Gene Wunderlich - Realtor®, Government Affairs Director

Brown to Join Forces with Department of Real Estate and State Bar in New Round of Legal Action Against Loan Fixers

It's been seven months since Assemblymember Kevin Jeffries (R-Lake Elsinore) introduced ACA 8. This bill would prohibit the Legislature from voting on bills without giving the public 72 hour notice of the content and an opportunity to comment. The bill goes on to require that ALL bills be available in print for at least 24 hours prior to a Legislative vote. You can read the full bill here: ACA 8

But so far, ACA 8 has yet to receive its first hearing. "I find it ironic that a bill that would put an end to back room deals is being held hostage in a back room somewhere," says Jeffries. "So much for open and transparent government."

A 72 hour noitice of an issue that comes before the Legislature seems only fair. Local Governments and municipalities must adhere to this requirement as established in the Brown Act. Is it not reasonable to expect at least the same high standards from our state leadership? Yet as we witnessed during the recent budget debates, agendas are set in secret, deals are made by the Big 5 (also in secret), and entire tax & spend sections of the budget are literally laid on Legislators desks as they are being asked to vote on them.

Is it any wonder our state is on the state it's in?

If the majority controlled Legislature truly desires transparency and accountability, they will pass this bill. Unfortunately 53rd District Assemblymember Ted Lieu, who Chairs the Assembly Rules Committee, has seen fit to stall this bill in his committee for months now. Having spoken with Lieu recently on some housing issues, I believe he is a man of honor and integrity who may just need a little reminder that this important bill is languishing in his committee.

Please add your voice of concern to the Chair and the members of the Rules Committee. One click sends an email to all the committee members adding your support to ACA 8. Thank you.

I Support ACA 8 (Jeffries)

By the way, when you have completed this you'll get auto-responders from the Rules Committee Members attesting to how swamped they are and encouraging you to go directly to their website to send your email. Don't be confused - they get ALL their Legislative emails but if you go to their website they'll ask for your zip code and then tell you they don't want to hear from you because you aren't in their district. They'd really rather not hear from anybody but telling you that would be too blatant.

Maybe once or twice you hold your nose - but 71 times in the last 6 years? When you see the scary crap that already comes out of Sacramento, one can only imagine the depravity of bills that merit total expungement from the record.

Like maybe a Democrat voting FOR off-shore drilling?

If the Republicans had been able to pull this off, we still wouldn't know which members voted FOR taxes the previous last budget go-round.

Is it any wonder most people don't trust politicians as far as they can hurl them. Of course hurling them can be pretty good entertainment too, I guess, just forget about the trusting them. After all, most of them apparently don't trust you so the feeling should be mutual.

The following news story appeared in the Los Angeles Times on August 6, 2009:

California Assembly expunges votes on oil drilling bill

By Patrick McGreevy Reporting from Sacramento -- Although 28 members of the California Assembly supported a measure to allow new oil drilling off the Santa Barbara coast, their votes are nowhere to be found in the official state database.

After the measure failed, Assembly leaders expunged the vote altogether, sparing lawmakers running for reelection an official record of their controversial decision. The voting logs made available to the public on the Legislature's website do not indicate who voted for and against the controversial bill on July 24. One critic calls it 'a legislative coverup.'

It wasn't the first time the Assembly has done this. The little-known practice of purging votes, which experts say serves little purpose other than to allow lawmakers to hide actions from the public, is quite common in the lower house, legislative records show. In the last six years, 71 votes on bills in the Assembly have been cleansed from the record.

"The message to the public is 'this vote was an inconvenient vote and we would rather you not look at the man behind the curtain,' "

said Assemblyman Chuck DeVore (R-Irvine), who wrote the oil drilling bill.

Read the rest of this story at:

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-purge6-2009aug06,0,1598055.story

We've got an urgent challenge right now which requires big vision for change. Each week 4,250 of our families are seeking help from Murrieta, Temecula and Menifee food banks, and 14,800 of these are our children - every week. During summer, school breakfasts and lunches are not available to the children. Demand on our food banks has increased 83% since 2007. Last year the tons of food collected by our Realtor & Affiliate Food Drive was gone in weeks. The need in our community is skyrocketing.

