🔴[LIVE] 🚨 Junk Fees? Just say no!
- Grey paint is dead! What's the next color https://www.realsimple.com/outdated-paint-trends-7111739
- Homeowners say 5% is the magic number to make them move https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/05/mortgage-rate-tipping-point-homeowners-say-5percent-is-the-magic-number.html
- Be in the know, just say know to Junk Fees
- This Weeks Highs and Lows
- Homebuyer Workshop https://event.webinarjam.com/register/6/8oz4kcg
- HOME SEARCH https://www.onereal.com/vito-scarnecchia-1
- TITLE THEFT IS ON THE RISE WHAT IS IT, HOW DO YOU PROTECT YOURSELF AND WIRE FRAUD http://blog.abitano.com/2023/08/title-theft-is-on-rise-what-is-it-how.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CjImRuAgT0
http://blog.abitano.com/2023/09/live-junk-fees-just-say-no.html
Be in the know, just say know to Junk Fees
Rates https://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/mortgage-rates
Homebuyer Workshop https://event.webinarjam.com/register/6/8oz4kcg
HOME SEARCH https://www.onereal.com/vito-scarnecchia-1
TITLE THEFT IS ON THE RISE WHAT IS IT, HOW DO YOU PROTECT YOURSELF AND WIRE FRAUD http://blog.abitano.com/2023/08/title-theft-is-on-rise-what-is-it-how.html
Good morning. Three things you need to know about living in Silicon Valley. First, we're going to talk about being the know. Actually, the three things we're going to talk about are, one, gray homes. Dead. Gray paint. And I have a little bit to talk about that. And then homeowners say that 5 percent is the magic number to make them buy houses.
And be in the know, just say no to junk fees. All right, let's get moving into this. We're also talking about this week's highs and lows in Silicon Valley. Gray homes, gray paint is dead. I don't know what to tell y'all. I told you that three, four years ago, it was a trendy color, right? We all knew that.
Grey paint is dead! What's the next color https://www.realsimple.com/outdated-paint-trends-7111739
Gray is dead. Long live gray. Actually, what's back in shape or back in fashion or back in style? Beige. Yeah, go figure. Beige or grayish, but there you go. And, I get it. This is before Barbie came out. I think it came out February. Pink, guys, girls, ladies, people, just say no to pink. There's a shortage of it anyway.
Ha. Bullshit on the white. White is cool. White is timeless. You can always do white and it doesn't have to be pure snow driven white. It could be any kind of shade of white like shades of gray, but it's something you have to realize that white is always going to go together with things, but I can tell you.
Pink, not so much. Red, not so much. We actually used to have a wall that was about this rusty It was called maple leaf red. Yeah, that was back in the early 2000s. So we got rid of that We're all beige in our house. If you look back there, you can see beige, right? Navy blue and dark green and again, I call bullshit on that because if you have it There's a reason why you have it because it goes with the flow of the color of your furniture So that's just me right some timeless paints that you can do.
Okay. So here's where it comes into play Right timeless. They just call blue Dark blue. Oh, but it's not navy blue. It's faro and balls haig Claire's current mood, which is a green simply white again going back to white you can go a beige white you can go gray white you can go a pink or a red hue white It doesn't have to be pure driven snow white It doesn't you can mix it up and make it look that and here's the thing When you go to sell your house, and it's white Yeah, you can scrub off some of the marks that your kids leave behind but at the same time it looks bigger airier It looks brighter and that's what we're going for when we're selling houses not this dreary gray beige Look and feel and by the way when I Redid my master bathroom.
We did it all in gray and white. So I'm screwed. I'm not going to change it. No, I'm going to leave it. I don't know. Who knows? But anyway, PPG's ponytail another word for beige, right? I know guys can only see five different colors and women can see like 23, 000 or 64, 000 Different colors and all that look at this crimson.
Wait, didn't it just say that red is out like right here So guys, here's the thing do what you want When you live in your house, when it comes to selling your house, talk to your agent, they know what's going on. They see houses, they see hundreds of houses every day, every week, every month, and they know what the cool colors are.
So if they're saying your house needs a facelift, easiest thing to do it's not super cheap anymore in California. Somebody just asked me, how much does it cost to paint the house? And I go it depends on the size, but you're looking at about 6, 500. Now it's a lot of money. But it is what it is.
Homeowners say 5% is the magic number to make them move https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/05/mortgage-rate-tipping-point-homeowners-say-5percent-is-the-magic-number.html
Homeowners say 5 percent is tipping point. I'm saying it's 6, 6%. Cause right now we're roughly around. 7. 3. And of course they're selling you with fees and points. And this number is arbitrary. You can't look at that number and say it said 3, 600. That's probably just the junk fees, which we'll get into in a minute.
