“Going It Alone” Home Buying for Singles  Notes from Buyer's Housing Fair
sponsored by Santa Clara County Association of REALTORS on April 2, 2005

Deciding to purchase any real estate is a major decision. Here in Silicon Valley with the high cost the decision is even more difficult. But in the long-term real estate has treated people well. Since 1984, even if you purchased at the worst time, you would have made more than enough to pay closing cost to buy and sell in less than 9-years. Sometimes this time frame has been as little as 3 months, but plan on the longer timeframe.

The very first step is to understand the agency relationship that will apply for any transaction. A great place to start is with Agency Disclosure, which is required by California law. For details see http://www.creeksiderealty.com/agency.htm

The next step is to see if you can take advantage of some of the more common assistance programs.

     1) Mortgage Credit Certificate details see http://www.creeksiderealty.com/mcc.htm
     2) Housing Trust of Santa Clara County details see http://www.creeksiderealty.com/HTSCC.htm
     3) Wish Program http://www.creeksiderealty.com/FHLB.htm

Because you will need a loan for your purchase finding a lender that is willing to find you the best combination of assistance programs and terms is critical. Feel free to contact me by phone 408-926-0365 or by email for recommendations.

Then you may want to look at some historical data to see what the market is doing.

Graphs-Single-Family Homes       Graphs-Condos/Townhouses 

You can access more specific data using http://www.creeksiderealty.com/market_update_new/market_index.htm

One of the key competitive advantages that we can offer is a through analysis of the current market conditions that allows to more accurate understand what the market will be doing in the near term. You can review the detail of this analysis through historical reports available at http://www.creeksiderealty.com/week/index.html  The current editions are only available to our client base. Feel free to contact me by phone 408-926-0365 or by email for information.

You mail want to spend a little time investigating different areas within Silicon Valley. for details see http://www.creeksiderealty.com/neighborhoods.htm  This will give you and idea of the relative costs and degree of competition in the different areas.

You can search the public version of the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) using http://www.creeksiderealty.com/mls.htm

We also offer daily or weekly emails of listings that meet your specific criteria. You can use http://www.creeksiderealty.com/ack.html or by email describing the home you are looking for.

We have tried to concentrate on providing the information you need to make a well informed decision and view our job as a service provide NOT a salesperson. We would encourage you to spend some time exploring our web site. You will quickly discover that it is not the typical real estate agent website.

We look forward to meeting with you and earning your real estate business. Contact us by phone 408-926-0365 or by email  Thanks very much for your time.

If you did not take the time to complete the exit survey the day of the fair and would like to provide any feedback to the Santa Clara Association of REALTORS you can use this link