Irvine Real Estate Blogger

Photo courtesy of Irvine Ranch Conservancy

Join in on a docent-led mountain bike ride through the Irvine Open Space Preserve. This is a moderate-paced mountain bike tour through the picturesque hills of Bommer and Shady Canyons with a combination of ranch roads and multiple intermediate level technical singletrack trails, and many steep climbs and descents. Over 2000 feet of accumulated climbing elevation is experienced on this route. Participants should be physically fit and possess above-average mountain biking skills. Mountain bike, helmet, and 32 oz. of water (minimum) required.

Please note, this is an intermediate ride. This ride features only a few, short rest stops, steep climbs and rocky descents. It requires above average fitness, and a mountain bike with a minimum of front suspension. If you are unsure of your abilities, please call first. There are beginner rides for those who are new to the sport which are offered as well.

For Irvine Ranch Conservancy and Irvine Open Space Preserve Programs, registration for weekday programs closes at 4 p.m. on the day prior to the event. Weekend program registration closes at 4 p.m. on the Friday prior to the event. For policies of other organizations, please contact them directly using the links on the home page.

Photo courtesy of the Irvine Ranch Conservancy

Take a break and get some fresh air!  Join in on a mid week hike through Quail Hill.

$8000 Federal Tax Rebate Updated

First-time home buyers and move-up buyers have another great reason to get off the fence, pre-approved and on the road to purchasing a home! The benefit to first-time homebuyers is a tax credit up to $8,000 and for move-up buyers a tax credit up to $6,500. But this opportunity ends in April.

• Between November 7, 2009 and April 30, 2010, homebuyers that have a signed binding contract to purchase a home may be eligible for the tax credit. The transaction must close no more than 60 days after April 30, 2010.
• First-time homebuyers may receive a credit of 10 percent of the purchase price, up to the $8,000 tax credit amount. If you have never owned a home before or have not owned a principal residence in the last three years, you are considered a first-time homebuyer.
• For home-owners, a tax credit of $6,500 is available for homeowners who have lived in their current residence for at least five of the past eight years. Homebuyers can also receive a 10 percent credit up to $6,500 when they contract to purchase a home between now and April 30, 2010, provided they close no more than 60 days after this deadline.

The tax credit does not have to be repaid provided you live in the new home for a minimum of three years. Military families are exempt from this stipulation.

For an exhaustive and detailed Q & A by Sonia M. Younglove, Esq., see the latest California Association of Realtors extensive article on this subject.

Five Irvine Unified School District schools scored in the top ten for all of Orange County for API results in 2009.

Turtle Rock, Bonita Canyon, Canyon View and Alderwood Basics Plus Elementary Schools ranked #2, #5 ,#6, and #7 respectively, and Rancho San Joaquin Middle School ranked #9.

Turtle Rock elementary is the district school for the part of Turtle Rock village located in the 92612 zip code as well as the University Town Center. Bonita Canyon elementary encompasses homes located in Turtle Rock within the 92603 zip code.

Canyon View elementary is located in a newer part of Northwood villlage in the 92620 zip code.

Alderwood Basics Plus elementary, located in Quail Hill, serves Quail Hill and the Spectrum area residents.

Rancho San Joaquin Middle School is the district school for the villages of Quail Hill, Turtle Rock, Turtle Ridge, Rancho San Joaquin, University Park and University Town Center.

To ensure that the desired school falls within your neighborhood, please look up the street address at: http://www.iusd.org/asp-bin/whichschool

To see how your schools rank among all of Orange County, go to:

http://school.hiwhy.com/orange-county

First published yesterday in http://robin4homes.activerain.com

The recently enacted American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 or ARRA, commonly referred to as “The Stimulus Bill,” created a tax credit for first time Home Buyers. Most first time home buyers wonder what the specific qualifications are for this $8,000 tax credit. Below are six steps to determining your eligibility:

1. Who is a First-Time Buyer? The bill defines a first time home buyer as anyone who has not owned a property/home/real estate for the past three (3) years.

