ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED FOR THE PIEDMONT POST JUNE 24, 2026 

Taxes, Anian Tunney and 43 years of Piedmont Real Estate… Oh and the fines too.

Remember Jan from The Brady Bunch? Taxes, Taxes, Taxes…

Let’s get the boring stuff out of the way first. Piedmont is putting a real estate transfer tax increase on the November ballot. The proposed [...]

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED FOR INMAN SELECT JUNE 2026 

I Google myself occasionally.

Recently, I found myself reading a column I had written for the San Francisco Bay Times in 2014. The Bay Times is a legendary LGBTQ+ publication with roots going back to 1982, one of the longest-running independent LGBTQ+ newspapers in the United States, and [...]

I love me some Quora; I like when people ask my advice about real estate and… cheating spouses. I got a question about adverse possession today, of real estate not spouses, and I have heard about adverse possession but haven’t experienced it in the wild; I know about it in theory but not [...]

There is something to be said about practicing, whatever it is one does for work, and specialization; the constant exposure to terminology makes it less necessary to write explainers and pass them off as content… but here we [...]

When I first got licensed in 2003 (January 03 instead of September 02 because I failed my real estate license exam the first time) I went to work for a company that specialized in “1031 Exchange Properties, Credit Tenant, Bond and Net Leased Investments in the Western Five.” Over the years I have analyzed, written, and negotiated a lot of [...]

Most people think buying a house means you own it outright. You don't. You own a bundle of rights—a collection of legal privileges that define what you can and can't do with the property. Understanding this distinction changes how you negotiate, finance, and manage real [...]

I am currently listing a fixer property in Oakland California. The property won't qualify for traditional financing so, having sold distressed properties in mercurial (isn’t that a nice way to describe the San Francisco Bay Area’s real estate market in Spring of 2026?)  markets before, I am leaning heavily on an old standby, the FHA 203(k) [...]

Consumers have relied on Zillow and Redfin for years, not knowing they were trading convenience for curation. The search experience feels clean, fast, and complete, but the truth is more complicated. These platforms are not neutral collections of properties. They’re businesses built on MLS data, and their business models guide what [...]

Real Estate 101: Private Mortgage Insurance (PMI)

Private Mortgage Insurance (PMI) is one of those ubiquitous real estate industry terms like DOM (days on market) or LTV (loan to value) that sounds simple until a client asks what it means. Then suddenly you're standing in front of someone who just realized those letters "Mean Something [...]

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED FOR REALTYTIMES.COM APRIL 24 2026

I practice real estate. Like attorneys practice law and doctors practice medicine, in the San Francisco Bay Area, my office is in Oakland’s Montclair district, and our market is dictated by this simple, ugly [...]