Petalumahomes.com Blog

Many homeowners claim appraisers have undervalued their homes by using foreclosed & distressed homes as comparables.
The Appraisal Institute has released additional guidelines to better handle the use of comparable distressed sales & foreclosures properties.
http://www.appraisalinstitute.org/newsadvocacy/downloads/AI_AppraisalsInDecliningMarkets.pdf

Petaluma is having a 2-day recycling event…New Year’s Resolution to clean & get organized??? Check out the link with a list of all items that will be accepted the day of the event.
http://cityofpetaluma.net/it/pdf/ewaste-event-flyer-011412.pdf

Over the weekend at McNear Elementary School, a disturbing act of vandalism took place.  Persons unknown damaged or broke between 50 and 100 exterior hooks that hang on the walls just outside the class rooms. The kids use these hooks to hang their back packs and jackets everyday before going into the class rooms.
If anyone has any information, they should contact the Petaluma Police Department.
My hope is to find as many people as possible with power drivers to help install new hooks.  I’m not available over New Year’s weekend and was hoping to work on this project today or tomorrow!!!  Any help would be fantastic..

The statistics are staggering…
Sonoma County had 29,000 homeowners who owed more than their homes were worth in the third quarter, CoreLogic reported Tuesday.
An estimated 28 percent of county homes with mortgages were underwater in the third quarter, unchanged from the second quarter. Another 4.6 percent of borrowers, or 4,800, had less than 5 percent equity in their homes.
Nationally 10.7 million borrowers were underwater, down slightly from 10.9 million in the previous quarter. That amounts to 22 percent of homes with mortgages.
The figure includes 2 million Californians, or nearly 30 percent of the state’s homeowners with mortgages. However, for the first time since CoreLogic began tracking the issue in 2009, the Golden State dropped out of the top five states with the highest rates of negative equity.
The five are Nevada, Arizona, Florida, Michigan and Georgia. Together they have 41 percent of their home borrowers with negative equity.

       I saw this on the “Patch”, so avoid the Washington Street overpass  starting this Thursday, 12/15/2011, if you want to get anywhere on time!  Just in time for the Holidays!
     Caltrans will close two ramps and one street lane in the U.S. Route 101/East Washington Street interchange over several nights this month in order to begin a tree removal operation.
The tree removal is the first step in a project that will upgrade the interchange, putting in a new, straighter southbound on-ramp, a widened northbound off ramp with two lanes instead of one, and four turn lanes instead of two. There will also be a new diagonal on-ramp from westbound East Washington to northbound 101.
Drivers are encouraged to allot extra time and plan accordingly.
Here’s a schedule of the road work:
Thursday, Dec. 15, and Friday, Dec. 16 – Southbound East Washington on ramp closed between 10pm and 5am.
Monday, Dec. 19 and Tuesday, Dec. 20 – Northbound 101 off ramp to East Washington Street closed from 10pm to 5am
Tuesday, Dec. 20 and Wednesday, Dec. 21 – Westbound #2 lane of East Washington Street closed from North McDowell to the southbound 101 off ramp.
In addition, the shoulder alongside northbound 101 just north of the interchange will be closed Monday through Friday, Dec. 12-16, from 7am until 4pm.

A few times a week I treat myself to a latte at a local coffee shop in town and have become friendly with a barista; a young girl with a great smile that recently had her hours cut and lost her healthcare coverage.
She had an unusual blood disorder which required regular monitoring and treatment and she was worried because her medication had run out.  Having to choose between feeding your family or treating your disease should never be a decision a person should have to make.  I told her about the Petaluma Health Center, a Federally Qualified Health Center providing high quality primary care to all residents of southern Sonoma for the under and uninsured. With these economic times it is important to know that all residents of Petaluma, Rohnert Park, Cotati and Penngrove, and the surrounding areas, have this
incredible resource available to them, regardless of economic, insurance, or cultural barriers.
Robert is a former President of the Board of Directors and should you or anyone in your family need primary medical care or mental health services, please don’t hesitate to visit the health center.  My barista?  She received the care, monitoring and medication she needed and continues to use the center as her health care provider, plus she has a new job
with benefits!
Here is the link:  http://www.phealthcenter.org/ or check out their facebook page:

Christmas Present from Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac:  No Foreclosures for Now!!

Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and other mortgage providers have a Christmas present for struggling homeowners: They won’t get thrown out of their houses homes during the holiday season. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will not foreclose on any homeowners between December 19 and January 2, according to statements on their web sites.

Read the complete story:   http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/02/christmas-fannie-mae_n_1125348.html?ref=business

 On Dec. 1, C.A.R. will launch a brand-new, Spanish-language property search website called Sucasa.net.  The website offers a way for home buyers to look for MLS listings in Spanish. Sucasa.net is among the first Spanish-language websites to offer a translated property search for MLS listings based on the California Living Network database, which is powered by REALTOR.com® (http://ca.realtor.com/), and with robust search functionality.
Sucasa.net offers Spanish-speaking home buyers an opportunity to search for California homes using common sorting characteristics such as city, price range, number of bedrooms, and number of bathrooms. Results appear in a list or on a map, and driving directions are available in Spanish.
The website is a useful tool for REALTORS®, as well, in that agents may forward their clients a link in Spanish for a specific property. Realtor.com® reports that Los Angeles and San Diego, where two of the largest Hispanic populations in California reside, are the 4th and 9th most searched cities on the site, which suggests that Sucasa.net is a timely tool to assist Spanish-speaking home buyers in their search for a home. 

Visit the site at http://www.sucasa.net/

Great news for all you consumers. A program we use daily in our business called “Docusign” is now offering a free, yes free version to consumers. Here is a press release from Inman News explaining the offer. I hope you find it helpfull, Robert.

E-signature firm DocuSign has rolled out what it says is “the world’s first personal electronic signature.”
While DocuSign has previously focused on the e-signature needs of businesses, the company’s latest offering, DocuSign Ink, allows individual consumers to digitally sign documents “in the cloud” from any device with an Internet connection.
“DocuSign Ink helps consumers finish personal business faster by eliminating once and for all the hassles and costs of printing, faxing, scanning, and overnighting signed documents,” the company said in an announcement.
“With DocuSign Ink, individuals can safely and securely drag and drop their legally binding signature and initials into documents, place text and check boxes to complete forms, and then return via email.” 

Users can sign and return documents from any Web browser and any email provider by sending the documents to ink@docusign.com, the company said.
Users can also download a DocuSign Ink plugin for Microsoft Outlook or a mobile application from the Apple App Store for use on iPads and iPhones. For the app, in addition to signing digital documents, “users can even snap a picture of a document with the device’s camera, DocuSign it, and send,” the company said.
The Apple mobile application launched last week and has been downloaded more than 100,000 times since then, DocuSign said.
An app for Google’s Android platform will be released before the end of the year, the company said, and DocuSign Ink will also be available in the Microsoft Office Downloads Marketplace soon.
DocuSign Ink can work with most document types, including those compatible with Microsoft Office and Adobe PDF, all scanned and faxed documents, and all text and image files, the company said.

There are a handful of tax credits & deductions that will be expiring at the end of this year….Take a look at the list and maybe you’ll be lucky enough to find one you can use this year!!!
 If you want to take advantage of them,  you need to act before Jan. 1, 2012. 

http://www.inman.com/buyers-sellers/columnists/stephenfishman/take-advantage-expiring-tax-deductions