2. How does the Tax Credit Work? The tax credit is received when you file your taxes the year after your home/real estate purchase. In other words, the first time home buyer does not receive any cash at the time escrow closes, nor does the 1st time home buyer receive any assistance with closing costs through the escrow. Instead it is added to any refund you would be due on your taxes in the year following your home purchase.

3. Can I Receive theTax Credit of $8,000 Even If I Owe No Taxes?: You, as a first-time home buyer, can still qualify even if you own little or no taxes. Continue reading ‘6 Steps to Determining Your Eligibility for a Home Buyer Tax Credit?’

On February 18, 2009, President Obama announced his Homeowner Affordability and Stability Plan. The plan has two components to it–one offers homeowners who qualify a plan that would refinance mortgages that are greater than the current market value of their home or condo into a more affordable monthly payment thereby reducing the possibility of a future foreclosure.

The second component offers homeowners a way to modify their existing mortages into a housing payment that would enable the borrower to stay in their home/condo and avoid possible mortgage default and/or foreclosure.

Beware of Foreclosure Rescue Scams–Help is Free! Let me preface by saying there are many scams out there that prey on troubled homeowners. There are people who purport to be experts in loan modifications and ask homeowners to pay for their services when you can obtain all the information and help you need for free.

This is one reason why I prefer to pass along the real source of information, so that you, the consumer, can determine after reviewing the eligibility requirements of each of these government sponsored programs whether you are a candidate for either one or the another.

The following web site explains in detail each of the programs–the Home Affordable Refinancing and Home Affordable Modification–eligibility requirements and the information you will need to gather before you contact your mortgage/loan servicer.

Go to: http://www.makinghomeaffordable.gov/

If you would like to read the detailed report released by the U.S. Department of the Treasury on March 4, 2009:

See: http://www.ustreas.gov/press/releases/reports/housing_fact_sheet.pdf

When you, the buyer, purchase a condo in a multi-unit/hi-rise building, you may not be aware of the unintended consequences that can arise due to your neighbor(s) defaulting on their mortgage(s) and/or condo/association fees.

Depending upon how many homeowners in your condominium building are in default–those of whom have stopped paying their mortgages and association dues–will directly impact the condominiums reserves and the funds necessary to operate and maintain the integrity of the building. As a result, the HOA (Homeowner’s Association) may have to vote to increase the association dues/and or propose a special assessment for each and every homeowner in the building to cover the short fall resulting from your neighbors’ defaulting on their loans and/or dues. This problem can be compounded depending upon how many of the condos in the building are in default. Continue reading ‘Unintended Consequences of Condo Foreclosures’

Photo Courtesy of NBC.com
The buzz in home purchases/sales revolves around distressed properties these days–namely, REO’s or bank-owned homes. If there is one story that peaks a buyer’s interest, it is the REO home market. The reason is simple enough: the buyer believes that REO’s equal great deal or steal. But are bank-owned homes the real deal? Let’s take a closer look:

If you happen to be a first-time homebuyer or a novice in terms of the homebuying process, an REO (Real Estate Owned) home or bank foreclosure requires seeking the assistance of a knowledgable real estate professional. At first blush, the pricing may look enticingly attractive.

In her article entitled “Foreclosure Sales And Pretend Pricing,” Kris Berg of The San Diego Home Blog writes that the “pretend pricing method or (PPM) is an entirely different and oft-mysterious approach to the whole conundrum of determining what the market value really is for a home. Once a lender has foreclosed on a home, the PPM comes into play.”

Foreclosures are often priced 20-30% below a “regular sale”–that is a home that actually has equity in it and is not over encumbered or “under water”, so to speak. That said are REO homes real deals or not? Most home foreclosures are priced way under the market just to create hype. Welcome to the wild west side of the home pricing market. These properties will garner multiple offers with the final sales price often thousands of dollars above the original asking price. Not only does this breed disappointment, disillusionment and frustration among buyers who are looking to own and occupy the property, but these homes typically will sell to the highest bidder who also has a large cash down payment. Continue reading ‘Are REO’s the Real Deal for First-Time Home Buyers?’

