Verdugo Hills House Talk

My last post was early May. (by the way – May winners of my snail-mail contest will be published later today) What a busy month! Real Estate activity in the Foothills picked up in May beyond anyone’s expectation – what a welcome development! Prices are still controlled by the foreclosure market. Foreclosures remain a very significant proportion of sales in the Verdugo Hills communities of La Crescenta, La Canada, Glendale and Sunland/Tujunga. Statistics will be available in a few days.

As some of my readers are aware, I am active in our local Realtor association, The Pasadena, Foothills Association of Realtors, and am this year’s Chairman of the California Association of Realtors MLS Committee. Things in organized Real Estate have been quite busy as well, leading up to the C.A.R.’s legislative session in Sacramento this week. One of the big pieces of business in front of us at C.A.R. is encouraging our legislators to pass laws that are consistent with the private property, home ownership and basic fairness. An example of this is a flawed Assembly Bill 2678. Assembly Bill 2678 hopes to promote a “green” California by encouraging energy saving measures in homes and commercial buildings. One of the very undesirable ways of going about this is to require that homeowners get a mandatory energy audit during escrow. The significant portion of the law reads: 25943. (a) (1) By March 1, 2009, the commission shall establish a regulatory proceeding to develop and implement a comprehensive program to achieve greater energy savings in California’s existing residential and commercial building stock. This program shall comprise a complementary portfolio of techniques, applications, and practices that will achieve greater energy efficiency in the state’s existing residential and commercial structures built before the implementation of Title 24 of the California Code of Regulations. (2) The comprehensive program may include, but need not be limited to, time of sale energy audits,time of service change energy audits, and targeted numbers of annual energy audits; building benchmarking or energy rating, or both; cost-effective energy efficiency improvements; public and private sector energy efficiency financing options; public outreach and education efforts, and expanded utility energy efficiency programs. Then require updates prior to closing to reach the Green Goal. Such a process would put an incredible burden on individual home and business owners. And, since only a small fraction of property is sold in a given year, would take decades to reach it’s goal of “green” homes & businesses. In the current environment of few sales and falling prices many homeowners would suffer great hardship.

Assemblyman Anthony Portantino and past PFAR President, Joyce Kristensson in discussion with current PFAR President, Rick Stevers (pictured below)

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Current PFAR President, Rick Stevers (pictured on left) leading discussion with Assemblyman Portantino.

Finally, my wife’s mother, Jane Guthrie Muller, passed away in May. Married for 69 years to her husband, Francis Muller, who passed away last October, Jane was a loving mother.

She was also an inspiration to all who knew her, author of “Pioneer Families of Ducor, California” , graduate of Stanford and a wonderful member of a California pioneer family. She is survived by her nine children and their families and will be missed. May she rest in peace.