There's an article in today's Tribune about the local housing market. One problem with this article is that it reports median house prices for a particular month (December in this case) and compares it to last December. Since the number of sales is so low right now, the median home price fluctuates a lot from month-to-month, depending on how many high-end sales there has been. It also reports that the city of SLO had a 9.3% increase in home sales which makes it seem like SLO is doing better than most areas. But, if you look at the Months of Inventory on the http://www.slowatch.com/ site, you'll see SLO was doing better in the Summer/Fall but now has caught up with most the rest of the area in regards to months of inventory. I calculate median home prices on a quarterly basis (will be updating 4th quarters tonite) to try to get a better view by using more data but that number even fluctuates a lot.

Another item mentioned in this article is that the number of Realtors contributed to the housing slump starting in 2005. Huh?? I don't understand how that can be a factor. It would seem like more Realtors would be better to generate sales volume as new Realtors would be pressuring friends and family to buy or sell once they got their license.

The article states that the average number of transactions a Realtor in California handles in a year is now under 4. I took a look at the number of total Sold transactions for the Central Coast for 2007 and multiplied it by 2 (2 sides of every sold tranaction- buyer and seller). The total was 8,350.

Using 2,800 Realtors on the Central Coast (doesn't count agents with a license and not a Realtor) calculates to 2.99 transactions per Realtor. I don't know if that is what is meant by "average" Realtor in the article.

The reality is around 20% of Realtors do 80% of the business (haven't verfied if this figure is close but I'll assume it for this calculation). If you take the Total Transactions for 2007 and redo the calculations you find that 80% of Realtors on the Central Coast had 0.59 transactions in 2007 (which is less than even one transaction).

Yes, there's a lot or Realtors on the Central Coast and the slowdown in the number of transacations means that the majority of Realtors had one or no transactions in 2007.

With the slowdown in the market, we're going to see fewer Realtors making real estate a full time career.

Here's a News Year Day quiz that you can take and then compare how you did with everyone else.

There's still plenty of time to get your skates and go on down to Atascadero's outdoor ice rink. The rink is open through January 7th from 10:30 am - 10 pm. If you don't have skates, don't worry as you can rent them there.

You can order advance tickets for the time slot you want here

CNN Money.com has some "Best of" and Worst of" Lists for 2007 real estate. Slide #4 is Least Affordable Markets and San Luis Obispo comes in #5 on the list.

Top 5 unaffordable markets (all cities)
City	Median income	Median price	% affordable homes
Napa, CA	$75,800	$585,000	3.3%
Los Angeles, CA	$61,700	$515,000	3.7%
Salinas, CA	$63,400	$520,000	4.2%
Santa Ana, CA	$78,700	$585,000	4.8%
San Luis Obispo, CA	$64,200	$500,000	5.7%

Source: Wells Fargo and the National Association of Home Builders

See all the lists here

Since the phone company has eliminated dialing "POPCORN" to get the current time, you can use the Internet to update your computer to the correct time.

If you're running Windows XP Home, here's how you do it.

1) Click on the time clock at the bottom right of your screen. It should bring up the following screen.




You'll see a tab called "Internet Time". Click on it and you'll get the next screen.



Where it says Server, type in
time-b.nist.gov
and then click on "Update Now".

You should see a message that the clock is now syncrhonized. If you get an error, try typing in
time-a.nist.gov as the server.

Hit "Apply" and you're done!

I was listenting to my car radio the other night (a rarity since I'm usually listening to satellite radio) and they were talking about a company where you can get prescription glasses at a low cost. They start at $8 but the radio guy said most people pay between $20-$30. Here's the website: http://zennioptical.com/cart/home.php

With 3 days to go in the month we're sitting at 263 Pending Sales. Last December we had 310 Pendings for the month and in December 2005 we had 398 Pendings.

The positive news is that December is always the slowest month so January WILL pick up.

Does email marketing cause more harm than good??

