Is San Carlos Going to the Dogs?

It’s Good to be a Dog.

I don’t think there’s an official statistic on this anywhere, but it would probably be a safe bet that the venerable canine is the most common household pet in the City of Good Living — only the house cat may give it a run for its money.  But there’s no doubt that San Carlos residents love their dogs.  Whether they’re cruising downtown on Laurel Street,  or chasing balls at Burton Park, dogs are definitely part of the fabric of San Carlos.

Part of the challenge of owning a dog is finding a suitable place to exercise them.   Dogs love to run, and the bigger the dog is the more room they need to stretch their legs.   But with open space and parks being such a preciously guarded commodity in San Carlos, dog owners didn’t have many options to exercise their dogs off leash within city limits — the only exception being the Heater Dog Park, which is a small slice of land next to Heather School.  All other parks have explicit instructions which mandate that all dogs must remain leashed.

To get around the lack of available space, some dog owners let their dogs run freely at some of the bigger parks in San Carlos.  It has been a pretty common site for years to see a half dozen dogs running blissfully across the Burton Park field in the morning hours.  Same goes with Crestview, Heather, Highlands, and Stadium fields.   And unless there was an incident with the dogs,  enforcement of the leash laws was pretty much non-existent.    The coexistence seemed to be working.

But according to Bonnie Eslinger’s article in the Daily News, all of that changed recently when Sheriff’s deputies began writing citations to owners of off-leash dogs –this came in response to some complaints they received from residents who objected to the frolicking canines at Burton.

The Experiment.

The backlash from dog owners and subsequent meetings with the Park and Rec Department and the Mayor of San Carlos resulted in a temporary agreement to open some of the parks to off-leash dogs during limited hours.   For the month of January, dogs owners have been allowed to officially cut them loose at Burton and Highlands Parks between the hours of 8AM and noon, and then again between 4PM and 8PM.     The extended hours work because the fields aren’t used this time of year for organized sports.

According to the Daily News Article, the Park and Rec Commission was tasked last night to consider possible options to give the dogs extra room to run, one of which is to make the temporary experiment at Burton and Highlands a permanent one.

Etiquette is Key.

Personally, I think off-leash dogs and people can and should coexist at our parks.  But there are conditions related to etiquette and safety that need to be addressed before such an arrangement should become permanent.  The first is cleanliness.    I volunteer during the fall as a referee for San Carlos AYSO, and I can tell you that there isn’t a weekend that goes by where we don’t have to scour the field and remove several canine “land mines” from the field before the field is suitable for use.  And that’s if we’re lucky enough to find them before somebody steps in them.   That simply shouldn’t happen.

The second concern with the dogs themselves.   Some dogs simply shouldn’t be allowed off leash because they’re too aggressive toward other dogs and worst case, people.  I’ve heard numerous stories about dog fights and other aggressive behavior with off-leash dogs that make this a very legitimate concern.

The website San Carlos Dogs is a good resource for people who are interested in finding out more about the off-leash rules, the discussions with the Park and Rec Commission, and great tips on dog etiquette at the park.

But at the end of the day, the parks are for everyone in San Carlos — and there needs to be solution that’s workable for both residents AND dog lovers in San Carlos.    Probably the most favorable solution with dog owners is to make the temporary off-leash hours at Burton and Highlands permanent.  What do you think about that?   Register your vote in the poll at the top of the site.

The San Carlos Real Estate Week in Review: 1-21-12.

San Carlos Real Estate Summary.

Buyers continued to wait patiently this past week for more homes to hit the market.  But with only three new listings to consider, and six homes getting into contract, the inventory of single-family homes for sale in San Carlos once again dropped below the 30 mark.  This inventory level is very typical for January, but such a strong pent-up demand this early in the year is anything but typical.   This bodes well for a healthy spring market… when it eventually gets here.

By The Numbers.

Below is a high-level snapshot of the market performance for single-family residences in San Carlos. This data is for the week ending 1-21-2012:

>>> Click Here to Read the Full Post

Face Time With the Mayor of San Carlos.

Office Hours.

Do you have something that you’d like to discuss with the Mayor of San Carlos?  Don’t think an email exchange is the appropriate vehicle to get your point across?  Well, you’ll soon have the opportunity to get some fact time with the Mayor, and you don’t have to wait for a City Council meeting.    The City of San Carlos announced today that Mayor Andy Klein will be holding Mayor’s Office Hours this year to meet with residents to discuss what is on their mind about all things San Carlos. The initial set of office hours will be held on the following days:

• Saturday, January 21st from 12 Noon to 3 pm, and
• Monday, January 30th from 4:30 pm to 7:30 pm.

