Patrick Ferdon is a second generation San Franciscan and has been a local real estate broker for almost 30 years, representing buyers/sellers in almost every neighborhood across the city, and specializing in home, condominium, and investment property sales. Prior to joining McGuire, he owned and operated his own real estate company Montel Associates for 18 years. Patrick currently serves on the California Association of REALTORS® Board of Directors and served three terms on the San Francisco Association of REALTORS® Board of Directors. An active and dedicated member of the local community and schools, he currently serves on the St. Vincent de Paul Church Parish Council, is Director of the St. Vincent de Paul Men’s Club, as well as a longtime member of the Olympic Club.

Marie Ferdon, Patrick’s wife, is also a native of San Francisco’s Cow Hollow neighborhood; she, Patrick, and their four sons all reside in her family’s original home. It’s that very sense of a close-knit community which sparked her interest in real estate more than 10 years ago. Before that, Marie established Relocation Remedy, Inc., a corporate relocation company that provided services to an eclectic mix of renters and buyers from the technology, banking, and consulting industries.

Bronwyn Brunner grew up in the San Francisco neighborhood of Jordan Park, attending Notre Dame des Victoires and Convent of the Sacred Heart. From there she went on to continue her studies at University of Colorado at Boulder, Gonzaga University in Florence, Italy and finally, San Francisco State. Bronwyn began her career in the travel industry, owning and managing Norcal Tours from 1989-2000. She acquired her real estate sales license in 2005 and joined Montel Associates, where she was a sales associate for seven years before coming to McGuire Real Estate. Bronwyn is an active member of the Saint Vincent de Paul School Board, Saint Vincent de Paul Parents’ Guild President, PlumpJack Wine Spirit business partner, San Francisco Symphony Volunteer, Bash Broadway Alumni Sacred Heart Board Member, and UCSF Give Breast Cancer the Boot.

ABOUT MCGUIRE REAL ESTATE
McGuire Real Estate has been an integral part of the real estate scene in the San Francisco Bay Area for over 90 years. A mid-sized, regional boutique, McGuire specializes in luxury real estate but applies the highest standards of service to properties in every price range, and to every client. Its customer first philosophy and local focus has proved to be a winning formula for this Bay Area real estate leader. McGuire’s affiliation with Luxury Portfolio successfully connects its clients and agents to a worldwide marketplace. McGuire operates three offices in San Francisco, one in Marin County, one in Burlingame serving the Peninsula, and one in Berkeley serving the East Bay.

To learn more about McGuire Real Estate, contact us at clientcare@mcguire.com, 1-800-4-RESULTS or visit mcguire.com.

Article source: http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/mcguire-real-estate-welcomes-patrick-ferdon-marie-ferdon-bronwyn-brunner-its-marina-1762274.htm

A pristine hillside expanse of grand Bay Area real estate caressed every morning by mist off the Pacific Ocean will be anything but a San Francisco treat in the 112th edition of the U.S. Open.

Measuring 2,620 yards, all framed by majestic Monterey cypress and pine trees, the opening third of the Olympic Club’s Lake Course will leave players thinking they just survived a downhill ride on a derailed trolley car.

Or that they were just released from lockup at Alcatraz.

“They are just brutal, brutal holes,” said Johnny Miller, NBC golf analyst and 1973 U.S. Open champion who was born and raised in San Francisco and first played Olympic in 1959 at age 12. In 1966, he was set to caddie in the U.S. Open here but instead qualified for the tournament, played with Lee Trevino the first two rounds and Jack Nicklaus in the third and finished in a tie for eighth. He’s played the course so many times, he joked, that he could perform his analyst duties this week from his home in Utah and no one would catch on.

“I’ve never seen a tougher opening stretch of holes anywhere in the history of major championship golf. It will be the talk of the tournament,” Miller said. “A number of players could lose the tournament there on Thursday.”

Well, the place is called the Graveyard of Legends, as Ben Hogan (1955), Arnold Palmer (’66), Tom Watson in 1987 and Payne Stewart 1998 were denied U.S. Open glory by lesser-known players.

And, it seems apropos the first of the opening six holes runs atop the San Andreas Fault. In past Opens the first was a gentle downhill par-5 that offered the best chance for birdie. Now it’s a 520-yard monster of a par-4 that bends to the right and buckles the knees.

Returning toward the clubhouse, No. 2 is an uphill, 428-yard par-4 guarded by deep greenside bunkers. The downhill third is a par-3 of 247 yards and features a green built to receive a short- to mid-iron, not a long iron or hybrid. Holes No. 4 and No. 5 run side by side, with the fourth an uphill, dogleg-left 438-yard beast and the fifth a downhill, dogleg-right 498-yard brute. A new tee box has stretched No. 6 — the only hole on the course with a fairway bunker — to 489 yards.

All of the holes feature small, undulating and slick greens. Rarely will a player find a level lie on any fairway. And there are new chipping areas around the greens. Further, when there’s a chill in the air and fog in the trees, the ball won’t travel, making the stretch even longer.

It’s like coming face-to-face with Dirty Harry.

“If you get through this stretch 2 over par, maybe 3 over par, you’re picking up shots on the rest of the field,” Miller said. “They are just going to have to somehow play great golf on this stretch or they won’t have a chance.”

The rest of the course is no pushover, either.

“The first 18 holes are extremely difficult,” Matt Kuchar said with a laugh.

