(We knew this was coming…) Back in July, I posted an article about the District’s decision to re-draw the San Carlos School District boundaries in an attempt to alleviate the chronic over-enrollment problems at both White Oaks and Heather Elementary Schools.   This past fall, the District had the unenviable task of vectoring about 17 families who live within the White Oaks boundary to Heather Elementary.   Clearly, the 11th-hour miracles that they were able to achieve in past yea... Read Full Story

“Why am I paying so much interest?” Ask anyone who has just purchased a home what their reaction was when they opened their first mortgage statement – chances are that’s exactly what they thought.  I know that was my first reaction.  It seemed like 3/4 of my monthly payment was going just to pay the interest!!  My second reaction was “Aha, the bank is screwing me over by getting ALL of their interest up front!”   That seemed to be logical conclusion, since... Read Full Story

Fowl is Foul? It’s hard for me to believe this, but according to this article in the Daily Journal, it’s actually illegal to own chickens in unincorporated parts of San Mateo County, which by definition includes Emerald Hills.  It’s difficult to fathom such a counter-intuitive ordinance, because Emerald Hills basically evolved from “horse country” just a few decades ago.  When I grew up in this area, it was not only common to see chickens, but folks also raised ... Read Full Story

That seems to be the case, according to this morning’s article in the Daily Journal.   You may recall that the City of San Carlos, after many years of delays and consultants reports, decided to re-surface the playing field at Lower Highlands Park with a synthetic, all-weather playing field in hopes of maximizing the use of their limited field space, while minimizing the cost of maintaining the field over time. The start of the transformation of lower Highlands was delayed earlier this ... Read Full Story

Inventory Analysis Here’s the summary of the Emerald Hills and Farm Hills Estates real estate market as of 11/21/09: Active: 48 Homes (Last week: 47) Pending Sale: 19 Homes (Last week: 19) Active/Pending Ratio: 2.5 : 1 (Last week: 2.5 : 1) ————————————————————————- Homes Sold Below are the homes that sold this past week in Emerald Hills and Fa... Read Full Story

As predicted, the inventory of single family residences for sale in San Carlos dropped again, and continued to stay low all week.  At the time of this post, there are only 36 homes for sale in ALL of San Carlos.  That’s an incredibly low number for any time of year, even heading into the holiday season as we are now. Another interesting note — 15 homes have already closed escrow in San Carlos this month, which is one more than in November ‘08.  This marks the third consecut... Read Full Story

Once Upon a Time… It wasn’t too long ago that the subject of foreclosures was solely linked to sub-prime mortgages.  Certainly, the first few waves of foreclosed homes to hit the market were comprised almost entirely of sub-prime borrowers.   But that trend is slowly beginning to change — not the rate of foreclosures, because those are continuing to increase at alarming rates.  No, the big change in the foreclosure market is the rapidly increasing percentage of prime borrow... Read Full Story

The City of San Carlos announced that it will be holding its first community-wide forum to get feedback from residents on its Wheeler Plaza development concept.  For those of you not familiar with Wheeler Plaza, it’s the city-owned parcel that’s right behind the Wells Fargo and Le Boulanger on Laurel Street — see the map above.   The idea being kicked around is to develop the existing parcel into a retail/residential complex that will There’s an entire category on thi... Read Full Story

I have written several times on this site about the impact (or otherwise) of the various programs initiated by the federal government in an attempt to get a pulse going again in the housing market.   In a nutshell, I believe the programs have had mixed results. On one hand, extending the upper limit of conforming loans to a max of $729,750 in high-cost areas such as San Carlos was a brilliant idea, and it couldn’t have come at a better time.  Right on the heels of an unprecedented cred... Read Full Story

Inventory Analysis Here’s the summary of the Emerald Hills and Farm Hills Estates real estate market as of 11/14/09: Active: 47 Homes (Last week: 49) Pending Sale: 19 Homes (Last week: 21) Active/Pending Ratio: 2.5 : 1 (Last week: 2.3: 1) ————————————————————————- Homes Sold Below are the homes that sold this past week in Emerald Hills and Far... Read Full Story