Suppressing Consumer Confidence–It’s all in the headlines

There you go again…Int4

That line was made famous by Ronald Reagan when he was running for office against President Jimmy Carter in 1980. It was used by then Mr. Reagan as a way to diffuse opponents who harped upon the same issues over and over.

Well the media is at it again. The media loves its headlines and of course they need to sell papers so it’s not put past them to choose a sensational attention grabbing headline and find data to support it.

Take the August 19, 2010 report on home sales in the Bay Area. The headline in the San Jose Mercury read “Peninsula home sales plunge in July”. Define plunge?

They reported, “After steadily rising for several months, Peninsula home sales plummeted to near-historic lows in July as demand remained tepid and the federal homebuyer tax credits that had helped caffeinate the marketplace in the past year finally went away".

When were these “near historic lows”? How near and how low were they?

Clearly the article is saying sales are down, and they are, but they fail the test of balanced journalism when they neglect to add the caveat “as expected”.

The accuracy of their article is subject to scrutiny as well. I reviewed our own analysis which we do every month since I didn’t recall being impressed by the large discrepancy in year-over-year sales mentioned in their article.

Our data is mined from the Multiple Listing Service. It doesn't contain all home sales—just ones which were listed with real estate agents. The percentage of homes which transfer ownership without the involvement of a real estate professional remains consistently a small percentage of all the homes which transfer—consistent being the operative word since the delta from one month to another is negligible.

Our statistics showed 385 single family homes closed escrow in July 2010, down from 393 in July 2009. According to our data the number of fewer sales this July compared to last were just eight, or 2%.

The San Jose Mercury claimed it was the lowest month for home sales in 20 years. But how many fewer homes sold? They don’t say. They also don’t mention that Dataquick, the source cited in their article as the resource for their reporting, issued a statement on August 19th, 2010 (the date cited as being used by the San Jose Mercury) saying that they only estimated the sales for San Mateo County:

“San Diego-based MDA DataQuick is a division of MDA Lending Solutions, a subsidiary of Vancouver-based MacDonald Dettwiler and Associates. MDA DataQuick monitors real estate activity nationwide and provides information to consumers, educational institutions, public agencies, lending institutions, title companies and industry analysts. Because of late data availability, sales were estimated in Alameda and San Mateo counties.”

But more to the point, industry experts predicted that home sales would drop after the expiration of the housing stimulus tax credit on May 1, 2010. Last year—the year used for comparing sales—the tax credit was still available in July.  One only has to go back to 2007 to see sales as low as they were this July, not 20 years.

In Santa Clara county they report: “1,159 single-family resale homes that closed escrow represented a drop of 24.3 percent from the 1,531 sold a year earlier, making this the second-slowest July since 1990, according to figures released Thursday by the real estate information service MDA DataQuick.

I didn’t bother to verify any of this information. But let’s assume it’s more accurate than what they reported about San Mateo County. Sales haven’t been this low since…1990. Why does that date ring a bell? It’s the date of the last housing downturn. So what their report tells us is home sales drop when the housing market drops, and sales have not started to pick up yet, because they no doubt will someday.

But what the report does is continue to fan the flames of consumer skepticism. Unless and until the housing market recovers, the rest of the country will suffer. Responsible reporting might help us get back on track sooner rather than later. We expect the facts—the news—good or bad. Just don’t skew what you choose to report to further your own agenda.

Sale SMC

Home Sales Decline As Tax Credits Expire – WSJ.com

"Some 60% of the 109 economists and other analysts surveyed by MacroMarkets LLC expect home prices to decline this year, up from 40% in May."

via online.wsj.com

I found this amusing. If their numbers are right, at 66% the economists are no better than the Supreme Court Justices at arriving at a consensus, and probably no more accurate than our local weather announcer when they do.

Time to Brine?

Thanksgiving!