More and more REALTORS are saying that they include email marketing as part of their listing service. As a home seller, it may sound like a good way of getting exposure for your home with other Realtors. But, this can backfire on you.

The problem is that Realtors are now getting LOTS of unsolicited emails advertising listings. Not only listings on the Central Coast, but in other states too. Another problem is that the majority of these email advertisements are really bad. They don't give any more information than what's on the MLS system and they are more like an advertisement for the Listing Agent. Realtors don't want to get ads promoting other Realtors.

This topic has been discussed on Realtor message boards and most agree it's out-of-control as Realtors everywhere are getting flooded with listing advertisements. A few companies have popped up that do the spam mailings for Realtors.

The question is if a Listing Agent is shooting themselves in the foot by doing email marketing. While it may not cost money to do email marketing, it may be costing their reputation amongst other Realtors. I don't think being labled as a "spammer" motivates other agents to want to show their listings. Since most homes are sold by other agents through the MLS system, a listing agent must be sensitive to doing things that will end up hurting their ability to sell a home. Actually, when home sellers interview Realtors to sell their home they should try to find out what the reputation is for the agent amongst other Realtors. That is more important than most of the checklist items Realtors say they do.

I personally don't think that email marketing is worth the risk and see very little benefit these days.

I hope you all had a GREAT holiday and ready for the New Year!! I just got back from the Bay Area where my folks and most of my wife's family lives. We had a great time seeing everyone and got to go to the fondue restaurant that I previously blogged about (yum yum).

I received a message tonite from a person in Salinas who found a "to good to be true" ad on Craigs List from Home Access USA. Luckily, she thought something didn't sound right and decided to do a bit of homework before she gave them her credit card number and found my previous blog entry about Home Access USA. I Googled "HomeAccess USA" and my blog post showed up on the first page! It's motivating to know that my Blog helped someone from getting scammed during the holidays.

I try to provide information to educate my blog readers. If you find my blog useful, you can help me by linking to it in any other message board/blog you participate in or other websites you may have. By putting a link to http://www.slocountyhomes.com/ or
www.slocountyhomes.com/real_estate_weblog.htm, this will help my blog come up in other searches. If you can put text in for a link, please use "San Luis Obispo Real Estate Blog". I'd appreciate any help you can give me to spread the word about my Blog.

THANK YOU!

Another housing report, this time from the California Association of REALTORS

C.A.R. reports sales decrease 36.2 percent, median home price falls 11.9 percent
LOS ANGELES (Dec. 21) – Home sales decreased 36.2 percent in November in California compared with the same period a year ago, while the median price of an existing home fell 11.9 percent, the CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® (C.A.R.) reported today.

More info here

Home prices post record drop
S&P/Case-Shiller index of 10 major cities fell 6.7% in October. Housing markets remain 'grim.'

Home prices fell 6.7 percent in October, compared with a year ago, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller 10-city home-price index, a record drop as housing markets continued to deteriorate.

Read the article here

Bay Area Sales

All Homes	Number Sold Nov-06	Number Sold Nov-07	Percent Change	Median November 2006	Median November 2007	Percent Change
Alameda	1,560	985	-36.9%	$581,000	$565,000	-2.8%
Contra Costa	1,627	879	-46.0%	$567,500	$528,500	-6.9%
Marin	285	206	-27.7%	$847,500	$871,000	2.8%
Napa	125	81	-35.2%	$599,000	$562,000	-6.2%
Santa Clara	2,028	1,317	-35.1%	$673,000	$678,000	0.7%
San Francisco	568	479	-15.7%	$760,000	$814,750	7.2%
San Mateo	678	504	-25.7%	$749,000	$780,000	4.1%
Solano	629	313	-50.2%	$441,000	$375,550	-14.8%
Sonoma	542	363	-33.0%	$535,000	$470,000	-12.1%
Bay Area	8,042	5,127	-36.2%	$620,000	$629,000	1.5%