Since many buyers looking for real estate these days seem interested in bank foreclosures/REOs/real estate owned properties, I thought I would make it a little bit easier for the folks out there to find these properties.

Below is a current list of foreclosures in the city of Irvine and surrounding cities in south Orange County.

If you would like a updated list of bank owned properties that are not included on this list, please contact me, and I will send it along to you.

Photo of my very own “I Voted” Sticker

Exercise Your Political Muscle and Vote!

Exercise is good for your body and mind. Exercising your political muscle strengthens your community and the nation. Your vote matters. Just do it!

Go on, get to the polls and vote!

Photo courtesy of The Truth About Mortgage
With the financial markets in turmoil, and with the luster lost in the real estate market, one wonders where the savvy buyer/investor is placing his/her dollars. If you remove gold bullion, and/or stashing your money under the mattress from the safe haven equation, I would say that the REO (real estate or bank-owned) market is currently vying for the home buyer’s/investor’s cash.

I’ve been tracking the REO market here in Irvine for my buyers and sellers. Buyers want to know that if they decide to purchase a home now that their investment is protected from a further market decline. They feel that if they focus on foreclosed properties, then they have, to some extent, a built-in cushion just in case the real estate market experiences further declines. Whether or not this perception proves to be true is still debatable. However, this is the buyer’s/investor’s view of the current state of the real estate market. Continue reading ‘It’s a Seller’s Market if the Home is an REO (Bank Owned) Property’

Photo courtesy of Tim Larson of Grey Clad Mystery

We all search for perfection in the real world. We look for the perfect person with whom we can bond. We look for the perfect culinary or wine-tasting experience. We look to catch the perfect wave. We look to achieve the perfect SAT scores; well, you get the picture. We all strive toward that elusive dream of perfection in whatever it is that we deem important in our lives.

Fast forward to the way in which buyers/consumers search for the perfect place to call home versus the way in which real estate web developers construct a real estate site. In his funny and illuminating article entitled Rethink Real Estate Search, in Inman News, Marc Davison, of 1000 Watt Consulting points out that real estate internet sites are engineered by programmers–”guys and gals with 180 IQ’s–guided by folks who get their kicks from Excel.”

A programmer might construct a search by zip code, or create an application that includes home-value estimates that “can never be accurate, no matter how many Ph.D.s are thrown at them;” or create searches that are “cluttered by advertising;” or provide maps that are either “hybrid,” “satellite” or “list” views (“humans don’t search from space”), instead of speaking to what real people are looking for when they search for the perfect place to live.

And while it is true that statistical data has demonstrated that over 80% of buyers/consumers begin their search for the perfect home online, their home search continues off line, on the ground, and at the local level in conjunction with a real estate professional

Continue reading ‘The Quest for the Perfect Home Search’

Crystal Cove Historic District

We have some idyllic places just a short bike ride from Irvine, CA. One of these places is a throw-back to an earlier time–Crystal Cove State Park in Corona del Mar, CA. We had a pleasant, sunny afternoon strolling on the beach, catching some raysand cogitating how fortunatewe are to live in this little piece of paradise.

Back in the 1920’s Crystal Cove was transformed into “a paradise of the south seas” by a budding silent film industry, and small cottages were built and thatched with palms to reflect the exotic appearance of Tahiti or Hawaii. Silent movies were filmed on location here as it was easily accessible by rail and much more affordable than shooting in a far off location. Continue reading ‘Lazin’ on a Sunny Afternoon in Crystal Cove (Just a Few Short Miles from Irvine, CA)’

Free Pacific Symphony Concert on Sat., August 16th, 2008

Photo Courtesy of Asiir

You won’t want to miss one of the highlights of this summer by attending this free performance by the Pacific Symphony, sponsored by Target, as part of their 2008 “Symphony in the Cities” concert series this Saturday evening, August 16th at 7:00 p.m. in Irvine’s Heritage Park.