No appointment is needed to meet with the Mayor.   The Mayor’s Office Hours will be held at the Mayor’s Office at City Hall, 600 Elm Street, 1st Floor. The Mayor’s Office is located just down the hall from the Police Department entrance of City Hall, nearest the San Carlos Library.

So drop by and tell the Mayor how you think things are going in San Carlos.

The San Carlos Real Estate Week in Review: 1-14-12.

San Carlos Real Estate Summary.

Activity picked up quite nicely for only the second week of January.  5 new listings helped inject a little bit of fresh air into the inventory of homes for sale.   But even with those new additions, there are still only 31 homes for sale in all of San Carlos.  Buyers will need to continue to be patient as the spring market approaches.

I tweaked the format of this report again and integrated both data tables into the single one that you see below.  Hopefully this cleans up the format a little bit, and improves the readability of the weekly report.

By The Numbers.

Below is a high-level snapshot of the market performance for single-family residences in San Carlos.  This data is for the week ending 1-14-2012:

>>> Click Here to Read the Full Post

Podcast: The Different Phases of a Pending Sale.

Pending Confusion.

When it comes to understanding the different statuses of a home that’s listed for sale on the Multiple Listing Service (MLS), there is none more confusing phase than the “Pending Sale“.   When you’re searching for a home on the internet, there seems to be so many different variations of “pending” that it’s confusing to the consumer:  There’s a “PR“, or a “PS”, and even a “PN“!   What do all of these variations mean?  Why are some of these visible on the MLS while others are not?  Why is it all so complicated?

This podcast will hopefully demystify the venerable Pending Sale, and will give you a better understanding of the different ways a home can be pending sale.  Interestingly, you’ll also understand that just because a house may be pending sale, there are times when it’s still perfectly fine to continue to view the house…or even make an offer!

So just click on the play button below…

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 6:50 — 6.3MB)

Housing Recovery Relies on Short Sales Getting “Shorter”.

Still a Long Process.

You’ve probably heard the saying “There’s nothing short about a short sale.”   Aside from money, patience seems to be the only thing that runs in short order in a short sale.   Unfortunately, this statement rings true, even as we head into 2012.  Despite all of the relief funding and manpower that has been pumped into the banking system to cope with the crush of short sales that accompanied the recession, the fact remains that short sales are still taking an inordinate amount of time to close — a fact that is hampering the housing recovery all around the region, including San Carlos.

This is somewhat remarkable to see in 2012, since short sales have been pervasive in the real estate market for at least 3 years.   And while nobody really anticipated the magnitude and duration of the recession,  the banks have had ample time and experience to figure out a more efficient way to process the seemingly endless flow of short sale requests that are crossing their desks.

It’s a San Carlos Issue Too.

It would be very easy to erroneously dismiss this whole topic when considering the San Carlos real estate.  After all, to the casual observer it must seem like house prices have continued to rise almost unabated over the last decade in the hot San Carlos market.   But in recent years since the outset of the recession, short sales have accounted for about 7-10% of all homes sold in San Carlos.  While this is not an insignificant number, it’s a considerably lower rate than surrounding communities. >>> Click Here to Read the Full Post

The San Carlos Real Estate Week in Review: 1-7-12.

San Carlos Real Estate Summary.

Welcome to 2012, and the first Week in Review report for the new year!   New listings are the fuel for a robust real estate market, and unfortunately there were no new listings to report this week.   This isn’t unusual for this time of the year, since most sellers aren’t ready to list their homes until around February.  But any new listings that come on market in January will enjoy the luxury of virtually no competition.    The average days on market (DOM) for all of the homes currently for sale in San Carlos is a whopping 129 days (that’s over 4 months!), so buyers already know what’s out there and they’re ready to pounce on something new.

Here’s a quick snapshot of the inventory of San Carlos single family homes as of 1-7-2012:

>>> Click Here to Read the Full Post

Slowing It Down in San Carlos.

A Chronic Problem.

Despite the plethora of wonderful things that there are about the City of Good Living — the schools, the downtown, the weather,  the location, etc.. — San Carlos has a dirty little problem that it hasn’t been able to solve for decades:  Speeding…as in vehicles speeding through its residential streets.  If you live on Brittan, or Melendy, or Saint Francis, or Eaton, or Howard, or Cedar, or countless other streets in San Carlos,  then you know exactly what I’m talking about — drivers blazing down your street in blatant disregard of the posted speed limit.  And it’s not just limited to passenger vehicles, either.  Delivery trucks are some of the worst offenders.

Why do people think it’s perfectly OK to speed through their neighbor’s front yards?  I don’t get it. >>> Click Here to Read the Full Post