Unlike most retirement communities located in the isolated suburbs, the 9 story residential tower located at 2550 Dana St known as the Berkeley Townhouse Cooperative (BTC) features urban living at its best. What is urban living? It is where opportunities for shopping, restaurants, cafes, and culture are all within walking distance.

In the case of the BTC, here are just a few of the things nearby:
Berkeley Bowl
Whole Foods
Andronicos
Peet’s Coffee
Noah’s Bagels
Shakespeare Books
Moe’s Books
U.C.Berkeley’s beautiful park-like campus
A.C. Transit bus lines
And in Downtown Berkeley:
BART
Several movie theatres
Berkeley Rep Theatre
Jazz School and club
Many excellent restaurants

Unit 8D in the BTC is for sale. This is a 680 sq ft south facing unit with exceptional views of San Francisco, the Bay, the Golden Gate bridge and the Berkeley Hills. There is one bedroom and one bath, an open and inviting floorplan, and five different closets. What was originally an open lanai (balcony) has been enclosed for additional living space. The kitchen has a new refrigerator and a rarely used stove. This unit also includes a deeded parking space in the garage (not all units include parking).

The building has a total of 60 units. The common areas, all on the ground level, include a commercial kitchen, card room, movie area and several social areas. There is also a separate library/reading room.

The original promotional material, when units were first offered for sale (1962), brag about the quality of construction, with 9” concrete floors and double walls for soundproofing, wall-hung toilets (for easier cleaning), and a basement garage with a floor between four and ten feet thick (and 5,544,000 lbs of concrete!).

Unit 8D is on the market for $352,000. Attractive financing is available.

Showings are by appointment with listing agent Brett Weinstein

View photos and more information: Berkeley Townhouse Cooperative

There are two ways to handle “negative” equity. First, if the seller had the funds available, he could pay off the negative equity by writing a check to the lender(s) at the close of escrow. This way the lender gets paid in full and there are no adverse consequences to the seller’s credit rating. The second way is with a “short sale”. The assumption here is that the seller does not have a load of cash to make up the deficiency. It is also often that a seller in this situation has stopped making payments on his mortgages and is suffering from a degraded credit rating because of this. Foreclosure could also be on the horizon.

With a short sale, the seller (or seller’s real estate agent) asks the existing mortgage holder(s) to accept less than the outstanding balance on the loan. Under the right circumstances, a bank will agree to this because it will be less costly to them when compared with their only other alternative: foreclosure.

How does an agent get the lender to agree to a short sale? Having successfully closed 5 short sales recently, here’s what I’ve learned: it takes technical skill, a lot of patience, and an understanding on how to negotiate with the bank employee ultimately left with the decision to approve the sale.

Continue Reading Part II for the “How-to’s” of a Short Sale.

The technical skill involved in getting a short sale approved by the Seller’s lender starts with knowing which sellers are good candidates for a short sale and which are not. For instance, someone who is simply “upside down” but can otherwise afford to pay the deficiency is not a good candidate. Just because the seller says he cannot afford to pay is not sufficient. The agent will have to look closely at the seller’s complete financial profile (income, assets, liabilities, credit rating). I’ve come across a few short sale listings where the listing agent did not do her homework, and thus is really just wasting everyone’s time. The rest of the technical skill comes from knowing how to assemble and deliver a good “package,” providing all the information that the lender will need to make their decision. Each lender may have a different “punch-list” of documents that they require.

Patience

Patience is not only a virtue but a requirement in a short sale. It is required of everyone: the seller, the buyer, the buyer’s lender, and of course, the agents involved. One deal I did recently took 3 months before getting approval. Keep in mind this was three months of NOT knowing if they would approve the sale. They could have taken all that time and then told us NO. During the wait, it is possible that interest rates rise, making the property less affordable to the buyer. The buyer’s lender will want to “lock-in” an interest rate, but most rate locks expire after 30 days. That’s not likely to be enough time. And it can be awfully frustrating for the seller, who is trying to “do the right thing” and not walk away from the property, and is otherwise trying to move on with his life. All the while, the listing agent is trying to follow up and inquire about the status of the package, only to not have repeated voice messages to the lender left unreturned.

