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 [...]
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED FOR INMAN.COM APRIL 27, 2026
From the outside looking in, it appears Compass has been on a mission to monetize agent data. Redfin, Zillow and all the other real estate portals curate and monetize agent data via the MLS. Compass is a masterclass in revenue generation and has seemingly determined that it’s missing a
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Chattel, Emblements, Trade Fixtures... Oh my
The distinction between real property and personal property sounds simple until you're sitting in an escrow at the closing table and someone asks whether the chandelier stays or goes. That's when the line between what conveys (real and attachments) and what does not (personal and some fixtures) [...]
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED APRIL 15 2026 FOR THE PIEDMONT POST
Alphabet Soup: A Piedmont School’s Tax Mystery
Piedmont's property tax bill reads like a cozy mystery or soap opera. There was G the flat parcel tax and H the square foot tax, H1 the bond debt, and Prop 13—which is now G, P (see below) H1 and [...]
One of the most important contingencies buyers have in an agreement is the appraisal contingency. Appraisals provide a third-party reality check on the value of (anything really) real estate. If a property doesn’t appraise at value, then a buyer can renegotiate the agreement—as long as the appraisal contingency [...]
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED FOR INMAN.COM APRIL 2026
The housing industry keeps talking about single women like they are a specialty segment. For much of modern history, they were treated that way by the financial system, too, because women were blocked from basic access to credit on their own [...]
Real Estate 101: Agency
Real estate is full of words people use every day without really knowing what they mean. Agency is one of them. Buyers hear it and assume it means “my agent is on my side.” Sellers hear it and assume it means “someone is handling this for me.” Agents hear it and sometimes assume everybody knows the rules [...]
