The Real View

Trash cans at La Costa Canyon High School in Carlsbad, CA are emptier now that students, faculty and staff are switching to reusable water bottles.

And that is all because students with LCC's Social Justice Project came up with a plan that is succeeding beyond all expectations, according to students and Christopher Greenslate, the LCC Social Justice teacher who also teaches journalism and English at the school.

Students sent out emails and made posters on recyclable paper to educate fellow students on the hazards of plastic water bottles, which are disposed of at the rate of 60 billion per year-and is the leading source of plastic pollution in the United States. They also sold recyclable bottles, which student and faculty quickly bought.

When that supply sold out, reformed plastic bottle users found other off-campus sources. It is hoped that the ubiquitous plastic water bottle will be replaced with reusable ones that won't trash our planet so needlessly.

As a result of this successful effort, La Costa Canyon High School's video about their breakup with bottled water has been selected as a finalist in Quantum Shift's $50,000 contest for best environmental project.

Please, I beg you, visit this site and cast a vote for La Costa Canyon's Social Justice program.

Perhaps their efforts will spread to other area schools, colleges and workplaces. In addition to lessening environmental impact, there will be significant cost savings. Home filtered water put in glass bottles is not only healthier, but runs just 1/10 the cost of bottled water.

All of San Diego and the neighboring communities of Carlsbad, Encinitas, Olivenhain, Cardiff, and Rancho Santa Fe should be proud of La Costa Canyon High School and their very green project.

And perhaps it is a project that could be adopted by other schools as well!

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A Zillow questioner asks if he or she should wait to buy a home in San Diego--or until the market levels out.

It is a question that seemed to beg an answer from me, if only because we are personally struggling with that very issue as I write this post.

We have an opportunity to buy an Oceanside property that should yield a mildly positive cash flow with a 20 percent down payment. It is new construction, close to Oceanside beaches, and the only hurdle is finding financing that is reasonably acceptable for our circumstances.

(But that is another story.)

This Zillow questioner is asking about the advisability of buying San Diego real estate as his or her home in today’s market. So much depends on location and local market conditions.

My advice?

You may want to explore home financing options available today that might not have worked just a couple of years ago--primarily because San Diego home prices have become so much more affordable.

The ACORN loan (available through Bank of America and Chase) is great for buyers earning less than $92,000 per year and who own no other real estate. The down payment is low and there is no PMI (private mortgage insurance). Loans are available up to $500,000, and buyers must attend a one-day class on home ownership prior to receiving an eligibility certificate.

FHA loans in San Diego are also making a recent strong appearance, and we are using them with a number of our buyers (even with new homes). These loans offer 3 percent down payments on mortgages up to almost $700,000. There are additional fees involved with FHA loans, but motivated sellers may be willing to assist with these costs–and may also be willing to reduce the home price to meet FHA loan maximums.

The best strategy is to find a very well-priced home (compare to area comparables)–or perhaps even a San Diego foreclosure– and secure the best available mortgage financing.

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I called Pat Kitano a couple of weeks ago and left a message on his cell phone.  Moments later, I received an email back stating he was in a meeting, but that I should go and check out Voice Cloud asap.

I went, I saw --and was conquered. (Can someone translate that to Latin?)

In fact, it has become my favorite new cell phone technology. Now when a voicemail come in, it is automatically converted to text and sent to my email.

From my Blackberry, I can respond via text or simply return the call.

Setup is easy.  Just go to VoiceCloud and follow the simple instructions. I never bother to check voicemail again--and can see what's coming in when I'm with clients or in a meeting.

Oh yes: You will need to re-record your greeting via VoiceCloud.

The cost? FREE! 

NOTE: Try "Cloud Today" as password and see if that will work

I’ll never understand the process by which lenders choose to list their San Diego REO’s and foreclosures.

Many are represented by professional real estate agents; but more and more, it seems these REO’s (bank-owned properties) are administered by  absentee agents who rarely respond to phone calls or emails.

Should we be looking for some logic in the lender’s decisions to list with these phantoms?

There again, these may be the same investors who lent mortgage funds to ghosts in the first place. They loaned million$ to phantom borrowers who said they earned $20,000 a week  as a gardner or insurance salesman– or whatever suited their imaginations.

Their homes, haunted by unsustainable debt and a plummeting real estate market, floated back to the lenders…who then turned to phantom agents to market their foreclosed properties.

I suppose if lenders didn’t bother to check the reality of their borrowers in the first place, why should they now take to time to check the substance of their real estate representation for their REO’s? The logic seems insane, but sometimes it's difficult to assume otherwise.

We've worked with a number of foreclosure buyers, and are appalled at the abysmal level of representation offered for a number of these foreclosed properties. In several cases, we have ended up faxing offers to the listing agents, and waited for a response from…someone or anyone.

No reply was forthcoming, even though our offers were at and above the listed price.

We have an offer in on one foreclosure now, and it cannot be presented to the lender because the agent is on a two week vacation. (Uh…isn’t there an assistant, or another agent who is taking care of this absentee’s business?)

Are the banks/lenders aware of this non-representation?

And do I feel we are in deja-vu all over again? I hoped thought most of these agents would have left the business after the plummet of the 2003-2006 real estate market.

Regrettably, those same agents seem to have taken another get-rich-quick course and are now in the foreclosure business--and it seems many lenders ended up with the same type agents who helped get them into their current mess.

Is this is a phenomenon that is isolated to San Diego–or is it more widespread?

For the sake of our national economy, I hope not.

The real estate predators are always there–in good times and in bad.

There are whispered stories in San Diego real estate circles of certain escrow and loan officers who, in the heady days of real estate, slipped deeds into the stacks of papers homeowners were signing as they refinanced their homes.

The deed, of course, moved the property into the predator’s claws.

As the Discovery Channel shows, predators will always pick off the unsteady, the not-so-swift and the elderly because the catch is easy and the herd moves on. No different with these criminals.

But you know what’s scary?

The employers of these predators, when or if they discovered the crimes, fired the perps summarily–and kept their collective mouths shut. They didn’t want bad press, they didn’t want exposure, they didn’t want to field the possible litigation that sometimes come from predator attorneys.

Today, these predators are on the move again.

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