Reflecting on School Security.

A Different Mindset.

The Monday morning school drop-off came with an unwanted twinge of apprehension and vulnerability for many parents across the country today in the aftermath of the horrific events that transpired last week in Connecticut.    I know I certainly felt a little bit different as I dropped my kids off at school this morning, after spending much of the weekend watching the news coverage of this unfathomable tragedy.

Our complacent sense of security and invincibility has been shaken a bit, even here in San Carlos.   The long-held mindset of “Something like that would never happen here“, is understandably replaced by “Could something like that happen here?“  for many parents.  And although naysayers will point to the statistical improbability of such an event happening at one of our schools — there are, after all, over 100,000 public and private schools in the United States that serve grades K-12 — the answer to that question is yes, something like that could absolutely happen right here in our back yard, or for that matter anywhere else on the Peninsula.

You only need to look at the wide-open layout of virtually every school throughout the area to realize this.

Designed in Another Era.

The physical vulnerability of our schools is no fault of the school district.  Our schools were designed and built in an era when many residents didn’t even lock their own doors at home, let alone worry about a violent act being carried out by the school.  The idea of designing a school to be a bastion of security was an unwarranted concern when these schools were built, and it’s a tragedy in itself that we even have to think of our schools this way now.

Just one of the many things that distinguishes the school system in San Carlos from others is by the abundance of parental involvement, whether it’s helping out in the classroom, driving on field trips, or volunteering for special events at the school.   It’s a wonderful characteristic of our school district that isn’t necessarily reflected in the fundraising and bond measures that grab the headlines.  But this relatively unfettered access to our campuses for parents to come and go as needed also poses a undeniable security risk.

Simply requiring people to sign-in at the office does not disguise the unfortunate reality that anyone could literally step off the street and walk the halls of our schools without having to open a single door.    And we’re not alone in that respect.  Most schools up and down the Peninsula share this same basic flaw.

Looking Ahead.

The underlying motivation behind Measure H was to increase the capacity and to upgrade the capabilities of our elementary and middle schools.  As the San Carlos School District evaluates how to they are going to allocate this $72M of  funds, enhancing school security probably will hopefully be part of the discussion.  It’s unrealistic to think that we can make any institution completely safe from this type of violence – even the security measures that were in place at Sandy Hook Elementary School were breached relatively quickly.  But they did provide valuable notice to the impending disaster, and those few precious seconds of time very likely saved many lives.

It’s sad that some of this valuable money needs to be spent in an area that adds zero value to the learning process.  But it’s a pretty strong statement about the state of affairs in our society right now.
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The San Carlos Real Estate Week in Review: 12-15-12.

San Carlos Real Estate Summary.

As predicted, the inventory of homes for sale continued to drop this week, and now sits at 14 homes for sale in all of San Carlos.  Of these 14 homes, 4 of them are spec homes or remodels that are in process, so the net effective inventory is really 10.   Ouch.  By comparison, there are only 11 homes for sale in Belmont, so it’s clearly an issue that spans outside of San Carlos.    Sellers who have their homes ready to sell are likely waiting until after the New Year to put their homes on the market.  Let’s just hope there are lots of them waiting to go.

Here are the numbers from last week:

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 12-15-2012:

>>> Click Here to Read the Full Post
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Are you ready to step up to the most comprehensive data available about the San Carlos Real Estate market? Then subscribe to the White Oaks Blog for free by clicking here. Be sure to follow the White Oaks Blog on Facebook at https://Facebook.com/WhiteOaksBlog , and on Twitter @WhiteOaksBlog.
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Tough Market in San Carlos for Relocation Buyers.

The Away Team.

As tough as it may seem to buy a house these days in San Carlos — with its miniscule inventory, multiple offers, and escalating prices — there’s one group of buyers who has it especially tough in this challenging climate:  Relocation buyers.    With the strong outlook for employment in the technology, bio-tech, and finance sectors, there’s a significant number of people right now looking to move into San Carlos and other points on the Peninsula from all around the world, and they’re having a particularly tough time.  I’m a Certified Relocation Specialist with Alain Pinel Realtors, so I’m seeing it first-hand.