Source: DQ News

Read full press release here

Southern California Sales

All Home Sales	No Sold Oct-06	No Sold Oct-07	Percent Change	Median Oct-06	Median Oct-07	Percent Change
Los Angeles	8,451	4,368	-48.3%	$520,000	$500,000	-3.8%
Orange	2,929	1,700	-42.0%	$625,000	$573,750	-8.2%
Riverside	4,408	2,463	-44.1%	$412,136	$350,000	-15.1%
San Bernardino	3,547	1,603	-54.8%	$365,000	$330,000	-9.6%
San Diego	3,449	2,327	-32.5%	$490,000	$460,000	-6.1%
Ventura	961	538	-44.0%	$590,000	$535,000	-9.3%
SoCal	23,745	12,999	-45.3%	$482,750	$444,000	-8.0%

Source: DQNews.com

See full press release here

TAX BREAK FOR MORTGAGE DEBT FORGIVENESS

President Bush signed into law today a new measure giving tax breaks to homeowners who have mortgage debt forgiven. Under preexisting law, the debt forgiven by a lender, such as for short sales and refinances, was generally taxable to the borrower as debt discharge income. With the passage of the Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act of 2007, a taxpayer does not have to pay federal income tax on debt forgiven for a loan secured by a qualified principal residence.

This tax break applies to debts discharged from January 1, 2007 to December 31, 2009. Qualified principal residence indebtedness is debt incurred in acquiring, constructing, or substantially improving the residence (up to $2 million for refinances).

For purposes of calculating capital gains, any debts discharged excluded from income under the new law must be subtracted from the basis of the taxpayer's principal residence (but not below zero). However, taxpayers may generally exclude from capital gains income up to $250,000 (or $500,000 for married couples filing jointly) for properties owned and used as their principal residence for at least two of the last five years.

Ryan's mortgage blog:

There are many calculations to determine whether or not it is a good time to refinance. Predicting what the market is going to do is one way to go about it. It is a gamble, but like all gambles, it can pay off. For the non-gamblers out there, crunching the current rates is the best way to go. See if refinancing with current rates will save you money. A ton of other factors come into play such as how long you plan on staying in your house, do you need cash-out, etc... If the comparisons do not come out in your favor, at least you will get an idea of what current rates need to be in order for you to think about refinancing.

For an example I compiled one of several different ways to compare your current mortgage to a possible refinance. In the scenario, I will be looking at how much you would save on your monthly payment, as well as how much interest you will save. This is based on having your current mortgage for 2 years, and you've been paying the principle and interest, so that 2 years of interest is factored in. The rates I used are pretty close to what today's rates actually are for this jumbo loan with good credit.

$800,000 Value of home

$500,000 Loan amount left (JUMBO loan - non-conforming)

30 Year Term - Principle and Interest

Current rate = 8%, Monthly Principle & Interest (P/I) Payment = $3,668, Total Interest left for life of loan = $741,479

No Cash Refi(no closing costs) rate= 7.5%, Monthly P/I = $3,496 ($172 saved monthly), Total Interest = $758,589 ($17,110 lost in interest over 30 years)

Normal Refi (typical closing costs) rate = 6.625% Monthly P/I = $3,233($435 saved monthly), Total Interest = $652,563 ($88,916 saved over 30 years)

As you can see, your monthly payments lowered, but you will end paying more interest for the No Cash Refi because you basically lost the two years you of interest you just spent. The Normal refi saved money on both ends. Keep in mind, your new mortgage would be done in 30 years from the date of the refinance, not the date of your first mortgage 2 years ago.

