August 28th, 2007 Categories: Livermore Activities, Livermore Community Info, Livermore News
This coming weekend is the 26th Annual Harvest Wine Celebration. Come fall in love with the region and all it offers for the first time or experience it all over again.
36 local wineries are participating this year. Each winery will host complimentary tastings and special barrel tastings will be available. Live music from great bands will be at each of the wineries as well. You can enjoy every cuisine imaginable from local eateries. Local artists will be displaying their fine arts and crafts. Pick up some great information and tips on winery history, sustainable and organic farming, wine and beer making, and so much more! Surely something to please everyone.
The event hours are 12pm-5pm Sunday & Monday, September 2nd & 3rd, 2007.
Tickets are $35 in advance and $40 the day of the event and are good for both Sunday or Monday, $30 for Monday only. They can be purchased at the Livermore winegrowers offices or any winery. Call 925-447-WINE (9463) for more information.
Written by John Kurtzer |
August 15th, 2007 Categories: Dublin Real Estate, Livermore Real Estate, Market Update, Pleasanton Real Estate, Weekly Market Updates
Weekly Update
Confusion, uncertainty, panic. These three forces are shaking the markets—from the level of individual home sales to the level of massive coporate buy-outs—like a bucking bronco…intent, it seems, on bringing them all to the ground.
“In the past month, the market has been behaving in ways even seasoned players have been at a loss to explain,” several reporters write in The Wall Street Journal. And this is precisely the point. Hundreds of billions of dollars have been invested in exotic hedge funds that few people can pretend to fully understand and that have been responding to the market in unexpected ways. Investors don’t even have an accurate idea of the value of those funds and related investments.
And the great bugaboo, of course, is the subprime mortgage—though subprimes are certainly not the only cause of market woes. Yes, vast numbers of defaults may be in the offing; yes, we may see the number of foreclosures rise. But the real problem today is that no one knows where the next problem will show up. Ailing loans have been stripped and tranched (split into differently-valued pieces) so that they are no longer identifiable. An investor in Shanghai may discover that he owns slices of mortgages for homes in Azusa that are in foreclosure, threatening the viability of his hedge fund.
What is clear is that nothing is clear, nothing is certain. And until we achieve some degree of certainty, the markets will remain absurdly volatile, with occasional stock market jolts that dramatically over-express the actual possible losses at hand.
We have, in short, a time of panic in which it’s impossible to predict the future direction of any stock market—indeed, of any stock. And since dicey mortgages are the demon du jour, we have lenders who’ve grown very uneasy about writing the mortgages they had no problem with a few months ago, and the organizations that bought those mortgages (though Fannie and Freddie are doing what they can to help) are no longer interested in what currently looks to them like throwing good money after bad.
We will, I believe, look back at this time with amazement and even humor. And it won’t be very long from now. The problem is that so many assumptions about how our markets work—notable among them the assumptions that we now have computers that can find the right investment under any market conditions and that it’s a great idea to invest with borrowed money—have been shaken profoundly.
In the meantime there are good lenders making loans. If you are looking at needing a Home loan for a purchase or refinance I am compiling a list of Lenders you can count on. Stay Tuned.
Written by John Kurtzer |
August 12th, 2007 Categories: Dublin Real Estate, Livermore Real Estate, Market Update, Pleasanton Real Estate, Weekly Market Updates
Weekly Update
If anything, worries are multiplying among economic analysts that the number of defaults and, eventually, foreclosures from unraveling existing mortgages will continue to rise. What is perhaps most startling at this point, though, is that worries extend way beyond the somewhat limited world of mortgages to the entire world of credit, debt, borrowing, lending. Further, the overall economy isn’t being viewed with as much optimism as was recently the case.
Patrick Schmid of Moody’s Economy.com puts it this way: “There is no doubt that an international credit tightening is under way. It began with the U.S. housing downturn, which resulted in declining real estate prices. As adjustable-rate mortgages set higher, payments became more difficult for many homeowners—especially those whose credit rating was subprime to begin with. Many subprime lenders, whose business models were based on continually rising house prices, faced losses as defaults and foreclosures increased. Politicians became melodramatic over the housing dilemma, putting pressure on regulators, who in turn called for tighter lending standards. The next step was a spike in financial volatility, and some likely market overreaction,”
“All told,” Schmid concludes, “today’s market shows some elements of a credit crunch—but not enough to warrant pinning the label on with certainty.”
Whether or not we want to call it a “crunch,” however, has little bearing on the fact that the markets are clearly full of concern and, in some cases, incipient panic. Things get very confusing when fears start to roil the market: We see the 10-year T-bill rate fall heavily at the same time that mortgage rates edge north, for example. There is no explaining it. It will take time for the markets to sort out their emotions (or, more specifically, their reading of our economy’s future).
