News, Education & More

Hurricane Ian, the Category 4 storm that recently wreaked havoc with its wind, rain, and the resulting flooding across parts of Florida and South Carolina, got me thinking about California’s flood zones and their potential effect on owning a home in the Golden State. Because of current drought conditions, you may not realize that we do have floods in California. You may think that California has only fires, and with increasing frequency and more devastation than ever before. And of course, you know that we have earthquakes. We even have mudslides, if it ever dares to rain in our parched…

Perhaps You Have Asked Yourself This Question: Am I Smart Enough to Pass the California Real Estate Exam? The obvious answer to this question is . . . absolutely! But perhaps it’s not really the right question to be asking. If you want to get your real estate license and become an agent, then yes, you need to pass the California real estate exam. It isn’t easy. But the exam is not testing you to determine how smart you are; it’s testing you to find out how much you know about the field of real estate. And if you haven’t…

DOES A REAL ESTATE AGENT NEED PROFESSIONAL LIABILITY INSURANCE? Anyone in business should and sometimes must have certain types of insurance to protect themselves from liability. Most businesses carry at least General Liability insurance, Workers’ Compensation (if they have employees), and sometimes specialty policies, such as Cyber Liability insurance (for data breaches), among others. And most professionals, such as attorneys, physicians, engineers, accountants, etc., carry Professional Liability (“PL”) insurance. Curiously, California does not require real estate agents to carry PL coverage, also known as errors and omissions insurance (“E & O”). What is it and, even though the state doesn’t…

Helping Your Clients Relocate Many experienced real estate agents eventually develop a specialty or a corner of some kind, whether it is selling homes only in a particular neighborhood, working with only certain types of property (such as multi-unit buildings), or perhaps representing only specific groups of clients. One such group of clients might consist of those who are relocating from another city or state. Often people need to relocate because of a job or to live closer to family. Or sometimes when people retire, they wish to move to a new location, perhaps in a warmer climate or a…