Grateful Dead archives now call Santa Cruz home
May 03, 2008
Santa Cruz is kind of famous. For a town (and county) this small, the area is known by a disproportionately large number of people. Maybe it’s the beaches, the world-class surfing, the towering redwood trees. Maybe they know our fine university, made famous for having no grades, pot-smoking hippies, and now, the final resting place for the Grateful Dead archives.
Doubtless, there has been much gritting-of-teeth in some parts of the community about this one. “This is just what we need,” I can hear ‘em saying. Because, contrary to popular belief, Santa Cruz really isn’t a hippie town. It may be neo-Bohemian as Bob Weir says it is, but not too many folks are dead sure what exactly neo-Bohemianism is. On the other hand, most people think they know a dirty hippie when they see one, and more than a handful can probably say they’ve seen at least one or two in Santa Cruz.
For every resident that is appalled by linking Santa Cruz any further with the patchouli set (my colleague Mike Crain comes readily to mind), there is, I am sure, at least one other person who is totally stoked that the Dead archives have come to town. And I feel compelled here to point out that it’s not just drugged-out slack-jawed stoner types who groove to the Grateful Dead. In fact, who is helping to put these archives together? To quote the San Jose Mercury News:
A blue-chip team including several Silicon Valley-based fans - among them venture capitalist and musician Roger McNamee - will oversee a $2 million fundraising campaign for the archive. Seagate Technology CEO Bill Watkins has volunteered technical support.
I’m afraid you’re going to have to count me in with the folks who think this is a good thing. I don’t really know about the scholarship aspects of cataloging Grateful Dead fan letters, or what’s to be gleaned by studying the first contract the Dead signed to record an album or two for Warner Brothers. But my feeling is that it will further cement Santa Cruz as something of a mecca for live music. And in an era when music piracy is just so easy and prevalent, I suspect that playing actual shows will be an increasingly important revenue source for musicians.
Perhaps you don’t know, but for such a small town, Santa Cruz has a very healthy live music scene. Front and center, we have the Catalyst Club, which has been host to innumerable concerts by many leading performers. I don’t know that the Grateful Dead ever played there (but apparently they did put on a pretty good show in Watsonville), but I’ve seen many amazing musicians at the Catalyst - Los Lobos, Flogging Molly, Leo Kotke, Burning Spear, to name but a few. And beyond the Catalyst, there’s Moe’s Alley, and let’s not forget the Kuumbwa Jazz Center. And for special events, there’s always the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium, which is the first (and one of only two times) place I saw Phish.
To me, it’s simple. Preserving the Grateful Dead archives here at UC Santa Cruz is just one more sign that Santa Cruz has got it goin’ on. A vibrant live music scene may not provide the kind of jobs that they got over there in Silicon Valley, but I think it really is one of the key aspects of the community that make this a very special place to live.
Edit: I can’t believe this, but I forgot to mention the Santa Cruz Blues Festival and the KPIG Fat Fry - two other yearly events which bring world famous, top-notch musicians to a beautiful Aptos Village Park. Hallelujiah and Amen!
Posted by SantaCruzBroker at 10:15pm
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Santa Cruz Real Estate - What’s In, What’s Out
April 22, 2008
This morning I was frantically running off a few flyers for one of my listings in Watsonville (a great mobile home in an awesome park - check it out). I needed to do a few errands down in Watsonville before my weekly office meeting, and loading up the flyer box at this listing was one important thing on my list. As I was standing by the printer waiting for the job to complete, the managing broker of Thunderbird comes up to me and asks if I’d like to participate on a panel.
“Panel?” I said, “Sure! What panel?” You know me, I never look a gift horse in the mouth - if the boss is going to give me an opportunity to be in front of a bunch of potential real estate buyers, I’m there! She explained: “We’re putting on a discussion about what’s in, what’s out in today’s Santa Cruz real estate market. We’re getting a few lenders together and some of the agents in the office to do a public event. I’d like to invite you to come along and talk about foreclosures in Santa Cruz, because that’s what everybody is probably going to want to know about.”
