Archive for June, 2008
Housing recovery prediction: Next year – Santa Cruz Sentinel
June 30, 2008
It’s time once again to play the game – when is the housing market going to recover? The Santa Cruz Sentinel is taking another stab at it:
[From Housing recovery prediction: Next year – Santa Cruz Sentinel]
Don’t expect the housing market to recover this year.
Robert Kleinhenz, deputy chief economist for the California Association of Realtors, forecasts a turnaround next spring.
Just thought I’d pass that along. I had a bunch more stuff I wanted to talk about, but it’s 11:33 PM and I still have lots more “real” work to do tonight before hitting the hay and gettin’ back at it tomorrow morning bright and early.
Posted by Administrator at 11:34pm
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Santa Cruz Fire Safety
June 24, 2008
There are many homes in Santa Cruz county that are in wildfire and forest fire hazard areas. With all the fires raging this year, it’s good to think about fire safety. If you have a house in an at-risk area, here are some resources you may want to take advantage of:
Homeowners Checklist – How To Make Your Home Fire Safe
Why 100 Feet? 100’ Defensible Space
Communities At Risk – Federal List by County
General Guidelines for Creating Defensible Space
Firefighting Equipment
Wildfire Safety Tips
www.WildfireSolutionsGroup.org
Professional Consulting and Services Provider
Posted by Administrator at 9:28pm
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Marisa Miller, Santa Cruz Local, Back in the Press
June 21, 2008
Our home-grown Supermodel, Marisa Miller, is back in the press! Marisa graces the cover of Maxim Magazine’s July 2008 issue.
I had a subscription to Maxim magazine once upon a time – it was a freebie or something, when it first came out. I admit, I didn’t read it for the articles. I read it for the advertising. They showcased all kinds of cool bling-bling which, while being a little too cool for me, was interesting to look at nevertheless.
You may recall that I wrote up a blog entry or two about Marissa when she became the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition cover girl, also this year. It seems that Marisa is on something of a roll. Congratulations Marisa, Rock on!
Posted by Administrator at 7:51am
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Santa Cruz is on fire!
June 21, 2008
When the Loma Prieta fire broke out a few weeks back, I wanted to post a blog entry about my experience with it. I had dropped my wife off at Cabrillo College, and she had noticed the haze in the air. “Wow, that looks like smog!” she said. “Nah,” I said, “that’s just fog or something.” After I dropped her off, I headed south to Watsonville and I saw that it wasn’t fog at all – I had the radio on, and I was hearing the news on KGO.
When the Bonny Doon / Martin fire got started, I was off in Las Vegas, so I missed the hubbub, but that really freaked a lot of folks out, I know.
And yesterday, I was headed once again to Watsonville, and there was a jam up. I could see way down by the Mar Monte exit that there were no cars, but right in front of me, there were a bunch, all jammed up. Then I looked over the horizon – smoke. A CHP cruiser drove by on the shoulder, and soon we were being herded off the road. I took San Andreas Road down to Riverside and got into Watsonville that way, just 45 minutes late for my appointment.
They’re calling this third fire the Trabing fire. The folks I had gone there to meet were very gracious about my delayed arrival. The above picture is the the cloud of smoke arising over their neighbor’s house. It cast an eerie orange light over the neighborhood, and little particles of ash were floating down.
It’s kind of depressing. Three forest/wildfires in Santa Cruz in the space of a couple of months? I think it’s going to be a long, hot summer. As I watched that huge plume of smoke, I thought (not for the first time) how horrible it must be to live in, say, Baghdad, where I imagine you’d see plumes of smoke like that quite often – but probably with a darker hue and laden with more toxic chemicals. Yet another reason, I guess, to be thankful for what you have and thankful for what you don’t.
Posted by Administrator at 7:38am
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I’d like to point something out
June 20, 2008
I don’t want you to get the wrong idea – my trip to Las Vegas last week wasn’t a complete waste of time. I love taking pictures, and I ended up getting some decent shots to add to my collection. One day I’d like to take some actual photography classes, but I’m afraid that will have to wait until I get enough time free in my schedule. But if you’re interested, here are the photos I took on our trip to Las Vegas.
I didn’t take any pictures from the seminar/training deal – although that was interesting. The seminar/training deal was held at Bally’s (the same hotel where we stayed – highly recommended, it’s cheap given it’s prime location and it has a monorail station), in the Pacific Ballroom. Huge room, the size of a football field, There were only 120 Realtors or so taking the training – apparently they had expected there would be a lot more, to have rented a room of that size. A sign of the times?
Anyway, we spent some time talking about paying discount points. A few weeks earlier, at my regular office meeting, one of the owners of my brokerage (Larry Hattis, the infamous) gets all worked up about discount points, how he loves paying discount points. Or, rather, he loves it when the seller pays the discount points, although it’s all pretty much the same thing, since it’s your money (the buyer’s money) that he’s using to pay the points (typically, unless it’s a short sale).
What both Larry and the trainers said was this: seller paid discount points are tax deductible for the buyer in the year that the property is purchased – that’s right, even though the seller pays them. Sweet, huh? So let’s say the seller pays two points for your $500,000 loan – that’s $10,000, which is a big fat tax deduction you get to take that year. Not too shabby.
One thing that the trainer talked about is that many lenders also charge an origination fee. This is the biggest of the myriad fees you see that get paid to your lender at the time of closing. The thing is, this is basically a disguised discount point. Some lenders don’t charge origination fees – but this is probably reflected in a slightly higher interest rate. So…if your lender is going to charge you an origination fee (which is not tax deductible), ask if instead it can be called a discount point on the closing statement, and so then it, too, will be tax deductible.
Here’s a little article on bankrate.com about origination fees and discount points. Now, I’m not necessarily advocating that you get the seller to pay discount points for you – although it is increasingly common, especially as buyers are finding that interest rates are higher than they heard they might be – typically around 6 to 6.5%. Paying points probably makes sense if you plan to hold on to the property for several years – which since real estate works best as a long term investment, it’s something to consider.
Posted by Administrator at 7:45am
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