CHECK BACK FOR PART III - Short Sales: Negotiating with the Lender

Written by: Brett Weinstein

2334 Curtis St

The upstairs “owner’s unit” has 2+Br/2Ba, with approx. 1,248 sq ft of living space.

Purchase Price: $1,050,000

Downpayment: $ 250,000

Loan Amount: $ 800,000

Interest Rate: 5.875% (30 year fixed, 0 points)

Monthly Payment (P+I) $ 4,732

Property Taxes (T) $ 1,532

Insurance (I) $ 150

TOTAL PITI $ 6,414/mo

Less existing rents $ (3,646/mo)

Effective Monthly Cost $ 2,768/mo

Compared to

2 -3 Bedroom/2 Ba single family home in the same neighborhood, in roughly the same move-in condition, would cost you approx. $625,000 today.

Purchase Price: $625,000

Downpayment: $250,000

Loan Amount: $375,000

Interest Rate: 5.75% (30 yr fixed, 0 points)

Monthly Payment (P+I) $ 2,188

Property Taxes (T) $ 912

Insurance (I) $ 100

TOTAL PITI $ 3,200/mo

Effective Monthly Cost $ 3,200/mo

Loan terms were provided by Ted Maniatis at MPR Financial. (510) 527-6146.

These rates were available on Friday Feb 8, 2008 but are subject to change.

A Rarely Seen High-Peaked Colonial Revival Fourplex in Berkeley!

It is an architectural rarity in Berkeley to see such a well-preserved and tastefully updated half-timbered and high-peaked Colonial Revival property. This one built in 1911 by the carpenter Arne Lundgren. Berkeley’s Architectural Heritage Association (BAHA) even produced a little write up on this one, readable at:
http://berkeleyheritage.com/essays/high-peaked_colonials4.html

At some unknown point in its history, it was converted to a triplex, and in 2004, a fourth unit was created in a newly enlarged basement area.

But the real feature of this property is the upstairs “owner’s” unit. This comprises approximately 1,248 sq feet of light-filled living space, 2+Br/2Ba, gleaming hardwood floors, spacious rooms, and entirely new electrical/plumbing/heating systems starting from 2000. The master bedroom is behind the east facing, hill-view balcony and features a walk-in dressing room with its own washer and dryer! The master bath has a sumptuous 2person glass block shower stall. The kitchen, dining and living areas blend together under a dramatic open-beam cathedral ceiling. A 3^rd bedroom or family room opens from here, as does a north and west facing deck with a gas line for endless bbq-ing. Need more storage? No problem here: there is a large stand up attic accessed from a pull-down stair, plus a ground level storage room for your bicycles.

Downstairs are 3 rental units, comprised of two 1Br/1Ba apartments plus a studio. The garage was converted into a home office space and is separately rented. The combined rent generated is $3,646/mo. At today’s interest rates, this will pay for approximately $600,000 in mortgage!.

You can take a photo tour of the entire building by going to:

http://www.realtyadvocates.com/2334.html

You are invited to come to our open houses, on Sundays Jan 27 and Feb 3, from 1:30-4:30pm.

]]> http://realtyadvocates.com/wordpress/2008/01/26/berkeley-architectural-rarity-high-peaked-colonial-revival/feed/ http://realtyadvocates.com/wordpress/2007/11/01/why-do-sellers-still-list-with-agents-charging-6-percent/ http://realtyadvocates.com/wordpress/2007/11/01/why-do-sellers-still-list-with-agents-charging-6-percent/#comments Thu, 01 Nov 2007 18:03:36 +0000 admin Real Estate Commission For Sellers http://realtyadvocates.com/wordpress/2007/11/01/why-do-sellers-still-list-with-agents-charging-6-percent/

Why Do Sellers Still List with Agents Charging 6% (or even 5%)?

This is a continually perplexing question for us, and one which probably has several answers. First, we think many sellers don’t realize that commissions are not fixed. The big real estate companies spend a lot of effort training their agents to focus on the service-side of their pitch and not on their fees. To support their rigid pricing structure, many agents will argue that if you pay less, you will get less. Its all a smokescreen, of course. There is no shortage of unhappy sellers who paid 6%. Loyalty is another reason, as sellers will often return to the agents who helped them buy their house initially. And although we certainly cherish the same long-term relationship with our former clients, we continue to work towards having sellers take a closer look at a comparable service that will cost thousands of dollars less.