In a normal, balanced real estate market, one could make the argument that “corporate” relocation buyers have a bit of an advantage over local buyers because they are the beneficiaries of some very generous relocation perks.   Some of the larger corporations offer down-payment assistance with the purchase, full reimbursement for all inspections, and even corporate housing for a few months while they find a place to buy, just to name a few.

But in a market like we’re experiencing now, the value of time trumps all of the other benefits.   It’s an extremely fast market, and it favors speed and decisiveness — two factors that give the home-field advantage to the local buyer.

Settle For Less, or Rent.

The biggest shock that I see from relocation buyers (aside from the expected sticker shock) is from the utter lack of homes to choose from.    Their expectation when they arrive is that they should be able to pick a community to settle in, and then wrap up the purchase within the first 60 days.     What they’re finding is that in order to make the purchase before their relocation benefits expire, they have to significantly alter the “must-have” list for their new home — or worst case, alter their purchase plans entirely.

What this often means is settling for considerably less than what they wanted coming in.. i.e. a smaller house, or living in a completely different city than they were hoping to.  This is a particularly big problem for San Carlos, whose schools and central location seem to put it at the top of the list for many relo buyers.

To get around the problem, many are resorting to renting a home in the community of their choice.   This at least gets them in the door, and buys them a year or so to educate themselves on the micro-geographies that make up any city.   The downside of this approach is that they run the risk their relocation benefits expiring,  which is not a trivial thing.

Moving Here?

If you’re one of the lucky ones who is moving to this great area, congratulations!  There’s no other place that I would rather call home.   Just bear in mind that the next few months will be a particularly tough market for buyers until the inventory situation hopefully improves.  Flexibility and patience will be mandatory to make it work.

Need more help?  Give me a call… I know relo.
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The San Carlos Real Estate Week in Review: 12-8-12.

San Carlos Real Estate Summary.

This week you could really feel the year starting to wind down.   Activity dwindled, and between the few homes that sold this week and the others that were taken off the market for the holidays, the inventory of homes for sale was pushed down to 16 — I can’t remember when I’ve seen it that low.  And it will likely drop below this mark as additional homes are pulled from the market for the holidays.  It’s evident now that most buyers are simply going to have sit on the sidelines until the Spring market to get a new influx of homes to choose from.

Here are the numbers from last week:

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 12-8-2012:

>>> Click Here to Read the Full Post
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Are you ready to step up to the most comprehensive data available about the San Carlos Real Estate market? Then subscribe to the White Oaks Blog for free by clicking here. Be sure to follow the White Oaks Blog on Facebook at https://Facebook.com/WhiteOaksBlog , and on Twitter @WhiteOaksBlog.
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The Fiscal Cliff: A Negligible Impact on San Carlos Real Estate.

If it Happens…

As we steam toward the end of 2012, talk about the impending Fiscal Cliff is dominating the headlines.  Aside from the serious amount of tax and spend issues that need to be resolved, it’s a perfect venue to observe the shameful Republican and Democratic posturing that seems to happen whenever an issue needs to be resolved in Washington anymore.  (Whatever happened to working together?)

Although most experts seem to believe that some sort of agreement will be reached which would turn the Cliff into more of a Ledge, it’s worth pondering what would happen to the San Carlos real estate market if no such agreement was reached.   While there will certainly some pain felt in the pocketbooks of both buyers and sellers next year, I’m going to stick my neck out now and predict that the effect of  the Fiscal Cliff  the San Carlos real estate market in 2013 will be negligible.  Here’s why…

It’s All About Jobs.

When you look back at the boom and bust cycles in the past few decades in San Carlos real estate, you’ll see that these periods of change mirrored the temperament of the job market.   When local companies were hiring, the real estate market thrived.  Conversely, when the job market hit the muck, the housing market followed suit.   Pretty basic Econ 101 for any community.

But the micro-economic force that powers the Peninsula economy is largely based on high-technology, biotech, and finance — which pretty much spans from San Francisco through Silicon Valley.    And those three industries have been on a hiring binge since mid-2011.   Most of my clients work in one of these 3 industries, and they tell me without exception that they’re either hiring employees, or they’re being recruited by companies that are (or both.)   And there’s no sign of that abating in 2013.

