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 [...]

 

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) [...]

 

You bought your home for $1,400.000 in 2019. Under California's Proposition 13, your assessed value increased at 2% annually—so by 2026, you're being taxed on roughly $1,608,000. Meanwhile, the market dropped, and your home is now worth $1,000,000 but you’re still paying taxes on the sales [...]

 

Real Estate 101 Appraisals

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 [...]

 

Let me preface this by saying there will always be all cash $300k above asking price in two day offers to talk about, but those are now the exception and not the norm. Real estate is cyclical with each new market cycle bringing some fresh new hell for agents, buyers and sellers. And the fresh new hell for a lot of newer agents is the [...]

 

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN Real Estate Agent Magazine (realesateagentmagazine.com) NOV 2025

The Golden Age of the "No-No" VA Loan Is Over—Here’s What Changed

For years, veterans and active-duty military personnel enjoyed one of the best deals in real estate: the "No-No" VA loan—no down payment, no private mortgage insurance (PMI), and, until [...]