Brett Weinstein

The slogan of Pacific Union GMAC Real Estate reads “Service you Deserve”. I can’t help but wonder how this works with clients that have low self esteem, or even self loathing. These people have a day-to-day belief that they don’t deserve anything good. Or how about the criminal or sociopath that likes himself just fine but is really evil. He might deserve to be hung from a tree. So if these folks go to Pacific Union, will they live up to their slogan?

Brett Weinstein

Thriving Office

“When customers call, have your home office project the image of an established, successful company that is bustling with activity. Play the Thriving Office CD in the background to bring the sounds of an office to your home. The CD features two 39-minute tracks, “Busy” and “Very Busy,” and contains such sounds as ringing phones, typing keyboards, and mumbling voices. $12.95”

Isn’t this great. The group responsible for instilling the “Realtor Code of Ethics” to its 1,366,869 members is endorsing fraud. Brett Weinstein

A good packet will contain a current pest control inspection from a locally known and reputable company. Next will be a general home inspection report, written in narrative form, also from a locally known and reputable inspector. If the general inspection revealed specific and serious defects, i.e. a suspect foundation or an exceedingly old furnace, these findings would be followed through with specialty inspections, i.e. engineering or heating contractor. Next up would be a video inspection report of the sewer lateral. Lastly, you would find disclosure forms completed by the seller with their specific declaration of defects, malfunctions, hazardous materials, work done with/without permits, natural hazards, earthquake retrofitting and lead based paint.

A “not-so-good” packet can come in two forms. The first would be a very “skinny” packet, perhaps with just a pest report from an unknown, out of area inspector. Or the seller just replies “don’t know” to just about every question.

The second is the exceedingly “fat” packet. A fat packet might have all the good stuff included but it is buried amongst a ream of only marginally relevant, and often, very old information. The seller’s agent might even include all the disclosures from the previous sale, even after a house has been completely renovated. Some of these fat packets have been 150 pages, or more!

Whenever you see a fat packet, you can be sure that at some point in the past, the listing agency (not necessarily the agent him/herself) has been sued for failing to disclose something. The fat packet is strictly a lawyerly response to the question “what is important to disclose?” Answer: “Don’t try to figure this out. Give them everything!”

Now, I’m certainly not advocating that a seller shouldn’t disclose something from a previous sale, or distant history. But the listing agent should take the time to cull the packet for the most relevant and timely info and place this first. The rest of the stuff can be given to the buyers after their offer is accepted, assuming the buyer has an inspection contingency.

Needless to say, unnecessarily fat packets are a pet peeve of mine. On my listings, I spend a lot of time thinking through what does, and doesn’t belong, in the packet. I make sure the info is presented in a logical sequence, and that most, if not all questions about the condition of the property are easily answered. This way, the buyer can feel comfortable making their offer “as-is” subject to their own inspections. If I’ve done my job right, then the buyer’s inspectors won’t come up with anything that I didn’t already cover in my packet.

Brett Weinstein

The buyer then makes an offer “as-is” in regards to all the disclosed information, but still subject to their ability to inspect the property themselves during an inspection contingency.  At the end of the inspection period, the buyer can do one of 3 things:

1. They are satisfied with the results of their inspections and still want to buy the house per the original terms. The inspection contingency is removed.
2. They are not satisfied with their inspections and wish to back out of the transaction.  This can be done without penalty.
3. They still want to buy the house, but….

The “but” is that they want the seller to agree to a price concession based on information learned during their inspections. Here’s where the notion of “good faith” comes in.

If the buyer asks the seller for a concession based on information that was contained in disclosure packet, I would consider this done in “bad faith.” This takes a lot of nerve, and certainly will not please the seller.  Will the seller agree? Only if there is nothing better on the horizon, or he is desperate.

However, if the buyer is asking for a concession based on newly discovered info, something not covered in the disclosures, I consider this fair game, and done in “good faith.”

The moral of the story is that the more thorough the disclosure packet, the less chance for a buyer to discover something new in the course of their inspections. I’ll cover what constitutes a thorough disclosure in another post.

Brett Weinstein