The need to house a growing workforce in a geographical area that has finite housing will outweigh the negative effects of the Fiscal Cliff.    There…that’s my prediction.

It Won’t Be Without Pain.

This isn’t to say that the worst-case scenario won’t be painful for real estate market to endure.    A high percentage of the people who qualify to purchase homes on the Peninsula are part of that 2% of Americans who will be hit with higher income taxes.     And it’s evident that the stock market takes a beating whenever there’s any bad news on this topic, so some potential buyers will have their purchasing power clipped to the point that they may not be able to buy.    There’s even talk about reducing or eliminating the mortgage interest deduction (MID).  That would really suck for homeowners, but will it deter many people from purchasing a home?  I doubt it — with monthly rent running nearly as much as a mortgage in this market, it still makes more sense to buy.

It was only a year ago when we were pondering another imminent event that certainly seemed as if it had the potential to significantly alter the landscape of the San Carlos real estate market:  The Facebook IPO.  Speculation was all over the map about the effect of so many newly minted millionaires suddenly unleashed on a recovering economy — some people feared that the sudden injection of wealth would drive home prices out of sight for many, while others speculated that nothing would really happen at all.

As we now know, the latter turned out to be true (at least in San Carlos).

Now, we have another ominous situation looming when the calendar ticks over to 2013.  And while I can’t speak for the rest of the country, I’m pretty sure we’ll survive this one too.
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Are you ready to step up to the most comprehensive data available about the San Carlos Real Estate market? Then subscribe to the White Oaks Blog for free by clicking here. Be sure to follow the White Oaks Blog on Facebook at https://Facebook.com/WhiteOaksBlog , and on Twitter @WhiteOaksBlog.
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Legalizing Bedrooms and Unwarranted Bonus Rooms in San Carlos.

What’s the Process?

This is a topic that comes up quite often when you talk about homes in San Carlos.  In fact, a blog reader just posed that question to me last week, so I thought it would be a great topic to address on the site.    If you own an older home in San Carlos, or a split-level house that is built onto a hillside, chances are you’ve got some square footage in that house that isn’t recognized by the City of San Carlos or the County of San Mateo — i.e., it’s “unwarranted” or “unpermitted”.

These issue tend to occur with older homes because the typical post-WWII San Carlos home was pretty small by today’s standards.  People who lived in them for many years would often increase the square footage of the house by adding a room or enclosing a patio area.   The cavernous, unfinished downstairs areas of hillside homes are particularly tempting candidates for these kinds of projects because of the sheer volume of space that can be converted into living area.  Sometimes these projects were done completely above board with permits…but quite often, they weren’t.

The other situation that often occurs is that you have a perfectly legal room that you’d like to have converted to an “official” bedroom on the county records so that you can fully market the house with a higher bedroom count.

In either case, legalizing these rooms will very likely involve both the Planning Division and the Building Division of the City of San Carlos.  So if you take nothing else away from this post, you’ll know who to contact within both Divisions when you’re ready to get started.

“What” vs “How”.

Whether you’re building a brand new house in San Carlos, or simply legalizing what’s already there, the San Carlos Planning and Building Divisions will definitely be involved in the process.  A very simplistic way of differentiating their responsibilities is that the Planning Division is primarily responsible for approving what you’re doing, while the Building Division oversees how you’re doing it.   So when you’re ready to proceed, your first step will be to speak with the Planning Division.

For jobs like we’re discussing in this post, you should probably bring a simple sketch or some photos of the area into your first meeting with the Planning Division, according to Gavin Moynahan, Assistant City Planner with the City of San Carlos.   Many times they can get the Planning Division approval completed with a minimum of review, provided the area is within the envelope of an approved structure.   The review process is much more involved if the project is outside the “shell” of the existing approved structure.

Once Planning gives the project the thumbs-up, the Building Division then ensures what needs to be done to the structure for the room (or rooms) to be made legal.    According to Chris Valley, Building Official with the City of San Carlos, each one of these projects is usually unique and requires various code upgrades to be implemented.  But sometimes no code upgrades are required, depending on the past permit records of the residence.    He also noted that sometimes a site visit may be required by a Building Inspector to assist the property owner.  A property owner should contact the County of San Mateo Assessor’s Office, at 650-363-4500, to check the past permit history that the County may have on record.  The County Assessor’s records and Building Division permit history help with addressing unpermitted work.