Until then, we would be wisest, one suspects, to take most of the conclusions put forward by economic analysts with a massive grain of salt. We’re in not-make-sense territory, watching with justifiable concern to see if defaults and foreclosures rise to worrisome heights…if lenders show even more reticence about making the kinds of loans they were making all day long just a few months ago (especially the huge loans made for corporate buy-outs and restructurings)…and if the real estate market can weather the storms and do what it does best, which is simply to focus on the buying and selling of personal residences. There is still reason to put a great deal of faith in real estate, as we’ll likely see in months to come.
Written by John Kurtzer |
August 11th, 2007 Categories: Livermore Real Estate
Written by John Kurtzer |
August 3rd, 2007 Categories: Livermore Real Estate
**OPEN HOUSE**
Sunday, August 5, 2007 1:30-4:00
Written by John Kurtzer |
July 30th, 2007 Categories: Home Buyer Tips, Home Seller Tips
Whether you are considering buying or selling a home, finding the best prepared real estate professional to assist you is a crucial step.
Today’s savvy real estate agent embraces technology not just to stay ahead of their competition, but primarily to provide their clients with exceptional customer service and a high level of productivity.
How Technology Benefits Home Sellers
As a home seller, you deserve a tech-savvy agent that can expose your home’s best features to the growing number of buyers searching for homes on the Internet. This can easily make the difference between your home selling, or just sitting.
Cllick here to learn more about marketing your property.
How Technology Benefits Home Buyers
Of course these benefits just scratch the surface of how today’s technology can benefit your next real estate transaction. We would be happy to share more details with you and answer any questions that you may have.
In the News
Written by John Kurtzer |
July 26th, 2007 Categories: Home Seller Tips
Determining the asking price for your home will be the most critical step in the process of selling your home.
You and your professional real estate agent will need to work hard to determine a fair market price and to avoid the pitfalls of overpricing your home for sale.
The 5 Pitfalls of Overpricing Your Home
- Qualified potential buyers may overlook your home because they immediately believe it is out of their price range.
- Your home may be used as a comparison for a buyer looking at what is available on the low-end and high-end of his or her price range.
- Overpriced homes tend to be on the market for an extended period of time. This causes agents and buyers to possibly believe there may be an underlying problem with the home.
- Receiving an offer on your overpriced home may result in the potential buyer’s loan appraisal being rejected due to an unfair price.
- Your home’s time on the market will be longer if your home is overpriced. This can be inconvenient to your daily life as well as your future plans.
For a comprehensive market analysis of your home at no obligation,
We can help you avoid the pitfalls!
Written by John Kurtzer |
July 25th, 2007 Categories: Dublin Real Estate, Livermore Real Estate, Market Update, Pleasanton Real Estate, Weekly Market Updates
Weekly Update
“The housing market has yet to hit bottom,” says Moody’s Economy.com repeatedly. Sadly we are inclined to agree, though we all need to remind ourselves that life does go on—as do real estate sales and purchases and refinancings.
And we’re not just being glib here. The Mortgage Applications Index (below left) continues to hold at strong levels, this week spotlighting the work being done to refinance troubled homeowners into workable mortgage loans. Refi applications were up a solid 4.9% after weeks of declines. News is out today, too, that several eastern states are offering money to help troubled borrowers do the refinancing they need to do.
At the same time, though, the 7.5% decline in the number of permits taken out for new construction does suggest that home-building hasn’t yet reached a bottom, and that is doubtless the result of builders thinking the market for homes hasn’t yet scratched the bottom of the barrel.
The weakness is underscored by the financial markets: We hear today that two of the Bear Stearns hedge funds made up largely of securitized subprime loans are considered nearly worthless at this point. Investor money just doesn’t want to go there—and we can conclude that there is further to fall before a recovery can begin for such investments…and such mortgages.
Later today, we’ll see the report on June’s existing home sales, followed in a couple of days by the report on new home sales in June. Sadly, these will likely reinforce the negative view of the real estate market, which will serve to slow sales even further.
Careful observers of the nation’s economy are easily finding reasons for concern, though the stock market indices seem intent on walking ever higher on the yellow brick road. The long-inverted yield curve, in which short-term interest rates remain slightly higher than longer-term rates, refuses to revert to what most of us consider “normal.” The financial markets are walking a high wire, carefully avoiding the fall that could result from a loss of confidence in hedge funds and debt instruments. And the dollar is lower against foreign currencies than it has been in thirty years. There may be silver linings here (like the possibility that the weaker dollar will help erase long-term international trade imbalances, easing our current account deficit), but it is difficult not to suspect that we’re finding medicinal uses for poison ivy if we assert that this financial poison is good for us. We will indeed get through all of this, but it is all rather unnerving, to say the least.
Written by John Kurtzer |
July 23rd, 2007 Categories: Livermore Real Estate
Written by John Kurtzer |
July 19th, 2007 Categories: Livermore Real Estate
Written by John Kurtzer |
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