The Long and Winding (Moraga Avenue) to Affordable Housing
Imagine if you will a middle school classroom, warm, smells of chalk, sunny. Young teacher, looks up from their desk, smiles, and says, “Affordable housing… Piedmont… hot button issue. [...]
Call the Landscaper or The Bear Gets Teeth
Every July 4th, Smokey Bear rides the fire truck down Highland telling us only we can prevent wildfires; last year, Piedmont started acting like it believes him. January 1, 2026, Smokey got [...]
Ringing in the New Year with Celebrations & Renovations
Happy New Year, Piedmont(ers). While the sounds firecrackers and nail guns ring in 2026, some homeowners have apparently decided the porta potties and white pickup trucks with (and without) racks, which sprouted like morels last year, qualify as festive decorations worth keeping [...]
Downsizing: Simpler, Not Smaller
Most downsizing conversations go off the rails in the first five minutes. Either someone starts selling you "lock and leave luxury" or you get buried in tax jargon and loan acronyms until your eyes glaze [...]
August 2024 feels like a lifetime ago. The National Association of Realtors' antitrust settlement agreement snuck in like a thief, and we, agents, scrambled to understand buyer-broker agreements, compensation disclosure, and off-MLS coordination. Seventeen months in, most of us have figured out how to keep on doing our jobs in spite of the [...]
If real estate is a theater, sweetie, hosting an open house is our stage, and you're the director, the lighting designer, the stage manager, and the lead all at once. Every detail matters—the temperature of the house, the music playing, whether the front door swings open smoothly or sticks halfway.
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The Homeowner's Pre-Sale Playbook: Where DIY Wins and Where Professionals Pay for Themselves
You've decided to sell. Now comes the question that keeps sellers up at night and has spawned an entire industry (that would be the listing prep industry) and a social media movement. #reno [...]
The MLS and NAR are in a mess right now and it’s not Realtors’® fault. We agents try to keep our heads down and get on with the work, but there’s tension brewing in the industry. And [...]
Debt in Real Estate Investing: How Borrowed Money Builds Wealth (or Destroys It)
My mother used to say, "revolving debt makes the world go round", and it's true. Banks make money by lending money. They borrow from depositors at low rates, lend that money out at higher rates, and pocket the spread. The system depends on people borrowing, [...]
Let's talk about pricing listings. The old saying, "all roads lead to Rome..." applies here, but in real estate, every pricing strategy circles back to one non-negotiable truth: market [...]
