Virtual Staging Is The Latest In Real Estate Marketing
A recent Facebook post by blogger friend of mine, Mary Pope-Handy, highlighted a new service that adds digitized furniture to photos of vacant properties. Since furniture is not part of real estate this is not a deception, but is actually a helpful service that enables buyers to visualize what a…
Alain Pinel Realtors Ranks 8th in Nation
Alain Pinel Realtors was just recognized by RealTrends as the nation’s 8th largest real estate company, based on 2008 total sales volume.  While APR ranked behind large franchises with offices in multi states, we are the 3rd largest independent company (behind Long and Foster and Hanna, both family owned, but with…
McAfee Performing Arts & Lecture Center
Saratoga High School, at the corner of Saratoga-Sunnyvale Rd. and Herriman Ave. is home to the 569-seat McAfee Performing Arts and Lecture Center. This prominent contemporary structure is partly hidden from the street by towering redwood trees at its back and side. John Nakamatsu, one of my favorite classical pianists,…
Saratoga Rotary Art Show May 3, 2009
The 52nd. Annual Saratoga Rotary Art Show will be held this coming Sunday, May 3, 2009 from 9AM to 5PM at West Valley College on Fruitvale Ave. at Allendale in Saratoga. It will feature 200 artists, food, entertainment and wine tasting from fine local wineries. Entertainment includes the third annual…
Saratoga Home Inventory Rising In Spite of Sales
Available inventory in Saratoga, CA has risen to 171 detached homes for sale plus 20 attached homes, but there have been several notable sales in the past 3 weeks, primarily in the $1.3-2.3 million range. Last Thursday, Alain Pinel had a well-attended ”Estate Tour” of homes listed above $3 million; several homes that…
Montalvo Summer Concerts
 As a boy I performed at Montalvo’s Garden Theater, playing guitar and singing as a strolling minstrel during intermissions for summer plays. The scene looked something like this historic photo above, with chairs set up on the lawn instead of the current tiered, fixed seating. Now, the Montalvo Garden…
Mobilization to End Poverty
April 26-29, 2009 more than 1,000 advocates for social justice will assemble in Washington DC with the objective of making poverty history. The Mobilization to End Poverty will be equipping people to make initial contacts with their members of Congress to express our concern that those in poverty not be…
School Locator and Performance Maps
Schools are an important part of property values. Click>here for a link if you know the street address or assessor’s parcel number in Santa Clara County. Another great website is School Performance Maps, which graphically shows the API score ranking by color. Individual API scores can be obtained by clicking>here.…
Going Digital
February 2009 was the original date that all USA TV stations were to make the shift from analog to digital; now the deadline is June 12th, but many stations have already made the shift or will do so soon. Antenna reception – If you have an older analog TV and…
The Encore Generation
Baby Boomers in their 50′s and 60′s do not really envision themselves becoming “seniors.” Yet, the reality is that a huge cohort is aging and that generation is starting to reinvent how they want to live their “golden years.” What may be acceptable to the “builder generation” born prior to…
Saratoga Estates Tour
Every spring Alain Pinel Realtors organizes its Estates Tour on a Thursday evening from 4:00 – 8:00 PM, featuring homes in Saratoga, Monte Sereno and Los Gatos priced above $3 million. This is a fun time and most of the homes on tour have something yummy to munch on. I…
Saratoga Lagging County Home Sales
As of 4/21/09 there were 3,868 Single Family Detached homes available for sale in Santa Clara County. Cambrian is experiencing brisk sales above the county average of 40% (primarily because of their lower price point and a sizable portion of sales being distressed properties (short sales or real estate owned by…
First Time Home Buyer Help
FEDERAL STIMULUS ACT – President Obama has signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 which resets the conforming loan limit cap at $729,750, up from $625,500. These loan limits will remain in effect through Dec. 31, 2009. This has been approved for some time now, but finally last…
What Are Fair Housing Guidelines For Real Estate?
I am a member of the National Association of REALTORS®, which strongly supports the Fair Housing Act. Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968 prohibits discrimination based on race, color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status or disability. While more than 75 percent of white households own their…
Opening New Doors in Saratoga
Have you wondered what those cut out doors along Saratoga-Sunnyvale Rd. and Herriman Ave. are all about?  They’re the work of artist Stephanie Tumney, wife of the current interim pastor of Saratoga Presbyterian Church.  For the past two years SPC has had two outstanding interim pastors (Bill McGuinness and Mark Tumney).…
