Fresno Considering Building Fee Increase

The city of Fresno has a new plan to raise more than $100 million to build new parks, but it's a plan developers won't like because they'll be footing the bill.

[via KFSN Front Page headlines]

Real value growth or rotten reckoning?

Click image for enlargement. Illustration by Anton . The national and local housing markets continue to make headlines for the appreciation records they set each quarter.

[via Real Estate - Topix.net]

Valley Home Prices Continue to Increase

Cities across the Central Valley realized record high prices for homes in July.

[via KFSN Front Page headlines]

In Trouble With Your Mortgage? Call Your Lender - Now!

Title: In Trouble With Your Mortgage? Call Your Lender - Now!
Description-----------
There is never a shortage of sharks waiting to take advantage of the troubled. If you are having problems with your mortgage payments, please listen to us, not them.Last month we did a two part article on foreclosure. The bottom line was, if you are in financial trouble, take control of the situation and get in touch with your lender the very minute that problems loom. That message has been upper-cased, bold-faced, and underlined by a recent report from the National Consumer Law Center.The Center's recent report "Dreams Foreclosed: The Rampan... Read More Now
Source: http://www.MortgageNewsDaily.com/8192005_Foreclosure_Scams.asp---------------------------------------------------------------------

Fresno condo project proceeds

Apartments could be converted with council approval.

By Russell Clemings / The Fresno Bee
(Updated Friday, August 19, 2005, 5:59 AM)

A San Diego developer has won tentative approval to convert a southeast Fresno apartment complex to condominiums — the fourth such project for the company in the city in two years.
United Development Group plans to convert the 106-unit Winery Estates complex on the northwest corner of McKinley and Winery avenues to condos that are expected to sell for $165,000 to $200,000 and bear association fees estimated at $200 per month.
The conversion was approved unanimously Wednesday night by the city's Planning Commission and awaits review by the City Council.
Two previous conversions by the same company — the former Villa Santa Fe complex at Huntington Boulevard and R Street and Emerald Estates at First Street and Pratt Avenue — won unanimous council approval. The company is also converting part of the Crystal Springs complex at Peach Avenue and Kings Canyon Road.
Under the city's condominium-conversion law, the Winery Estates project will offer lifetime leases to elderly tenants and extended leases to students who don't want to move or buy their units. Those who do move will be eligible for help finding new apartments.
That shouldn't be a problem, said commission Chairman Lee Brand, who said the commission had approved the construction of "probably 3,000 apartment units" over the past three years.
"If you convert everything over to condominiums, you solve one problem [by providing low-cost housing to buyers] and create another problem, because then you have a shortage of rental units," Brand said. "But that isn't the case here. … I think there's a good balance in the market right now."
The commission also approved plans for almost 600 new homes in five tracts, three of them in rapidly growing southeast Fresno.
Among them were two subdivisions proposed by Roseville-based Dunmore Homes, which plans to build 256 houses on about 67 acres between Armstrong and Temperance avenues north of Dakota Avenue, and 116 homes on about 39 acres north of Clinton Avenue between Armstrong and Temperance. The first will require City Council review because it entails rezoning from agriculture.
Also in southeast Fresno, the commission recommended rezoning and approved a subdivision map for 41 lots proposed by Dennis Bennett on about 11 acres along both sides of Church Avenue between Minnewawa and Peach avenues.
In northwest Fresno, on the southeast corner of Barstow Avenue and the future Veterans Boulevard, the commission approved a 105-lot tract on about 26 acres and recommended that the council approve rezoning for a project by Rexford Development of Encino.
Farther south, an 80-lot subdivision proposed by H&P Properties for 10 acres on the south side of Shields Avenue between Marks and Valentine avenues also won approval.
The commission also recommended that the City Council approve rezoning for less than 1 acre on H Street between Amador and Sacramento streets in downtown Fresno for Granville Homes, which plans apartments, offices and shops next to the Vagabond Lofts project, now under construction.

