Archive for August, 2009

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Ten Reasons To Love Menlo Park

By Marcy Moyer | August 12th, 2009 2 Comments

1. Schools, Schools, Schools! Menlo Park, like Palo Alto and Mountain View, have some really outstanding schools. Students in this district are consistently high performers and many gain admission to top universities after high school.  There are two public elementary school districts:  Menlo Park and Las Lomitas. As well as many private schools which include: Trinity, Phillips Brooks, St. Raymond, St. Joseph’s (part of the Sacred Heart Schools), and Peninsula School.

2. Burgess Park. located next the Civic Center, this park features a little league baseball field, a regulation baseball field, an open play field, lighted tennis courts, a soccer field, picnic areas, and children’s playgrounds. The Burgess pool, rec center, sports center, and skate park are adjacent to the main park area. There’s also a lovely and relaxing duck pond here that’s a great place to relax and read a book.

3. Huge Library. Menlo’s library (a quick walk from Burgess Park) is one of the town’s focal points, especially for children and families. My two sons always enjoyed the Summer Reading Programs, and Storytimes are another free, entertaining, educational, and kid-approved favorite. Professional storytellers spin their magic at scheduled times throughout the week. On certain days, the stories cater to younger or older kids. The online live homework help program is one of the library’s new services. It’s totally free, and many of the tutors also speak Spanish.

4. Annual Connoisseurs’ Marketplace. This is the summer festival for summer festival lovers – and one of the best events in the area. There’s hardly anything more enjoyable than wandering a tree-lined street while local bands play during this popular festival of visual, performing, and culinary arts. It’s always the third weekend of July on Santa Cruz Avenue. This year, Organic Alley will highlight samplings of the finest organic food the area offers. Old favorites like the cooking demos and the kid’s fun zone will be up and running. The festival is always as eco-friendly as possible, and it embodies community values and the sense of civic responsibility cherished in Menlo Park and the Bay Area.

5. The Guild. This independent movie theatre is the place for real film lovers. Hard-to-find independent and foreign films play here, and the space itself has art-deco touches everywhere and velvet curtains surrounding the movie screens. Plus, it’s free refills on Mighty Leaf Tea AND all you can drink coffee (two great touches that make movie-going a lot less draining on your wallet and more pleasurable.) This is not your basic space-age blockbuster twelve screen Cinemax, and sometimes you have to put up with crackly sound or finicky seats. Nevertheless I’ve never had a bad experience here–the movies are always thought provoking, and sometimes the manager thanks you personally for coming.

6. Santa Cruz Avenue. This is the main drag of Menlo Park, where great shopping and world-class restaurants are crammed in side by side. You have endless options here – craft shops, clothing boutiques, interior design stores, bistros – literally anything you need. During lunch time it’s crawling with business professionals eating at sidewalk tables, and there are always shoppers resting on benches or teenagers hanging out in the coffee shops.

7. Every Kind of Home. Wonderful housing options here as well.  New homes, green homes on Willow, ranch homes on huge lots, condos, town homes, and tons of rentals near downtown ensure you’ll find exactly what you’re looking for in Menlo Park when it comes to your living needs.

8. Caltrain Station. You can get anywhere from here! You can also get here from anywhere on Santa Cruz Avenue, which is the biggest plus of all. This station is literally steps from Cafe Barrone and Kepler’s Books, so if you arrive a little early you can always grab a magazine or a cup of coffee to ease your wait.

9. Kepler’s Books. When the final Harry Potter book came out last summer, Kepler’s threw the bash of the century. There was a brass band, tents selling magic charms, Hogwart’s culinary staples, and a sorting hat. Kids of all ages wandered around in robes with magic wands tucked under their arms, and it seemed like everyone from the Bay Area decided Kepler’s was the place to snag this  seventh wonder. My favorite touch was the keepsake ticket handed out at the beginning. You paid for the ticket, and traded the ticket in for the book. The line of Potter fans snaked out the door and around the corner, and the Kepler’s staff did everything possible to make sure the night went smoothly. This place has a great history, and is one of the last independent bookstores standing in the Menlo Park/Palo Alto area. If they don’t have something in stock, they’re always happy to order it for you.