5 year ARM - Principle & Interest

Current rate = 7%, Monthly Principle & Interest (P/I) Payment = $3,326, Total Interest over 5 years = $170,247

No Cash Refi(no closing costs) rate= 6.5%, Monthly P/I = $3,160 (166 saved monthly), Total Interest over 5 years = $157,673 ($12,574 saved over 5 years)

Normal Refi (typical closing costs) rate = 5.875% Monthly P/I = $2988($338), Total Interest over 5 years = $142,007 ($28,240 saved over 5 years)

I only showed the interest for 5 years since most people refinance out of the ARMs within that time. Measuring the savings on total interest is tough on this one because you have already paid 2 years of interest, so the dilemma is do you compare them for final 3 years or the full five? So I just showed what the original 5 years interest was. Since this would adjust after 5 years, I didn't bother doing it for the full 30.

If you want to know other ways to compare figures, just let me know, I would be happy to show you or do calculations for you. I can be reached at rbaker@PeregrineLending.com or 805-540-0866. Hope everyone has a great holiday!!!

Here's another home price change map, this one courtesy of First American Loan Performance API (click the map to enlarge). It shows price changes between October 06 and October 07. Utah and Hawaii appear to still be a Sellers market.

Here is what they say happened in 31 metro areas:

Honolulu, HI	17.91%
Salt Lake City, UT	11.63%
Austin-Round Rock, TX	8.62%
San Antonio, TX	7.89%
Raleigh-Cary, NC	4.56%
Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown, TX	4.52%
Charlotte-Gastonia-Concord, NC-SC	4.47%
Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX	3.92%
Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA	2.18%
Portland-Vancouver-Beaverton, OR-WA	1.73%
Chicago-Naperville-Joliet, IL-IN-WI	-0.22%
Philadelphia, PA	-0.61%
New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, NY-NJ-PA	-1.83%
Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta, GA	-2.13%
St. Louis, MO-IL	-2.76%
Detroit-Warren-Livonia, MI	-3.16%
Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI	-3.33%
New York-White Plains-Wayne, NY-NJ	-4.13%
Miami-Miami Beach-Kendall, FL	-4.85%
Boston-Quincy, MA	-6.01%
Cleveland-Elyria-Mentor, OH	-8.10%
Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV	-8.11%
Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, FL	-9.21%
Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale, AZ	-10.08%
Orlando-Kissimmee, FL	-10.16%
Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana, CA	-10.45%
Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Miami Beach, FL	-10.89%
Oakland-Fremont-Hayward, CA	-11.44%
Las Vegas-Paradise, NV	-11.65%
Cape Coral-Fort Myers, FL	-14.01%
Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA	-15.70%

Read full press release here

The County has a proposed ordinance for water conservation that could add undefined costs and requirements to every home at the point of sale, every newly constructed home, and every commercial bldg which is located in Los Osos, Nipomo and the Mesa within certain specified boundaries. The county supervisors are proposing this to go into effect in the middle of January.

It will mandate installation of recirculating hot water piping throughout the house for every water fixture more than 20' from the hot water heater, will mandate toilets that only flush 1 gallon per flush, requires an application and certification process, requires the hiring of a licensed plumber/contractor, etc.

You can read the ordinance here

There's a Venice Beach home on ebay that's ECO-Friendly. No Energy Bills. No Toxic Materials. Lower Water Bills.

"This home boasts nearly 100 environmental and energy-saving concepts to meet this goal. Solar panels have been fitted into the roof, capable of providing 4.4 kilowatts of energy, allowing the home to meet the energy demands of its occupants without having to rely on the grid. Electric skylights open in the morning and close with the cool of the evening to reduce energy and improve the houses efficiency."

Check it out here

I went to the movies to see the new Will Smith movie, I am Legend. The prices have gone up! $9.50 for a ticket but what really was outrageous was the $5 for the large drink and $6 for a medium popcorn.

Costco offers movie tickets for Regal and other cinemas for $7 each. If you're looking for a stocking stuffer this may be a good choice.

This is one of the funniest web site tools I've seen in awhile. Give it a try and send one to your friends.

www.elfyourself.com

Here are the mid-month MLS Statistics for residential properties on the Central Coast (through 12/15):

New Listings - 250
Pendings - 175
Price changes - 390

Expireds - 214
Withdrawn/Cancellations - 141

Home prices to sink 4-5% in '08

Fannie Mae chief executive tells shareholders he sees no recovery in housing before 2009 - blames unaffordable prices for current housing woes.