Protecting Yourself from a Housing Bubble

By Greg McBride, Bankrate.com
RISMEDIA, August 16 –

The run-up in home prices in many markets around the country makes it a matter of when and where, not if, the housing bubble bursts. Consider this comment from economist Joel Naroff after new-home sales hit yet another record high in June, "Welcome to our worst nightmare. It is the housing market." In that vein, we cannot ignore the potential for a housing bust any longer. Like procrastinators living in a hurricane-prone area that eventually scramble to stock up on supplies as a storm nears, it is time to look at some strategies homeowners and home buyers can adopt to weather the housing market storm. If you live in Ohio, you're probably wondering what all the fuss is about. But if you live in California, New York, Massachusetts, South Florida or Washington, D.C. – and plenty of people do – it is all anyone ever talks about. If you call one of these or many other frothy markets home, unless you've lived in the home long enough to pile up substantial equity, you have reason to worry. So let's establish some frontline defenses against a housing bust busting your financial picture. First, don't borrow against home equity. This means no taking out of home equity lines of credit to pay off credit card bills, no cash-out mortgage refinancing to fix up the house, and, by all means, no tapping home equity to pay for summer vacation. This is a drastic measure, I know, but these are desperate times, my friends. Home equity has a much lower after-tax cost than credit card debt or other forms of debt, but the cushion provided by home equity will be invaluable when home prices decline. The bottom line on debt consolidations is that it just shifts the debt, it doesn't reduce the debt. If you managed to get yourself in a little too deep on the credit card debt, it's time to figure out how to get out of it. And not by relying on home equity borrowing. The second rule is to build equity through principal repayment. Interest-only and option ARM borrowers, I'm talking to you. Every month, a larger portion of your monthly payment should be going toward reducing the principal on your loan, and if it isn't, then you're doing something wrong. This leads into my next point. Making steady progress on paying down the balance is largely dependent upon having a loan with a fixed rate. Therefore, we have rule No. 3: It is time to move away from adjustable rates. There is nothing worse than the payments increasing when the value of the home is declining. This means refinancing out of the short-term adjustable-rate loan that pressures your budget and retards the process of building equity through principal repayment as interest rates climb and getting into a fixed-rate mortgage or hybrid ARM where the fixed-rate period is no less than seven years. Why so long? I'll come back to this point later on. First-time home buyers are especially vulnerable to a downturn in home prices because of minimal down payments and the lack of established equity that buyers rolling over from a previous home would have. Small down payments and large loan balances increase the likelihood of relying on interest-only loans and the like for affordability. So the message to first-time buyers, and rule No. 4, is this: Make a larger down payment. If you don't have the scratch for a down payment and you can't afford to borrow with a fixed-rate mortgage -- don't buy. It's that simple. The fifth rule is to live in your home for the longer haul. Whenever you're upside down on a car because you owe more than it is worth, the cure-all is to literally drive your way out of it by keeping the car until the loan balance falls below the market value. Be prepared to do the same with a new-home purchase. If your feeling is that you're going to move in three years, it is time to make plans for other contingencies. Can you afford a mortgage that offers a fixed rate for a longer period, such as a 10/1 ARM or a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage? If not, continue renting. The transaction costs of buying and selling are steep, and any downturn in price over such a short holding period will clobber the unsuspecting buyer. The home is first and foremost where you live. Get past the "my home is an investment" mentality to protect against the bursting bubble. The home is indeed an investment, but a long-term investment. Treating it as such will vanquish many of the worries about a bursting bubble. This article was reprinted by permission of Bankrate.com

Neighbors seek piped-in water

600 homes north of Clovis could pay $1,500 a year
By Marc Benjamin / The Fresno Bee

(Updated Monday, August 15, 2005, 6:01 AM)