What a great time to be appreciative of all that you have; your health, happiness, friends and family. Our Thanksgivings are typically not typical at all. The family descends upon our home with the enthusiasm eclipsed only by a FREE four star resort vacation, which is close to what they have come to expect. Somehow, we wouldn’t have it any other way.Turkey

We both love to cook so cook we do. Drew owned his own food service company and is an accomplished cook in his own right, and in another lifetime I worked for Bill Graham Presents and helped run the catering operations to feed the bands. Needless to say our experience cooking for the masses comes in handy when the troops are home for the holidays.

What’s on our menu?

What’s not? We tend to view Thanksgiving as traditionalists and stick to dishes that conjure up fond memories of comfort foods prepared by our mothers with all of the love (if not creativity) imparted to the meal. But we also add one or two extra dishes that help keep the whole preparation less perfunctory and more fun.

This year we’re doing Oysters Rockefeller but reverting to the original recipe from Antoine’s in New Orleans, rather than the typical oysters with spinach and hollandaise so prevalent at today’s seafood houses. We’ve actually made these once before—just not at Thanksgiving—and they are amazing! Here’s the recipe we used and the key ingredient is fresh Chervil & Taragon so forget going to Safeway. BTW—The Blue Point Oysters at the Crystal Springs Fish and Poultry at the Crystal Springs Shopping center looked awesome when I was there yesterday (11/25/2009).

Now well pass along a few tips for this year’s Thanksgiving for those of you who cook a traditional Turkey.

To brine or not to brine?

Brining a Turkey helps it retain moisture. We’re not here to discuss whether or how to brine; some good recipes and the basics behind brining can be read here.  But here are several brining tricks:

· Put your turkey in the vessel you will use for brining and cover it with enough water to submerge the bird completely. Now take the Turkey out of the brine and measure how much water was needed. That will determine how much water you need for your brine recipe.

· Only use half of the water required for the brine recipe to dissolve the sugar and salt. Once your brine has been cooked—bringing out all of the bouquet and dissolving all of the salt and sugar—remove the pot from the stove and add the remaining amount of water in the form of ice cubes. That will enable you to quickly submerge your bird without first having to chill the brine. How many ice cubes do you need? Remember if you need a half gallon more of water that’s 64 ounces. Simply keep filling a plastic bag with ice cubes until you reach 64 ounces in weight.

· If possible, store your brined bird in the refrigerator being sure it remains completely submerged. If you’re like most and don’t have the room, you can line an ice chest with a clean plastic bag (be sure it’s not made from recycled materials), and place the bird in the bag and cover with brine, then pack around it with bags of ice.

Give your bird plenty of rest.

By the time it comes down to cooking everything you and your bird probably need some rest. This is just the time to get out your iced-down bird and let it begin to come up in temperature. If you are deep frying your bird, this is a critical step. Once submerged in hot oil a cold bird can drop the temperature of your oil by over 100 degrees.  Equally important though is allowing your bird to air dry. You can even point a fan at your bird to expedite the process of removing water from the bird’s skin which will ultimately produce a crisp outer skin.

Cooking Tips:

If you are deep frying your Turkey be sure and start the oil at a higher temperature than the recipe calls for. Most recipes call for cooking a bird at around 350 degrees so starting your oil at around 400 will help the oil recover faster from your cold bird taking the plunge. Alton Brown, who I respect immensely, has a recipe that calls for starting the bird at 250 and slowly bringing it up to 350. Personally, we believe cooking it faster allows for less absorption of the oil and produces a crisp skin. Our 15 pound bird last year needed only 45 minutes and it was cooked perfectly. Be careful though, plopping a cold bird in hot oil can cause oil to spill over the top and risk a fire. One way to avoid this is to dip your bird in the oil for about 3 minutes when the oil is only around 290. Then pull it back out and allow the oil to reach temperature. Now you’ve successfully removed some of the surface water from the bird that could overreact with hotter oil. If you want to remove the risk of a flash fire always turn off the fire when lifting your bird in and out of the oil.