Read the article here

New-home sales and prices, October 2007, all new-home types

Metro area	Oct. '07 sales	% change in sales, Oct. '06-Oct. '07	% median price change, Oct. '06-Oct.'07
Statewide	3,292	-45.60%	-10.80%
Bakersfield	121	-47.60%	-10.70%
Chico	12	-65.70%	14.50%
El Centro	41	-43.10%	-7.60%
Fresno	200	-10.70%	-14.10%
Hanford/Corcoran	26	52.90%	-13.20%
L.A./Long Beach/Glendale	340	-41.40%	-0.60%
Madera	11	-71.80%	-18.00%
Merced	77	-25.20%	-20.50%
Modesto	53	-63.90%	-10.20%
Napa	15	200.00%	-8.20%
Oakland/Fremont/Hayward	340	-34.50%	0.50%
Oxnard/1000 Oaks/Ventura	47	-32.90%	-4.90%
Redding	N/A	N/A	N/A
Riverside/San Bern./Ontario	994	-28.60%	-12.20%
Sacramento	197	-75.00%	-6.30%
Salinas	6	-71.40%	6.30%
San Diego/Crlsbad/San Marcos	281	-51.00%	-1.00%
S.F./San Mateo/Redwood City	38	-75.80%	-12.10%
San Jose/Sunnyvale/Sta Clara	61	-78.10%	-8.90%
San Luis Obispo/Paso Robles	N/A	N/A	N/A
Santa Ana/Anaheim/Irvine	152	-54.10%	13.50%
Sta Barbara/Sta Maria/Goleta	N/A	N/A	N/A
Santa Cruz/Watsonville	5	-16.70%	40.00%
Santa Rosa/Petaluma	28	-3.40%	-16.50%
Stockton	82	-54.90%	-8.90%
Vallejo/Fairfield	36	-48.60%	-3.70%
Visalia/Porterville	99	-14.70%	-4.80%
Yuba City/Marysville	31	-43.60%	-10.70%
Other (Colusa/Glenn)	-1	-114.30%	-28.80%

Source: California Building Industry Association, Hanley Wood Market Intelligence

If you haven't see it yet, check out my home page (www.SloCountyHomes.com) to see my dog giving his holiday SMILE. The video will be up for a few more days before I change it to another one.

For those of you that have read my blog for awhile, you may remember that I've posted about restaurants before. My family eats out almost every night. We've been doing that since my wife and I were married and both of us were working. When we had kids, we experienced the entire cycle of kid meals to the transition to expensive non-kid meals to feed the teenagers. I estimated the number of restaurant meals I've had in my lifetime a few years ago and it was around 15,000! Some have suggested I should become a restaurant consultant. LOL!

We do have some activity on the restaurant front that I thought I'd comment about:

- The Chili's in Arroyo Grande is targeted to open on May 15th
- A Chipolte's is rumoured to be signed up to go into the as-yet-to-be-built shopping center in Paso Robles at East 46 and Golden Hill Rd.

I'd recommend trying the Mexican restaurant that opened on Grand Ave in Arroyo Grande. It think it's called Mexican Viejo. It's the building that used to be a Mexican restaurant and then before that a Thai restaurant. The food is good and reasonably priced. I'd put it in the same category as my all time favorite, Pepe DelGados in SLO.

We have stayed away from AJ Spurs lately since the last times we went there, we felt that they lost their service focus. They have eliminated their early bird dinners (which were a great value) but have replaced it with another menu with smaller portion steaks and such that's available all the time. The 5 oz Top Sirloin meal went up a few dollars (to $15) but you still get the salad, soup, and desert included. My wife and I went there this week and they have had a management change in the Grover Beach restaurant and it was much better. My only gripe was that they serve water in really small glasses. If they are going to do that, they better have someone constantly walking around refilling which isn't the case. I think they want you to buy a soda (or alcoholic beverage). They serve the sodas in a really big glass but they cost $2.95 which is one of the highest soda prices I've seen.

