mark cooper

last year I focused on buying income property, 2008 is behind us now, in 2009 I will make it possible for my dad to live within an hour drive of my house in Tiburon, Ca. Simple enough, right? He lives in Kiltchmagh, Mayo, Ireland, making it real hard for him to visit his grand kids. Dad owns an old stone building a few miles from town not far from where the movie "the quiet man" was filmed with John Wayne and Maureen Ohare. I call County Mayo, the "Oregon of Ireland".

My plan is to purchase a condo or small house for dad in Marin or Sonoma county by December 2009. I am considering Novato, Petaluma, Cotati, and Rohnert Park. He loves the outdoors and Nature. Dad Lived in Cave Creek, Arizona for years and he is sick and tired of the heat. The kids are growing up so fast!nothing is more important then spending time with your family.

While I was driving thru San Rafael today, I saw an interesting sight, workers were taking down the letters from the top of the consumer electronic store formally known as "Circuit City". It seems this was one of more then 155 stores that Circuit city closed just after xmas. They do plan to keep 566 open. I found a great article about the closures in the SF gate/Chronicle.

I was a customer there till about 10 years ago when the guy ringing up my subwoofer insisted I buy the extended warranty, and rang it up at the register without asking me! When I confronted the salesperson he said they all blow out in two years. I called a manager to remove the warranty from my purchase, while in the process I realized I could just cancel the order and drive right over to best buy to get the same thing, so that's what I did. I have been shopping at BESTBUYever since, (that's where I get the ipods I give away in our weekly Keller Williams office meeting, but I will save that story for another blog). I never went back to Circuit City for ten years, till last week when I stopped in to check out the 70% off GOING OUT OF BUSINESS SALE. Even at 70% off I still didn't buy anything, its was all damaged and outdated obsolete stuff. Its no wonder the place went out of business. With the big box stores like Costco selling flat screen TV's there was only room for one full service tech store and BESTBUY won the battle, the Good Guys, and Circuit City both bit the dust. The question is, with stores like circuit city, mervyn's and many more going out of business, are the places gonna just sit vacant, and how long before we see commercial REO's. I wiill be sure to keep my eye on this place to see what happens to the property. The Good Guys in Corte Madera near my house was transformed into "PF Changs china bistro", they sure make one heck of a rice bowl!

My extreme sports like rock climbing, surfing, back country snowboarding and sea kayaking were not giving me the opportunity to network and find clients to invest in real estate, so In June 2008 I started playing golf and took three private lessons, then headed to an easy nine hole course in Marin county at mcinnis park. Since September I have been playing in a men's group tournament every Monday at 10am.

So far so good, I picked up one leasing client and just closed a deal in Novato, plus I met another guy looking for industrial space on mare island, an old navy base in Vallejo that was bought by Lennar and is being leased and sold off. Back to golf... I lose a lot of balls, once I ran out and headed back to the pro shop mid round to buy more, I asked the guy behind the counter what the best deal was on golf balls and he said "lessons". true story. then it dawned on me, I could have custom Keller Williams golf balls made, and offer a reward for anyone that finds them, with a special lost golf ball toll free hot line printed on the ball. To claim the prize the finder simply needs to tell me which course and hole he or she found the ball, if everything checks out I can meet him at the course or his office and hand over the cash in exchange for the golf ball. Can't wait to see who the first luck winner is!

I have a buddy that is looking to move to Tiburon in the next few months, now I am able to kill two birds with one stone, I can shop for him, and see how much nicer a place would actually need to be if I were to sell my house and move there instead. Not much up to my liking, but I have found the sweet spot for me is about 3 to 4m.

My daughter morgan and I saw a few houses after church on sunday 12/21/08, I did like 7 Hillcrest Road, its a 5 bedroom, 5 bath for 3.75m. I liked the solid doors and walls, the floorplan had a nice flow. I am not a fan of paradise drive, but this was not too far from Blackies Pasture and Tiburon Blvd. The listing agent Britt Engel of first marin realty was nice, knew construction inside and out, as well as the luxury home market in Tiburon. This is one of the few places I would ever bring my wife back to see.

Just last week I signed leases on both my Marin county rentals, so the signs came down and the sign posts are back by the side of my house. I had used "signsetters" for the sign post in Novato at first, but what they provided was made of plastic, by the time I added my rider, and the "for lease" part it was too heavy for the post, so a few weeks ago I had my buddy jeff newell build me four sign posts that I can now install myself. He made two of pressure treated fir, and two of redwood. All hardware is stainless steel, these puppies are built to last. Send me an email if you want more info on how to build your own sign posts, we used a chop saw, notched the two sections together and even mitered the ends.