The Real View

 Even private jet owners from Dubai might want to stop in Carlsbad, California for fuel, red carpet service and a concierge service second to none. Celebrities, business tycoons and savvy fliers already know about the Premier Jet facility at the McClellan-Palomar Airport-and the buzz is starting to spread.

With U.S. Customs opening an office at Palomar Airport in June, a $24 million facelift in the works, and the runway being lengthened to accommodate more traffic, international high flyers may make this Carlsbad airport a new must-stop.

I had the fun opportunity to interview Marc LaChance, developer of the Premier Jet facility, and find out a little more about the this amazing airport complex that is a combination of upscale office space, glossy hangars and luxurious rest and relaxation areas for pilots and passengers.

Marc was kind enough to spare part of his morning to show me the Premier Jet complex which features 14 elegant office spaces ranging from 1500 to 8000 square feet, 19 private executive hangars spanning 3500 to 15,000 square feet and hallways wide enough to host a diplomatic reception line.

 Need red carpet, a limo or catered gourmet meals for inflight service? The on-staff concierge will attend to those requests either in person or via flight communications. Limos and caterers stay on call. There are private lounges, luxe conference rooms, a luxurious reception and concierge area, fuel and full flight planning services.

The light and glossy hangars are offered for sale, and most have already been sold. As of this writing, there are a few left-ranging from around 3500 to 4800 square feet, with an approximate price of $235 per square foot. Who buys these hangars? Some are corporate buyers, and others are hungry for space to store their toys. After all, few luxury homes offer  private runways.

Marc foresees enormous growth in the private jet industry with the new composite construction for jets. This will reduce both the cost of the jet and its fuel costs (because of its fiberglass construction and lighter weight) and increase travel safety.  Add to this the desire by many to avoid the parking hassles, security lines, and the time lost just trying to board a jet-and travel by private jet looks more attractive all the time.

What is providing additional fuel for growth in this industry are companies like Net Jet, which has around 600 jets under fractional ownership. The concept is similar to timesharing and offers significant savings over charter jet travel. But it is small jet construction that may propel private jet travel into a much broader market reach. "With composite jets, the cost for fractional ownership might be, for example, $50,000 plus $500 per hour. This will open private jet travel;to a much larger market," said Marc. He aded that perhaps 50 percent of the jets at Premier are held under fractional ownership.

Marc La Chance is an aviation buff and visionary who foresees enormous changes in flight travel during the next twenty years-even more than we have witnessed in the last sixty. And composite construction, fractional ownership and artifical intelligence are just the beginning. Programmable personal air vehicles could also become a significant means of commuting and travel for many.

It's enough to put the mind and imagination into high gear....

How do you define serenity? Some believe it starts with where you plant your roots.

Looking for such a place? This Olivenhain lot in rural Encinitas might be a good place to start. Sitting on a knoll in a very small, exclusive gated community, this 2.59 acre lot commands views of the ocean and overlooks the famed Bridges Golf Course in Rancho Santa Fe. Surrounding you though is silence, save for the sound of birds.

The owner will include architectural plans for the property, which includes a 9,000+ square foot Tuscan-styled home along with a 2-bedroom guest cottage by the landscaped pool. The lot will also accomodate horses. Architectural plans were designed by noted Rancho Santa Fe architect Scott Grunst.

This exquisite lot with plans is offered for $1,675,000-1,775,000. It is a rare offering and is one that will not last for long. For additional information, please call Roberta or Mike Murphy at 760-402-9101/9102.

Viewings are best done at sunset with fine wine, fruit and interesting cheese.

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Encinitas Market Conditions

Luxury Home Gossip, Buzz and News

This isn't an ordinary La Costa townhome being offered. This is an extraordinary and pampered home being offered by a bachelor who had little other to do with his time and money than to pour it into his fabulous La Costa home. The landscaping is lush and tropical, but not unusual for this prime Carlsbad, California location. But the quality upgrades only get better as one enters the property.

The $90,000 remodel is nothing short of WOW. The kitchen was a total renovation with granite surfaces, elegant cabinets, upgraded fixtures and newer appliances. It invites casual entertaining as well as intimate cooking for two.

