Angele Price

The FED announced that they would continue to float the Federal Funding Rate between 0% and .25%, despite the fact that the feeling is that the economy is improving. The important news relates to their continued purchasing of mortgage-backed securities from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Remember, the FED has been the prime, if not only, purchaser of the bonds this year, and the main reason for the continued low rates. They announced today that they would continue purchasing bonds through the 1^st Quarter 2010, which is longer than they originally had forecasted. However, they will be reducing the amount of bonds they will be purchasing on a monthly basis. The consensus of opinion is that rates will begin increasing with the decreased levels of purchasing. However, the increases should be much more gradual than if they continued purchasing at current levels before stopping completely at the end of October.

Do you think your home's value has gone down since you purchased it? There's a chance you should be paying a smaller property tax bill bill. About 90,000 properties in Santa Clara County have had their assessed value reduced for the 2009-2010 year. If you believe your assessed value is too high, you have until August 15th to seek a no-cost review. The online review process is the quickest way to accomplish this. Go to www.sccassessor.org/prop8 to complete the Prop 8 Decline in Value Request Form. You will be asked to provide at least 3 comparable sales as evidence of your property's value, and the sales should have been completed before and as close to Janurary 2009 as possible.

Ask your realtor for comparables or you can use the assesor office's own "Property Assessment Information System" at http://eservices.sccgov.org/arl/home.do to find records of properties' assessed values.

If by August 15th, it is determined by the assessor the market value is lower than the assessed value, then the new value will appear on your September annual property tax bill. If the assessor doesn't get to your request by the 15th, then you will still have until Sept. 15th to file a formal $30 assessment appeal hearing with the Clerk of Appeals Board (www.sccgov.org/portal/site/cob)

Sales in our Los Gatos offices are up sharpely and open houses have been swamped with now "serious" buyers! Last week I held my Cupertino area listing open and had 200 people come through both Saturday and Sunday. The home sold far over the asking price "as-is" with multiple offers! I have heard similiar stories and my favorites are those where the house has been on the market for MONTHS and then gets two offers in at once.

In fact, Data Quick's information Systems reported that "Homes Sales have increased on a year-over-year basis the last 10 months" and that the "median price price paid for all new and resale houses and condos sold in the nine-county Bay Area was $352,000 last month, up 3.1 percent from $341,500 in May and down 27.4 percent from $485,000 in June 2008. It was the highest since $375,000 last October."

Sounds like maybe we're rounding the corner?

Below is an excerpt from an article I wrote for the Mountain Network News publication that reaches 4,000 Santa Cruz/Los Gatos mountain residents. It is a comment on the high performance that this small school commands!

Lexington Excels Again!

Once again Lexington has earned a "10" in its statewide ranking which means its API scores falls in the top 10% of all California schools with a comparable grade range. This year's score is in: 944 which is 5 point gain over the previous year. Thank you Lexington staff for helping our children succeed!