by Roberta Murphy I awoke at 4:30 a.m. yesterday morning with a sense of dread, quickly remembering that there is a demon called the Witch Creek Fire raging in the communities around our home in La Costa. It is just one of several mega firestorms raging in San Diego County–but is the one we fear(ed) the most. Monday afternoon, our Reverse 911 system called to inform us we are under…
by Roberta Murphy In our coastal San Diego luxury real estate market, buyers are almost manic about their closets–and especially the ones in the master suite. Luxury home buyers are most pleased when there are separate closets for each–or if single, closets for the seasons. The compleat closet in the luxury home will be spacious, well lighted and masterfully organized. It is a room where we prepare ourselves to meet…
Owners of luxury real estate in San Diego should be celebrating because of the long-awaited arrival of Sotheby’s International Realty. It’s been a long time coming, but luxury listings in San Diego County will now reach the plasma displays at Sotheby’s Auctions throughout the world. Passing by the Sotheby’s real estate desk, an equestrian property in Rancho Santa Fe might tweak the interest of buyers attending a contemporary art sale…
by Roberta Murphy There is a tsunami of wrecked credit that has only begun to hit the credit reporting bureaus. Many of the victims are those whose FICO and credit scores have been demolished by short sales and foreclosures. With the short sales, or short pays as they are sometimes called, the mortgage lender has agreed to accept less than what is owed on the home–and where more is owed…
by Roberta Murphy This is Part One of an ongoing series about Luxury Home Buyers, their expectations, origins and trends. This first article in the series will look at these buyers and what they expect from their luxury real estate agents. For some reason, I thought market knowledge and keen negotiating skills would head the list for luxury home buyers, but a recent 2007 membership survey conducted by the Luxury…
by Roberta Murphy I took a break from San Diego real estate this weekend and went shopping for underwear instead. I bought 30 pairs, and fear it won’t be nearly enough. You see, a very cool lady named Rocky wrote a very compelling blog, that inspired me to not only go shopping, but to start blogging for underwear–and posting up some very unprofessional photography. But that is inconsequential. Her Underwear…
by Roberta Murphy Want to know what keeps me terrorized at night? Database management. I am in an urgent race against time–and my nightmare is one that haunts major corporations throughout the world– from retailers to brokerage firms to telecoms to the U.S. Government itself. In our San Diego real estate practice, I have until December 30 to migrate several hundred clients and their specific and detailed property requests over…
by Roberta Murphy It came as a total surprise when I received an email from International Listings that Luxury Home Digest had been tapped as one of the top 8 Home Buying blogs in the country–and one of the top 100 Real Estate Blogs. WOW! I join the other winners in this category in thanking the judges at International Listings for this special real estate honor: Barbara Corcoran Ink: Barbara…
by Roberta Murphy Rumors and gossip are are swirling around a possible Google and GoDaddy marriage. It seems about two years ago, Google became accredited as a domain name registrar. Meanwhile, GoDaddy, the worlds largest domain registrar, has been busy filing patent applications for search, VOIP and other technologies that would make it an attractive buy to acquisition-hungry Google. A few of GoDaddys recent patents would help propel one of…
by Roberta Murphy I believe we have a new issue to negotiate on behalf of our clients: CANCELLATION FEES A couple of weeks ago we had a buyer cancel a transaction within the timeframes agreed upon by the buyer and seller. Notice of cancellation was sent out shortly after the physical inspection on the $400,000 downtown San Diego condo. It should have been a simple matter, but that was not…
