tells Becky Quick he'd buy up "a couple hundred thousand" single family homes if it were practical to do so. If held for a long period of time and purchased at low rates, Buffett says houses are even better than stocks. He advises homebuyers to take out a 30-year mortgage and refinance if rates go down.
-- “Warren Buffett on CNBC,” by Alex Crippin, CNBC, Feb. 27, 2012.

Warren Buffett is recognized as one of the most successful investors in the world. His recent comments on CNBC reflect how he feels about the opportunity available for all of us in the housing market.

This type of commentary is starting to show up in more and more places as people recognize the real value in today’s housing market. Buffett indicated that if you know where you want to live for the next five or ten years then there is no question you should buy and you should buy now.

One of the most important factors in buying a home is the mortgage. With interest rates at the lowest level in more than fifty years, mortgage payments are actually less in many cases than the rent you would pay for a comparable property. Investing in yourself instead of your landlord is another reason for getting into the game before these low rates are history.

A recent article on MSN Real Estate echoed Buffett’s comments. The article entitle “Should buyers take the plunge this spring?” by Melinda Fulmer cited increases in home sales, decline in inventory, home prices being 10% below rents and banks willingness to lend as reasons why it might be time to become a home owner.

Buffett hit the key in his interview saying that he would be a buyer because of the value that is available.

Maybe it’s time to take Warren’s advice.

For Buying or Selling, it helps to have a guide that gives you straight answers. For more information on buying, selling, or renting out an income property in San Diego, please call Frank Rashid's cell phone at (858) 676-5250 or email him at rashid@rashidrealty.com. More to follow within the next couple of weeks.

Home Bargains Abound, But Willing Lenders Are Rare Breed

By Annamaria Andriotis

Faced with finicky lenders, would-be home buyers are increasingly turning to Dad, Grandma or rich Uncle Barton—even perfect strangers they met online. While these solutions are understandable, given the abundant bargains on the market, they also present significant risks.

This year, one-third of first-time home buyers received a cash gift or a loan for a down payment from family or friends, according to the National Association of Realtors. That is up from a historical average of 27%.

Meanwhile, so-called peer-to-peer lending sites Prosper and Lending Club say demand for home-related financing is on the rise. And Weemba, a social-networking site, launched a platform in September to connect lenders directly with prospective home buyers and other borrowers.

Driving the demand, say financial advisers, is that despite rock-bottom mortgage rates around 4%, traditional lenders remain reluctant to provide mortgages to anyone with less than stellar credit. And in certain markets lenders are requiring down payments of more than 20% of the home's purchase price.

Scott Nguyen, a human-resources analyst, was denied a mortgage by several banks before getting a $15,000 loan from his mother and sister to use as a down payment on a home in Costa Mesa, Calif. Mr. Nguyen says he has agreed to pay off the loan on a monthly basis over three years, and will end up paying $3,000 in interest.

"Without my mom and my sister's help, I don't think I would have been able to buy the house that I did," he says.

In so-called intrafamily loans, the borrower often saves on interest since parents are likely to charge less than the banks, says Michael Garry, a fee-only financial planner in Newtown, Pa. And parent lenders can earn a higher return from their child's interest payments than they would on a certificate of deposit or money-market fund. Under federal law, on a loan of more than nine years, parents in most cases must charge at least roughly 2.8%.

Of course, intrafamily loans can upset the family dynamic.

Jonathan Bergman, a certified financial planner at Palisades Hudson Financial Group in Scarsdale, N.Y., recommends that parents be clear about how repayment will work. In some cases, it may even make sense to hold back on future monetary gifts or inheritance if it isn't repaid. "The power of the parents' purse is strong," he says.

Consumers who want to look beyond the family can apply at online sites like Lending Club and Prosper. If approved for a loan after a screening by the companies, applicants may then receive money from investors.

At Miami-based Weemba, some 3,000 registered users have started posting loan proposals during the past couple months. Thirty companies including banks and credit unions—up from just a dozen in September—review the applicants and directly contact those they are interested in.

However, these alternative routes to financing can be expensive for borrowers. Rates at Lending Club run from around 7% to 28%, and at Prosper from roughly 7% to 35%. The companies say these rates, which are fixed, are higher than traditional mortgage rates in part because their loans are unsecured.

For Buying or Selling, it helps to have a guide that gives you straight answers. For more information on buying, selling, or renting out an income property in San Diego, please call Frank Rashid's cell phone at (858) 676-5250 or email him at rashid@rashidrealty.com. More to follow within the next couple of weeks.

