Rants | Luxury Home Digest

by Roberta Murphy

The displaced people of San Diego County are beginning to return home. Most return to standing homes; 1600 or so others are greeted by their nightmares.

We are just beginning to hear and see stories of people returning to the burned heaps of rubble that were once their homes. They sift through some of the debris and find broken china, perhaps a metal bed frame, perhaps a spoon. They are somber, and many are tearful, as they survey the charred remains of former lives.

Still, the common response of all has been a profound gratitude for life. The fires may have stolen lifestyles and mementos, but they have also gifted people with a new appreciation for living.

A few days ago, I spoke with some who thought people would be leaving San Diego by the thousands.

At that time I thought not–and still do.

A family whose home was destroyed in Ramona was asked by a reporter if they were going to pull up stakes and move. The owner replied that his burned house is just a house, but Ramona is home. They will rebuild and remain in their home: Ramona. That is their community, where friends pull together and share a common history. Fires cannot destroy that bond.

I have spoken with several people whose La Costa area homes were destroyed 12 years ago in the Harmony Grove Fire. Most rebuilt and remained in the community–because it is the community that is home.

No one means to minimize the horrible trauma of losing one’s home. There is the shock of the initial loss, the months of haggling with insurance companies and contractors, the problems of displacement and finding temporary shelter, the process of rebuilding a lifestyle.

But the process of rebuilding a lifestyle allows for changes in living that might not have occurred otherwise. The rebuilt home may be configured differently, may better reflect your identity, may better serve your needs. And the rebuilding will be a process shared by the community, which will further tighten the bonds between neighbors and friends.

San Diego will survive and thrive.

If grass can grow through concrete, life can arise from the ashes.

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by Roberta Murphy

Become a victim of identity theft, and you could be in for the nightmare of a lifetime.

We have known several identity theft victims. One family lost its home because of it and another even fears for his safety. It is a vicious crime that can take years to to resolve and the damages can last far longer than that.

Almost 10 million Americans are victimized by identity theft each year, and it is one of the fastest growing financial crimes.

The best solution is prevention and freezing your credit may be one of the simplest steps you can take to help stop this crime. A security freeze will prevent thieves from obtaining credit in your name by locking, freezing and blocking access to your credit report and credit score.

The cost to do this is fairly minimal ($10 in California), and is a solution available to residents of:

Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Hawaii, Indiana, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

What happens if you want to obtain new credit? The consumer is given a PIN to grant access to the credit file. Again, a nominal fee may be charged to do so.

How does the credit freeze work? Simple. If a business or lender cannot obtain credit information, new credit will not be issued to the thief.

For additional reading about this subject, click here.

Click for instructions on freezing credit in California
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by Roberta Murphy

I believe we have a new issue to negotiate on behalf of our clients:

CANCELLATION FEES

A couple of weeks ago we had a buyer cancel a transaction within the timeframes agreed upon by the buyer and seller. Notice of cancellation was sent out shortly after the physical inspection on the $400,000 downtown San Diego condo.

escrow cancellation hook It should have been a simple matter, but that was not to be the case.

The Prudential listing agent had stipulated that Prudential California-owned Pickford Escrow handle the transaction. All proceeded smoothly until the point of cancellation, when Pickford assessed a $1115 cancellation fee against the buyer, and refused to back down from that claim, despite our requests to do so.

Never in our real estate experience had we encountered an escrow cancellation fee of this enormity, and I cannot recall any escrow cancellation fee that had been assessed against any of our transactions in the last few years.

In the rare cases when we have had an escrow that cancelled, the escrow and title companies bore their losses along with the agents involved in the transaction. Even though œreasonable cancellation fees are generally allowed for in the escrow instructions, it is something that is rarely levied against the real estate client.

Curious as to whether this is to become a revenue-generating trend of some sort in a sagging real estate economy, I called the Pickford Escrow manager involved in this transaction and asked if cancellation fees were part of a new policy. He said it wasnt a policy, but was something that was allowed for in the escrow instructions and could be charged on a discretionary basis.

Hmmm..

I called Steve Torneo, San Diego attorney for First American Title and Escrow, and asked what First Americans stance would be regarding escrow cancellation fees. He, too, said it was a discretionary call, but that they would not levy that fee against a cancelling client who felt it was unfair in any way or who felt that First American had failed to earn what was charged.

He also agreed that $1115 seemed excessive.

A call to Alonzo Castro, a Carlsbad service rep with First American Title, further confirmed the rarity of cancellation fees and he could not recall First American assessing them against any clients.

To round out this informal survey, I asked senior escrow officer Deanna Lynch with Southland Title Escrow in Carlsbad, CA what their policy was regarding escrow cancellation fees. She said, œWe just dont charge cancellation fees.

A final call to Gena Riede, a seasoned Sacramento real estate broker, confirmed that she had not seen any fees assessed against any of her cancelled escrows either. I mentioned that an authorization for this fee appears in the small print of escrow instructions, and that in the future we will be inserting language in our offers that prohibits the assessment of escrow cancellation fees against any of our clients.

Gena will be doing the same.

It is the least we can do to help protect our clients.

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by Roberta Murphy

Brad Inman this morning wrote an excellent article about the mortgage and real estate crisis that has gripped so many markets in the United States–and elsewhere. In The Housing Market Blame Game, Inman reports that even formerly raging real estate markets that were once seen as unshakable, such as Manhattan, are now beginning to share the pain with regions that had collapsed earlier.

Many blame the real estate industry for hyping the real estate market; others the mortgage originators. But Inman makes an interesting observation:

“….hyperbole from every day Realtors is not the underlying problem causing the housing quake. I would assign more blame to industry experts who peddled their demographic-as destiny arguments and ignored other issues.

This is akin to the expert analyst problem in the equities industry, where favorable reviews were tied to conflicts of interest.”

My response:

The blame game and finger pointing has become a conversation staple from Wall Street to Main Street. Some blame greedy hedge funds, some the greedy mortgage industry, some the greedy real estate agents, and some the greedy mortgage fraudsters.

The conversations that interest me most are the ones that seek ways to sift through the rubble to find approximate market bottoms. That is where the next real estate fortunes will be made.

Greed survives.

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by Roberta Murphy

Whenever I go to shop for technology of any sort, I head over to CNet to check out editorial and user reviews. Whether I am shopping digital cameras, tablet pc’s or cell phones, I know I can trust what they have to say.

It came as a recent wonderful surprise that they have also taken to rating blogs–or at least those that focus on technology. Luxury Home Digest of course did not make the cut, but that should come as no surprise. Luxury real estate blogs aren’t exactly at the top of tech blog lists.
Regardless, I thought readers might be interested in their 100 choices because they could end up providing valuable information for owners of luxurous residences:

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Archive for the 'Rants' Category

San Diego Fires: Coming Home to Ashes

Stop Identity Theft: Freeze Your Credit

New Real Estate Danger: Cancellation Fees

Mortgage Crisis and the Blame Game

100 Hot Tech Blogs (with Few Related to Luxury Lifestyles)