On top of a point includes this, which assuming it's a 400, 000 loan or, Oh no, it's a 320, 000 loan, right? So you're paying points to knock it down the price. And that's an option that you can do, right? As a matter of fact, we go into the highs and lows. We could talk about that a little bit more, but if you're buying a house that's brand new on the market, you're probably not going to be able to negotiate very much.
But if we're buying a house that's been on the market for 30, 40, 50 days, there's some stuff you can ask by the seller, including points and closing costs. And that's what we're doing right now to help buyers get into houses. It's true. Gas is just painful.
I looked and looked for the 469. I think that's baloney. That needs to be updated because what I'm seeing is a minimum of 499. I think I saw one 485, but that's cash. And that was, yeah. So anyway, there you go. Okay, higher mortgage rates have created a so called golden handcuff effect. It's true.
Nearly 82 percent of homeowners feel locked in by their existing low rate mortgage. Yeah, you bought a house in the firestorm of 2021 22. What did you expect, right? I never said it was a great time to buy. I always tell you to buy when the market's going down or stalling.
80%. Yeah. There's a tipping point. Okay. So it's 5%, 5. 5%. I don't know why they say 5 percent here, but that's marketing for you. Here's the thing, right? Remember that there's nothing stopping you from buying the house that you really want, right? You just have to pay for it. And right now, if you're in Silicon Valley, you're going to pay through the nose.
Period. It's just the way it is. We're going to get into that in a second as far as the volume and the momentum of our market compared to other markets in a minute, but be in the know just say no to junk fees. So What am I talking about?
If you go with discount brokers or the younger brokers or brokers that I'm not, I don't know who does it. I know a few P agents that do this and perplexes me why they would ever do this because they're already. Taking you for a lot of money. And I understand we charge a lot of money. It's a lot of money to sell a house.
I get that, but that's how we make our living. But we have other costs, right? We have broker fees, professional fees, insurance costs, insurance is going through the roof. We have living costs, cost of living here is crazy. So you just, I get it. But if you're paying for a service, you have to do it.
What I don't like and. I was I wasn't required. I was strongly suggested when I was brand new in the market to charge transaction coordination fee, a broker fee, a storage fee.
Hang on a sec. It's. It's criminal. It's not criminal. It's just, they're already charging you enough. Those fees are what the broker charges the agent to do business for them, right? Because we have this thing where we negotiate our split with the broker. And if you're really good, then the broker has less split, right?
And that's just the way it is. There's other fees that are always involved. Insurance, you have a transaction fee, you have a transaction coordinator fee. These are all fees that come out of the commission. They come out of the split, which is why I left compass because I was getting eaten alive by all of these extra erroneous fees that magically appeared after I worked with them.
I have no problem with them, by the way. I have absolutely zero problem with Compass or Coal Banker or any of the big companies. It's just, I have to do business that way. Because I will not charge my clients these erroneous junk fees. They come out of my commission. They come out of my split. And if I make a mistake, they come out of my commission, period.
I'm an adult. I've been doing this for 20 years. I'm not perfect. I can tell you straight up that I do make mistakes and I'm not going to make you pay for it. If I make a mistake. I pay for it. If you make a mistake, sometimes I paid for it, right? If my escrow company pays, makes a mistake, I pay for it because they have a slim margin, and I have a great relationship with them and I will take care of it.
That's because I do a number of deals every year and I can afford to do that. If I was a, if I was a desperate agent and charging junk fees to my clients, I probably wouldn't be able to do that kind of stuff. I would have that small mindset. I have a mindset of abundance and I'm here to serve, not to charge you tons of money.
For little for a little bit of service. It doesn't matter that way to me I'd rather make sure my reputation stays intact that I'm here for a very long time. I've been doing this for 20 years I have a decent reputation. I think I have a decent reputation I'm not here to take extra money out of my pocket as a matter of fact sometimes I reduce my commission to pad things over to make Transactions work for my clients because it's not about the money for me.
I make good money It's just, I'm, I'd rather have a good service, offer a good service. So if your agent is charging you junk fees, you have to ask them about that transaction coordination fee. That's transaction coordinator works for the agent so that they do all the paperwork for the agent, not for you.
If there's a broker fee, that's the fee that the broker is charging the agent, not you. If there is a paper. documentation storage fee. That's just an erroneous bullshit junk fee that your company is charging you. And some brokers charge the agents that, but that's just the way they do business, right? I'm not saying it's good or bad on the broker side, but I'm saying that if they're charging, if the agent is charging you that.
Then you can say Vito, how do I know what my agent is charging me? You have to ask for something called a net sheet. And that's when you go to closing you have all these extra fees or All the other fees there's escrow and title and taxes and transfer tax and all these other things and then you also have to pay for your inspections, etc just be aware of what's going on and always ask for a net sheet.
If you're at a listing appointment or a buyer's consultation with an agent, you asked him for an example of a net sheet. And if they can't provide one for you, that means that they're hiding something from you because they know they can get it from their escrow officer. I have a spreadsheet that I mock up just so that I'm.