And for anyone who thinks deep frying a Turkey is sacrilege, we thought so too until we tried it. It actually produced a bird with less fat than the traditional roasting method. That was quickly demonstrated when we went to skim off the Turkey fat from the pot of Turkey stock the next day and there was none! Think about it…the leanest piece of bacon you will ever eat is one that has been deep fried—the process renders all of the fat form the meat. That said, we’re opting for a rotisserie version this year; brined and with a hint of Lavender smoke.

Enjoy your holiday and stop in again soon!

 

Cheers,

Drew & Christine

When A Little Common Sense Goes A Long Way

I found the picture that accompanied the article in the San Francisco Chronicle, Saturday November 15th 2008 title “Increase in Deaths, injuries on dangerous San Francisco Streets”  a bit symptomatic of the problem.

The article is reciting the statistics on just how dangerous the streets are for pedestrian and bicyclists and the picture shows a pedestrian walking right out in front of a car without even looking at the driver of the vehicle which is poised to potentially run him over.

(click on the picture for a full-sized view)

SF Chron 11

Don’t get me wrong, in most accidents drivers are in fact at fault and hitting pedestrian accounts for more than half of the fatalities each year in San Francisco. That doesn’t mean we should subjugate personal responsibility or common sense for laws. Traffic lights are there to tell drivers they need to stop, and laws are there to help enforce that they do so, but if they fail to stop who really wants to be dead right?

I applaud Belmont for installing the flashing crosswalk signals to alert drivers that a pedestrian is about to cross. This extra “heads-up” could save many lives if it were employed in San Francisco. And while their proposal to install cameras to award citations for failure to stop will generate much needed traffic fine revenues, it will do little prevent accidents; remember the citations are given after the fact—once there has already been a violation. That said, if the fines generate enough revenue to be self-sustaining or better yet offer extra revenue to fund lighted crosswalks I’m all in favor.

Not being privy to the statistics, intuitively, I’ll bet that the person who purposely runs a red light does so by just missing a yellow one. If the lights were timed with a little more delay, a pedestrian would not receive a green light until well after the opposing light had turned red. The real danger is in drivers who plow on through a red light oblivious to its warning, well after the driver should have stopped—giving pedestrians ample time to wander out in front of an oncoming car.

When I was a child my mother taught me to stop, look and listen before crossing a street. Somehow those simply life saving lessons have been lost as people become more reliant on traffic lights and less reliant on common sense—traffic signals do not substitute for common sense and personal preservation. Sure people are supposed to stop, but pedestrians fail to remember that sometimes they don’t, or can’t always do so.

I’ve driven around Belmont for many years and I’m always amazed as I approach an intersection to see for example, a mother with a stroller fixated on the WALK signal in front of her and not on whether I am poised to heed my signals. They’ll blindly push their stroller right out in front of my vehicle on the assumption that in a perfect world I will see the red light, heed the laws, that I will physically be able to stop and my car will mechanically be able to do so—should you really have that much faith in the average driver or the maintenance of their vehicles?

Look, listen, be aware of your surroundings and a lot of these accidents could be avoided.

October 26th 1881–A Day in History

Each year I post a new message on the anniversary of the “Shoot out at the OK Corral”, and also on Wyatt Earp’s birthday, March 19th (1848).

October 26th bears a lot of meaning for me. Most importantly it was the day my mother was born—and event without which this blog would not exist. My mother was a stall worth advocate of learning and the history that surrounds us. I fondly remember mornings when I would awake to find new message on our chalk-board in the kitchen that recounted some historical trivia—she was the first who said “What happened on this day in history?” It also marks the day of the famous shoot out near the OK Corral.

In 1992 I saw the movie “Tombstone”, and I thought at the time, “What an interesting movie, I wonder what really happened?” That led me on a decade of research into the life and times of Wyatt Earp and the Wild West.  Since then I have read every book I could get my hands on regarding the topic.

WyattKurt *Kurt Russell plays an excellent Wyatt Earp in the 1992 movie Tombstone.

In 1998 I had occasion to meet with several prominent authors of Wyatt Earp history. We met  in Tombstone, Arizona for a trip to recount the facts and places that preceded the shootout as well as that which transpired after the events on that fateful October 26th day in 1881 when the Clanton’s, Mc Laury’s, the Earps and Doc Holliday had it out in proximity to the OK Corral.