High Street Deli in SLO continues to be my favorite Deli. It's amazing that deli's can use the same bread (San Luis Sourdough) and have basically the same ingredients but produce sandwiches that taste so different. I had one of High Street's Turkey Pesto special sandwiches a few days ago and it was great. Not the cheapest around but they are always crowded. Wish the wait wasn't as long as sometimes it can take 20 minutes to get a sandwich and they don't have a good place for you to wait.

I'm still looking for a good salad place. I really like Applebee's Oriental Chicken Salad but we've been to the new Arroyo Grande Applebee's four times now and they have consistently BAD service and wait times. We keep thinking that they'll get better but now we wonder if it's the management that's the problem. California Pizza Kitchen has some good salads but you need to be really hungry and want to pay $12 for theirs. Elaine from Seinfeld would be happy to get one of their "big salads".

I'm still waiting for an innovative restaurant to take service to the next level to help eliminate empty beverage glasses and holding people hostage while they are waiting for the check. Who will be the first to install a set of buttons at a table that you can press if you need something?? The only restaurant that I've seen try something along these lines is Bubba Gumps who has the "Stop Forrest" sign you can put up at the table if you need something.

Anyways, I'll stop this post now as I haven't had lunch yet and this is making me hungry. I am looking forward to the holidays when we go up to the Bay Area. There is a new fondue restaurant that opened in Livermore that looks similar to La Fondue in Saratoga and we have reservations there on Sunday the 23rd. My wife loves fondue and have memories of the old Wine Street Inn in downtown SLO (anyone remember that place?). Maybe we'll get lucky and the fondue place will look to open one here in SLO (they are a Dallas-based chain that's expanding).

If you've got any favorite restaurants you think I should check out, send me an email or drop me a not through the contact form. I'm always on the lookout for good places to eat!

When I was at the recent Realtor conference in Las Vegas I met a company offering floor plan tools. They are an Asian company that has been doing business primarily in Europe and were launching into the U.S. marketplace at the conference.

They have asked me to help them improve their product for the U.S. market. I've already provided them with a list of things they need to do and they are working on it as we speak. One of their products is a 2D Floor planning tool. It's cool since you can drag furniture on a floor plan and see how it all fits.

Following is a link to the tool using a previous Paso Robles listing that I sent them the floor plan for so I could test their tool. The tool isn't ready for prime time yet so I'm not going to be including it in my marketing plan for listings as of yet but thought some of you might be interested in playing around with it to know what's coming!

You can play with the tool here:
http://www2.ProvBo.se/7018194Provbo

One of the things they are lacking is a help screen but I'll tell you that the tools in the bottom right are a pointer, an eraser (allows you to erase elements of the floor plan in case you want to play around with a major remodel), an undo for the eraser, and a tape measure.

To delete a piece of furniture that you drag onto the floor plan, just click on it and hit your delete key.

Ryan's Mortgage Blog:

Well, a lot has happened this week in terms of rates, but what's new? The Feds dropped short term rates once again, but that wasn't the surprising news, we all saw that one coming. The big news is that the Federal Reserve, European Central Bank and three other central banks joined forces to ease the credit squeeze threatening global growth, in the biggest act of international economic cooperation since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

As Bloomberg.com stated, "The Fed said in a statement it will make up to $24 billion available to the ECB and Swiss National Bank to increase the supply of dollars in Europe. The Fed also plans four auctions, including two this month that will add as much as $40 billion, to increase cash in the U.S."

The 30 year fixed rate has dropped below 6%. That should be enough to explain how low rates are right now.

As a reminder, now is a great time to make home improvements and purchases because of the holiday sales, especially on spring/summer items. Good time to get that new air conditioner (for those in North County).

