Pandemic Real Estate Market

There are obvious additional difficulties in conducting real estate activities throughout the pandemic. As you can imagine, no open house is allowed under state-wide order now, so seeing a property takes coordinated effort between the listing and buying agent, taking care to follow all pandemic procedures. This means masks, and a sign in system recording all visits to the subject property. And many property showings turned virtual, with a zoom call with an agent walking through the property to show and answer questions. On the other hand, real estate is still considered essential through the pandemic since we still need to consider moves. With the very slim availability, and the usual multiple offers, it is a battlefield to just get into the top 3 offers being considered. At the end of the day, when your offer is the one being accepted, it is a well deserved celebration.

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Ps: If you are interested to see what the market is like, here is the link to my real estate page https://michaelchu.exprealty.com/ Here you can see what your property might be worth, and also listed homes in the area you are interested in.

First Time Home Buying

Since home buying is the largest personal purchase for most people, the first time will be the most overwhelming. You do want to go into a home buying experience with expert guidance to avoid any major issues and smooth out the impact of the minor ones. To help new home buyers, here is just a non-exclusive list of things to look out for. Happy house hunting!

1st Time Home Buyer Checklist

Cash purchase or financing?
- Have you spoken to a lender recently?
- Do you have a preapproval letter?
- Have you kept up a good credit score?
- Who can help you with down payment? Did the transfer/gift letter season?
- Special financing options for 1st time buyer
- Less conventional financing
Do you know what type of property you want?
- Hoa or no hoa?
- Yard? Distance to work, family
- Appreciation potential
- What is tax deductible?
- Neighborhood crime statistics
- Age of property/maintenance budget
What’s market like today?
- Seller market currently, multiple offers is the norm
- How to make you stand out
  - How much above listing?
  - Escalation clause
  - Other methods
- Write offer with inspection contingency
- Offer negotiation (may need to accept counter offer)
- When offer is accepted, more work starts
Buyer checklist/time table
- Why is appraisal important
  - If higher than, its great; if its lower than purchase price, we have work to do
- Other contractual/escrow obligations
  - Open escrow, order title report
  - Complete inspection within and determine if anything needs attention
  - Ensure all financial obligations met and collected all necessary disclosures
  - Close of Escrow date set
  - Verify repair work/title issue included in contract is completed and accepted(if specified)
  - Understanding closing statement and buyer expenses
  - Monitor close process until close date, obtaining signatures as required
Smooth Close/Key turnover/Celebrate
- Post-close checklist
  
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Finicky Things About Face (面子）

Many Asian will tell you the teaching of being selfless is the ultimate state of bliss, and on an intellectual level, it seems to make sense. After all, if we are one with the universe, nature, human world, we won’t have anything to worry about right? Life is nothing but a series of struggles, pain and suffering. Among the bunch of causes for all the suffering, consider the popular adage of losing face, which is one of the values I grew up with intimately.

Many aspects of our human societal norm is based on keeping face, such as keeping up with the Jones, what school kids are able to attend, how much money we make, what car we drive, what neighborhood we live in. Further, in our relationships, with our spouse, kids/parents, co-workers, boss and others, when we have disagreements, we are probably subconsciously thinking how it looks to yield, and instinctively maintaining one is right. To continue to keep the face, we deploy all of our resources and attention in defending our position and conflict arise. Anger, disappointment and resentment follows and we go down the whirlpool of vicious cycle. How can we be happy?

In a way, letting go of our face can suddenly bring ourselves back into the state of bliss and away from pain and suffering. Your world and sphere of influence can move towards a better place. If one person can do this and help others realize to practice letting go of the face, wouldn’t we be realizing the state of bliss for everyone? Please comment, like or follow, thanks!

What’s your vibe score?