Nothing was left to chance.

The floor coverings have been replaced with tile and carpeting, the walls are tinted in designer colors, and many of the windows feature Roman shades. n a more subtle level, this zealous owner replaced the baseboards and installed new door moldings, bullnosed drywall,  romantic recessed lighting and mirrored closet doors.  

And what would an obsessively remodeled townhome be without a master bedroom that features a perfectly organzied closet, remodeled bath with his and her sinks, fully-tiled walk-in shower and romantic ambience throughout?

This fabulous La Costa property is situated in the 50-acre paradise called Meadowridge. This quiet and best-kept-secret features two pools, spas and tennis courts. And best of all, it is located close to the beach, great Carlsbad shopping and the magnificent La Costa Resort and Spa.

This 1500+ square-foot Meadowridge townhome offers a two-car garage and a price tag of only $499,000 to $529,000.

For additional indormation, call Roberta or Mike Murphy @ 760-402-9101/9102.

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Luxury Homes

It was a developer's mistake that should have never happened.

Sometime around 1970, the developers of the original La Costa Resort and Spa allowed for the construction and sale of two 48-unit condominium buildings inside what would eventually come to be known as "the gates of La Costa."  These two buildings are the first to be seen by anyone approaching the resort from its main entrance. When built, the 791-square foot studios made a perfect pied a terre for out of area golf and tennis members who wanted a luxurious alternative to hotel rooms for short or extended stays-and still wanted the benefits of resort locale as well as limousine and room service.

According to one of the original salespeople, these spacious studios originally sold for just under $30,000. Each unit had one and a half baths, a small kitchenette, two Murphy beds and plenty of room for small-scale entertaining and cocktail parties.  Each building had its own pool, spa and underground parking. The French chateau architecture with imposing mansard roofs blended fairly well with the early Rancho La Costa Inn, built in the late 1960's.

The sister builldings stood for almost 35 years unchanged. During those years, the 90-room Rancho La Costa  became the famed La Costa Resort and Spa and America's first full-service spa resort. Over the years, many owners of the Chateaus remodeled their units, converting them to full one bedroom units with full kitchens. Several owners combined two units into one, creating very spacious and luxurious two-bedroom flats.

When KSL Resorts purchased La Costa from Japan's Sports Shinko in 2001, the entire resort underwent a $140 million renovation. A new level of luxury was brought not only to Carlsbad, CA., but to the entire San Diego metropolitan area. There simply is no other regional resort that can match La Costa's 40,000 square foot spa, two 18-hole championship golf courses, world-class tennis courts, fine dining, beautiful rooms, the Chopra Center and acres of fragrant gardens. 

The only drawback?

The two ugly sisters just inside the gate.

There was no way to avoid these aging eyesores. And with every million KSL invested in La Costa, the value of the Chateaus continued to climb. Owners continued to improve their units, but nothing had been done to the building exteriors. Moreover, many of the units now served as well-located vacation rentals. In 2005, with the resort renovations almost compete, KSL offered to financially assist the owners in each building, should they renovate the bulding exteriors to blend with the rest of the resort's architecture. Additionally, La Costa took the initiative to immediately improve the front landscaping for each building.

It was an offer that made sense to the owners of the Balboa Chateaus. Their HOA board of directors held numerous open meetings, met with contractors, and commenced construction in January, 2007.  A $30,000 assessment was collected for each unit and construction is expected to be completed in July, 2007.

As is often the case, sisters are not always in agreement about facelifts. As of April, 2007 owners of the Cortez Chateau still had not contracted for their building's renovation. And as each week passes,  the two buildings become more dissimilar.

No longer could these two buildings be mistaken for the twins they once were.

La Jolla, California is a paradise for both the traveller and the resident. Sitting on the prime northern edge of San Diego, La Jolla offers a spectacular coastline with heart-stopping views. Add to the natural beauty a charming village, top-tier shopping, dining and lodging, a top-ranked university (UCSD) and medical school-along with a climate that is arguably the best on earth-and you have The Jewel, or La Jolla, as the Spaniards call it.

