Mortgage and Real Estate Investment Blog

January 2, 2008

I cannot believe another year has come and gone! Each seems to go faster than the last. This holiday season was a wonderful blur filled with family, friends and lots of wonderful food. Now I am ready for those New Year’s resolutions. J Well, I have the opportunity to go to Bikini Boot camp towards the end of this month with one of my closest girlfriends (and a favorite travel partner). I am looking forward to a week of playing in the sun, eating healthy food and generally reenergizing. What a way to start the year!

This month’s mailer is on the subject of the economy and real estate in particular. It dovetails well with what I believe about our current markets. Several areas in the country are suffering substantial losses in home values, but because housing prices in Portland didn’t spike as severely as in many other areas, our market shouldn’t see substantial losses in value. I think 2008 is going to be a good year for both the real estate and mortgage markets. We should continue to see softness in the real estate market, but we should see moderate appreciation in housing prices for 2008 in Portland. On the mortgage side, lenders have tightened up lending guidelines considerably which should help to alleviate the fears of mortgage backed securities on Wall Street. This good news will likely result in some very low mortgage rates in early 2008, as banks fight to regain lost market share within the mortgage sector.

In the final quarter of 2007, we began conducting seminars on investing in real estate. The focus of the class is to teach average income people how they can purchase investment real estate. If you or someone you know would be interested in attending, please give me a call and let me know. We are limiting each class to 14 people and the spaces fill up quickly, so you must reserve a spot in advance. I think anyone that wants to grow their wealth should seriously consider attending.

I am back on one of my favorite pastimes, removing junk mail from my mailbox! In addition to www.Greendimes.com , I was just turned onto www.catalogchoice.com. Did you know that 8 million trees are cut down a year to produce paper catalogs? Catalog Choice allows you to remove yourself from the mailing lists of catalogs you do not want, while still receiving the ones you do. The companies get to send catalogs to clients who might actually order from them. Sounds like a win-win-win to me.

Don’t forget that Valentine’s Day is just over a month away, and reservations at great restaurants go quickly. I have a few recommendations for restaurants to try for a fun Valentine’s Day. First, I would recommend Toro Bravo. I went recently and was very impressed. It was written up in Bon Appetit magazine last month, along with Caffe Mingo, which happens to be one of my favorite restaurants in Portland. A friend of mine from high school just opened an Italian restaurant in Beaverton named DeCarli to rave reviews. It might be the perfect “new thing” to try this year for Valentine’s Day.

BTW, I am now posting my newsletters on our website in “Kelly’s Blog”. Let me know if you have ideas about how I can better meet your needs.

All my best!

Kelly

December 1, 2007

Ahhh, I am still reveling in the Thanksgiving leftovers. It was a wonderful day full of family, food, football and frivolity. The “Donate Dinner” program was a huge success. We raised over $100,000 throughout Portland to insure that homebound seniors are able to receive hot, nutritious lunches delivered to their door. It was bitterly cold, but we kept moving around & chatting with people coming through the door. When we got too cold, we would stand under the heat blower at the front door to defrost. All in all, it was a great weekend.

Tis the season of giving, and heard through the air was the ringing of bells and not from reindeer. Okay, it doesn’t really rhyme, but it is close! As I was standing outside of Haggen, a man approached me to tell me that he spends his time and money supporting abused children, so wasn’t going to donate to Meals on Wheels. My thought was, “Great!” I know that everyone has something special that tugs at their heartstrings. My favorite charities are; www.BestFriends.org (a no-kill animal sanctuary in Nevada for all kinds of critters, they even helped during Katrina!), www.handstohearts.org (helping at risk children during early childhood development around the world) and www.loavesandfishesonline.org (Meals on Wheels for Portland area seniors).

I believe in giving back and my choices are animals, children and seniors as my charities to support. Generally, I like to support beings who, through little or no fault of their own, are in less than ideal circumstances. If you are looking for something to do locally, try www.HandsonPortland.org. They have lots of different kinds of volunteer opportunities and whether you have a lazy Sunday and feel like helping for one day or you are looking for a longer commitment, but just don’t know where to look, Hands on Portland is a great place to start.  The "Hands On" program is available in many cities across the country.  Look for it in your city, if you are interested in finding a local place to volunteer.

In spite of all the changes and bad press mortgage and real estate has received in recent months I see some positives that may allow us, here in the Northwest & San Francisco Bay Area, to remain optimistic. As we all know, real estate trends and prices vary from state to state and city to city…location, location, location!!! Portland area homes continue to appreciate, averaging 7% from Oct 2006 to Oct 2007, thanks to stringent growth restrictions. For similar reasons, albeit geographic barriers instead of governmental, the 9 counties of the San Francisco bay area are averaging 16% appreciation this year. From time to time we need to be reminded that the sky is NOT falling- in spite of what we seem to read on a daily basis. We are fortunate to live where we do.

This month’s mailer is about changing habits to become the best you that you can. There are tips to help define your goals to be more effective, stay motivated, and even some samples of strategies that work. For me, as soon as my feet are on the floor, I am up. It is the 30 minutes of hitting snooze that is my problem. :)

A quick reminder, if you want to make dinner reservations for Valentine’s Day, start now. Restaurants fill up very early for such a big night, and who wants dinner at 4:30pm?  :)

Happy Holidays!

Kelly