Vibrational frequency is widely discussed as how we feel and interact with each other and the world. But what is the gamut of frequencies? Although precise definition could open debate for days, some general consensus might be along these lines:

Main Attribute	Frequency	State
Enlightened（開悟）	700 – 1000	Oneness, Selfless
Calm（平靜）	600	Perfection, Peace, Serenity
Joy（喜悅）	540	Optimistic, Compassionate, Patient
Love （愛）	500	Beauty in Life, Happiness
Reason（理智）	400	Wisdom, Creativity
Forgiveness（寬容）	350	Understanding no right/wrong
Initiative（主動）	310	Sincerity, Friendly, Openness, Growth
Content（滿意）	250	Trust, Vitality, Sense of Security
Courage（勇氣）	200	Living in the moment, Confidence, Affirmation
Pride（驕傲）	175	Over Inflated Ego, Resisting Growth, Arrogant
Anger（憤怒）	150	Hate, Corroded Spirit, Complaining
Wants（慾望）	125	Addicted, Greedy
Fear（恐懼）	100	Oppressed, Anxious, Withdrawn, Blocking Growth
Sadness（悲傷）	75	Lost, Dependent, Pessimistic
Callousness（冷淡）	50	Hopelessness, Self Abandoned
Regret（內疚）	30	Anguish, Self Balming, Self Denial
Shame（羞愧）	20	Near Death, Closed Off, Serious Mental Health

For me, I hover between courage and love, mostly weighted toward lower rather than higher frequency. It will be lifetime’s work to move towards higher frequency so we fulfill our life purpose and be happier. Let’s all be more aware of the vibe score and how to improve it. Even if we had a lower score in the past, now is the time to reassess how to go higher. We can all improve. Please comment, like or follow, Thanks.

Hero in You

Having studied how Buddhism and chanting could help calming our minds in the last few months, I came to realize most of the goals I had in life had been exclusively for mine and my family’s benefit. Today I turned on some music to relax a bit and heard the song by Mariah Cary, Hero. Tears started to stream down my face; so much lost time, so self-centered goals in life, I was ashamed of not even thinking that helping anyone else could be my thing.

We say God created man in His image. And/or we all have Buddha within us. Somehow, between our childhood when we feel everyone should be equal, to when you look back your own path, realizing that you let so many opportunities go by to make a difference, do good, and fulfill our life purpose. Between all the ROI/Cap Rate and other metrics we use, we forget that what matters in life may not be measured by these metrics. We look for others to be the heroes helping others, and we hide behind to care for our own livelihood. In the end, we are the heroes we seek. Just be a little braver, care a little more. We can change the world in a small part.

And it is certainly easy to think we want to care and be kind, but to really do some good it will take real action. I am setting aside $500 to help homeless people, by donating to a non-profit group called ShelterSuit. Each suit cost $60 and I would like to do a matching donation (receiving a $30 donation, match $30 to get one suit). With the matched donation of $960 we can buy 16 suits to help 16 individuals from cold/rain. Not a big number, but please help so more homeless folks can benefit. ShelterSuit founder ( a young Dutch designer Bas Timmer) also calls for a one night Sleep Out. See more details at https://sheltersuit.com/about-us/. Please like, comment or follow, Thanks!

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Ageism

The United States is a country of legal equality, a model many other countries in the world would like to copy. Of course, we on the inside knows that there are many forms of discrimination and that had garnered lots of voice of activists, most notably the BLM movement, along with the LGBT movement. I sincerely support our getting to a better version of equality through peaceful and unrelenting sharing of understanding with all.

With that, I do want to discuss another form that is not getting so much attention but is real nonetheless. Particularly in California, we are not supposed to discriminate on any basis, when it comes to housing and employment. We are all supposed to be blind to color, gender, race, national origin, sex, sexual preference, age, income source, etc. like literally anything. Ageism does not get much lime light, but when you feel it you feel it. Like when I look for a job, I can feel it. It is always very subtle, and basically can’t really prove it, but it’s hard to shake that feeling. And recently, I spoke to a friend who is in his 50s and he says he was looking for a job and he felt ageism and after a couple of months trying, he quit looking for work. It seems the job market is looking for the 30s and 40s mainly. We either pick up an entrepreneurial path or the retired/investor path. Oh well life goes on and we still have the best political system in the world. But as many have said it before, freedom is not free and equality still needs to be earned. Please comment, like or follow! Thanks!

Recreational Hikes

In deed, during the lock down or stay at home in the past year, gyms/clubs closed, restaurants closed, most other entertainment venues closed, bars/gathering places closed, no/very little travel, so even if you had money, there weren’t many places for people to go to. Gyms had to be brought back in home, and on-line fitness classes saw a huge increase in popularity as (I hope) all of us tried to stay fit physically. But of course, we are all feeling semi-depressed since we can only have very limited contact to the outside world.