Hey, sounds good. I know about all kinds of real estate aside from foreclosures, but I imagine they’ll let me chime in if I have something I feel needs to be said on another topic. Here are the topics slated for discussion:
- What is the current state of the mortgage industry?
- What loan programs work best in the current market?
- What strategies can buyers use to best position themselves to buy?
- What is the prognosis for interest rates in 2008?
- What do home prices look like now?
- What is a short sale and how do I buy a home through a short sale?
- Why is now a good time to buy?
- What are some ideas to help me sell my house now?
- How can I use the Internet to help me buy or sell a home?
You, dear reader, may have noticed that there’s no topic about buying foreclosure real real estate. Presumably that topic will be added to the next version of the flyer they are handing out.
The panel discussion will be held on Thursday, May 8th at 6:00 PM at Santa Cruz Title Company in Capitola - 1955 41st Avenue, just three doors down from Starbucks (behind the Burger King, Citibank, and various other corporate logos).
If you are interested in going, please call my office to sign up: (831) 475-8400. Or, just contact me and I’ll put you on the list. They say “Space is Limited, Call now to Reserve a Seat” - but I don’t imagine the fire marshall will be on-hand to shut us down if we should exceed the rated capacity from the room. But if you do register ahead of time, we’ll probably make sure there are enough cookies for everyone (no promises).
Posted by SantaCruzBroker at 8:50pm
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Foreclsure News - from Santa Cruz and Beyond
April 15, 2008
I drive my wife crazy with my singing - and not in a Marvin Gaye kind of way. One thing I like to sing to her to wake her from slumber is Good Morning - my rendition is especially horrible and all I really know is the chorus part. But hey, I still think it’s better than a nasty alarm buzzer. And it is also better than getting woken up by the morning news, especially in these dark days.
You may have heard this one on the drive in to work, or perhaps they were bantering about it on NBC’s Today Show or something:
[From Bloomberg.com: Worldwide]
U.S. foreclosure filings jumped 57 percent and bank repossessions more than doubled in March from a year earlier as adjustable mortgages increased and more owners gave up their homes to lenders.
Yeah, good stuff. That’s what you want to hear as you write out your next mortgage payment check!
Of course, you know the famous saying - all real estate is local. What’s happening in Peoria isn’t really all that germane to what’s happening in bucolic Santa Cruz. So what is going on in Bucolic Santa Cruz? Read on:
[From Median home price drops to $650,000 - Santa Cruz Sentinel]
The switch pushed the median price of a single-family home down in March to $650,000 from $682,500 in February — but not as low as $599,000 in January, when 33 percent of homes sold for less than $500,000. The median is the mid-spending point of what sold during the month.
Only 75 homes sold in March, the fewest number of sales for a month in 11 years, an indication of buyer reluctance despite lower list prices. The previous low — 143 sales — was set last March.
That’s an interesting article, and it has more sales data from the aforementioned Gary Ganges, who I talked about briefly in my blog entry from yesterday. According to the article:
Ganges doesn’t specifically track REOs but he found 12 of the 28 homes sold in Watsonville in January, February and March were bank-owned.
Only 12 of 28? Hmm, that seems a little low to me. I do specifically track REOs, all the time, because that’s where the best bargains are to be had, and I’m always looking to find my clients the best deal possible. I just did a search, and I looked at all closed sales since the beginning of the year (up til now, mid April). I included Watsonville and the outlying areas (but not north Monterey county), and counted houses, condos, and multi-residential properties (actually, I don’t think any multi-res sold in that time period). My findings?
There were 35 sales of such properties since the beginning of the year. Of those, two were short sales, and twenty-two (22!) were bank-owned REO real estate. Actually, I’m surprised the number isn’t a bit higher. It should be noted that a few of the others that sold were in the city of Watsonville’s affordable housing program, and there was one Measure J property.
Sigh. Welp, I’m off to my office meeting. Keep up the good work everyone!
