Archive for November, 2009
JUDGE TENTATIVELY DENIES LESSON 9 OPT OUT REQUEST
An Alameda County Superior Court judge has tentatively denied a request by some local parents to require the school district to allow their children to opt out of lessons designed to halt anti-gay bullying.
Judge Frank Roesch issued a temporary ruling on November 25 saying the lessons don’t constitute health education, as the parents are arguing. [...]
Holiday Shopping Has Little Inventory
Hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving Holiday. It has been a crazy month and I have been a little scattered in posting the past three weeks. During that time I forgot that 94501 Real Estate just celebrated one year of publishing blog posts about Alameda Real Estate. I hope that I have another year in me, I had no idea what I was getting into what I started, but it has been tremendous fun.
So on to the Alameda Real Estate news. It is Monday and it is time to update inventory. The Alameda Inventory has been decreasing since mid-July and has bottomed this week to a record low since I started tracking the data a year ago. The Island has 111 units for sale; 67 of the units are single family residence.
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Part of the reason for the low inventory is strong sales in September and October. Add in seasonality, winter is a slow selling season and we now have very little inventory.
So far, November is looking to be a slow month compared to last year. Early numbers show 25 sales so far for the month and unless we have a strong weekend of closings over the holiday weekend this will fall short of 2008’s 32 sales. So those units that are for sale right now are those that need to be sold.
As evidence of this, five properties were placed on the market during the Thanksgiving weekend; three of those properties were distressed. The new distressed properties are: two bedrooms, two bath foreclosed property at 343 Laguna Vista for $474,900, a three bedroom two and half bath foreclosed home at 801 Park Street for $539,500 and a short sale multi-family duplex (two units) at 1550 8th street for $350,000.
It looks as if the December will be slow in terms of transactions unless more homes come on the market.
Just one other item: A National story that has local impact in terms of homeowners that are struggling to hold on with their current home loan. Today the Obama administration said it will crack down on mortgage companies that are failing to do enough to help borrowers at risk of foreclosure. The Treasury Department said it will withhold payments from mortgage companies that aren’t working with borrowers to make loan modifications permanent.
According to the Mortgage Bankers Association, about 14% of homeowners with mortgages were either behind on payments or in foreclosure at the end of September. This is at a record level for the ninth straight quarter.
A new group of homeowners now seem to be at threat of losing their home. A Congressional Oversight Panel reported last month that foreclosures are now threatening borrowers who took out conventional, fixed-rate mortgages and put down payments of 10% to 20% on homes that would have been within their means in a normal market. This is something to watch in the coming months.
Alameda Schools head to court tomorrow
Tomorrow (Tues) is the first hearing in the Lesson 9 court case, one of the two efforts to allow parents to avoid having tolerance for gays/children of gays taught to their children. Of the two efforts, the lawsuit is the less pernicious in my mind, though still depressing.
Say you, say me
Here’s what I am enjoying about the whole Alameda Point Revitalization Initiative. Folks who generally wouldn’t give a rat’s ass about Development Agreements are suddenly so concerned about how the Development Agreement as presented in the Initiative itself is tantamount to a “giveaway” of epic proportions to SunCal.
The main points are, of course, captured in the [...]
Monday profile: College of Alameda’s Esther Guerrero
By Rin Kelly
Esther Guerrero began her teaching career at the prestigious University of California, Berkeley. But a summer experience teaching disadvantaged youth at Upward Bound convinced her that she was happiest working with students who had further to go. A professor in the Peralta system since 1984, Guerrero, a multilingual native of Mexico who immigrated [...]
Dr. Alan Mitchell, 1924-2009
Dr. Alan Davis Mitchell, a longtime Island resident and pediatrician, passed away peacefully on November 17 in his home. He was 84.
In addition to his work as a pediatrician – which saw him caring for some patients well into adulthood, friends and family said – Mitchell helped start Alameda Meals on Wheels, founded a cystic [...]
The city in brief
Night work for Webster Street/Willie Stargell set
Two companies bid to run golf complex
Night work for Webster Street/Willie Stargell
Two companies have bid to be the permanent operator for the Chuck Corica Golf Complex. City officials would not release their names.
Deputy City Manager Lisa Goldman told The Island early last week that proposals were to be reviewed [...]
Holiday Shirt Shopping Tip from Nedash Potter
Dear Mr. Grumbel,
Allow me first to say how much I love your noosepaper. I love it more than life itself, which is saying quite a bit because I love life!
But now, here is the reason I am writing this letter. I came across this store on the Inter-Nets, and I felt that although the item was miscategorized as “funny” rather than “serious”, the shirt being sold would be a good gift for any right-thinking Alamedan on your Holiday list.
I believe that I actually recognize a couple of the characters in the second row from my own back yard.
I am not affiliated with this clothing store, but considering how serious a problem we have here, any opportunity to spread the word about these menaces to society is OK by me.
Warmly,
Nedash Potter
Fee fi fo fum
So my latest project has been reading through the 2001 Citywide Development Fee Nexus Study. Essentially this document was created so that the City could charge developers for the impact of their project on the City. According to the state level legislation that controls, this type of Nexus Study has to be performed [...]
Eve Pearlman: Keeping it local
In deference to today being Black Friday – which I understand is a very big shopping day – I asked some of my favorite Alameda retailers how they’re hanging in there and what they’ve noticed about people’s shopping habits with this whole economic collapse and everything.
“Shopping has completely changed,” said the always-warm and friendly Chelsea [...]