6 Reasons to Google Your Address

With virtually any type of information imaginable online, it makes sense to do regular internet searches for your home’s address. There are at least six compelling reasons it makes sense to do so, especially if it’s an address you’re thinking of renting, buying or selling. Smart homeowners would do well to search for their addresses, too, and here’s why:

1. To See If Megan’s Law Registrants Live Nearby
There is plenty of information available to the public regarding registered sex offenders in their neighborhoods. Nearly every state that has a Megan’s law-­type sex offender registry has an online version that serves up the names, addresses, sex-­offense history, and even photos in many cases, of convicted sex offenders. Googling your address and “Megan’s law”-­-­ or even your city or ZIP code and “Megan’s law” -­-­ will turn up a quick list of nearby registrants.

2. To Find Crime Reports and Data For Your Home and Environs
City, county and state law enforcement agencies all post crime data online, but a Google search for your address or city and “crime reports” is most likely to turn up your local police office’s crime map. Or, you can check out Trulia Crime Maps for a crime map of recent incident reports for the whole city, ZIP code or neighborhood. The map is color-­coded to represent the intensity of crimes in each area.

3. To Detect Scammers Trying to Rent or Sell Your House
Internet scammers have taken to ripping off home information and putting together fake listings offering other people’s homes for rent or lease-­to-­own. They often list the home on extremely cheap and easy terms, then ask the would-­be-­buyer or tenant to please wire or send the deposit money overseas. These scams often come to light only after the homeowner or current resident notices bargain-­hunters checking out the place. If you start getting an inordinate amount of foot traffic to your home, or someone knocking on your door asking if they can see the place, you may want to Google your address. If you find a fraudulent listing, identify yourself as the home’s rightful owner and ask the offending site to take the scam posting down -­ stat!

4. To See What Your Neighbor’s Place Sold For and Possibly Lower Your Property Taxes
In real estate, the value of your home is largely driven by what is similar or how much nearby homes have sold for. If you search your address, Trulia will first surface some sort of image of your home, a map, the basic property details from the public records (see No. 5, below), and recent sales data for your own home before listing out the comps -­ homes with similar numbers of beds, baths and square feet near yours, and what they recently sold for. If you see a pattern of homes selling for lower than your home’s assessed value, you can use those comps to petition your county to lower your own property taxes!

5. To See Your Home’s Property Records Your home’s records online are populated from the public records about your home, which are either so old they don’t include upgrades and additions, or they’re just flat out wrong. If you Google your address, or search for it on Trulia, and find that your home’s description is riddled with errors, contact your county public record agency to correct them and edit your home facts on Trulia. This is particularly important if you’re planning to sell your home anytime soon.

6. To See Your Home’s Google Street View When you’re selling your home, it’s especially critical to see everything that prospective home buyers will see. That means checking out how your home’s listing looks on all the online real estate sites (yes, even on Trulia), checking out the flyer -­ even stopping by to check out any staging your broker or agent did if you’ve already moved out. One thing even the most savvy sellers don’t check out is the way Google Street View depicts your home. If you’re about to sell your home, and you notice that the street view is outdated, mention it to your agent, and ask them to make a note of that fact in the listing information.

© 2011 Trulia.com · All Rights Reserved

For Buying or Selling, it helps to have a guide that gives you straight answers. For more information on buying, selling, or renting out an income property in San Diego, please call Frank Rashid's cell phone at (858) 676-5250 or email him at rashid@rashidrealty.com. More to follow within the next couple of weeks.

Tips for Yard Maintenance

Are you having difficulty keeping your yard looking healthy, but encounter dying grass or dead spots? Here are a few solutions to the problem.

Lack of fertilizer: if your grass is not fertilized correctly year round it will not use the water it gets and no amount of watering will cure this. If your yard is made up of a mixture of clay and a small but of topsoil, the topsoil becomes exhausted of nutrients very quickly and needs to be replenished. Try using a turf builder, such as Scotts Turf Builder ($13/bag @ Home Depot) and feed about 1/8^th of a bag every 6 weeks. If you want to plant seed, approximately the top two inches of clay soil needs to be aerated (loosened) and/or apply a soil penetrant, then add top soul. Then add seed and cover with top soil. The soil needs to be kept moist until the grass has grown. Sometimes it’s just easier to re-sod problem areas.

Sprinklers: poorly maintained sprinklers may not water all the areas of your lawn correctly. The water pressure can change; try testing your sprinklers and adjust periodically. Your current irrigation system may be 30+ years old. There are new sprinklers that you can buy that can more effectively water you lawn. Or, try the old standby! Use a hose that is attached to a sprinkler and spray the problem areas. Many plants benefit from deep infrequent watering. Try multiple starts per day and water.

