Caltrans added 3 live cameras on 101 in Pismo. It's kinda scary to think we need traffic cameras. The video is streaming a pretty good. If you want to stare at cars merging on the freeway, choose the 4th Street camera.

Here's the link to the video. I had to save a file, then open that file to get the video to play.

Sales Tax Increases??

It looks like an increasing number of SLO County cities are wanting to raise the sales tax from 0.5 to 1 percent. Currently, it's 7.25% which is one of the lowest in the state. Santa Maria is 7.75%. The city of San Luis Obispo and Morro Bay have the greatest need of the additional revenue a tax increase would generate. Both had a $2 Million+ budget deficit. The only city with a surplus is Paso Robles which has over $2 Million.

You can find out what the sales tax is for any city in California by going to this site.

Chili's may be coming to the Central Coast

Ok, so this may not be good news for some of you but my family likes Chili's restaurants. So much, I've emailed the corporation multiple times to ask them to consider building a restaurant in SLO County. Well, it looks like my wish may become reality. Chili's is looking at opening restaurants in SLO, Paso Robles, Arroyo Grande, and Santa Maria!

Web site hiccup...

The server where I host my website had what's called a Denial of Service Attack today causing my web server to be unavailable for most of the day. My vendor says they've resolved the problems that the attack caused and things should be ok but wanted to mention this in case you get a "web server not respondng" message when trying to connect.

Fortune magazine dusted off their crystal ball and with the help of a couple research firms has forecasted the growth in the largest housing markets. Here is what they say about a few areas:

(area) (% growth 2006) (% growth 2007)
San Francisco +0.1% -2.9%
Baskerfield -0.8% -3.0%
Fresno -0.8% -2.8%
Los Angeles -1.6% -6.3%
San Jose -0.4% -3.9%
San Diego -3.4% -5.7%
Las Vegas -7.9% -5.0%
Honolulu +4.0% -1.0%
San Antonio +8.3% +7.0%


Full article is here

Least affordable rental markets

The National Low Income Housing Coalition released a report on affordabilty of rentals across the country. You can read the CNN article here. I also looked up how San Luis Obispo-Paso Robles did on the report which you can access here.

Looking for a business opportunity?? Among the businesses currently for sale are a Chinese Restaurant in SLO, a Fish and Chips in Grover Beach, a shipping store, a hamburger joint, and a yogurt shop. You can search for available Business Opportunites using our MLS Search #2 form.

I also added daily real estate news headlines at the very bottom of the SloCountyHomes.com home page. The left column is real estate industry news headlines and the right column is headlines for home buyers and sellers. Inman news, which provides the headlines, provides some worthwhile information so you might want to scan the headlines regularly to see if there is something that will assist you with your real estate endeavor.

I've added some one-click MLS Search links to make searching for available homes quicker and easier. You'll see them on the SloCountyHomes.com home page.

Don’t Let Tiny Closets Shut Out Buyers

The following article talks about how to stage a closet so it doesn't give the feeling to a potential buyer that your home is short on storage.

Read the article here

UCLA report predicts housing slowdown

"UCLA’s Anderson Forecast noted that 8 of the last 10 recessions were started by slowdowns in the housing market. It also predicted that U.S. housing construction would begin declining in 2006. But don’t panic: this forecast said this may drag down the economy, but it won’t start a recession. Among the trends over the past year that the report cited were a decline in new home sales; a downward trend in home construction (yesterday, it was reported that in October new home construction was down 5.6% from the year-ago period); and fewer applications for home mortgages since late September as rates have increased."

Some happenings around the area...

The new hotel across from the beach in Avila Beach is opening up. It's the Lighthouse Suites of Avila Beach or something like that.

The Cal Poly Performing Arts Center is soon going to start construction on a whopper of a pipe organ. It's supposed to be ready in the summer of 2007.