As transparent as possible so I can show people what the charges are, how much is going to go. And if we sell for this much, this is about what you're going to, what you're going to wind up with on, 5 percent variance because we don't know what the sales price is. We don't know we're going to close, et cetera, but it's at least an example, a draft of understanding it.
So anyway, I digress. Let's see.
Again, title theft is on the rise guys. I don't want to tell you this, not getting a lot of traction on this. And I don't like, I think this is like life insurance. Yeah. Or the trust, if you, there we go. Much better. I'm always like leaning into it. If you own a house and you don't have a trust, get a trust.
I know you don't have time. Just do it because there's a reason why there's a bunch of videos that I've done and go to silk at Silicon valley, living. com and type in trusts. You'll understand why it's the same thing here. Guys, protect yourself. I have a friend that just called me up on this.
I think she saw this video and she's Hey Bito, can you help me out? I'm looking at this friend of mine who has elder parents and here we go. We're down the rabbit hole and just make sure you protect yourself. Okay. Call me, call your favorite agent, whatever. Ask them to do a title search on your house, your parents house, et cetera.
It takes them literally 30 seconds to do it.
Santa Clara County Hi's and Low's
These are not my listings.
Let's talk about highs and lows. Van Buren Street in Los Altos. Again, these are not my listings. These are the highs and lows in Santa Clara County. Listed for 8. 5 million. Sold for 7. 3. That is 85. 9 percent. Drop, not drop variance in there. Now this is a nice house. It's older, 1945, 78 years old, four bedroom, four and a half bath, 4, 100 square feet.
It looks like a ranch, but it looks like it's been built out, right? Take a look at this thing. Nicely done. Everything is just beautiful, but it's overpriced. Why is it overpriced? It's overpriced because it was listed on that, on, on the MLS for weeks, months, almost three months. But it's beautiful.
Look at the landscaping. I love the parted cement right there. Why did it not sell? Because it was overpriced. When I say it's overpriced, I'm not saying it's overpriced. It probably was worth 8. 5 at one certain time. Maybe I don't know, April of 22, 2022. But look, you got the Viking fridge.
You have every, it's just a beautiful house. Was it worth 8. 5? Possibly, but it just goes to prove that a house is worth what a buyer is willing to pay for it. Let's sit on the market. You overprice it. I'm not in a hurry to sell my house. Then you're going to lose money because the longer your house sits on the market, the less money you're going to make. Period. And more leverage.
There's no camera where that door was. That's pretty cool. Whatever they did. The longer the house is on the market, the more leverage the buyer has. Just remember that, right? This is an awesome looking house. This is, it's beautiful. Is it worth 8. 5? Again, it might've been back in 2022, but when you let it sit on the market, the buyers know and they'll come in and buy it for what they want to buy it for.
Now this is San Jose Baltic Way, 1200 square feet, four bedroom, two bath. Built in 1959, 64 square feet, and I only have one picture to show you, so there you go. By the way, when you sell your house, or buy a house, you can ask the agents, and if the agents can't do it the MLS can do it for you, you can remove all the pictures.
For privacy, or whatever, I don't really think it's a big deal, because I think it's nostalgic. to be able to look at it. Okay. So the highest list price to sales price ratio, 141%, 41 percent over list price. That's crazy. Elmer way. Again, it's not my listing for better three baths, 2021 square feet built in 1969.
And this is Cupertino School, I want to say. Let me see the map,
put this down for you. Make it a little bit better for you.
So it's Rainbow Area, Stelling, that's
that's DeAnza, I think? That's Monta Vista, that's Monta Vista, that's Kennedy, DeAnza. Cupertino's right here. That's Apple. So yeah Cupertino school. It might be sounds the address, but it's Cupertino schools. And let's set, let's sit low, sell it high seven days. I bet it had multiple offers.
Right.
And again, a house is worth what buyers are willing to pay for it. So you go in an area where people are buying houses for 3 million. That's the average price, right? There's nothing special about this house. There's just a lack of inventory. I sold exactly the same house here in South San Jose is worth six.
No, I think I sold for 1. 3, 1. 4. It's exact same house, same little step down.
Okay. And the lowest sold price list price to sales price hubris, because it was worth, it had 0. 78 of an acre listed at a million dollars set on for almost a year. Get that.
This is 949, sold for 700. That's 85%? No, 73%. Crazy, right? It's basically a little farm. You buy a farm for 700, 000 and it's not even a full acre. In Gilroy. And it's a fixer. There you go. All right, so there you go. Your highs and lows. Silicon Valley. Week 37 of 2023.
Today we talked about three things you need to know about living in San Silicon Valley. Great Homes not so much anymore. Homeowners say 5% is the magic number, really 5%, but I say 6%. And then be in the no. Just say no to junk fees. I'm Vito with Abitano. We'll see you out there.
Vito Scarnecchia
Realtor®, Broker, Veteran, Dad
DRE#: 01407676
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