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Archive for 'Viewpoint'
Fraud & Deceit — It’s Just Business As Normal For Some Short Sale Lenders
January 26th, 2010 categories: Foreclosures / Short Sales, Loans / Financing, Viewpoint
Thankfully, Someone’s Finally Blowing The Whistle
We’ve all heard the banks moan and complain about how they were duped into making bad loans to unscrupulous borrowers in the subprime era.
Or how homes were appraised at values clearly tens of thousands more than the property was really worth.
Well, these banks certainly had a right to be angry.
But now, it seems, the shoe’s on the other foot.
For, these same banks who have positioned themselves as the innocent victims in the mortgage meltdown are now aggressively and openly trying to defraud each other with short sale side-deals in a manner that essentially holds the down-and-out homeowner — who’s trying to make the best of a bad situation — hostage.
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Have The Banks Created An Artificial Market?
August 20th, 2009 categories: Benicia, Buying, Fairfield-Gr Valley, Foreclosures / Short Sales, Selling, Solano, Suisun City, The Economy, Vacaville, Vallejo, Viewpoint
This is the second and final part of this post. To read Part 1, click here.
In yesterday’s article, I talked about our expectations earlier this spring that hundreds of new bank-owned properties would come on the market shortly after the foreclosure moratoriums were lifted in early spring.
To date, those expectations haven’t come to fruition, which is bewildering, especially when most bank-owned homes continue to attract multiple-offers — sometimes with as many as 30+ offers on one house.
So the obvious question: have the banks really foreclosed on as many homes as we all suspect or have they Read the rest of this entry »
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Are We In An Artificial Boom Market?
August 19th, 2009 categories: Benicia, Buying, Fairfield-Gr Valley, Foreclosures / Short Sales, Selling, Solano, Suisun City, Vacaville, Vallejo, Viewpoint
With Hundreds Of REOs Being Held Off The Market, Is The Current Market Boom Just A Temporary Thing?
For months now, the local real estate market here in Solano County as well as throughout the entire Bay Area has been getting stronger and hotter.
But nowhere has it been stronger than in places like Vallejo, Fairfield and Suisun, which rank among THE most affordable cities in the entire Bay Area.
It’s a classic supply and demand situation.
On the supply side, if you follow my Weekly Real Estate Report, you know that the inventory has plummeted by about 75% throughout these cities since the first of the year.
And on the demand side, as prices became incredibly affordable, homes in these areas became instantly attractive to an eager Read the rest of this entry »
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Did Benicia Act Too Soon When It Closed Mills Elementary School?
January 24th, 2009 categories: Benicia, Viewpoint
It’s been several years since Benicia Unified School District closed Mills Elementary, the oldest of its five elementary schools and the only one located downtown.
Back then, it seemed like the sensible thing to do. The population base was maturing and as a by-product of that, school enrollment, particularly at the elementary school level was declining. The district couldn’t justify keeping five schools open when four offered plenty of capacity for Benicia’s youth population.
But now that property values have declined — back to about 2002 or 2003’s levels here in Benicia, we’re again seeing more and more first-time and young-family home buyers.
That’s a stark contrast to what occurred during the earlier part of this decade, when rapidly rising home prices essentially slammed the door shut on most first-time buyers. 
With even a modest single family home priced well into the $500,000’s as recently as 2006, most homebuyers who were in their early adult lives were effectively priced out of Benicia housing market.
Today, though, with some single family homes priced as low as the $300,000’s, doors which had previously been closed to many young families wanting to live in Benicia have opened again — and in a big way, thanks too to record-low mortgage rates.
A perfect case in point is our daughter’s young family. Still in their 20’s, they moved back to Benicia and rented a townhome in 2005. At the time, the prospects of she and her husband ever being able to buy a home in Benicia were daunting. They were just starting out in their respective fields and watched as home prices continued to climb — on just about a weekly basis. Read the rest of this entry »
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I Got My Country Back Today!
January 20th, 2009 categories: Viewpoint
I’m not usually one to write politically slanted articles, but today’s post really has nothing to do with politics. Rather, it has to do with reclaiming something I lost eight long years ago. I hope you’ll take it in the positive, uplifting spirit that’s intended.
For eight L-O-N-G years, I was a man without a country. Today I got my country back.
Oh I’ve always been a resident of the U.S. and never stopped believing in it. 
Throughout the last eight years, I followed and believed in the laws, principles and rights upon which our great nation was founded. But even though I believed and supported my country, the people who ran it didn’t believe in me. Or at least that’s how it felt.
Even though I always remained a part of my country, sadly, from 2001-2008, my country didn’t really seem to want to be a part of me. Until today.
They believed in doing things the way they wanted to do it. They believed in ignoring the wishes of the people they were chosen to serve. They believed a quick wink or a sarcastic smile was the way you got things done. Read the rest of this entry »
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