10. Menlo Medical Clinic. The staff here is friendly and accommodating, and the clinic gives off a good – we actually care about your health vibe – instead of that sterile, impersonal feeling. The lab staff is well trained, and it’s very clean. The doctors in this group are among the best in their fields, and everyone in the facility is professional and helpful. MMC is affiliated with Stanford Hospital, so coming here with any illness or ailment guarantees you’ll receive the best medical attention possible.

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Whoa! The $3M Buyers Are Back in Edgewood Park

By Ed Gory | August 11th, 2009 0 Comments

When you thought (ok, so when “I” thought) that it would be a long time before homes in Edgewood Park would approach the $3M price tag, one gets sold this past week, for $2.8M, sold off the market. 890 Edgewood Road. Former home of Redwood City’s oldest resident (Jean Cloud, who recently passed away at 102 years old).It’s one of the gems of Edgewood Road, classic colonial architecture, previously owned/built by Roy Cloud (yes, that of the namesake, highest API score school in the Redwood City School District). In my youth, I often thought this house was the “Mount Vernon” of Redwood City.

Like many other homes on the northernmost side of Edgewood Rd., this lovely estate commands a large, 41,000 sq. ft. lot, with the home being 3200 sq. ft.   And who knows, if the ‘talk on the street’ bears truth, but there may even be a couple more Edgewood Park homes in the $3M range changing hands soon.

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Foreclosures and other Opportunities

By Rick Soukoulis | August 10th, 2009 0 Comments

Have you ever noticed the changes in late night ads and infomercials for real estate opportunities? During a boom period, the late night ads are all about how to buy with nothing down and how to build an empire of rental houses.  People who bought the programs all speak glowingly into the camera about how much they are making in a week, and it seems they’re always filmed from some beach in Hawaii where they’ve presumably retired to.

But isn’t it kind of amazing how quickly the ads change once the real estate cycle turns?

Over the last few months, I’ve noticed a not-so-subtle change, as most of these late night ads now tell us how much money there is to be made in foreclosures, short sales, and other side effects of a difficult real estate environment.

Are these ads accurate?  Is there big money to be made during times of great stress in the housing markets?

They answer is that there can be, but that it’s gotten much more tricky this time around.

Why do I say that?

In the old days, and this may have been just  15 years ago or less, dealing with foreclosures and the like was pretty simple.  There was a good chance that the loan was owned by a local bank or savings & loan, and many realtors developed relationships with the foreclosure departments at these banks.

When good deals came along, the bank would call the realtors they worked with, and everyone made money.

Like a lot of things in modern life, things have gotten much more complex.

It sounds strange, but it’s not so simple to understand who owns a given loan anymore,

You’ve all heard of securitizations, right? It’s taking a large number of loans and putting them into a mortgage-backed security of some sort and then selling that security on Wall Street.

It’s like a bond that’s backed up by a whole bunch of individual mortgages.

That part sounds pretty simple, and whoever owns that security really owns the underlying mortgages.

For a number of reasons, we now have financial “engineers” who take a lot of the securities and then slice them into thin pieces.  They’ll then take these thin slices from maybe 10 different mortgage securities and combine them into new securities.

I know it sounds strange, but a single loan could end up being a part of 5-10 different securities. One might get the interest payments of the loan, while a totally different security might have the principal payments. One security might absorb the first 10% loss on a loan, while another security could absorb loses that exceed that 10%.

If you’re getting just a bit confused, well, it is confusing.

When you’re dealing with foreclosures, short sales and loan modifications, at some point you need to talk to the owner of that loan.  At some point you need the owner of that loan to sign off on what you’re trying to accomplish.

If it’s unclear who owns that loan, you’ll most likely need a decision that can only come from the owner of that security, or perhaps the custodian.

And not to scare you, but here’s a very possible scenario:  The loan you need a decision on could be part of a mortgage security owned by the Michigan State Teachers Retirement Fund. But another part of that loan could be owned by an insurance company in Japan.