The trip was enlightening to say the least, and as is often the case, finding the truth is more fascinating than the Hollywood fiction.

As you’ve probably gleamed the famous shoot out at the OK Corral never really happened at the OK Corral—it was around back in a vacant lot close to Fly’s photo gallery. But who fired the first shot? Those who know for sure are long gone but many believe it was Wyatt Earp—the only one to come out of the fray unscathed. Interesting enough one of the most important details omitted from every movie ever made was the trial that took place after the shootout which could have sent the Earp clan and Doc Holliday to the gallows. There were many witnesses to the gunfight that day and as you can imagine every one of them told a slightly different version of what happened.  In December of that year the trial ended with the exoneration of the Earp’s and Holliday and with that the murder charges were dropped; but the acquittal set off a string of events including Virgil being crippled for life, the murder of Morgan Earp and the bloody massacre of the Clanton gang by Wyatt and his cronies.

For a good book to get a better understanding of the political environment which created the tension in this small silver mining town, I suggest you read a thesis now in book form written by Paul Mitchell Marks titled “And Die In The West”, still in print at Amazon.com.

October’s Hunter’s Moon

october-2013-partial-lunar-eclipse_72598_990x742Today marks the occasion of the “Hunter’s Moon. A full moon which occurs each October after September’s Harvest Moon.

This can be found on NASA’s web site. According to folklore, October’s full moon is called the “Hunter’s Moon” or sometimes the “Blood Moon.” It gets its name from hunters who tracked and killed their prey by autumn moonlight, stockpiling food for the winter ahead. You can picture them: silent figures padding through the forest, the moon overhead, pale as a corpse, its cold light betraying the creatures of the wood.

So how many moons do we really have? Twelve to be exact:

  • January – Wolf Moon 
  • February – Snow Moon 
  • March – Worm Moon 
  • April – Pink Moon 
  • May – Flower Moon 
  • June – Strawberry Moon 
  • July – Buck Moon 
  • August – Sturgeon Moon 
  • September – Harvest Moon 
  • October – Hunter’s Moon 
  • November – Beaver Moon 
  • December – Cold Moon

Ever wonder why the moon appears so large at the horizon and so small up in the sky? This phenomenon referred to the “Moon Illusion” is best explained by scientists but it has everything to do with your brain’s perception of relative size as it compares the moon to objects on the horizon. Try taking a picture of the same moon and you’ll be sorely disappointed that your camera doesn’t see things quite the way you do.

Enjoy the show this week and as the moon rises near sunset and appears to fill the sky.

Transparent. Frankly, I’m sick of the word…

Catch phrases are being overused, don’t you think?Istock_000006321121xsmall

They’re like a good song that gets played so much you’re afraid to turn on the radio for fear of having to hear it played once more.

It’s Friday and call it "fried-day" if you’ve had as hectic of a week as I-and with only two more work days to go, this seems like the best day to get off a rant.

Allow me to digress…If the 90’s were defined by conspicuous consumption than the "Ought’s" so far have turned out to be years filled with anxiety, uncertainty and fear.

Before the new millennium ever even got started we had to worry about the Y2K. Even naysayers of that alert surreptitiously logged into their bank accounts the next day just to be sure. Then the 21st century really hit and we ushered in new paradigms.

We voted for a new President that year but that too was after much anxiety in our nation. We never really knew without question if the President we voted for was supposed to be in office or not.

Things settled down and seemed to be humming along fine until September 11th 2001, when our country faced an unparalleled attack. More anxiety, uncertainty and fear.

That’s when our country’s paradigm shifted to a fear based society. Even our government leaders told us to go about living our lives, while looking over our shoulders; all while our mail delivery person was supposed to watch out for suspicious activity. We had to be alert, 24/7.

Then all of a sudden we needed to be green. Of course it would have been nice to think green all along; and in fact many people have. But suddenly everything had to be about "going green" and it starts to be disingenuous when corporations are going green as a marketing ploy.

