Amy Steele

It's the Crestline Rubber Ducky Derby!!!!

Adopt a duck and send it on a wild race across Lake Gregory here in Crestline! Fun for the entire family!

It's been so beautiful here in Crestline that a day at the lake would be a wonderful way to spend an Easter weekend!

Sat April 11th, right after the FREE Easter Egg hunt for kids 12 and under. The Easter egg hunt starts at 11am sharp at the South Shore of Lake Gregory.

Adopt your own ducky for $3 a duck, or $10 for a whole family of four ducks. The first ducky across the lake wins up to $500! There are other prizes and cash prizes for winning ducks.

Come on out and meet the Easter Bunny and Gregory the Duck!

You don't have to be present to win, but you'd miss out on the fun!

This event is sponsored by the Boys and Girls club of the mountain communities, and various private donors from the community. Hope you can make it up here for the beautiful weekend!

Good afternoon. It is such a lovely spring day here in Crestline, Ca, with temperatures at about 65 degrees, with a cool mountain breeze. I am finally able to wear short capri pants, which I am pleased to say are fitting much better this spring than last summer. Kudos to me for my commitment to working out every morning before work at 6AM. I am just thankful that I CAN workout again, since I separated my shoulder last summer, I couldn't for months. Watching all of my hard work turning against me.

This post is about hard work too, I suppose. Most listing agents get their clients to fill out the proper mandated disclosures at the time of taking a listing, or at least within the first week of taking the listing, so that the seller's can make sure they've taken the time to remember everything they need to disclose. A listing agent also should read through these disclosures in order to make sure they are properly filled out, all Xs crossed and items explained fully in order to protect themselves as well as their clients during an escrow.

These pages and pages of disclosures are then placed in a file, and forgotten until escrow is opened and a buyer is allowed to read and must sign that they have. These disclosures may be the thing that causes a buyer to want to continue with the purchase, or to cancel the escrow.

When a seller loses their home to foreclosure,these papers are still in existence. They are archived away in each broker's files for saving as required by law for X amount of years until they can be destroyed. I think that after doing this work, and knowing all about the property, that these forms should either be submitted to the bank that is foreclosing, or maybe even given to the new listing agent so that any future buyers will know what, if anything, is wrong with the home. I think that this would be a great way to keep banks accountable, if they have the disclosures from the previous owner, and the buyer would then have more information about the home. Sellers are required to disclose all things previously known to them. The disclosures they had signed when they bought the home from someone else.

Would this be feasible? Is this even an idea that would work? It would take that one thing though: cooperation-and-hard-work. OK, TWO things...

Curious to know what you all think,

Amy Steele

I am sure that there are going to be numerous opinions on all sides of this issue, as it has been in and out of the fore since 2003. Per the National Association of Realtors daily news email, it's again coming into the light since CA senator Barbara Boxer and NC senator Richard Burr have introduced legislation to keep banks out of real estate PERMANENTLY.

I am in full agreement with keeping banks out of real estate, and not just from a non-competition aspect. Obviously a huge bank would be a one-stop shop for a consumer, which many might see as a good thing, but I believe it would make it so that Realtors can not compete with them. Can you imagine having an agent that is a bank employee, probably making an hourly wage or a salary? How is that agent going to truly work for their client when they get paid on that kind of basis? They forget about their client when the day is done and the clock stops, much the same as they do now when they leave for the day with millions of people trying to get help from them to avoid losing their homes.

I know there are many many many of you who have been on hold with a bank for over an hour trying to workout a short sale or a loan workout for a client who is in tears and severe emotional distress because they are trying not to lose everything they have. How frustrating is it to deal with these banks NOW in this severe time of crisis? Can you imagine if they became huge conglomerate real estate franchises? <<<<SHIVER OF HORROR>>>>

It's horrible. You very rarely get someone who cares, and since they are an employee of the bank they are going to do what's best for the bank and not the client. I've heard where asset managers have threatened to stop a short sale or any sale because of tiny little glitches in escrows, such as a problem with a stove or missing microwave. Things that are easily fixed in the grand scheme of things, but they don't give a moment's thought to being patient since they don't care about the client, only the bank.

I've had asset managers refuse to accept a strong offer that is TRULY IN EVERYONE'S BEST INTEREST because the manager (from Texas)thinks that if they refuse the offer and foreclose they can get more money,

• despite the fact that there were no offers on the property in the 3 months leading up to the trustee's sale
• and that the numerous comparables and MY LOCAL AREA EXPERTISE show them that they would not lose as much money( a paltry $40,000) instead of the $80-100K that is costs a bank to foreclose on top of the amount they would lose because once a house goes to foreclosure, they are guaranteed to lose even market value since the stigma of REO is CHEAP CHEAP CHEAP!
• So this one example: listed at $179,000. Offer for $171,000 with one week before the trustees sale. Asset manager refused to accept the offer, house went to auction block, of course it didn't sell, and then bank took it back. Came back on the market for $195,000(I laughed). 7 months later, it is STILL on the market and the bank has it listed for $120,792.