How the heck will you ever get a decision on your proposed loan modification or short sale?  Unless you know your way around this world of securitizations, or unless you know someone who does, you might not ever know that the custodian for these securities can make the decision.

 My point is quite simple:  Financial engineering by Wall Street has made things more complicated, but there is some good news to this situation.  There are mortgage professionals who understand this process and who can guide you through it successfully. Intero Mortgage is here to help.

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The Intero Insider: Online home search – make sure you get the complete picture

By Gino Blefari | August 7th, 2009 0 Comments

There are lots of places to search for properties online. National sites, local sites, broker sites, agent sites.

After a while they all start to look the same.

But they are not the same.

In fact, there are important differences you probably didn’t know about.

Let me explain.

The electronic life of a property listing begins the moment an agent enters it into the Multiple Listing Service (MLS). There are thousands of MLS’s nationwide, and they serve as central regional databases that all REALTORS use to share information on properties. They are as close to a complete picture of what’s on the market as you can get.

In the past, REALTORS shared this information only amongst themselves. But in 2000, the National Association of REALTORS formalized something called IDX (Internet data exchange). IDX allows brokers and agents to show each other’s listings on their own websites.

So, for example, if you visit broker A’s website, you will see broker A’s listings, but also the listings from brokers B through Z. This is good for brokers – who get to market their listings more widely – but also good for consumers, who get a full picture of homes for sale in their market.

Everybody wins.

Now consider some of the most popular home search sites on the Internet – those run by media companies or start-ups, not real estate brokerage companies like Intero. These sites look good, but what you may not know is that many of them show you just a slice of the listings. Because they are not members of the MLS, they cannot participate in IDX.

And you, the consumer, see an incomplete picture.

Think about it: If you were shopping for digital cameras online, it might be OK to miss a few models. But homes? Not seeing all your options is a big deal.

So next time you go online to look for homes, make sure you’re on a site that gives you a complete picture.

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Intero International

By Intero Real Estate | August 6th, 2009 0 Comments

Parraga discusses Intero’s new overseas venture

Javier Parraga talks about his new role as president of Intero International Franchise Services. Take a look! “We feel with the right partners around the world that we truly are going to make Intero Real Estate Services an international company that is going to be the best real estate company in the world,” Parraga says.

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The Value of Fixer Uppers

By Steve Ricketts | August 5th, 2009 0 Comments

All home buyers are looking for value, and to most this means getting the largest home for the lowest price. For many buyers this translates into purchasing the renowned ‘fixer-upper’.

So what exactly qualifies a home as a ‘fixer-upper?’

There’s a wide range of subjective credentials, as some homes may only need new paint and carpet, while others may need more extensive repairs to their foundation, roof, plumbing, or electrical systems, etc.

While on your search for the right home, remember to be realistic on accomplishing the repairs – who will do it? Will it be you, or will you be hiring a contractor? Estimate how much the repairs will cost with, and without, professional help. Does it make your purchase worth it? If you have to hire an expensive outside contractor you may not see the potential value of buying the home in the first place.

If you choose to buy a home requiring repair it is especially important to work with a licensed REALTOR, due to so many potentially expensive issues you may be confronted with. Your agent will walk you through the details of the property and termite inspections, and help guide your decision-making process based on your own ability to repair the home.

Your REALTOR should also be able to recommend the best vendors in your area, based on their past experience and company recommendations, in case you need further help on your project, or even just some quality advice. Choosing the wrong people to help repair your home can be very costly in both time and money.

Once escrow has closed, and keys are in your hand the fun begins! With the economy as it stands today many home owners with fixer-uppers are turning to “sweat equity”, or do-it-yourself repairs, to enhance their home value.

You will find savvy home owners doing most of the work themselves with friends and family lending a hand. A method of making the project more pleasurable and less of a chore for your invited helpers is to make a party out of it! Offer pizza, drinks, music, etc. to motivate your crew. Offer out-of-town friends and relatives the chance to be your first few guests in your new home. Or, make this a great excuse to call old friends you haven’t seen in awhile. Make your home improvement projects a community effort.

