Napa Solano Yolo real estate blog

More than 100 Employees of Novartis will go out into the community in teams on April 23 to assist local homeowners in several neighborhoods to help repair or improve their properties.

They may help with landscaping, clean, do a minor repair or help paint the outside of their homes to support the local community and give back as part of a worldwide company effort of more than 10,000 Novartis employees. After their workday, they will enjoy a company barbeque and invite the homeowners as well.

The head of the employee group, Rob Carter said they are proud to be a member of the Vacaville landscape.

I applaud this group and others who help make working together as a community in the true sense of the word community, young and old, employed, disabled, educated and students together keeping the city of Vacaville a great place to live!

Thank you Novartis!  -Barbara Adams

Open house in Laurelwood at Browns Valley

548 Feather River Way in Vacaville

2PM until 4PM! 4 bedrooms 3 full bath home built in 2003, corner lot, 3 car garage, fully landscaped, granite, cherry, bed/bath downstairs!

Vaca Valley Pkwy to Shelter Cove to Feather River Way

Unless you are printing cash in your backyard, you may want to take up an old habit that I used when I worked at Mare Island and the California Dept of Health Services in the bay area and commuted from Vacaville many years ago.....

Rideshare, commute, vanpool, you name it, it's a great idea and is becoming more and more popular again.

Carpooling the kids to school and sports events, dance, karate etc (an old idea revisited....?)

Here are some of the old buzz words.... Rideshare, carpool, vanpool, commuter parking lots, yes! you can sleep while you are on your way to work! These things reduce gas costs, repair costs, save your vehicle, share the ride! You will also make friends on your way to work!

The city of Dixon is working on an Amtrak station right now that will take on commute passengers in the future, this will enable those commuters time to relax, read the paper, play cards (yes, this does happen on the commute trains!)

I used to ride the Ace Train out of Tracy into the silicon valley at one time too, it was actually quite fun to pass up the masses stuck in their cars on the "free" way and to gaze out the window, read the paper or just doze on your way to work instead of clamping your hands around the steering wheel and trying to stay awake while crawling in the "fast" lane and hoping you didn't get high blood pressure!

By doing the most minimal of these activities, carpooling, you will be able to ride in the carpool lane if you have 1 or 2 others heading your way. If you don't know anyone who has a matching destination and schedule, you may want to visit this site, or call Rideshare 511. You will get to spin through the bridge toll booth and pay nothing, ride in the HOV lane and talk to your carpool buddies too!

On Monday, Rideshare will open a new program to entice you to join them called rideshare rewards. If you register a new carpool with them, keep it for 90 days, and keep an online diary, you will be receive $100!

VPSI is a vanpool organization that will help you fill a 15 person van, you must possess the proper licensing to operate the van (Class B).

For more information contact me or visit online at 511.org

Find a ride here

Employers may want to connect with the commute outreach program to help organize their employees into gas saving programs!

511 Rideshare Commuter Info is available.  -Barbara Adams,Realtor

Save May 3rd, collect your secure paper offerings, bring them to Travis Credit Union on May 3 1 Travis Way in Vacaville.

The Better Business Bureau, Equifax, National Assoc for Information Destruction and Security-Shred will offer secure document shredding and info on preventing ID theft.

Bring up to 3 boxes or bags of documents to be shredded, no BINDERS please.

E-Waste materials such as computers, monitors, printers, keyboards, cell phones and PDAs will also be accepted.

Keep your info safe, shred it!

Open houses were well attended last weekend.

Come on by this Sunday, April 30 2-4 pm 524 Feather River Way and 548 Feather River Way in Laurelwood at Browns Valley in Vacaville. 2003 built homes by Forecast Homes are really nice 4 bedroom 3 full bath homes with 3 car garages in the Browns Valley elementary area with easy access to Genentech, Alza, Kaiser and State Compensation Insurance!

I enjoyed visiting various booths at this event held at the Hilton Garden Inn in Fairfield yesterday. It was indeed a perfect way to find out all the new and exciting and also the existing businesses that manned booths here.

Many local banks, Travis Air Force base personnel, service providers like equipment rentals, shredding services, restaurants, consultants, hospitals, retirement communities, Alzheimer care, PG&E, insurance and many others combined to make this event a great one! A chance to meet the vice mayor! All were invited, snacks and beverages too!

There were many properties available to tour, but the good news was that 3 of them were already in escrow/under contract! This is another sign of the market showing signs of turning back.