Now with gas prices soaring, the housing market crashing and ruining everyone’s party, the only fun anyone we’re having is riding the stock market roller coaster-more uncertainty.

And now everything has to be transparent-transparent? Who coined that word to describe the new millennium business model?  In order to compete in real estate all of a sudden you have to be web 2.0 savvy and completely transparent. Not even the people using the phrase web 2.0 can agree on its meaning. And what about transparency? Don’t you think Coke owes it to us to make their recipe public? After all, we do drink their product…

Am I the only one who thinks the word transparent has a slightly negative connotation to it-as in there’s no substance, "it’s completely transparent"; or, "he’s so transparent", as in you can see right through his gimmicks?

I’ve never started a catch phrase before but could we try something with a little more integrity, such as "apparent", as in "His business style is completely apparent"-perhaps not.

It’s hard to be green and transparent at the same time. The only thing that seems transparent to me right now is that everyone is so busy trying to be transparent, in the meantime, they are.

The Streets Around Us

Have you ever driven around Belmont and wondered how a street got its name? You might even live on a street named Lyon for example and wondered if it too is a French derivation.

How about that funny round turret of a building on Alameda de las Pulgas (now tha’s a name)—who lived there?

We’ll answer a few, but Belmont does have a historical society which is fun to visit and you’ll meet volunteers with all of the answers. There’s even a book titled Heritage of the Wooded Hills by Ria Elena MacCrisken that will satisfy some of your curiosity and make driving the windy roads of our little town more interesting. Now for some answers:

In an apparent attempt to fashion Belmont after Hillsborough, in 1925 the Belmont Country Club Properties were formed by Messrs Lee Monroe, Lawrence Miller and Arthur Lyon (apparently Mr. Lyon had more pull as both his first and last names were used for street names).

Across the street from the $65,000 club house located at 751 Alameda de las Pulgas (now the Congressional Church of Belmont) was a tiny round sales office offering homes for sale around the golf course for sale. What golf course? Find out in our here…

Drew and Christine Morgan are experienced REALTORS and NOTARY PUBLIC located in Belmont, CA where the own an operate MORGANHOMES, Inc.. They have been assisting buyers and sellers in their community for over 30 years. Drew and Christine have received the coveted Diamond award and ranked among the top 50 agents nationwide and the top 3 in Northern California by RE/MAX. To contact them, please call (650) 508.1441 or email info@morganhomes.com.

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This article provides educational information and is intended for informational purposes only. It should not be considered real estate, tax, insurance, or legal advice, and it cannot replace advice tailored to your specific situation. It’s always best to seek guidance from a professional who is familiar with your scenario.

BROKER | MANAGER | NOTARY

Foreclosures have pitfalls for buyers

Ever since we launched our foreclosure portal on our web site we’ve been inundated with inquires requesting information on how to purchase one of the many homes going to auction.

What we did not anticipate was the general misunderstanding of the process.

First, the opening bid is inappropriately referred to as the "sale price" when in fact it is more accurately the opening bid price. This sale price is what seems to attract the throngs of interested parties since it sounds too good to be true, and in fact, it is.

Buyers are asking us, "How can I purchase that home?" Of course the answer is you attend the Sherriff’s auction and be the winning bidder.

Then they ask when can they see the home? Unfortunately, the answer is not until after you buy it. House_and_lock The Sherriff’s department does not conduct home tours, nor do they perform inspections and provide buyers with illuminative reports on the condition of the home. Bidders show up with 10% of the price they wish to bid and must provide the remainder within 10 days of the auction or forfeit their deposit.

If you are lucky enough to be the winning bidder and manage to get a home for less than what surrounding properties of like kind are selling for-good. Now all you have to do is hope that when you get the keys and open the door the walls are intact, the kitchen is still there and the floors are not ruined.

Unless you are a savvy investor with deep pockets we suggest that buyers stick with more traditional methods with safeguards for purchasing a home.