It’s a great opportunity to hear our beloved Pacific Syphony, with Musical Director Carl St. Clair, while enjoying a picnic in the park with family and friends. And did I mention that it’s free! If you have children (nieces, nephews, friend’s/neighbor’s children) you definitely want to show up by 5:30 p.m. for the “musical playgound” in which the kids will participate and share in interactive and hands-on activities that include a conducting workshop and a chance to assist Maestro St. Clair during the concert. What an opportunity! It’s a sure bet to be a highlight of your summer experience here in Irvine. Continue reading ‘Free Pacific Symphony Concert in Irvine’s Heritage Park ~ Sat., 08/16 at 7:00 p.m.’

I decided to play the interviewer at my Open House yesterday. Yes, I am one of those real estate agents who believe in holding Open Houses as one way to market and expose a home to potential buyers, and to answer questions swirling around in the minds of buyers and sellers in the Irvine neighborhoods in which we market and sell homes. Yes, It’s real life, real-time interacting with your potential home buying/selling community; “pressing the flesh,” so to speak. And to be quite honest we have actually sold quite a few of our listings and/or our collegues listings through the contacts we have made holding Open Houses. However, yesterday, I decided to ask John and Jane Doe, and Mary Q. Public the following questions:

1. On which sites do you search for properties, and

2. If you could make one change that would enhance your online home searching experience, what would that change be? And the answers were enlightening:

Continue reading ‘What Do Buyers Want When They Search for a Home on the Internet?’

I considered a name change–oh no, not my “real” name, but my on screen real estate name. Robin4Homes just doesn’t reveal who I really am. Okay, okay, so yes, my real name is Robin, and yes, I do sell homes (ala real estate); but nowadays, one’s on screen personality can really sizzle with a dynamic screen name; I mean would people have viewed Archie Leach in the same light as they did the suave, debonair, sophisticated Cary Grant? I think not. And what about Madonna? Would she have had the same fame had she remained Louise Veronica Ciccone? Questionable, at best.

So I tossed around a few names to see what transformation might occur with a new name. The first one was Rockin’ Red Robin; certainly, sizzly–but maybe a little too sizzly; I wanted to be noticed on screen, but maybe not in that sort of way. So out went Rockin’ Red Robin, and in came Robin’s Nest–too cutsy; later it was on to Robinzhoods; I thought this one was a winner; but my partner nixed it; he thought it sounded too gansta rappy; and Round Robin too portly.

Then to complicate matters, I started a blog and had to come up with an on screen persona for the new blog; I was told not to obsess about it–to give it ten minutes max and be done with it. So I wound up with Irvine Real Estate Blogger (boooring!). But I guess it defined a certain aspect of me (I live in Irvine; I am in Real Estate, and I am a would-be real estate blogger); Still it did not define the real me, definitively, and in a way with which I was satisfied.

Fast forward to the RE Barcamp in San Francisco, the day before the Inman Connect 2008 Conference, where the superstars of the blogosphere gather to discuss blogging about real estate and the newest technologies in a free-wheeling, brainstorming sort of way. Some brilliant, creative minds thought up a great way to meet and greet other bloggers; namely, calling cards with code names that defined a superpower within each of us. Too cool! Thus we were introduced to The Striped Crusader whose superpower “emits powerful rays of inspiration,” The Legal Eagle whose superpower is “making the industry better one degree at a time,” and The Mortgage Man whose superpower is “keeping consumers safe from high interest rates,” and so on. And then my name was called out: Robin Fenchel (Real Name), dubbed “The Diva of Orange,” whose superpower is raising a UC Berkeley and Harvard tandem.” Poof! I was transformed, aloft and afloat without warning, from Robin4Homes into the Diva of Orange for a single, cloud computing moment in time. And what a time it was.

