Santa Rosa, CA

For reasons that are lost in the mist of history Halloween is a "BIG OCCASION" in the North Bay area of Northern California.The cover story of Datebook, the Sunday magazine of the San Francisco Chronicle has a survey of Halloween action around the region. Among the "hot" spots listed is my own neighborhood, the historic MC Donald district in Santa Rosa.The MC Donald area includes several blocks clustered around the old MC Donald Mansion, a 19 th century reproduction of a Mississippi plantation house. The neighborhood has always been a favorite place because of the wide avenues, mature landscape and charming architecturally diverse style homes.This creates the perfect environment for the witches and goblins that inhabit them on All Souls Eve. Families from all over the area come to see the sights and either get a trick or a treat!

As quoted in Datebook by a neighbor, "Many of our houses, including ours, decorate like crazy with fun Halloween themes. We often have fog machines, music, laser light shows to accompany the scary clowns in race cars or Harley Davidson's that we stage on our lawn. We go through roughly $400 worth of candy every year, but it is well worth it!

So if you find yourself in Sonoma County at the end of October the sights along McDonald Ave. and adjacent streets are well worth the "EXPERIENCE."

Kathleen Bonham

Country and VIntage SPecialist

Santa Rosa, Sebastopol. Healdsburg

New RESPA Reform rules are just around the corner!

The new RESPA rules, enacted by HUD, are designed to help protect the borrower by standardizing the industry and by improving the borrower's understanding of the loans and all the terms associated with the loans. All brokers and lenders will be required to provide the consumer with a GFE and a HUD-1 with a more thorough eplanation of terms and charges. They will also have to provide a side by side chart to help the borrower compare estimated fees and settlement charges which will be set within tolerance limits.The new rules will be effective January 2010.

These new forms should help the borrowers avoid any surprise charges at settlement and shouln't affect how realtors do business.

I've seen the new forms and can tell you they are not perfect (what is?) but they are helpful in providing information to the borrower that will help the borrower make an informed decision about their loan.

In the interest of full disclosure, I thought I'd include some of the terms in my notes above to help simplify my post. ;-)

• RESPA - Real Estate Settlement Proceedures Act
• HUD - US Department of Housing and Urban Development
• GFE - Good Faith Estimate
• HUD-1 - Settlement Statement

Looks like I'll be in a training class soon!

Did you know that people usually decide within two minutes whether they like your home?  The first impression is often the lasting impression.  And they start forming their opinion as soon as they open the front door!

I provide free staging for my vacant listings. I believe that staging your home will make it sell faster, and for more money then leaving the home empty. 

Most agents do not want to do the work to stage a home, let alone have the ability to stage a home.  I believe so strongly that your home will benefit from staging that I will do it at no cost to you!  The slide show below are pictures from vacant listings that I've staged.  Would your home benefit from staging?

I hope most agents are already aware of this, however I'm not sure the population as a whole is. There have been numerous articles, television news shows and even a lengthy article in the recent NAR magazine. In Sonoma County the scam has hit some agents very hard, yet others are unaware of it. Here's how it works:

The scammer finds a home for sale. They can find it any number of ways, but all they need is the property address, and usually they pick a home that is vacant. Even better is a home that is vacant, for sale, and has no sign (I see these all the time).

The scammer runs an ad, frequently on Craig's List, advertising the property as being For Rent. They advertise that they are desperate to get it rented, and that the rent is well below current market rates. They give the address and invite interested persons to drive by and look in the windows. First person to deposit "First Last and Deposit" gets it.

I hate to rip on Craig's List because I like Craig's List, and use it as a major part of my advertising. Scammers like Craigs List because it is free, and is easy for them to use false emails, and url addresses that make it difficult for law enforcement to track.

If your a listing agent, you may want to consider not putting your listing's full address on the internet, or hanging a rider "Not for Rent" under your sign. If you find people walking around your listing, ask them what they are doing. If they state they thought this was a rental, ask if they printed the ad out, and ask to see it. You can also search Craig's List and the internet by your listings address and see what comes up.

If your looking for a rental, be sure to meet the landlord in person and make sure he/she has a key to the residence. Always sign a lease or rental agreement before turning over money. If there's doubt, take down the persons license plate number then check county records to see who the owner of the home is. If it's not the person completing the rental paperwork, at least you have the possible scammer's license plate number to give law enforcement.

Always play it safe out there.

Last week California rememebered the Loma Prieta earthquake which occurred 20 years ago on October 17th. Just like JFK's assassination, most locals remember exactly what they were doing when, for about 45 seconds, an earthquake rolled through Northern California. The destruction was devastating, and unimaginable. The collapse of the Cypress freeway in Oakland killed hundreds of motorist in their cars, the collapse of the Bay Bridge, and the scenes of San Francisco's homes collapsed, and the Marina district on fire.

You'd think with all the publicity, that I'd be prepared for the "next one" but I'm not. Last weeks remembrance reminded me that WE ALL NEED TO BE PREPARED FOR A DISASTER. You don't have to live in earthquake country to find yourself without food, water, or emergency services for a day or two. Tsunamis, hurricanes, tornado's, flood, or snow storm all have the possibility of leaving you without help for awhile.

You probably have everything you need for an emergency. Just put enough canned food and spare clothes in a plastic bin that has a tight lid. Put the bin somewhere where it will be accessible if you can't enter your house. Such as in the trunk of your car, or in a storage shed outside.

What do you need? Not much. How about two 14 oz. cans of food per person per day. Cans of food? Yes, like canned ravioli's or spaghetti O's. You can buy cans with pull tops so that you don't even need a can opener. It's not gourmet, but you will survive in the event of a disaster.

Here's the hard part. Water. You'll need a gallon of water per person per day. That's a lot of storage, but here's a trick. I live near a creek, so I have 2 gallons of water plus a hand held pump water filter that I bought at a local camping store. I figure worse comes to worse, I'll go to the creek and refill my water bottles with filtered creek water. That should get my family of 4 by for a few days.

Clothes. You don't need a lot, just sweats and a heavy sweatshirt, maybe some extra shoes.

We should all take a few minutes to pull these items together in one place, put them in a water proof container and put it somewhere where it will be safe should you not be able to enter your home.