SO TELL ME HOW IS THIS KIND OF BUSINESS/BEHAVOIR GOING TO BE GOOD FOR NOT ONLY OUR ECONOMY BUT THE PUBLIC IN GENERAL?

The bank refused to listen to a local REALTOR that knows the area, that provided comps to back up the offer, and that was trying to save everyone money and heartache. Do you think that the bank cares though, especially now that they are getting bailouts from the government? Oh yeah, money that is of course shifted back to the American taxpayer so we have to pay for this mess twice? So how are they going to care about the consumer if they succeeded in a bid to get into real estate?

MAKE SURE YOU CONTACT YOUR LOCAL REPRESENTATIVES TO VOTE YES ON KEEPING BANKS OUT OF REAL ESTATE PERMANENTLY. Charle McMillian, president of NAR has this to say about the legislation:

"Imagine how much worse the crisis in the financial sector and our overall economy would be if banks had been permitted to enter into commercial activities such as real estate," McMillan said. "We hope that Congress will work quickly to close any loopholes and pass laws that maintain the separation of banking and real estate and protect our nation's economy from unnecessary and avoidable risks."

Amen.

Amy Steele

www.HomesforsaleinCrestline.com
www.TheLakeArrowheadWoods.com
www.CrestlineForeclsoures.com

Crestline is an awesome community for full time living, vacation homes, or for investment buying. We are a small community here in the San Bernardino mountains with our own historical Lake Gregory in downtown Crestline village.

Right now we have many homes for sale in Crestline, as well as the surrounding communities, that range from small fixers to nice homes. This particular list today is of the top 7 listings right now that are under $100,000 here in Crestline.

$59,900 1BR/1BA built in 1935, cozy(small), walking distance to Lake Gregory, nice deck for morning coffee.

$75,900 2BR/1BA built in 1925, close to the highway and easy drive down the hill. Nice lot.

$79,900 1BR/1BA built in 1945, walking distance to town and Lake Gregory. Very nice cabin and lot.

$84,900 2BR/2BA built in 1964, walking distance to town and Lake Gregory, good home for full time living,level parking.

$89,000 1BR/1BA built in 1930, walking distance to town, nice fixer that has been partially remodeled but maintains that original cabin charm.

$96,900 2BR/.75BA built in 1924, large lot with seasonal stream, tons of off street parking.

$99,900 2BR/1BA built in 1963, level parking and fenced yard, close to town and walking distance to Lake Gregory.

If you have any questions regarding these homes, or other homes for sale in Crestline, Lake Arrowhead and the surrounding communities, please let me know! These homes will sell quickly!

Amy Steele

(951) 378-4570
steeleofalifetime@gmail.com
www.HomesForSaleinCrestline.com
www.CrestlineForeclosures.com

This is going to just be a brief post showing some of my latest pictures of our beautiful paradise here in Crestline and Lake Arrowhead. The snow began the week before Christmas, and for one full day I didn't leave my house because the plows stopped running in town. There was so much snow falling that all plows and those huge CAT-3? tractors were all on the main highways trying to keep those roads open for the safety of travelers. The snow fell from about 5am all the way into the night. My husband actually had to stay the night down the hill because I didn't want him to risk coming home and getting stuck with the folks who didn't carry chains and were causing accidents. I stayed up kind of late, and the first tractors came by again about 10:30pm, and there were three of them right in a row. So you can imagine, after a full day of snow, how large the berm was behind my car!

I began shoveling the next day, since I wasn't going into the office, and about 10 minutes into it(and believe me, shoveling is a really tough workout), I saw a gentleman on a small bobcat-like tractor coming down the road. Oh, I though, he's probably charging too much, having see him talk to another neighbor on the street and they refused his service. So I keep shoveling away, knowing I had about 4-5 hours of shoveling by myself to try to get a spot for my husband to come home to. He pulls up and shouts, "I'll have your driveway cleared for you in no time, $10!"

Excuse moi? Did you say $10?

Yes.

Heck, I would have paid $20 or $30, but don't tell him that! He had my car and a spot for my husband's car plowed out in about 10 minutes. I rushed inside trying to find cash, and not having any, had to write a check. I tipped him a few bucks to make it worth his while for having to go to the bank. He wasn't too pleased about the check, so note to self: KEEP MONEY IN THE HOUSE TO PAY THE NICE MAN WHO SAVED YOU FROM 5 HOURS OF BACKBREAKING LABOR!

My roof line. There was about two feet of snow piled up on top.

Driving through town a couple days after the snowfall.

Some poor persons' cars in their driveway...yes, that's over 2 feet of snow on top, around, behind...YOu can see where they shoveled a walking path.

Driving down the Crestline cutoff. Wrightwood mountain is the snow covered peak in the distance.

Top Town Crestline

A Burgers in town

This was the most snow back to back that we've had for a long time. The monday before Christmas as well as on Christmas there was a little more snowfall, but not as much as this storm brought. I was down the hill with family, and missed the Christmas snowfall....but, it's still here so I didn't miss much!

Hope that you all had a great Christmas and a Happy New Year. May you be blessed in the year to come!

Amy