Is there a place for Open Houses in a real estate agent’s marketing strategy these days? Elaine Carlson, of PalosVerdesSource.com, exploses this issue in her article entitled “Is the Jig Up on Open Houses? There is no short answer.

Open Houses can be a viable, valuable marketing tool under certain circumstances and in particular niche markets. Real estate is after all local, and buyers often like to check out neighborhoods and houses up close and in person without having to commit to using the services of a real estate agents in the beginning stages of their search.

Just as many buyers prefer to view homes first online, anonymously, and educate themselves before actually making contact with a real estate professional, buyers also utilize Open Houses as a way to familiarize themselves with those particular communities in which they may ultimately have an interest in purchasing a home or condo. Continue reading ‘Do Open Houses Sell Houses?’

There is light at the end of the tunnel…

It began this spring with whispers and mumblings in the real estate community and blogesphere. Buyers were emerging from their winter doldrums and showing up at Open Houses–at first checking house prices; not commiting, but still demonstrating a measurable interest in real estate.

While the reports from the established media were still cast in colors of May gray, and June gloom, the tweets and twitters from the chorus of real estate agents in their respective local nests were singing a different tune and what a sweet tune it has turned out to be.

Open the curtains, raise the windows, throw open the doors, and inhale the fresh air of a changing season in the real estate market. The flowers are in full bloom and their fragrance fills the air. The birds are singing and a new day is dawning here in Irvine and in the local housing markets around Orange County.

Psst…if you haven’t heard, homes are selling and they are selling in healthy numbers. Active listings down; pending sales up; inventory is rapidly being absorbed–these positive trends continue to emerge in the Irvine, California and Orange County real estate markets.

Irvine and Orange County housing sales reported to the MLS continues to be strong. The past two weeks have seen sales in greater numbers. Inventory continues to fall by an average of about 100 listings per week, compared to increases of approximately 200 listings per week at this time last year. The current inventory in Orange County number 1600 fewer homes than at this time last year. Active listings in Orange County have fallen below 15,000, and the index of how long it would take to sell/absorb the existing inventory at the current rate of sales is at its lowest point since August of 2006. In our local Irvine housing market, we currently have a total of 839 active listings in the Multiple Listing Service. Those homes/condos reported as in Back-Up or Pending Sales (in escrow) number 272 which indicates that it would take only three months to absorb/sell the existing inventory at the current rate of sales.

Buyers have a real opportunity to realize their dream of home ownership at significantly lower prices and favorable interest rates.

• Check out the fascinating oral history (50th Anniversary) of “How the Web Was Won” in Vanity Fair http://tinyurl.com/46tblt #
• “The Medium is the Message”: Meet the world of Web 2.0 Politics.Do you see the correlation here for Real Estate?http://tinyurl.com/5873uv #
• Irvine, CA was named safest city for the 4th year in a row among big cities (w/ population above 100K residents) http://tinyurl.com/5bzcv7 #
• Geez, Inventory in Irvine is down, pendings & back-ups are way up. Does anybody out there here the thunder? #
• Homes for sale in Irvine MLS: (Actives) 844; Pending and Backup Sales (In Escrow) 266; that’s just a little over 3 months visible supply #

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As a veteran real estate agent, the message reverberated loud and clear: “Innovate or Disintegrate,” as Jessica Swesey writes in her fairwell article as a columnist for the Inman News.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my years as editor of Inman News, it’s that companies that do not innovate die–or worse, become irrelevant, which is much like being buried alive.

I hope that those in the real estate industry see the changing market as their opportunity to innovate. The Internet, open source, social media, the sub- prime disaster and housing downturn have changed consumers forever. Real estate needs to adapt to these changes.

Those who do not innovate will become irrelevant to these changing needs.

Indeed, real estate agents must embrace the new medium of the Web 2.0 by creating a voice through a network of interactive communication and participation, and by going beyond the static page of a Web 1.0 presence to deliver rich original content and information to the home buying and selling public.