You will be amazed when you are finished. Not only have you repaired and remodeled your new home, you will probably find that you have also built stronger relationships with family and friends.

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SHORT SALE vs. REO: Buyer “Thunderdome” Part 1

By William Chea | August 4th, 2009 0 Comments

For today’s buyer, the Short Sale and REO – real estate owned property – transactions are the market heavyweights.

Let’s go a few rounds weighing the pros and cons to see how they compare!

Round 1 – Pricing (REO comes out swings and lands a quick over-hand right – perhaps)

The biggest and most powerful draw the REO property has on buyers is typically lower pricing when compared to other homes on the market.  In San Jose lower prices have enticed so many buyers that, for the first time since 2005, there are more pending sales than active listings.  However, there is no Tyson-like knockout because with lower prices comes competitive bidding which drives the price up to where the deal is, in many cases, not so hot.   Case in point, we recently listed an REO on E. Duane Avenue in Sunnyvale and within 48 hours had 18 offers!

Round One goes to: The REO

Round 2 – Timeframe (Smelling blood, the REO goes for the knockout with a devastating left uppercut to the body!)

A huge complaint about the Short Sale is the uncertainty of outcome and the time frame – they take too long!  There are Pending Short Sales right now that have been waiting for lender approval for over 9 months!  The majority of REO offers can be ratified within 7 days and closed in 30 days.  This gives the REO a huge advantage. Short Sale’s knees are a little wobbly at this point but somehow manage to stay upright. Why? Thankfully many major lenders have finally recognized the value of the short sale and are beginning to streamline the approval process.  In the case of Wachovia Bank in Santa Clara County they are pioneering a program where the short sale approvals happen at the local level.  They have staff that actually discuss and assess the situation with the homeowner. Their approval turnaround time – from offer submission to final approval - can be as timely as 5 to 10 days. In general, private parties are typically more nimble in their ability to respond and make decisions related to the transaction – far less “bureaucracy” in this process. Short Sale survives REO’s early barrage and is saved by the bell!

Round Two goes to: The REO

Round 3 – Disclosures (The Short sale has its Balboa moment…queue the horns)

As an REO listing agent myself, it amazes me that buyers and/or their agents sometimes don’t get it – There are LIMITED SELLER disclosures in a REO transaction. The seller is an institution – they have never lived at the property.  They have never seen the property, much less know its history. Apart from the Natural Hazard Disclosures and a few mandatory disclosures, you have no idea what has happened to or around the home. This is where the Short Sale has a HUGE advantage. The seller most likely occupied the property and has a legal obligation to disclose everything they know to a potential buyer. Out of nowhere, Short Sale regains his legs and starts landing body punches to REO!

Round goes to: The Short Sale

This match is just heating up! Come back for Part 2 and see who will win.

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The Intero Insider: Finding – or imagining – a market bottom

By Gino Blefari | August 3rd, 2009 0 Comments

There’s an increasing amount of talk – both locally and in the national media – that we may have reached the bottom of the real estate market’s downturn.

Stories about properties selling quickly are becoming more common, as are instances of bank-owned properties selling with dozens of offers.

Moreover, in the past week, the National Association of Realtors reported that existing home sales saw an increase of 3.6% in June. Also, the Commerce Department reported that sales rose 11% in June to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 384,000, from an upwardly revised May rate of 346,000. The last time sales rose so significantly was in December 2000.

The average person may take all of this to mean that we have indeed reached the bottom – or even that it has already passed.

But if you follow the market as closely as we do here at Intero, you come to a different, and less clear-cut, conclusion.

As I reported a few weeks ago, there are promising signs at the market’s lower end. But to get a better sense for whether or not the market as a whole will see an upward trend soon, one needs to look at the foreclosure pipeline – the number of properties making their way through the lengthy foreclosure process.