Unrelated news...If you go to Reno, the El Dorado has a great Buffet, but stay away from the Peppermill's, the quality of food was sub par to be nice. But, I don't want to bash the Peppermill, it was my favorite place to gamble and had the nicest sports book in Reno, along with the biggest Poker room. While I was in Reno I toured the city and tried as many places as I could, so if you are going there, let me know, I'll point you in the right direction :)

If you have any mortgage related questions (or Reno related) you can reach me at RBaker@PeregrineLending.com or 805-540-0866.

The latest cost vs. value report for remodeling has just come out. It compares the cost of remodelling projects vs. how much you can recoup when you sell for different regions on the country.

For the Pacific, the projects that were found to be at the bottom of the cost vs. resale value percentage were:
- backup power generator
- home office remodel
- sunroom addition

The projects that received a postive return on investment were:
- deck addition - wood
- minor kitchen remodel
- window replacement - wood
- siding replacement (fiber-cement)

You can access the report here

Hitwise, a web metrics company, released their November report for the top real estate websites. Realtor.com's market share of Web visitors among real estate sites stood at 4.7 percent in November -- that is half of the site's 9.4 percent market share in August.

This is further evidence that the nationwide real estate portals aren't as popular as they once were now that Buyers are discovering local sites, like www.SloCountyHomes.com, that provide more info than a Realtor.com does.

Just when you thought I couldn't update anything more...

The inventory reports for single family homes are updated for each city. Just go to the www.SloWatch.com page and choose "Inventory Report" under "City Stats" about half way down the page. You can see the inventory break down by price range and the Days on Market (DOM) as well. This is info you can use to see how much competition there is within a particular price range and how long they've been on the market.

I put the Zillow Home Value Report for the 3rd quarter on a web page. You can access it here. I also put the link below the Median Home Price table on the www.SloWatch.com site.

I've had a couple people ask me about the parrot that comes up on my home page when you first access it. Yes, this is my parrot (a green wing macaw) and it is a real video, not an animation. I took it against a green screen which allows me to take out the background.

I updated both the "Just Sold" and "REO/Short Sale" sections just now-

http://www.slocountyhomes.com/just_sold.htm (residential, lots/land, multi-family)

http://www.slocountyhomes.com/reo.htm (actives and solds)

Following is an article about incentives being offered to Buyers such as plane tickets, cars, and big-screen tv's. In it, they make an important point:

Say you're thinking about buying a new home that you're planning to finance with a 30-year, 6.5 percent fixed-rate $200,000 mortgage. To clinch the deal, the builder says he'll throw in a brand-new, $2,500 big-screen TV. Nice. But wait - if you could instead get the builder to cut the price of the house by $2,500, you'd need to take out only a $197,500 mortgage.

Assuming the same terms, you'd end up shelling out $3,200 less in interest over the life of the loan than if you'd taken the TV. And you'd probably pay less in property taxes too, since they're often based on a home's most recent purchase price.

Read the article here

Here's some news for any Willie Nelson fans out there that I hadn't heard about before...

Willie will be coming to San Luis Obispo on February 8th at the Madonna Inn Expo Center. Doors open at 6:30 pm and the show is at 8. You can get tickets here

Jiffy Lube presents Ice Skating at the Sunken Gardens in Atascadero at 6500 Palma Avenue This event runs from Friday December 21st through Sunday January 6th (INCLUDING Christmas Eve, Day and New Years Eve, Day) There are 8 sessions per day, with each session having the capacity of 135. Each session is one hour long are being sold on site. Skates are included in the price.

Key Interest Rates	Latest	6 Mos Ago	1 Yr Ago
Prime Rate	7.50	8.25	8.25
Fed Discount	5.00	6.25	6.25
Fed Funds	4.50	5.24	5.25
11th District COF	4.233	4.224	4.346
10-Year Note	4.11	5.02