No doubt, La Jolla real estate is expensive--and luxury buyers from all over the world would like to own here and many do.  With a population hovering around 35,000, there is a strong sense of community pride and connection with the outdoors, which averages a balmy 74 degrees. La Jolla beaches are some of the most lovely in the world and range from the ever-beautiful La Jolla Cove, to the craggy cliffs at Black's Beach, the sandy expanses at La Jolla Shores and the tidepools at Windansea. All offer stunning beauty and photographic opportunities.

La Jolla real estate prices stood at a median of $663,000 in 2000--and have since ballooned to over $1.4 million median, with average prices for a La Jolla single family home standing at over $1.8 million as of April 1, 2007, wilth some of the shortest market times in the county (63 days)-in spite of bubble blogging to the contrary. It might also be remembered that when times get tough, wise money flees to quality. And La Jolla is a world jewel.

What about day-to-day life in La Jolla? It's a university town, it's a world class destination, and it's heaven for local residents. Aside from the cultural offerings, the shopping, the beaches and the dining opportunities, there are also wonderful educational choices for families. The schools in La Jolla, both public and private, are very highly regarded:

Public Schools

La Jolla Elementary School, 1111 Marine Street, La Jolla, 92037
Bird Rock Elementary School,  5731 La Jolla Hermosa Ave, La Jolla, 92037
Torrey Pines Elementary School, 8750 Cliffridge Ave., La Jolla 92037

Muirlands Middle School, 1056 Nautilus Street, La Jolla, 92037
La Jolla High School, 750 Nautilus Street (corner of Nautilus and Fay), La Jolla, 92037

Private Schools

Stella Maris Academy, 7654 Herschel Ave., La Jolla 92037
The Children's School, 2225 Torrey Pines Lane, La Jolla 92037
All Hallows Academy, 2390 Nautilus Ave., La Jolla 92037
Delphi Academy, 7527 Cuvier St., La Jolla 92037
The Gillespie School, 7380 Girard Ave., La Jolla 92037
La Jolla Country Day School, 9490 Genesee Ave., La Jolla, 92037
The Bishop's School, 7607 La Jolla Blvd., La Jolla, 92037

Many are interested in La Jolla real estate and investment opportunities there. The following links may provide some research assistance:

La Jolla and North San Diego County Market Report
La Jolla and San Diego Home Sale Statistics
San Diego Real Estate
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Luxury is booming and Wall Street is keeping a keen eye on how the rich are spending their wealth. And what better way to measure that hedonism than by creating a variety of indexes that track the shopping of the ultra-rich?  The demand for four-figure handbags, five-figure baubles, six-figure cars, seven and eight-figure homes, luxury resorts and travel,  insurable art and heady wines has created a new and trackable economy for the very wealthy.

What intrigues many investors is how well the carriage trade merchants are faring. This is mostly due to the fact that the rich are getting richer and their numbers on a global basis are growing-along with their spending habits.  A look at some of these uber-wealth tracking indexes reveals more than a little about the favored products and shopping stops of the rich. For example, sales at Saks Fifth Avenue and Barney's New York are increasing at twice the level of the retail sector as a whole. Some of the indexes and the luxury companies they track include:

• .Merrill Lynch tracks a basket of companies including BMW, Porsche, Bulgari, Coach, Tiffany Jewelers, auctioneer Sotheby's and the private banking firm Julius Baer. The performance? Up 23 percent in 2005 and 12.5 percent in 2006. This compares to the respective 14 and 7 percent for global consumer stock during the same periods.
• Citibank's Plutonomy Index tracks world spending of the world's growing class of plutocrats. This index mirrors much of Merrill's, but also includes Japan's highly regarded Shinwa Art Auction and Hong Kong's Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group. We might call this one the "ruler of wealth."
• Deutsche Borse introduced its own World Luxury Index earlier this year. It tracks Bulgari, Sotheby's, Hermes International and requires that the companies it tracks generate at least 50 percent of its income from luxury spending.