California Realtors hold a legislative day once a year and journey to Sacramento to meet the lawmakers. It is a day filled with facts and meeting other Realtors in California. It will be held June 4th this year and is always well attended. An opportunity to show support or to show disdain for proposed legislation, we are made aware of pending laws that affect home sales and most especially things that become a cost to a buyer or seller at the close of escrow, currently there are several items that would change a private transfer tax that would affect many future home buyers. Placing limits or keeping it from becoming a law are on the minds of Realtors who discuss with the senate and house all the reasons why builders should not be allowed to impose a non-limited transfer tax that ONLY applies to FUTURE sales of homes they are marketing. It won't affect the first sale of a home but subsequent ones and is proposed to become higher and higher with each new sale. We are opposed to this type of taxation without representation and will let them know it is unfair and could add up beyond control in the future.

The appraiser who spoke at the meeting also noted that very frequently recently, there have been second and even third appraisals being ordered on the same property during an escrow. The third appraisal is usually done in the last 2 weeks and asks for market conditions, a desk or a field review which takes an appraiser back out to the property to answer any questions outstanding.

 It is important to keep yourself aware as a buyer, that during the escrow on the property you buy, you should always make sure to be available for your agent and lender in case they need any piece of information or documentation about yourself as the investeor/underwriter can and does impose requirements anytime they decide to do so. Also be sure to refrain from making ANY large purchases and do not apply for any type of additional credit during the loan qualification process.

As the buyer, you should also be getting several insurance quotes from separate companies on the property you are buying. The insurance is usually acquired after the loan is funded, the title company will need the contact information for the insurance company you will be using as the escrow that includes a mortgage cannot close without insurance coverage, just like when you drive the new car off the lot, your home must be insured from the moment the deed is recorded into your name.

If you had previously been a renter before buying a home, you should be prepared to present a statement from your previous landlord(s) stating how much your rent was and a record of the date and amount of the payments you made, this is another example of a last minute item the lender may request from you, have it ready and you will be ahead of it.

Remember, an appraisal is and always has been a report of the property condition, comparable properties, the sales contract and the buyer's ability to pay the payments.

Our Realtor board association breakfast meetings are held each Tuesday in Northern Solano county, alternately at Fairfield, Vacaville and Winters/Dixon for the purpose of informing local Realtors of the current market and to introduce newly listed properties to each other and each week a speaker is invited to speak about the local market and what is currently affecting it.

Affililate companies such as home inspectors, title companies, and today, a long time local appraiser spoke to the group about recent changes being imposed upon all recent local appraisals.

In the past, appraisals were based solely upon sold properties that were directly comparable to the property being evaluated. When a feature was not identical, the appraiser is to describe the features and how they differ. Usually it had been no problem to find a nearby home of similar size that had sold in the previous 6 months.

This is not the case in the current market as the lenders want to see info on the current comparable listings, properties in escrow and the most recent sold properties (the last 60 days are preferred, and in some cases, there can be one comparable from the previous 90 days.)

It was noted at the meeting that recently, the number of sold or "in contract/escrow" properties are now outpacing the new listings again, it has been over a year since this had been observed by the person making the comment.

In the past month, there have been a marked increase in the number of FHA loans, the appraisal process and approval of property conditions have been modifed for FHA loans, the maximum loan amount allowed has been increased temporarily under the President's economic stimulus package.

There appears to be an unexplained flurry of properties of varying sizes and price ranges in Solano county going into escrow this week! I check with the Bareis mls each time I am close to any computer (I carry a laptop and I am a full-time experienced Realtor, so I study the mls constantly!)

Today, I pulled up a list of all the Solano county properties that have status/price changes, were newly listed or back on the market in the past 2 days.... What I saw today is there were 77 new listings and 78 homes that went into escrow!!!!!! (There were slightly fewer Fairfield listings in escrow than Vacaville.) MOST of the escrows are occurring in Vallejo, the bay area wave is flowing this way! Word has been out for weeks that the bay area market wasn't affected as badly as the valley and they have been recovering recently.

This is what you call a turnaround, because this hasn't happened in AGES! 78 is not a fluke.

What this does is turn a tide, previously we were having a constant stream of new listings, and many were expiring, and few (depending upon the day, zero to up to 30%) were going into escrow, that meant many homes simply were not selling.

The most competitively priced homes in good condition were selling, the others were falling by the wayside.