Last week, when I received an e-mail press release from the National Association of Realtors previewing their $40 million ad campaign with the slogan “It’s a great time to buy or sell a home,” I had to read it twice.

Was this a joke? Was there something I didn’t understand about the current market that would engender this kind of overweening confidence?

 Q: Our house is owned under my living-trust name. If I survive my husband, will the basis for the house be stepped up to market value as of the date of his death? Should I add my husband’s living trust to the deed?

Eliza W.

Concord

A: If the title to your house is in the name of your living trust and it is not a joint living trust with your husband, if he dies before you do, there’s nothing for you to inherit. Therefore, you won’t receive any stepped-up basis to market value on the date of his death.

Picture this: You’ve lived in this country for the past 15 years, earned a decent wage, raised a family, always paid your rent, utilities, cell phone bills and other expenses on time, month after month. But you made little or no use of the conventional banking and credit systems — avoiding bank loans, credit cards and debts in general.Now you go to apply for a mortgage to buy your first home and get smacked with this sobering news: Sorry, but there is not enough information in your national credit bureau files to score your credit. We’ve got to either charge you an interest rate well above prevailing rates — 9 or 10 percent in a 6 1/2 percent market — or simply reject you altogether.

 Fans of the 49ers might take special interest in the condos at Candlestick Point — the Cove in San Francisco.

Its five four-story buildings are so close to the football team’s stadium, Monster Park, that someone with an oversize periscope in the closest building could probably see right onto the playing field. With the windows open, anyone nearby will hear the crowd cheering (or booing).

Ticketholders don’t have to worry about parking, as residents’ cars will be tucked away in the one or two underground spaces allotted to each unit.