by Barbara on January 31, 2012
Does my Realtor have a clue? 
I met with a client the other day to try to help her determine a value for her home. I had reviewed the sales data for her neighborhood and advised her that the home should sell for a certain price. She thanked me for my input and then told me she planned to interview other agents. I told her that was a good idea and said that I would follow up with her the following week. Wow, was I surprised when she told me the other real estate agent had told her that her home should sell for $60,000 less then the figure I provided. I then explained in detail how I arrived at the valuation for her home.
Don’t make a $60,000 mistake! This market is complicated. It takes a careful, thoughtful analysis, not a simplistic approach, to determine the value for your home. The CMA (competitve market analysis) is often delivered as if it were the final word on value, when in fact it is only one small piece of the puzzle. If you are thinking of selling your home you may want to check out my advice to sellers.
by Barbara on January 10, 2012
Why would the sale of a commercial shopping center in Clairemont, to Egyptian investors, get me thinking about this? I do not know if the individuals involved in this particular transaction participated in the Visa program, but it sure seems to fit the bill.
If you are a foreign investor with $1,000,000 (or $500,000 if you are willing to invest in a Regional Center in “target employment areas”) you can obtain a magic ticket, a Green Card, giving you Permanent Residency Status in the US. The catch is your investment must benefit the economy and create at least 10 full-time jobs.
Now here is the really strange part, you don’t have to engage in the day-to-day management of the business, the jobs can be direct or indirect (isn’t that a clever twist)and you don’t have to reside in the same area as your “investment”.
If you live in a country that is under-going massive change and challenges, what would you do? Of course, you would need to have amassed the resources to buy into the program.
How do you, as a citizen of the USA, feel about this? Who do you think are the people that have the most assets to help them invest here? The people in the streets, or those previously connected to the powerful? Immigration is such a controversial topic. Being a nation founded by immigrants we have certainly changed our tune. Remember the poetry of Emma Lazarus ” give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free”? Should it be revised to say “give me your cash and keep your masses yearning”? I think the entire immigration policy of the US needs to be re-examined. Oh, but where to start?