Residents in a neighborhood of about 600 homes north of Clovis will likely be asked to pay more than $1,500 a year to pipe water to their community to end water shortages.
Ground-water shortages have existed for years in the neighborhood that includes Appaloosa Acres, Horseshoe Bend and Shenandoah Farms, as well as hundreds of individual parcels north of Shepherd Avenue and roughly between Sunnyside and Armstrong avenues.
Water there hides in a labyrinth of underground rock fissures. There are no subterranean rivers — known as aquifers — and wells for some residents have slowed to a trickle.
Tiring of the continuous problems, the community last year began seeking solutions. A study, which residents paid $25,000 for, gave three preferred options:
Piping water from either Clovis or Fresno, both of which have water-treatment plants.
Or building a stand-alone water-treatment plant for the community.
The engineer's report suggested removing two options, one proposing recharge, and another plan to pipe in water from Garfield Irrigation District.
Residents prefer piping water, which could be less expensive than the treatment-plant option.
Peter Hammar, secretary of the Dry Creek Rural Water Association, is nursing four trees and brown grass on his 2.5-acre parcel.
"My well is very weak, and I would rather spend that money on a permanent solution instead of trying to punch a $15,000 well in, and I may hit nothing," he said.
Piping from a city will relieve residents of the expense of trucking water to their homes, having wells deepened or replaced, enlarging storage tanks or finding no water at all on their properties.
Fresno County supervisors Tuesday will discuss forming a community service area to serve these neighborhoods. That will create a community that could later vote to tax itself to pay for water service.
Fresno County will negotiate with the cities of Fresno and Clovis and the Fresno Irrigation District on piping and treating the water that goes to the community.
"This group of people is at the mercy of the negotiators for their solutions," said Al deHaai, the engineer who coordinated the report for Fresno-based Provost & Pritchard.
The expense for residents could be between $100 and $150 per month depending on costs for water development, acquiring water, water treatment, piping and other construction costs.
Residents will be metered and billed for water they use. The assessment also will pay $150,000 in annual administrative costs for a community service area.
Supervisors also might vote to limit growth in the area.
Janet Dailey, Fresno County's design division manager, said one hookup per parcel will be allowed under the county's proposal, meaning additional growth will not occur.
If new homes are added, she said, it might trigger more in-depth environmental documentation, requiring additional time and money.
All residents will pay an assessment even if their wells are functioning properly, she said.
The $100 to $150 monthly price is not much more costly than what residents are now paying for electricity to run their wells.
"I probably spend a third or half of that for the pump on my well, and then I have the whole issue of having to replace the pump for $1,000 to $2,000 every four or five years," said Vernon Crowder, chairman of the Dry Creek Rural Water Association. "And then there is the whole question of reliability."
Getting water piped to the neighborhood as soon as possible is the top priority, Crowder said.
It's also important because home values remain threatened by the lack of water.
"With every sale out there, the question is about the water supply," he said. "I can't put a percentage out there, but if we weren't already working on this pipe, there are some homes out there that would not have already sold … the key is it takes the question mark away."
Gary Serrato, Fresno Irrigation District general manager, said his agency wants to help the neighborhood, which is north and east of the district's boundaries.
"The less they [residents] have to pump, the better off the entire community is, including FID," Serrato said. "It makes our ground-water tables more sustainable."
But, he said, the report underestimated costs to make water available over the long term, and may mean residents have to pay more.
And, the agencies need to work out who can best serve the neighborhood despite boundary issues.
The neighborhood is outside the Clovis sphere of influence, the logical expansion for the city's future growth. And if Fresno's water plant is chosen as the location for piping water to the neighborhood, another turf conflict could occur.
In negotiations over future city borders with Fresno County and Clovis, the city of Fresno pledged it would not develop east of Willow Avenue. The neighborhood's western edge is about 2 miles east of Willow.
"There are just a lot of jurisdictional boundary issues that need to be taken care of," said Lon Martin, Fresno's water system manager. "We are more than willing to treat the water, but you have to provide the entitlement [to the water] and infrastructure."
But efforts to assist the neighborhood are groundbreaking, Martin said.
"This is going to force the city [of Fresno], the county, Clovis and FID to put our heads together and resolve this one," he said.

Bakersfield, Calif., Homes Top Nation in Price Gain

By Misty Williams

The Bakersfield Californian

RISMEDIA, August 15 – (KRT) – Bakersfield, Calif., still on top. Home prices here rose 38.1 percent from the second quarter of 2004 through the same period this year, according to the latest figures from mortgage finance giant Fannie Mae. That's higher than any other metropolitan area in the nation, said Fannie Mae chief economist David Berson. "I used to live in Southern California," Berson said. "The Central Valley was not the hot spot. Now it is." Areas like Los Angeles, San Bernardino-Riverside and the Bay Area showed strong gains but didn't make the top 10, Berson said. Bakersfield is attractive because prices are so low compared to other areas of the state, said James Barth, a senior fellow who studies housing economics at the Milken Institute in Santa Monica. The percent increase may also be larger than other areas because home costs were so low to begin with, Barth said. Another reason why valley prices may be rising so fast? Investors. The number of investors in the valley is nearly double the national average, which has helped push prices up, Berson said. Both Stockton and Modesto also showed home price gains of more than 30 percent. Recent data on home sales, prices and home builder attitudes show no sign of slowing down, Berson said. But the end of the year or beginning of next could bring a slowdown in the national market, he said. "We're probably real close to the peak in sales right now," he said. Copyright © 2005, The Bakersfield Californian Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.