Rabbits: Rabbits eat the grass in certain spots and as they eat the grass in that area they also defecate and urinate which acidifies the soil and kills the grass. The rabbits usually come out in the very early morning around 4 am to 6 am. Please check for rabbits destroying your yard. If you find that rabbits are the cause, get some Vitamin B1 transplant fertilizer from Home Depot and spray on your lawn each time after you mow. This will make the grass taste bad to the rabbits. B1 is about $5/gallon and you can use about 3 tablespoons in a gallon of water.

For Buying or Selling, it helps to have a guide that gives you straight answers. For more information on buying, selling, or renting out an income property in San Diego, please call Frank Rashid's cell phone at (858) 676-5250 or email him at rashid@rashidrealty.com. More to follow within the next couple of weeks.

9 ways to keep lid on energy bills

Air leaks can infiltrate surprising places

By Paul Bianchina

No one likes wasting money, especially in these tough economic times. So it certainly makes sense -- dollars and cents -- to make a small investment of time and supplies to close up those heat-wasting air leaks around your home. It'll pay back big dividends in reduced energy bills and a warmer, more comfortable house this winter. So let's look at some of the areas where those drafts may be lurking, and see how to take care of them.

1. Doors and windows: This should be an obvious one. If you can see gaps between your siding and your windows or exterior doors, close them up with a bead of clear or paintable acrylic latex caulk. Larger gaps can be filled with foam backer rod before applying the caulking.

2. Exterior penetrations: Some of these areas are going to be obvious, while some may take a little bit of searching. Some examples of exterior penetrations where air can leak into the house include exterior faucets, dryer vents, exterior electrical outlets, exterior light fixtures, holes that have been drilled for phone and TV cables, conduit penetrations, exit points for plumbing drains, and penetrations for air conditioning lines. Closing these penetrations may require a variety of different techniques, including caulk, expanding spray foam, or, in the case of electrical boxes and fixtures, specific gaskets that are designed to fit the boxes.

3. Exhaust-vent covers: Dryer vents, range hood vents, bath fan vents, and other interior ventilation equipment typically terminate outside the house in a plastic or metal cover that has one or more louvers on it. The louvers are designed to be in the closed position whenever the fan is not in use, so that outside air doesn't leak in. Check all of these louvers to be sure they're closing completely, with no air leaks. If they aren't, you can adjust the spring tension to hold them closed more tightly; add foam weatherstripping tape for a more air-tight seal; or replace the entire vent cap with a new one.

4. Gaps around interior vents and recessed lights: Inside your home, heated air can be leaking out around that same ventilation equipment, where vent pipes pass through the walls or ceiling, or where vent covers meet wall and ceiling surfaces. Recessed light fixtures can also be real air-leakers. Around the vent pipes and recessed light cans, seal any gaps with caulking. For the vent covers and recessed light covers, remove the covers, then adjust the springs and/or add foam weatherstripping tape to create a tight seal between the cover and the ceiling.

5. Heat-duct penetrations: Gaps around heating-duct cans where they pass through the floor or wall allow cold air to enter from the crawl space, while gaps around ceiling-duct cans allow heated air to escape into the attic. To close those drafts, first remove the register, then use a combination of caulking and/or metallic duct sealant tape to close any gaps between the sheet metal cans and the floor, wall or ceiling surface.

6. Fireplaces and woodstoves: Lots of gaps can occur around these appliances. With a conventional fireplace, keep the damper closed except when burning a fire to prevent heated air from escaping up the chimney. Consider investing in a set of air-tight doors, which close off the air leaks and also make your fires more efficient. Look for gaps around woodstove and gas fireplace flue pipes, and air leaks around masonry chimneys. Use a metal collar if necessary around flue pipe penetrations, and seal gaps with heat-resistant sealant specially formulated for this application.

7. Attic and crawl space hatches: These can be real air losers if they're not weatherstripped, so take care of that with some foam tape. Make sure the hatches are insulated as well.

8. Interior doors to unheated spaces: If you have any interior doors that lead to unheated spaces, including basements, garages or attics, be sure the doors are weatherstripped to prevent air leakage. If possible, replace older, hollow-core doors with solid-core or, better yet, insulated metal doors.