What is the appeal of these indexes? Some surmise that those who can't afford the lifestyle of the ultra-wealthy can still be "in the money" by investing in so-called luxury stocks. Finding true luxury stocks can be a difficult task, though. Many of these high end brands are now part of larger conglomerates. And because publicly-traded pure luxe companies are becoming so rare, many of the indexes are including brands such as Nike, Puma, Gap Stores, Harley Davidson and other popular products in their mix.

The reason for this interest is obvious. The rich are getting richer-and are far more numerous. The number of millionaires in the US has more than doubled since 1995 and total wealth held by the top 1 percent has increased by more than 50 percent since 1998 (much due to real estate appreciation, I'm sure). It should come as no surprise that luxury spending has kept pace with the soaring incomes and wealth at the top rung of of the economic ladder.  And according to a Citigroup study, the top 20 percent of American earners are responsible for between 37 and 70 percent of total consumption.

And what is fueling this consumption? It's the desire to have the finest in homes, travel, dining, dress, art and social connections, according to Margaret Mager with Goldman Sach's High-End Consumer Index. "Today the good life is defined by the assets you have," she said.

Tip of the top hat to Robert Frank and The Wall Street Journal Wealth Report

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There is little we can do to stop global warming, the melting of icebergs, rising sea levels and the inevitability of dandelions. But here are some big and small things we can all do to lessen the impact of our carbon footprint on this planet.

1. The biggy for me? I traded in a Mercedes 420 for a cool Camry Hybrid. I enjoy the car's size, client curiosity, long pauses between fill-ups and the nice tax credit that accompanied the purchase. Also fun are the included iPod  dock, blue tooth for phone, reliable navigation system, air filtration and having a car that inspires people in parking lots to ask if they can look under the hood of my car. Too see how your car stacks up environmentally, go to the Fuel Economy site.

2. Unplug electronic devices (televisions, DVD players, computers, battery chargers) when not in use. It is estimated that up to 75 percent of the electricity required to power electronics is used when the appliances are turned off, but still plugged in. Power strips with the on-off switch can handily work for multiple electronics.

3. Recycle your e-waste. Resist the temptation to toss old batteries, cell phones, computers and monitors,and the like. Goodwill Industries, Radio Shack, Auto Club and government agencies have recycling programs for these potential environmental hazards.

4. Calculate your own carbon footprint on this planet. We should all have the goal of being as carbon neutral as possible-and possibly using carbon offsets when possible.

5. Think local and buy organic. The Rodale Institute estimates that organic farming practices can help farm soils retain 15 to 28 percent more carbon that conventional farming methods. We can all see the benefit of buying locally-produced foods that don't involve carbon-producing long distance transportation. One study suggests that Americans generate more carbon dioxide by eating than by driving.

6. Dandelions? Forget the poisons and eat them. One cup of chopped leaves has more vitamin A (7700 IU) than a carrot, along with 19 mg of Vitamin C, 103 mg of calcium and a long list of other nutrients. Their long roots can be roasted and brewed as a morning coffee (talk about local!) and are touted as a terrific tonic for the liver and kidneys.

And one untested BONUS TIP: Hop onto your modified stationary bike, pedal hard and you can start generating your own electricity. This stroke of practical genius comes from the folks at Windstream Power.

San Diego Real Estate

It seems nobody is immune from the power of the internet—or the inevitability of progress.

Now it's time for Realtors and Active Rainer's to enjoy a turn of the tables. I am chuckling--sorta....

Zillow rattled the real estate industry (and many homeowners) with last year’s unveiling of its near-instant online real estate valuations.The complaints came primarily from Realtors who feared the public would come to rely on Zillow Zestimates for home valuations—and from homeowners whose property values were decimated by the Zestimates. After all, Zillow has no way of knowing about property upgrades or negatives. It bases its valuation on comparative sales in the neighborhood.

Now attorneys may get to wrestle with a similar online competitor called AVVO, whose business model has not yet been revealed.  

Their current Googled mission statement is mysterious enough to keep us all wondering: 

Avvo: Helping Consumers Navigate the Legal Industry (providing) law resources and consumer tools to help people make informed decisions about legal services and navigate legal business.

