Shredding April 20th at KWPE!

This is a great opportunity to remove clutter from your office or home for a good cause!  

If you are unable to attend, please contact me at 562 453 6662 and I will pick up your boxes of papers or electronics.

Tree Houses

I thought I would post some unconventional tree houses and tree house style interiors I've seen on Pinterest lately.  I love how much they range in style from kid's book fantasy to woodsy Swedish contemporary to cozy beach cottage to everything in between and beyond.

If you have a Pinterest, click here to follow my page to share home and decor ideas.

Toll roads in LA - yay or nay?

This is a phenomenal place to live, but going 4 mph on the way to your job slightly detracts from the weather and culture.

Nearly half of toll road users on 10, 110 are solo drivers - from the Daily News

Finally there is a way to buy your way out of morning traffic if you normally use the 10 and 110 freeways.

Fast pass users are cruising by all of us normal people at a seemingly astonishing rate.

I can't help but predict that everyone will buy this, and thus traffic will be jammed in all lanes again.  And it seems like the non-VIP lanes have gotten significantly slower since the change.

On the bright side, a commute shortened from an hour to just twenty minutes is a huge quality of life increase that's most likely worth the few bucks each way.  Also, you didn't hear it from me, but if you break the rules just once and go into the express lanes without a transponder, you'll get a ticket for only $5 in the mail, though you have to make sure to pay it within a week.

Until we build Japan-style double decker freeways and/or can take the train across town, my goal is to live and work in the same neighborhood.  I can dream, right?

Act Your Age!

From Curbed LA, one of my favorite Los Angeles real estate blogs:

The Best LA Neighborhoods for Your 20s, 30s, and 40s

Criteria are rents, pedestrian friendliness, public transport, and community feel.

Drumroll please!

And the verdict is Highland Park for the roaring twenties, Culver City for the up-and-coming thirties, and Mar Vista for the settling forties.

California Market Report - February 2013

The Sacramento Bee California home prices up California’s median home price marked a full year of annual price gains, propelled by strong sales of higher-priced homes in February, while a lack of inventory constrained total home sales for the month, the CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® (C.A.R.) reported this week. Making sense of the story Sales in February were down 0.9 percent from a revised 420,270 in January and down 5.9 percent from a revised 442,660 in February 2012.  The statewide sales figure represents what would be the total number of homes sold during 2013 if sales maintained the February pace throughout the year.  It is adjusted to account for seasonal factors that typically influence home sales. The statewide median price of an existing, single-family detached home slipped 1 percent from January’s revised median price of $337,360 to $333,880 in February.  February’s price was up 24.2 percent from a revised $268,810 recorded in February 2012, marking a full year of annual price increases and the eighth consecutive month of double-digit annual gains. The available supply of homes for sale was essentially unchanged from January, but was down markedly from a year ago.  The February Unsold Inventory Index for existing, single-family detached homes was 3.6 months in February, up from 3.5 months in January, but down from 5.4 months in February 2012.  The index indicates the number of months needed to sell the supply of homes on the market at the current sales rate.  A six- to seven-month supply is considered normal. Increased market competition has significantly driven down the time on market compared to a year ago.  Homes sold more quickly in February, with the median number of days it took to sell a single-family home decreasing to 34.2 days in February, down from 36.6 days in January and down from a revised 57.4 days for the same period a year ago. Read the full story

Think Outside the 30 Year Box

Slideshow of Abandoned Housing

See which US cities were hit worst by the housing crisis below...

Nine Worst Recession Ghost Towns

This is an article from August of 2011.  Things are definitely looking better now :)