Entries by Babs De Lay

Is This A Safe Neighborhood?

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2011 “Is this a safe neighborhood?” asks my buyer as we look at homes. I really can’t answer that question, but I can send my buyer to a myriad of websites to find out the answer. I might think it’s a safe hood, but I’m not a statistician. Thanks to technology you can find out […]

Listings Are Exactly That!

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2011 Real estate sales is a mystery to people buying a home for the first time mainly because there is so much to learn before the move. Buyers get a whole new vocabulary of ‘pre-qualification, home inspection, home warranty, radon, locking or floating interest rates, and closing costs’, not to mention ‘bungalow, rambler, townhome, condo, […]

The Scary Things We Find In Homes

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2011 Showing vacant homes to potential buyers is always an adventure, especially in an economy where there are so many foreclosures, short sales and flippers. Because of the huge amount of inventory I drive around and preview properties to save buyers time in seeing homes they wouldn’t want. This last week I was doing just […]

Buyers Are Smarter

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2011 A long time ago in a world when there were no mobile phones, internet, wi-fi and cable TV there was a top secret information bank of real estate data called the MLS (multiple listing service). This was where information was stored exclusively for the use of Realtors and shared only with clients. When the […]

Liberty Park Green Space

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2011 I recently overheard an environmentalist say that Salt Lake City didn’t need any more parks because we have enough forest and green spaces within a 20 or 30 minute drive from our fair city that more parks weren’t necessary. We really are blessed with a beautiful wild landscape surrounding our valley. On the other […]

When You Buy a Home In the Winter…

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2011 The weather outside is frightful, but buying a home can be delightful in winter. Why, you ask? If the house is on the market during the holidays there’s a likelihood the sellers are seriously motivated to move because usually owners will pull their listings until spring due to the holiday chaos. You may get […]

Why Do Condos Have Condo Fees?

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2011 Owning a condominium can be a less expensive way to be a first time homeowner because, well, condos are often less expensive than homes. And folks who have had a big home, raised kids and now are empty nesters often find the condominium lifestyle to be a great ‘lock and leave’ alternative because there’s […]

The Rose of Rose Park

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2011 Rose Park is an area located five minutes to downtown Salt Lake City. It’s west of I-15, north of 600 north, and east of Redwood Road. There are a few old historic pioneer homesteads still out there but the area is mostly small starter homes built after WWII for the returning veterans who got […]

Get That Joint Outta My House

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2011 Once upon a time you bought a house with that really hot girlfriend you had for three years. She turned out to be a clone of Lindsay Lohan and well, last you heard she’s in rehab at a clinic near Provo. You both qualified for the loan to buy the house, and now you […]

Two Sides To the Real Estate Coin

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2010 You’ve heard the phrase, “Buy low, sell high” (as in how to make money in the stock and metals markets). The same concept holds true in real estate. You always want to try and buy a home for the lowest amount you can and try someday to sell it for the highest price possible.   […]