Archive for September, 2009
Rock Wall Throws a Party at Alameda Point
Kent Rosenblum (left) and guests enjoy the second open house at Rock Wall Wine Company on September 26, 2009.
The second Rock Wall Open House on Alameda Point took place September 26, with a big crowd of both wine and guests.
Rock Wall opened a year ago, and already its organizers are planning the next open house [...]
The Blotter
Monday, September 21
BURGLARY: Police are looking for a suspect or suspects who broke into the storage closet of a Willow Street resident and took $1,800 worth of property. Police said someone used a pry bar to open the closet, which was located in the secured carport area of the victim’s apartment building, sometime between 10 [...]
New Park Street pub open for business
That’s right, folks: The plywood chrysalis covering the entrance of what used to be the Pop Inn has come off, and a (promised) brand new pub called The Churchward has emerged. The grand opening was this past weekend.
Alameda native Joe Churchward Jr. said he was impressed with the changes taking place on Park Street and [...]
Ploughshares bags big grant
Looks like our man in Congress, Rep. Pete Stark, took a little time off from his efforts to expand health care access to help the folks at the Alameda Point Collaborative pick up a $625,000 federal grant.
The money will allow the Collaborative to greatly expand Ploughshares Nursery, by adding 25 jobs for collaborative residents for [...]
Pot-y mouth
Alameda native son Don Perata is backing an initiative that should have folks in Oaksterdam pretty darn excited. And considering that he is openly running for Mayor of said city, you want to make your constituents happy.
According to Matier and Ross, even though he thinks its a losing effort he’s still throwing his weight [...]
Army of Robot Squirrels Poised for Attack
Dear Editor:
It’s started! An army of evil Robot Squirrels has infiltrated what I thought was a respectable, long-standing Alameda business. I wanted to beat a hasty retreat the moment I saw them, but I knew that your readers had to be warned, so I snapped a picture and then backed away slowly, hoping not to trigger their motion sensors and cause them to aim their massive, crushing jaws in my direction.
There may be people out there who haven’t been taking your warnings seriously, but now there is proof that Squirrels are conspiring with the Evil Robots that want us to vote on their plans to build a secret base at Alameda Point.
We need to do something to stop their insidious plot. Everyone ought to do the kinds of things we Right-Thinking Alamedans do in times of danger, whether it’s insulting the mayor, signing petitions, recalling the school board, raising the drawbridges, launching barrage balloons, or even—if, God forbid, it should come to that—writing a grumpy letter to the editor. Hurry, for time is running out!
Yours in eternal vigilance,
Hogan Parawaders
Has The Housing Recovery Begun? Maybe
Some more positive news from the July numbers as home prices rose for the third month in a row, the data shows that housing recover is underway but it is still very fragile. The Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller home price index of 20 major cities climbed 1.2 percent from June to a reading of 143.05. The index has risen at an 8 percent annualized rate in the three months to July, the best performance since early 2006.
The index, however, is down about 33 percent from the peak in mid-2006. Home prices are now at levels not seen since the third quarter of 2003. And prices in Las Vegas, Detroit and Seattle are still falling, on a seasonally adjusted basis.
Home prices continue to fall and are 13.3 percent below July a year ago. The annual declines have manifested in all 20 cities that the report covers. This decline has been reported for six straight months.
In Alameda, we have seen median home price rise and the inventory has been sucked up over the past three months. The Island reached a 45 week low of 122 units. This is 32 percent decline in 10 weeks. Normally low inventory means a price will begin to rise. A preliminary look at September sales shows that this may be the fact.
There are still several risks to the national housing recovery, including rising unemployment and foreclosures and the expiration of a tax credit for first-time home buyers.
The biggest factor, in my opinion, still weighing on the housing sector is jobs and wages. Wages in the United States are lagging and have declined 5 percent year-over-year and job loss continues to grow. This segment of the economy needs to stabilize for housing to correct.
As I have written about in the past, the shadow inventory of distressed properties will have a major impact. If the banks are still holding on to a large number of homes and they flood the market in the spring this will destabilize the housing market.
Some experts believe that the housing market has hit bottom. Low price inventory has cleared in many cities and bidding wars have evolved in many of these areas. The upper levels of the market are having more trouble with higher priced homes sitting longer.Places like Las Vegas that had a gamblers feel to housing was one of the most speculative markets during the boom. As quick as you win in Vegas you also lost with homes down almost 55 percent from their peak. In August, almost 80 percent of home resales in Nevada were either a foreclosure or a sale below the value of the mortgage, according to a survey by the National Association of Realtors. The Detroit housing market is reeling from layoffs in the automotive industry. Seattle, by contrast, was one of the last areas to enter the downturn so prices there have yet to hit bottom.
The Alameda Real Estate market has been more like Austin, TX and Salt Lake City, UT where the pullback has been more moderate. The good part for Alameda homeowners is the region is bouncing back.Home prices rose in 13 metro areas for at least three straight months. The biggest gains in July were in Minneapolis, San Francisco and Chicago.
More on Case-Shiller
Monday Profile: Pappo’s John Thiel
In honor of the Yom Kippur holiday, Monday’s regularly scheduled profile is running today.
Since he was 11 years old, Pappo’s John Thiel has wanted to have his own restaurant. The California Culinary Academy grad worked at some of the Bay Area’s best loved eateries – Bay Wolf, Zuni Café and Delfina – before landing in [...]
Live at the Library – A Big Hit in Alameda!
The first Live@theLibrary concert on Saturday, September 26 was sold out, and organizers are hoping for a similar turnout at the next two shows, set for October 24 and November 21.
This past Saturday, jazz singers Kathy Moehring, Barbara Brown, Kevin Brown and Rick Dougherty entertained the crowd, along with musicians Kelly Park, Sam Bevan and Jason [...]
City to study impacts of Point plan
After just a few brief moments of discussion that followed a very long night focused on other topics, the Planning Board voted unanimously to immediately move forward with an environmental impact study of SunCal’s proposed development plan at Alameda Point.
The decision was based on an August recommendation from the Oakland Chinatown Advisory Committee that the [...]
