Irvine Real Estate Blogger

Answer: Both of them have had their homes foreclosed upon.

Jose Conseco, a former American League MVP, in remarks made on the TV show “Inside Edition”, said that he “walked away from his $2.5 Million Encino home “because it didn’t make financial sense for me to keep paying a mortgage on a home that was basically owned by someone else.” Didn’t make sense to pay his mortgage (hmm) on a home that was basically owned by someone else (Who would that have been? Maybe the bank that lent him the mortgage?).

Meanwhile, USA Today reported that “The credit crunch is hitting the halls of Congress, with reports from California that a member of the House lost her house in foreclosure earlier this month.” Congresswoman Laura Richardson had her home foreclosed upon as a result of borrowing $60,000 out of it for her congressional campaign. She had initially taken out a loan out on her three bedroom home in Sacramento 17 months ago for $535,000 (100% financing), and then borrowed an additional sum bringing the indebtedness to $578,000 when a “Notice of Trustee’s Sale” was published in March of this year. Richardson who earns $169,300 a year as a congresswoman was also reportedly behind on her taxes by almost $9,000. “Washington Mutual ended up writing off nearly $200,000 of that debt to get rid of the home,” according to the Press-Telegram.

What ever happened to the notion of noblesse oblige? The idea of living up to your obligations? If our elected politicians and sports celebrities can walk, then I can certainly balk, or at least blog about it.

Long before the sub-prime mortgage debacle became a part of our common vernacular, Freddie Mac instituted a campaign entitled, “Don’t Borrow Trouble,” in which specific steps were put forward in order to avoid “borrowing pitfalls.” Education, of course, is the best defense against predatory lending practices. An important initial step in protecting families and their homes is understanding your rights and educating yourself in the home buying process.

If you are considering an Adjustable Rate Loan Program be an informed consumer by asking the following questions:
1. Ask what the initial interest rate will be (your start rate).
2. Ask how often the interest rate will adjust and the dates upon which the interest rate changes will occur.
3. Ask the name of index used to adjust the interest rate (e.g. Libor, COFI, etc.)
4. Ask what the interest rate spread will be or what your interest rate will adjust to when your rate change does occur.
5. Ask how often your interest rate will adjust.
6. Ask what the lifetime cap of the interest rate will be above the initial start rate.
7, Ask how many points you will have to pay (each point translates into a percent of the loan amount for which you are paying) and what your total fees will be.
8. Ask what your APR or Annual Percentage Rate will be (your interest rate plus the total cost of your loan)
9. Ask if there is a pre-payment penalty associated with your loan and what the cost will be (No, you do not want one!)
10. Ask as many questions as you need in order to understand the loan program you are obtaining. You should have received a written Truth-in-Lending Statement outlining the interest rate you were promised, along with all of the charges associated with the loan, at the beginning of the loan process. Don’t sign the loan documents if they do not appear to be correct.

For more information on the subject, click here

Twenty-seven out of 33 Irvine Unified School District elementary, middle, and high schools placed in the top 10 percentile statewide, and approximately 82% of Irvine public schools earned the highest possible ranking on California’s Academic Performance Index or API, as compared to all schools in California.
In Orange County approximately 19% of the public schools earned the highest score of 10 out of 10. The figures released today, May 22, 2008, published in the Orange County Register, are updated scores for the 2007 Academic Performance Index first released in August of 2008.

The Academic Performance Index is a composite of standardized test scores and other measures used by the state to rate student achievement. These tests include the California Standards Tests, the California Achievement Test and the high school exit exam. Students in grades 3 through 11 undergo testing each spring.

Click here to read the article in its entirety.

Click here to see the complete list of Orange County public school rankings.

When I decided to take up blogging, thanks to an inspiring web 2.0 seminar held by two great instructors/coaches and self-described geeks or propeller heads, Kevin Boar of 3OceansRealEstate.com and Pat Kitano of TransparentRE.com, I promised myself that I was going to do this blogging thing the right way. I would not be a once-in-awhile, maybe-I’ll-get-around-to it-tomorrow sort of blogger. No, not me. I wasn’t going to be just a middling blogger. I was going to throw myself into this new medium and do it the right way–blog frequently and provide useful, if not inspiring, real estate content. As a newbie blogger, I would blog consistently and with gusto.

Like everything else I pursue, I threw myself into this new blogging thing, and was having a great time honing my imperfect writing skills and overcoming my initial write fright, when the business of real estate hit me square in the center of my blogging life.

While all those would-be buyers and sellers were waiting for the market to plummet or soar (depending on their respective perspectives), I was blogging away, and having a great time doing so. Then all of a sudden, out of the sunny, southern California blue skies came a bolt of buyers, who actually wanted to buy the houses they had looked at, and sellers who actually wanted to price their homes and condos realistically to sell. Taken by surprise, I found myself awash in paperwork (albeit digital paperwork, but nevertheless,paperwork–the stuff of purchase contracts, disclosures, and inspections sort of paperwork) and no time to blog!

Now my days (and nights) are filled with doing the business of real estate, i.e., showing properties, arranging for photo shoots and virtual tours, inputing listings/homes for sale, writing contracts, scheduling property inspections–in short, I am engaged in the practice of buying and selling real estate which is what, after all, I am supposed to do. But now the guilt has set in. I feel like a binge-eater after abandoning a healthy diet and exercise program. Blogging is like exercise, you need a frequent dose of it to lead a healthier, happier, more productive interactive, social-networking life.

And so this blogger is back…and so is the business of buying and selling real estate in Irvine, CA. And I can attest to that.