An amazing team on your side - Amir Sharabi, Michael Brady, Ira Serkes, Paul Goodacre, Dave Ford

Thinking of selling your home in Berkeley?  Be sure to have a home inspection!

We always recommend that sellers get a set of inspections before they put their home on the market.

A home inspection by an American Society of Home Inspectors (ASHI – http://www.ashi.org) member is the first step.

After the inspection, you’ll receive a written report (with photos)

The home inspector give an overview of your home’s condition, and will recommend which items need to be repaired or investigated further.  Typical items include installation of new electrical service, upgrading the earthquake retrofitting, replacing the furnace, or removing asbestos ducting.

It’s important that you take care of health and safety items (faulty heater vent, improper wiring) promptly.

Buyers are often less concerned about other items.  For that reason we always review the reports to let our sellers know what should be repaired, and which items and repair estimates can simply be disclosed to potential buyers.

We’ve put together a superb team of specialists to investigate further, and provide repair estimates.

Have questions?  Just call 510-526-6668 or email serkes@berkeleyhomes.com

Ira

I recommend everyone set up Twitter and Facebook accounts as redundant means of communications.

We were watching TV Thursday night when a late-breaking news alert about  Japan’s Earthquake and Tsunami popped onto the iPad … pretty sure the news alert came from via Twitter Account.  We found out about the event moments after it happened.

Both Twitter and Facebook let you connect with lots of friends who can connect with their friends, so you can send out a Twitter Tweet or Facebook Post to let them know you’re safe.

Land line, cell phone, internet access might all go down at the same time, but having several means of communication increases the probability of being able to communicate with the outside world.

And if you’re looking for a way to use up lots of time … Twitter and Facebook will let you do that too.

http://twitter.com

http://www.facebook.com

Ira

P.S.

Here are some of our accounts for you to like or befriend.  When you post your friend request, let me know how you came across this post or our web site

Berkeley Pages

http://www.facebook.com/365Berkeley

http://www.facebook.com/BerkeleyCalifornia

Personal Account

http://www.facebook.com/serkes

Twitter

http://twitter.com/serkes

We have a very short inspection contingency for our buyers, so I pulled out all the stops and brought our “home” team of inspectors and contractors together.

General of the Army George C Marshall was “noted as the ‘organizer of victory’ by Winston Churchill for his leadership of the Allied victory in World War II“.

Inspired by George Catlett Marshall’s logistical skills, I was able to have us all converge today at 14:00 hours Tue 23 Feb 2010.

From left to right

Amir Sharabi, Aviv Construction

Michael Brady, Star Inspection Group

Ira Serkes, Pacific Union Real Estate (me!)

Paul Goodacre, The Chelsea Company – Chimney & Fireplace

Dave Ford, Dave Ford Construction – Foundation & Drainage

It’s great to have a team of superb professionals we can call on.

Ira

PS
The bell curve distribution by height was simply coincidence. If I recall, the permutation of 5 tall guys would be 5! (5 x 4 x 3 x 2 x 1 = 120), though with me in the middle, I guess that only leaves 24 different arrangements.

We have just compiled the most perfect disclosure package ever made.

Just about every document is a digital original (printed to PDF rather than scanned), just about every signature is a digital signature.

The cover sheet was created in Excel, so I calculated the PDF page number that each document begins on.

The file names are also created in Excel, and are highly structured so that I know exactly what the document is, and when it was created.

For example:

colusa-625-inspect-sewer-estimate-central-plumbing-20091205.pdf

Carol is now proofing my work – and I’m awaiting independent confirmation of my claim.

No trees were harmed in the creation of this compiled disclosure package.

You can take Ira Serkes out of Engineering, but you can’t take Engineering out of Ira Serkes.