Massive change requires massive action. That's why your food banks have come together in a collaborative effort to partner with every household in our community to respond to this emergency at hand. The need hit crisis levels this time last year. This year, the need has risen higher.

You, your neighbors and co-workers will make a huge impact this week by participating in the Heaven on Earth Food Drive, Saturday, August 8th. Can you imagine the impact of every household responding with just one box on Saturday?

The time is now to bring your influence, your impact, your choice for change, to your community. This week, I'm personally asking you to focus with me on things that really matter, and embrace the vision of "each one, reach one!" Will you reach into your cupboards to impact your neighbors with just one box of food? Will you lead your co-workers and neighbors to join you?

Have you caught the vision? Vision + Action = Impact! The details are on the attached flyer (drop-off locations, list of food banks benefiting, items needed). Print the flyers and pass 'em out to your neighbors, colleagues, clubs, youth groups, everyone.

And please…cast the vision wide by forwarding this important message on to everyone you know in this special community! I'd love to hear from them.

Please view the attached Heaven on Earth Food Drive flyer for more details, drop-off locations and a list of most needed items.

Remember, our neighbors are hungry…

but together we will change that!

Thank you.

The first new casualty in the housing wars has appeared... and it isn't the one we wanted at all. By all accounts the first to fall by the wayside in the current cycle of the housing market is... 

TA-DAA 

...the first-time homebuyer! Well that certainly sucks, doesn't it? 

More and more, our market is swinging toward the investor/cash buyer over the first-time buyer for one simple reason - CASH! Money talks and the rest of it walks. Is that bad? Well, it's too bad but not necessarily bad. After all, over 70% of current buyers plan to be owner-occupants and that's good. Just because they have cash doesn't necessarily equate to investors and rentals - although savvy investors are in the market too. But the lions share of it is people who's timing was inspired. They got out near the peak and rented for a couple years. Today they can buy their old house back for half-price or buy a nice new spread for the same price. 

I feel for the 1st timers. There was a brief window there when they ruled the streets but with the current shortage of inventory that window has closed, at least in some markets. Imagine if you're the bank and you've just listed a 2,000 SqFt place for $189,000. The first two days your agent gets 67 offers, many of them higher than asking price and nearly 1/3 of them from cash buyers. Well what are YOU going to do? 

One the one hand you have your first time buyers who are scraping together the FHA Down, they need costs paid, they can close in 45 days and they're offering your asking price. 

On the other hand you've got a family who sold in 2006, banked the profit so they've got cash or close to it, they can close in 20 days and they're offering $20,000 over asking price. 

Even the banks in their current torpor can make that decision handily. 

Sorry Mr. & Mrs. 1st Timer. Try writing another 20 offers hoping you'll get lucky. And actually, that's not bad advice. If you persevere you may eventually score - if you give up you definitely don't. In the past 120 days nearly 17,000 homes have had their Notice of Default filed in Riverside County. Over 7,000 REO's sold during that same period but most of those fielded multiple offers. It's a fairly safe assumption that if the banks released this 'shadow inventory' of homes, the current market could absorb the influx with minimal impact on median price. Again, at least in our market. This would allow all the military and teachers, policemen, shop owners, young families and retired folks to get one more run at owning a home before the market heads back up. 

So if you have been trying unsuccessfully to buy a house for awhile and find your offers coming up short time and again. Don't despair. There's still a gripload of homes lurking just over the horizon somewhere but you're going to have to be quick to benefit. The mainstream media is starting to print scattered articles alluding to an improvement in our housing market. By the time they let you know the recovery has started, you'll be a day late and at couple bucks short. Local prices have been stable or increasing snce last October. 

We led the way down, we'll be leading the charge back up as well. Under all is the land.