9. Sill plates and penetrations: This one's not as easy to deal with, but it's well worth the effort to try to do whatever you can with it. Air can leak both into and out of the house through gaps where the sill plate meets the foundation or the siding, and around plumbing and wiring penetrations drilled through wall plates in various areas. If you have a gap between your siding and the bottom of your exterior wall, especially in older homes where the use of sill sealers was not a common practice, consider closing up this big air gap with a bead of caulking or expanding foam. In the basement, crawl space and attic, if you can access any of the pipes and wires that pass through the wall plates, seal the penetrations with expanding foam.

For Buying or Selling, it helps to have a guide that gives you straight answers. For more information on buying, selling, or renting out an income property in San Diego, please call Frank Rashid's cell phone at (858) 676-5250 or email him at rashid@rashidrealty.com. More to follow within the next couple of weeks.

Top 6 reasons mortgage applications are rejected

By Tara-Nicholle Nelson

Half of refinance applications are abandoned or rejected, as are 30 percent of purchase mortgage applications, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. All told, the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC) says that well over 2 million mortgage applications were rejected last year.

Want to avoid falling into that number? It's tough -- especially in light of the fact that mortgage lenders have become increasingly restrictive in terms of their lending guidelines since the housing market crash.

Here, as a cautionary tale and primer on what to expect, are the top six reasons mortgage lenders reject applications.

1. Income issues. Most failed applications falling into this category have income too low for the mortgage amount they are seeking; often, a spouse's credit issues can create this problem, too, as the income the spouse plans to actually chip in toward the mortgage cannot be considered by a lender.

But increasingly, the recent vagaries of the job market are also causing this issue, as people who have changed their line of work or have changed from salaried employee to freelancer over the last couple of years can also have their home loan applications rejected based on income.

2. Muddled money matters. If the mortgage for which you're applying plus your monthly payments on credit card, car and student loan debts will comprise more than 45 percent of your total income, you could have problems qualifying for a home loan. You might also run into problems if you rely too heavily on bonuses, overtime, cash wages or rental income -- all of these can be difficult or impossible to get a mortgage bank to consider, and if they do, they might not take all of it into account.

3. Credit issues. Today, the mortgage-qualifying FICO score cutoff falls somewhere between 620 and 660, depending on which lender and which loan type you seek. More than one-third of Americans, by some numbers, have credit scores too low to qualify for a home loan. Even if your credit score is high enough to qualify, if you have any late mortgage payments, a short sale, a foreclosure or a bankruptcy in the last two years, loan qualifying could be difficult to impossible.

4. Property didn't appraise. Since the whole industry had its hand (among other things) smacked for allowing home values to skyrocket in a very short time, appraisal guidelines have tightened up -- some would say, even more than overall mortgage guidelines. So, it is increasingly common to have the property appraise for a price lower than the sale price negotiated between the buyer and seller.

This is especially common in the refinance realm, as well over a quarter of U.S. homes are now upside-down, meaning the mortgage balance owed is greater than the value of the home. (If you're trying to refinance an upside-down mortgage, consider the FHA Short Refi program -- contact your lender or get referrals to any mortgage broker who makes FHA details to apply.)

5. Condition problems. With all the distressed properties on the market, and with most nondistressed sellers barely breaking even, more home-sale transactions than ever are falling apart due to condition problems with the property. Many lenders will not extend financing on homes where the appraiser points out problems like cracked or broken windows, missing kitchen appliances, electrical problems, or wood rot.

And in the world of condos and other units that belong to a homeowners association, if more than 25 percent of units are rented (rather than owner-occupied) or more than 15 percent are delinquent on their HOA dues, new applications for refinance or purchase mortgages on units in the development are likely to be rejected.

6. Technical difficulties with application. The days when lenders just took your word for it are long, long gone. Applications with incomplete or unverifiable information are doomed.

If any of these mortgage loan application glitches arise in your homebuying or refinancing process, it's critical that you connect with your mortgage professional, be it your banker or mortgage broker, to determine what course of action to take.

In some cases, it might be as simple as buying a stove you find at Craigslist and installing it before escrow closes; but with income issues your mortgage pro will need to help you determine whether it makes sense to pay some bills down, get a co-signer, or even wait six months so your income documentation will qualify.

Tara-Nicholle Nelson is author of "The Savvy Woman's Homebuying Handbook" and "Trillion Dollar Women: Use Your Power to Make Buying and Remodeling Decisions." Tara is also the Consumer Ambassador and Educator for real estate listings search site Trulia.com. Ask her a real estate question online or visit her website, www.rethinkrealestate.com.

For Buying or Selling, it helps to have a guide that gives you straight answers. For more information on buying, selling, or renting out an income property in San Diego, please call Frank Rashid's cell phone at (858) 676-5250 or email him at rashid@rashidrealty.com. More to follow within the next couple of weeks.