If you’re interested in more detail, here’s a good handout from the city website that outlines some of the main steps required in approving existing unpermitted square footage:  Projects without Permits

Is It Worth Doing?

Generally speaking, both of these types of projects are worth their respective time and effort.   There are risks involved with purchasing or owning a home with unpermitted square footage.  As a buyer of such a home, you inherit all of those risks as the new owner, so make sure you understand what you’re getting into before you buy it.   As an owner of a house with unpermitted living area, it can be a bit more difficult to sell your home and get top dollar if there’s a cloud hanging over that house about discrepancies in the square footage.

For those looking to convert or legalize a room as a bedroom, the answer is generally the same.    A home with a higher bedroom count will obviously sell for more than a home with fewer bedrooms.   And despite how the home is marketed, it’s important to know that ONLY the City of San Carlos can officially determine whether a room can be called a bedroom or not.

But this process is not without some risk.  As Chris pointed out, some code upgrades may be required to get your project approved and this may add significant cost to your project.   It’s easy to see how a simple electrical upgrade can have a domino-effect all the way back to your service box, thereby adding complexity and cost to the project.  Same goes with plumbing and egress windows.

Who to Contact.

If you’re interested in taking on such a project,  I highly recommend you contact either of the gentlemen who were kind enough to help me with this post:

Chris Valley:  Building Official, San Carlos Building Division:  (650) 802-4262, or cvalley@cityofsancarlos.org

Gavin Moynahan:  Assistant Planner, San Carlos Planning Division:  (650) 802-4267 or gmoynahan@cityofsancarlos.org
(you can also contact Jill Lewis jlewis@cityofsancarlos.org 650-802-4361)

They’re both extremely helpful, and I’m grateful for their assistance with my frequent questions.
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Are you ready to step up to the most comprehensive data available about the San Carlos Real Estate market? Then subscribe to the White Oaks Blog for free by clicking here. Be sure to follow the White Oaks Blog on Facebook at https://Facebook.com/WhiteOaksBlog , and on Twitter @WhiteOaksBlog.
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The San Carlos Real Estate Week in Review: 12-1-12.

San Carlos Real Estate Summary.

The result of the fall market push was evident last week with 13 homes closing escrow.   This is a bit higher than normal for a typical week, but demonstrates the continued strength of the San Carlos real estate market as we head into the winter months.    Another nice surprise this past week was the introduction of 7 new listings — again, a bit of rarity for the last week of November.  But sellers are starting to understand that there’s really no bad week to list their home in this current market climate, whether it’s in the month of December, or just after the beginning of the new year.  Either way, buyers are still going to beat a path to the door.

Here are the numbers from last week:

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 12-1-2012:

>>> Click Here to Read the Full Post
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Are you ready to step up to the most comprehensive data available about the San Carlos Real Estate market? Then subscribe to the White Oaks Blog for free by clicking here. Be sure to follow the White Oaks Blog on Facebook at https://Facebook.com/WhiteOaksBlog , and on Twitter @WhiteOaksBlog.
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The San Carlos Real Estate Week in Review: 11-24-12.

San Carlos Real Estate Summary.

The shortened holiday week kept the real estate activity in San Carlos relatively quiet.   Two homes went pending during the week, and a single new listing came on the market.    There are now only 20 homes for sale in the entire city, and that number will likely drop in the coming weeks as a few homes go pending, and a few others that haven’t sold are taken off the market for the holidays.  This will make it even more challenging for buyers to find their place in San Carlos before the end of the year.    It bears repeating that sellers who plan to sell in early 2013 should definitely consider putting their home on the market now while there is virtually no competition.

Here are the numbers from last week:

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 11-24-2012:

>>> Click Here to Read the Full Post
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Are you ready to step up to the most comprehensive data available about the San Carlos Real Estate market? Then subscribe to the White Oaks Blog for free by clicking here. Be sure to follow the White Oaks Blog on Facebook at https://Facebook.com/WhiteOaksBlog , and on Twitter @WhiteOaksBlog.
Get the best coverage on the San Carlos real estate market delivered right to you!
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