Life and all in Redding California
Here’s a video I did of this year’s Christmas Party for special needs kids put on by the Shasta Association of Realtors along with the support of the community and local businesses. We hold it at the Elks Club in Redding. 2011 marks the 39th annual party. As usual, a great time was had by all. Watching the video is a nice way to get some holiday cheer today. Our great thanks go out everyone involved. Merry Christmas!
Shasta REALTORS Christmas party for kids 2011 from Skip Murphy on Vimeo.
Something of a jarring milestone on my dashboard this morning as I refueled. In the real estate biz, it seems nobody ever wants to ride their bikes over to look at a house.
A clandestine image of a regular supplier of mine. On the street, they call it “gas” or “fuel.” This dealer operates right out in the open. Right on the corner. Even the cops just look the other way, as users line up to make a buy. With this addiction, not even the first one is free.
Not exactly carbon neutral. Real estate sales is a service business. Call me up, and we’ll sip on the next thousand gallons….
Redding sprawls out in suburban, automobile centricity. Over the last few years, we had a couple of developments aimed at a more human centric design, most often referred to as New Urbanism. All of the examples have met with mixed success. Perhaps the lack of eager adoption has more to do with the recently depressed housing market conditions than the appeal. But change is hard anyway, and in this housing market, it’s brutal. So what building we do see going on in 2011 tends to be very similar to what we have seen for the last few decades. Suburban, auto based housing. The market speaks, and those that don’t listen do so at their peril.
Still…
I took this video below of the block and a half of the completed Parkview neighborhood yesterday. And seeing it I was pleasantly imagining our town laid out for walking, with small community parks, and tree lined streets of front porches. $4 gas surely takes a huge bite out of our local economy, but it wouldn’t matter all that much if you could walk to a marketplace or work. I wonder if we haven’t built ourselves into a suburban box, from which escape will be difficult.
I received a call from Lynette Gooch of River Cities Paranormal Society, NorCal Chapter. It seems she had run across an entry in another blog post I wrote about a Redding house for sale with some paranormal qualities. I assured her my post was meant to be entirely tongue in cheek, as it happens. But her intentions were completely serious. 
She explained that she was part of a team of local folks who are in turn affiliated with a larger group, who investigate claims of the paranormal. She introduced me to their website, and you can click on it below. Their team operates without charge, and has a set of expertise and instruments to investigate… uh, ghosts and such. You can click on the various pages at their site, and learn a lot more about them and their intriguing field of inquiry. Who you gonna call? (530) 255 GHST (4478), in fact.
Looking over their site, I didn’t see any Plasma Rays (Don’t cross the streams!) for actually dealing with any paranormal activity they might detect, but perhaps they keep their Proton Packs at the ready, just in case they run across Gozer, or Zuul even. Lynnette sounded very serious about all. And I’m just poking fun with my Ghostbuster references, but how cool would it be to find something truly inexplicable? Sometimes in the real estate trade, you do see and hear about the weirdest things in people’s houses. So click on the site below to see what to do about it. Thanks Lynette!
Watched New Englanders digging out of record snow again on TV. Since much of national news is East Coast based, it seems to be big news everywhere you look. And in fact it looks rough out there. Are you growing tired of dirty snow? Consider Redding. It’s raining today, but that’s just lovely. Fills up our many lakes and rivers. You can see the rain on the CalTrans Traffic Cameras in our area. Nice.
Here’s a view not far from my house. Anyway, if you want to relocate here from your eskimo igloo on the east coast, just click to my Real Estate Services website. I can help with that. Meanwhile, I’m enjoying the rain immensely…
We real estate agents are independent contractors. That means we often work many hours for free, hoping to meet somebody buying or selling a house. This very rainy weekend I held a house open both days on Foothill Blvd, and it was looong time between few lookers. I believe this was also the weekend for NFL playoffs. No playoffs here.
I’m still remaining hopeful that someone will come along eventually; they simply have to. This house is wonderful, and it will also put me in good stead when it comes to having the responsibility of selling homes in the future. In some cases, we may decide to look at other ways to purchase real estate, like through a land contract, for example. The person looking to buy the land makes an agreement regarding the payments with the seller, and will then pay the remaining figures over a certain amount of time. This again is decided between both buyer and seller. But don’t worry, once it has been paid off, the buyer has ownership of the property. Good, right? Of course, you will need a company like Amerinote Xchange to help you along the way, especially if you are looking to sell your own land. And there are some great pieces of land around here, which is probably why so many people have decided to build real estate properties on them. If I was looking for a house, I’d definitely consider buying one in this area, maybe even the homes that I set up an open house for on Foothill Blvd because they were amazing. But just looking for someone, anyone, who is interested in this property is my first obstacle to overcome.
Well, there is time for reflection. And whining, apparently! Things could be worse…
Orville Thomas of local ABC affiliate KRCR News Channel 7 interviewed me over the weekend about the impending deadline for the federal first time homebuyer tax credit. We spoke for quite a while at a home for sale where I am representing a first time homebuyer in escrow. Orville is a bright and articulate guy, so it was fun. We were in a bank-owned home where the seller is represented by Robin Rivera. My buyer had an emergency at the last minute, so Orville interviewed me instead, and ran with it. I think it turned out okay.
Yesterday, I ran into one of Erin’s young friends, Sarah. She said to me “Hey, how about Tuesday, huh?” I was taken aback. Most of Erin’s 20-something friends seem very unconnected to politics. I found it hopeful that this young woman was excited enough about how the presidential election played out to even mention it to a geezer like me. It will be good if Obama’s success has captured the attention of young people, and got them thinking about the importance of elections. BTW Even though Sarah and her husband are still in their early 20s, they have their own small business. How cool is that? Shasta Pizza on Lake Blvd has the most delicious Garlic Chicken Bacon pizza, call 244 9999. Yum.
Even though it’s November, we still have one Day Lilly blooming. Global warming? Maybe it’s just confused. Photo by Skip.
Secondly, local Realtor Brad Garbutt has a blog. He’s written some excellent information regarding “home retention” scams on his blog. There are a large number of unscrupulous people trying to take advantage of the many people in mortgage trouble. You can read his blog HERE. The series started Nov.4. He did an excellent job of spelling out the mechanics of the latest fraud schemes. Fraudsters are everywhere. Beware.
If you are interested in local real estate issues, you might pop over and take a look now and again for his take on things. I read it.
A good article about buying foreclosures by David Benda appeared in the RS on Sunday. It was thoughtful and accurate. Read it HERE.
Mother doesn’t go out anymore
Just sits at home and rolls her spastic eyes
But every weekend through the door
Come words of wisdom from the world outside
Sunday papers don’t ask no questions
Sunday papers don’t tell no lies
Sunday papers don’t raise objections
Sunday papers ain’t got no eyes
Joe Jackson – Sunday Papers A cool song indeed.
Fall fishing inside Redding city limits