According to ForeclosureRadar, a company that tracks California foreclosure data, Notices of Default – the first step in the foreclosure process – increased 11.8% in June to 45,691, the second highest monthly total on record and a 10% year-over-year increase from June 2008. Perhaps because of recent government restrictions on foreclosures, these properties are clogged in the pipeline. Yet it seems like there are more to come – to put NAR’s optimistic existing home sales report for June (as mentioned earlier) into perspective, last month we saw an increase in home sales nationwide, yet in California in June alone the total number of new home sales was less than 80% of the total Notices of Default issued. So this tells us to expect a flood of new foreclosures hitting the market as bank-owned for sale listings several months from now and ongoing.

To compound matters, Notices of Trustee Sale – the second step in the foreclosure process, when the property owner is notified that the lender, or trustee, will attempt to sell the property at auction – decreased by a surprising 28.9% in June. Which tells us that this drop in the available supply of homes has created what seems to be a false sense of market recovery.

A third factor, from an article in the Wall Street Journal in May of 2009 – Mortgage Modifying Fails to Halt Defaults cited the Fitch Ratings Report which stated, that although thousands of home owners have been saved from foreclosure through loan modifications, anywhere from 25%-60% of these homeowners, have or will re-default and re-enter the foreclosure process in the coming months.

These three statistics tell a deeper market story: Yes, things may be improving, but it is also clear that there is a way to go before foreclosures stop flooding the market and placing downward pressure on prices.

So, like me, keep an eye on what’s happening now in the market – but also on what’s to come.

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Fannie Who?

By Rick Soukoulis | August 2nd, 2009 0 Comments

If you live around Washington D.C. and feel a desperate need for some chocolate, you’ll probably head to the nearest Fannie Mae candy shop.  In parts of the East Coast, Fannie Mae is their version of See’s candy.

In the rest of the country, Fannie Mae is perhaps the most important government sponsored agency that no one knows anything about.

So what the heck is it, what do they do, and why does it matter?

First, it doesn’t really affect you if you’re going to rent the rest of your life.

But if you’re a homeowner, someone who wants to be a homeowner, or a realtor, it matters a great deal.

Let’s take a look at its history.

Fannie Mae was originally chartered during the New Deal.  It was meant to be a source of liquidity to the banks, prepared to buy mortgages so that the banks could re-lend the money.  In fact, it did very little of this for decades, and it only became a big business in the early 1980’s.

If you’re over sixty, you might recall how it used to be when you were looking for a mortgage. You would walk into an S&L, and as amazing as it sounds today, they would often tell you they were “all loaned up.”  This meant that all their deposits were lent out, and, as they’d tell you, you could come back in a few days and see if they had some new money to lend. 

It could be because some loans paid off, or perhaps because they took in some deposits.

As crazy as it sounds, it was this way till the late 70’s and early 80’s when Fannie Mae started getting much more active.

By buying loans, Fannie Mae freed up money for the banks & S&Ls lend again.

It provided liquidity, which is really fancy way of saying that it supported housing values.  If you think about it, it makes total sense that housing values would decline if there is no mortgage money around.

As California housing prices climbed in the last 30 years, Fannie Mae became less and less relevant in California.

Why?

The answer is that Fannie Mae sets a limit each year on the size of mortgages they can buy.  Right now, it’s a max of $417,000 per loan.   While that might be enough in rural North Dakota, it’s just not enough in most parts of California.

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking a big So What?

It actually matters a great deal. 

 If you get a Fannie Mae loan today, that is, one that’s $417,000 or less, your rate is significantly lower than if you get a so-called jumbo loan over that amount.

 Go over $417,000 – even by just on e dollar – and your rate will jump almost a full point.

In round numbers, the monthly payment will jump about 10% once you go over this threshold.’

 One of the more exciting things coming out of Washington, aside from Fannie Mae chocolate, is the possibility that Fannie Mae will raise its loan limits.  Congress is getting close to raising it a whopping 75% to $730,000.

Just imagine. With higher Fannie Mae loan limits, monthly payments will be lower and that will make it infinitely easier to qualify borrowers.

Does it matter?

You bet it does!

If it goes through, Realtors should see values stabilize, sales increase, and borrowers get easier to qualify.

It matters a lot!


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