So for some, like myself, taking hikes became a way to be social and get out of the house and hopefully out of the madness for a short while to reset. My brother-in-law has been coming to meet with us once a week on weekends to go hiking and afterwards dinner at home. I am happy to say that in Northern California (Bay Area), we see weather where almost all year round hiking is possible. We are surrounding by plenty of hill & mountain ranges to have many great hiking trails. It does feel good to be on the trail to enjoy better air and sometimes we don’t even need the mask if the trail is free of other hikers. A good 2 – 4 hours spent in hiking and getting there/back gives us good appetite for the dinner, whatever we happen to cook. It is usually a therapeutic experience and helps to reset our mind. It is a bit pathetic that this is the only activity we can come up with that is still safe, gets us out the house, and good exercise while resetting our psyche. I could just refer to these hikes as recreational. And while these hikes are great, I look forward to one day we can start engaging in other activities as being fun and recreational. What are some of your activities you look forward to once Covid subsides? Please comment, like or follow. Thanks

Sceneries from Bay Area hikes
Nov 2020 through Feb 2021

Happy Lunar New Year!

Today is the start of The Year of Ox. It has been said that last year, the Year of Rat, was going to be a particularly bad year. And somehow, many things happened. Now that is behind us, let us look forward to the new.

One thing I found through the Stay-At-Home period is that turning to studying spirituality, meditation while keeping physical health has helped me in maintaining sanity through all the turmoil. In addition to my Christian school background, I gained a view into how buddhist look at life, re-incarnation, karma, doing good deeds and living a positive life. Each day, if you can find that clam within yourself, it will help you become a better person. A life dedicated to being kind, compassionate and helping others will bring much rewards. Our 41st President has called for ‘a kinder gentler nation’ in his time, and I think we do need to keep that in mind as we go through our daily life and make our own sphere a better place. May God be with us and guide us forward. Please comment, like or follow, Thanks

Happy New Year!
Everything Goes According to Your Wish!
with Auspicious Chants

Happy Life – Yoga/Vegetarian/ Gratitude/Meditation And More…

Granted, happy life is a state of mind, and some say happy wife, happy life. I am listing out a few things that help me and you can definitely have your own list. We live in a time when there is quite a bit of anxiety, and that does not help with the state of mind to be happy. If you find it is hard to get there, there are some smaller, simpler steps. One is to declutter your space, and a site called becomingminimalist.com gives many helpful guidance. Once you get started, moving forward in setting up that more peaceful inner space becomes achievable. Then try any of the yoga, vegetarian, gratitude, meditation, helping others in need, etc. might begin to bring inner happiness.

On the subject of happiness, a little buddhist country in the Himalaya between India and China called Bhutan has been said to be the happiest country on earth. Many philosophical differences to the West exist, but some of the main one seem to be living selflessly, and not in the keeping-up-with-the-Jones. If in our lives we can achieve just these two, it will probably be an improvement over our materialistic goals. Of course, I would still advocate FI, but hopefully not in an adverse way of these values. Let me know what you think, comment, like or follow. Thx!

Image result for tiger temple bhutan — Tigers Nest Temple in Bhutan
photo credit: earthtrekkers.com

House Hacking with AirBnB

Back in my college days, I offered to manage a house with 10 rooms and guaranteed the owner a fixed amount of rent, which satisfied his mortgage requirements. I not only lived there for free, but had money left over to buy cleaning supplies, toilet paper etc for everyone. Place was right next to SJSU so it worked out for me and house mates really well till my graduation.

I now rent out a good part of my house on AirBnB and it helps with paying mortgage in this turbulent time, especially while I don’t have a formal job. If you ever thought house hacking is not possible, there are many ways and scales you can do it at. For most people, housing costs will always be the highest expense, so some form of house hacking can help you maintain a lower overhead and ease anxiety. Another common way is to buy a duplex (up to a four-plex), live in one unit and collect rent on the others. Rules are quite different for the above four-plex (it is considered commercial rather than residential), but for savvy investors, those options are open as well. And there are those who buy properties to generate rent, hire property managers, and enjoy stress free passive income.

As you can see, house hacking can range in multiple scales, and definitely worth doing. Simplest way to look at it is ‘live free with OPM.’ Consult with those who have done it before around you and learn how to put your space to work for you. I welcome your comments and questions. Thx!