In the 1960’s, Marshall McCluhan, a media analyst, wrote a book from which the title became the common vernacular for the transformative power and influence of the medium of television, still in its infancy: namely, The Medium is the Message.

Every generation has their medium and those who succeed in embracing the medium connect with the people with whom they communicate. In the realm of politics, President Franklin Roosevelt used radio–the medium of the day to connect with the depression-era populace by way of the intimate Fireside chats.

President John F. Kennedy used the new medium of the time, television, to connect with an unprecedented seventy-seven million Americans (over 60% of the adult population,) to win the Kennedy/Nixon Debates in the eyes of the public and ultimately win the Presidency. At the time, CBS news correspondent, Charles Kuralt, declared that “Kennedy’s skill with the medium helped to make television the nation’s ‘new front porch’.”

Fast forward almost half a century, and the political pundits are now attempting to deconstruct Barack Obama’s below the radar successful candidacy for the Democratic nomination for the Presidency.

In Frank Rich’s Op-Ed article entitled, One Historic Night, Two Americas, he points out that “the Obama forces out-organized the most ruthless machine in Democratic politics because the medium of their campaign mirrored its inclusive message.” In other words, they empowered the ordinary citizen rather than relying on the typical top-down hierarchical structure of the past.

“Such viral organization and fund-raising is a seamless fit with bottom-up democracy as it is increasingly practiced in the Facebook-YouTube era, not merely by Americans and not merely by the young.”

Out with the old ways of doing business; in with the new social media.

He goes on to point out the similarities between Hillary Clinton’s and John McCain’s strategies in their respective “cultural tone-deafness” and “stodgy generic web site(s) ” in which their “blogs, video and social networking are static and sparse,” and how both Clinton and McCain repeatedly invoke “I,” in their respective speeches, while Obama’s message invokes the inclusiveness of the “Yes, we can” mantra: speaking to a multi-racial, multi-ethnic, multi-generational inclusiveness–a post boomer, post-partisan inclusiveness that jettisons the baggage of the Me-Generation and embraces the You-Tube, MySpace, Facebook generation. “His [Obama's] vocabulary is so different from that of Mrs. Clinton and Mr. McCain that they often find it as baffling as a foreign language.”

In Rich’s opinion Mrs. Clinton and Mr. McCain see change as “nothing more than a marketing gimmick,” while Obama uses the message of change as a sea-change of all inclusiveness and optimism. “On one side stands Mr. Obama’s resolutely cheerful embrace of the future… On the other is John McCain’s promise of a wise warrior’s vigilant conservation of the past.”

Parallels may be drawn in the real estate industry as real estate agents continue to cling to old ways of the “I’s” instead of focusing on the all inclusive “we” or “you.” Indeed, there are the veteran real estate agents who remain comfortable with the methodologies of the past–reluctant to embrace the new technologies–even the most basic ones in the face of the public’s desire to have a free flow of information available to them when they want it and on their terms.

Others of us are empowered, energized, and willing to embrace the kind of change necessary to educate ourselves as we move toward understanding the new message of inter-connectivity and seek to immerse ourselves in this new medium, resolving to deliver the information that the buyers and sellers desire in an interactive Web 2.0 way.

The real estate agent who seeks to remain vital in this rapidly changing industry needs to evolve and embrace the new message of total transparency with the free flow of real estate information, including real-time market trends and statistics, accurate and available “sold” data, access to real-time mortgage rates, original hyper-local community information, instant chat and instant messaging. We need to embrace and disseminate the information through the new medium of Web 2.0 real estate whether it be in the form of an interactive web site, blog, and other social media, such as Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, LinkedIn, and the newest micro-blogging phenomenon, Twitter.

For those real estate agents who wish to experience the new Medium and Message first-hand from the internet gurus, such as Pat Kitano of TransparentRE, Kevin Boar of 3OceansRealEstate, and Dustin Luther of 4Realz, check out the Real Estate Connect Conference in San Francisco from July 23rd – July 25th. You will be inspired to find your own voice and re-construct your business for the new Web 2.0 real estate community.