Posted by SantaCruzBroker at 7:54am
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Signs of the Apocalypse in Santa Cruz
April 07, 2008
For many years, I’ve had the idea that one day I would write a book. My dad is a professional author - check out his latest book about psychic Annette Martin, Gift of the White Light. I plan to write a book that’s a cross between Catcher in the Rye and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. The project is some ways away from getting off the ground (decades, maybe) but I already have the first sentence picked out. It’s catchy. Ready? Here goes.
It was looking grim.
Did it grab you? I know, you’re hooked. Speaking of looking grim, here are some signs of the apocalypse.
[From Record numbers won't pay property tax bill - Santa Cruz Sentinel]
A near record number of homeowners likely won’t pay property taxes by the April 10 deadline, another sign of just how tight things have become.
Yep yep. The chickens are making themselves right at home, roosting all over the darn place. It’s no sweat not to pay your property tax. Santa Cruz county won’t auction off your home for like five years, so what’s the rush? The interest rate is only 10%, and what are you paying to CapitalOne? Only thing is, I hear that you if you want to work out a deed in lieu of foreclosure with your lender, they won’t work with you if you have unpaid property tax. So there you go, keep them property taxes paid, people!
So that’s one sign. There are others. It seems that one of the greatest occupations ever is under attack here in the Golden State. Yes, of course, I’m talking about real estate agents. There has been a precipitous drop of new blood coming into a industry that is clearly hemorrhaging:
[From Number of real estate agents starts to shrink]
Just 1,324 people took the real estate salesperson exam in January, down from 8,765 a year earlier and 14,397 two years ago, according to the Department of Real Estate.
There are other signs, too. But now I see we are fast approaching 9 AM here on the Left Coast and really I need to get cracking. It’s Monday morning, and despite the fact that the writing is clearly on the wall and the apocalypse is nigh, life goes on.
Posted by SantaCruzBroker at 8:42am
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Researching Santa Cruz Neighborhoods On-Line
April 05, 2008
Many (most?) of the visitors to my web site are folks who don’t actually live in Santa Cruz. Some of them have been to the area once or twice, some of them vacation regularly here. Some of them have children who are going to attend UC Santa Cruz, and some are considering Santa Cruz as a place to spend their retirement years. Whatever draws them here, a common interest is to research the various cities and the neighborhoods that make up Santa Cruz County.
Fortunately, there are a lot of tools these days for checking out Santa Cruz on-line. Although the only way to truly get to know a neighborhood is to come and spend some time in it, if that’s not very practical for you, there are alternatives.
Yelp.com: this is a very cool site. This is a site full of user-generated content about the various things to see and do in any area, including Santa Cruz. It has categories like Arts & Entertainment, Health and Medical, Nightlife, etc. I suggest you type in an address in an area you’re interested in and start here.
Flickr Map: You know about Flickr.com, right? They also have a handy map tool, so you can search for photos tagged as being taken from a certain area, like for example Santa Cruz. If you want to see what an area looks like, this is a great way to do it.
Yahoo Neighborhoods: Yahoo has a pretty interesting neighborhoods tool, which is closely coupled to their real estate section. It gives an overview of a city: population, demographics, weather, jobs, education, etc. It also gives you information on schools, restaurants, and shopping. It doesn’t actually break down various neighborhoods, alas.
Ask City: Venerable ask.com keeps trying to stay relevant, and has a bit of success with it’s Ask City tool. The Ask City tool is pretty cool - you can draw a shape on a map of a given area and ask to find businesses, events, movies, etc. that fall just in that area - good for researching neighborhoods.
Trulia.com: Trulia is far from venerable - they’re one of the new kids on the block. However, they put together a pretty impressive offering. They do focus mostly on real estate, but they have information on schools, for example. They also have an interesting housing price heat map for Santa Cruz county.
Google Maps: Google Maps is a fantastic tool, and they have now built into it a system for reviewing the businesses and other points of interest that you can find on the map. Also worth checking out, perhaps, is the Google Directory. Also, searching Google Images for Santa Cruz can yield some interesting information.
YouTube: This doesn’t really tell you much about neighborhoods, but you might find some interesting nuggets here, as always!
Posted by SantaCruzBroker at 7:33am
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