As interesting as the similarities in the two companies might be, the familiarities are almost more interesting. Seattle Post-Intelligencer’s  great blogger John Cook reveals the relationship between the founders of each company in his blog. According to Cook, AVVO CEO Mark Britton and Zillow’s CEO Rich Barton both worked at Expedia. They left the online travel company at different times, but took similar extended sojourns in Italy after leaving their jobs. Both returned to Seattle with industry-shaking ideas.

Now these two friends are linked by more than their history. It appears Barton iserves on Britton’s AVVO Board of Directors—and that Barton even helped come up with the AVVO name, which is taken from the Italian avvocato (ie lawyer). And the business model for this legalistic site is just as secretly shrouded and discussed as Zillow’s before its online debut. Could this be a searchable legal site, a rating service for attorneys, or perhaps even a “bid for service” model? The mystery surrounding this venture is great—and is likely also part of the marketing buzz and plan.

Forgive the pun, but it appears the bar is being raised in online ventures.

San Diego Real Estate

by Roberta Murphy

According to the latest release from Dataquick, a record number of default notices have been sent to California homeowners during this last quarter, setting a new ten-year record. Why? Dataquick reports that "flat appreciation, slow sales, and post teaser-rate mortgage resets" have contributed to these financial casualties.

The San Diego Union Tribune   reports that San Diego County endured 1,182 foreclosures from January through March, 2007--or almost eight times the 153 logged for the same period last year. The prior record was set in the third quarter of 1996, when the housing market was in a deep slump. Under any circumstances, these are not good numbers but they also fail to reflect the very different housing and economic pictiure that has occurred in San Diego during the last eleven years. We now have thousands more jobs and around 182,000 more homes, which would change the percentages and statistics reported.

The good news? San Diego is faring much better than other parts of the country (Detroit, Cleveland) and state (Sacramento area, Riverside, Imperial and San Bernardino Counties) when it comes to foreclosures -and we're not shovelling snow or wading in water during April, either! So how does San Diego stack up in Southern California? The San Diego Union Tribune offers the following:

DataQuick analyst John Karevoll says that San Diego's foreclosure spike may be short lived, which would be welcome news to our local economy. He feels this is so because the defaults are mainly affecting recent homebuyers, who make up a small percentage of the homeowning population. At the same time, San Diego is on the edge of the bloody envelope. It experienced both the rise and decline earlier than anyone else-and may likely be one of the first to recover.

Website: San Diego Real Estate
Other Blog: Luxury Home Digest

A recent study of publicly-traded CEO homes found a correlation between the size of the CEO's home and the company's stock price. It may come as a surprise to some, but the larger and more luxurious the CEO's home is, the poorer the company's stock tends to fare.

Many market-beaten dot com survivors will easily recall failed WorldCom CEO Bernard Ebber's luxurious Mississippi manse, the ultra-luxe home and furnishings of Tyco's Dennis Kozlowski, and the excesses of Houston-based Enron execs Kenneth Lay and Jeff Skilling. All were living very high just prior to the fall of their companies and stock prices. It was a bitter pill for many shareholders left with little to show for their invested money and trust.

This study of CEO home size and stock performance is an interesting one, with credit going to Arizona State Crocker Liu and New York University's David Yermack. They allow that the purchase of a supersized luxury home could be a sign of long term commitments to both the company and the community in which they are buying. But in light of recent history, other motives could be afoot:

It could also mean that the executives view the home as more important than the company which supports them.

The authors discovered that many CEO's sell company stock just prior to its peak and  then use the proceeds to purchase their new luxury home along with the requisite luxury furnishings. It is a pattern that has been sadly witnessed before.

It appears that around one third of the 488 purchasing CEO's studied seem to have exercised stock options and sold shares in the 12 months before buying their homes. And in most cases, the shares peaked just before the luxury home was purchased.

The study shows that at the end of 2004, the median home price of CEO home purchases was $2.7 million. And with the rise in luxury home pricing since that time, it would be safe to say that the median prices have escalated handsomely in the three years since.

A tip of the hat to Richard Beck, Associated Press