Grass Valley Community Check out our up dated Grass Valley Community page. It has community information and current properties for sale. Grass Valley is in the hills and trees to the north of Sacramento. It is historically rich and makes for some of the best country living that the Sacramento Valley has to offer. Grass Valley can make an idyllic community to make a home. The appeal of Grass Valley attracts first-time home buyers, move-up buyers, and investors. The property styles varied from ranch style to two story houses, there are condos, bungalows, large estate lots and custom houses. Grass [&hellip

Who Holds the Lien on Your California Property? A lien is a right to a property granted by the owner to secure a debt. Essentially, the property acts as collateral for the loan. This means the lienholder has a right to take possession of the property if the debt is not repaid or the terms of the debt are violated, just like when collateral is forfeited if a loan is not repaid. Sometimes, property owners will attempt to sell a property without knowing or disclosing that there is a lien on the property. Liens can make themselves known at inopportune [&hellip

“Show me the Money” Solving distressed home owners’ problems I was introduced to Mary (not real name) at a very difficult point in her life. One major problem she had was her house was severely damaged and left abandon by a family member. She was unable to pay the mortgage for many months and the lender started foreclosures proceedings. I took on the project property to hopefully do a short sale before it was sold at foreclosure. When I inspected the house and did market research of real estate values I thought I could sell the house to an investor [&hellip

Opportunity lost? Interest rates are moving higher. The days of the lowest mortgage rates in history are no longer. It’s an opportunity lost to refinance or get the lowest possible mortgage. Real estate prices in California are on the move upward. The days of cheap housing prices are gone. The time to buy property at the lowest prices in a decade is gone. That is one way of looking at it. Two questions beg to be asked. Was that really the bottom? Is it a bad strategy to buy after the bottom has formed? If that was the bottom of [&hellip

What is the MLS? The acronym “M.L.S.” stands for Multiple Listing Service. The MLS is a database of properties available for sale and represented by a real estate agent in a given area. The MLS in northern California area including Sacramento is MetroList. HousingSacramento.com list of properties for sale are directly inputted by the Sacramento and Northern California MLS metrolist. That means the properties listed on HousingSacramento.com are accurate and up to date. The MLS creates the framework by which real estate agents agree to cooperate and compensate one another. There is also a high level of supervision by the [&hellip

Northern California can be a hard place to grow plants Learning the different environments can be a big help Every type of plant thrives in a different environment.  While one region may be ideal for some plants, it will spell certain death for others.  So before you plant this fall, you need to know what can be planted in your region. The USDA has what is known as a hardiness zone map.  It divides up the United States into regions based on the average minimum temperature that can be expected in that area.  This gives you an idea of what [&hellip

Sacramento Housing Numbers September 2013 Charts are good for viewing what the data of the Sacramento housing marketing is doing. The chart of number of homes for sale and homes that sold shows an evening out of the trend. The last few months are showing a flatting of the market. The months of inventory chart shows how many houses in the Sacramento area are for sale. This is determined by how many houses need to sell to get to zero inventory if no new houses are added to the list. The more houses for sale, the more it becomes a [&hellip

  How to justify that new kitchen   The kitchen is one of the most used parts of a house.  This makes it one of the best places to invest money and time. Not only does it make life more pleasant, it also raises the value of the house for when it comes time to move and sell. Many people don’t want to invest time and money in a house if they know they are going to leave. But the reality is that improving a house, especially the kitchen, increases the value of that house and the improvement can actually [&hellip

  Will the Government Shutdown Impact for Sacramento Home Mortgages?   The impact on personal home mortgages will grow if the shutdown is long. The biggest impact is the IRS. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has indicated that they will not process any forms, including issue tax return transcripts (Form 4506 T), should a government shutdown occur. Without tax transcripts, loan processing may be delayed, depending on individual housing agency requirements and aggregator guidelines. The Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) operations, specifically the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), should not be significantly impacted as long as the shutdown is [&hellip

Burning Down the House Back in 1984, the band Talking Heads produced their Top 10 hit, “Burning Down the House.” But did you know that you might get a tax deduction for burning down your own house? Imagine you’re looking to build your dream house. You’ve found the perfect lot in the perfect location. The only problem is, there’s already a house on the lot – an old house, not worth renovating, that you’d like to get rid of as fast as possible. Sure, you can hire a contractor to come in and tear it down the old-fashioned way. But [&hellip