As a completely devoted fan of Mad Men, I am particularly consumed with the real estate of the show. Most of the housing shots are incredible stage interiors. There are literally no exterior shots, except occasionally a glimpse of the front of Don and Betty's Connecticut come (Colonial house, red front door). Or should I say Betty and Henry Francis' home (that Don still pays for)?  Betty and her new husband Henry Francis live in the Connecticut home, post Betty's divorce from Don, and it seems they live rent free. Don pays the mortgage for the sake of home stability for the children.  It's starting to bug him. This simply can't go on! Digression. In San Diego we have a lot of those...

Over the years I have completed a large number of real estate transactions. Both residential and commercial, and they are vastly different. In commercial, you need to remember one phrase: Caveat emptor (let the buyer beware). There are no disclosures. Nadda.  Nope. It's on you, Buyer. You figure out everything about this property on your own and decide if you want to buy. And if you do, the Seller will sell it to you at the agreed upon price. Deal done.  Pretty much the same applies for commercial leases. Residential, on the other hand, is wild. We in California disclose everything and anything and back it up with paperwork and signatures.  Thank goodness for the digital world,...

San Diego is comprised of many, many neighborhoods in all demographics broken up mostly by ZIP code.  It's how we search for homes and then within ZIP codes we break it down further if need be.

My favorite "metro" San Diego neighborhoods are all middle class. These areas are probably a slightly higher financial demographic than the middle class areas of other cities in other states. My favorite middle class neighborhoods are ZIP codes:

92104 - North and South Park

92116 - Normal Heights and University Heights

92117 - Clairemont

92123 - Serra Mesa

92111 and 92110 - Linda Vista and Bay Park

Here, closings in the last 30 days for single family homes in these ZIP codes that were...

In November 2006, the National Association of Realtors held its annual REALTOR convention in New Orleans. These events are years in the making and although it was a full year post-Katrina, the decision was made at the top level to keep the convention in New Orleans. The city was in rough, rough shape, but NAR being a leader, went for it. Thankfully! I went to that convention as I tend to go to all of them.  I traveled alone. The city, a year after the hurricane, was a disaster. Our convention was tremendous and Presidents Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush were our keynote speakers on a Saturday night. But it was crushing to see the rest of New Orleans.  I hired two different drive...

  In the 1931 book entitled "The Epic of America" by James Truslow Adams, the phrase "chasing the American dream" was coined. We say this in a shortened version as "the American Dream" and everyone has an idea of what this means.The "American Dream" is specifically, to quote the book, "that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement." Sounds good! Our personal freedom and satisfaction will come from success in the form of money, land, home ownership and a generally rich life ~ family included. Quite right!  But along the way the dream got sticky. As a regular watcher and deeply...

Yesterday and actually the day before were pretty typical days in my business.  Starting on Sunday with a nice open house where I talked to seriously interested buyers, I felt that by 5 PM I was having what could only be called an excellent work day.  Fast forward to 6:00 PM Sunday and I had an offer in hand, but it was $40,000 under the sellers' asking price. Gulp.  Everything was beautiful besides this price difference. This has happened a lot this year.  Buyers don't just want a deal, they want a steal. Houses at the $500K level and higher are subject to immediate discounts reflected in buyer offers.  I haven't seen it once, I have seen it ten times at minimum. And these are all...

It's taken a long time to get here, but I know I am an expert in residential real estate. In fact, it took me my whole career spent in Corporate America working for "the man" to get here. The road was paved with tears, pantyhose, firing people and Christmas parties. Its potholes are filled with too much wasted paper, overtime I will never get back and paychecks spent and gone. When you work for a company as I did, and I worked for the best, you can get to the point where no matter what your job title or responsibility, or the size of your check, you feel small. My employers were huge (Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers, Grubb & Ellis), so you can disappear fairly easily...

I was lucky enough to grow up in the Midwest, something at the time I wasn't too wild about. Minneapolis winters are cold enough to burn your skin so summer memories were and still are precious. As a pale Norwegian, being in the sun wasn't a huge past time of mine. Yes, I had my share of times at the pool lying in the sun which now I regret and wish I could take back. That ended when I was 15, not because I had a premonition that the sun would turn out to be very bad for our skin, but because I hated it. My greatest memory of summer would occur in early summer, walking home from high school. My walk home was about seven blocks long and followed parallel with the railroad tracks....