The scores prove that point. In the four previous Opens here, only four players have finished under par. This year the course will measure 7,170 yards and play to a par of 70. And the par-5 16th will play at 670 yards, the longest hole in U.S. Open history.

Bubba Watson said 5 over? par could win this week.

“Do I like it? I’ll tell you in a few days,” Watson said. “As of right now I don’t like it. There’s an 80 lurking. After four days of golf if there’s not an 80, then I like it all right. … I played it (Monday) and I was 2 over through the first six. And I made some good par putts.

“There’s something on every hole that can get you. It makes it very difficult. That’s a nice PC way of saying it.”

Nowhere on the course, however, is it any tougher than the first six holes, Tiger Woods said, adding they form the “hardest six holes ever to start off a tournament that I’ve ever seen.”

That’s why Woods said it’s imperative to take care of the final three holes — the back-to-back par-5s starting at 16, and the 344-yard closing hole.

“You’re trying to make a bunch of pars throughout most of the day, and then all of a sudden you’ve got to change gears. You absolutely have to make your birdies on the final three holes,” Woods said.

Two good shots on the par-5s and a solid tee shot on the 18th will set up no more than a wedge to the green.

“They’ve added some serious length here,” said Woods, who finished in a tie for 18th in 1998. “You just have to survive the first six holes.

“It’s going to be a hell of a test.”

By Steve DiMeglio, USA TODAY

Article source: http://www.9news.com/sports/article/55556490/First-six-holes-at-US-Open-are-brutal?usatref=sportsmod

The same appears to be true now in California when it comes to the ease of getting an accurate property tax assessment.

For the third consecutive fiscal year, the real estate market has faltered— unprecedented since property tax reform took effect with Proposition 13 in 1978 — calling into question the values of homes and businesses for tax purposes.

Assessors are required to come up with accurate values, but state law does not dictate how, and the process varies wildly by county: it can be simple, or a contentious ordeal.

“A lot of it is reflective of how the office operates,” Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, which advocated for Proposition 13, said of the state’s assessors.

Three years in, the different approaches of some assessors are emerging as mirrors of their communities: friendly in the suburbs, high tech in Silicon Valley, and in San Francisco — a city where a protest of some sort occurs nearly every day — cantankerous.

“It was very adversarial,” said David Zisser, who appealed the assessment of his Japantown condominium.

Mr. Zisser, a lawyer who spoke animatedly with his paperwork strewn across a table in the downtown Olympic Club, bought his home in 2005, near the height of the market, for $604,000. But in 2009, even after the housing market had collapsed, the San Francisco Assessor-Recorder’s Office placed its value at $653,000.

Mr. Zisser won his appeal — his 2009 assessment was revised to $572,000, then later lowered to $565,000 for 2010 — but he said the process took about 40 hours of work to research, file paperwork and shepherd his case through the system.

“Dragging people through this is ridiculous,” he said, noting that he is still waiting for refunds.

He is not alone: 6,600 assessment appeals were filed in 2009, and another 5,500 in 2010.

Phil Ting, the city’s assessor-recorder, who is also a candidate for mayor, said he hoped fewer than 5,000 property owners would appeal their 2011 assessments. Value estimates are being mailed this month.

Mr. Ting said he had been able to settle 80 percent of appeals without full hearings, which he considered an accomplishment given the size of the task. Property values throughout much of the city remain down from pre-recession highs, prompting many owners to seek reassessment.

“This is not a market correction.” Mr. Ting said. “This is like a U.S. economy correction.”

To cope with the situation, this year his office has proactively reduced the assessments on 18,841 of 200,000 total parcels in the city — eliminating the need for those owners to appeal.

But despite these efforts, Mr. Ting said that the antiquated computer system he inherited when he took office in 2005 was a hindrance. “Think of it as Fred Flintstone,” he said.

Those limitations mean that owners cannot see exactly how their properties’ values were determined until an appeal is well under way — a situation that creates contention and requires time-consuming efforts to find information elsewhere (frustrations I experienced firsthand when I appealed my assessment, and won).

“We would like to have a more transparent system,” Mr. Ting said, noting that his office has been working on improving the computer system.

By comparison, in Santa Clara County in Silicon Valley, as of this year homeowners can go online, enter a privacy code and see their account in detail, including the county’s math. Disagree with the result? An appeal can also be done online.

Larry Stone, the Santa Clara County assessor, said, “Each year we’re adding electronic functionality to do what we do.”

Mr. Stone said that since the new system was installed, the culmination of 15 years and millions spent on innovation, inquiries to his office had dropped by half.

In the Sacramento area, according to Mr. Coupal, the taxpayer advocate, reduction appeals were handled at amiable weekend workshops for property owners.

As in San Francisco, other counties have proactively reduced assessments in recognition of the downturn. In Santa Clara County, Mr. Stone said that this year 124,148 properties (one-third of the county’s total) were assessed below their purchase price.

“But they are not legally required to do so,” Mr. Coupal said of the proactive reductions. Ultimately, “the burden is on the property owner,” he pointed out.

In San Francisco, Mr. Zisser just received his latest assessment: up $15,000 to $580,000. He disagrees with that figure, but said appealing this time was not worth the grief.

“The city has made the process adversarial so people won’t go through it,” he said.

Scott James is an Emmy-winning television journalist and novelist who lives in San Francisco.

sjames@baycitizen.org

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/22/us/22bcjames.html

A native San Franciscan, Bert attended St. Ignatius College Preparatory and the University of San Francisco. He’s been a neighborhood resident of the Sunset, Marina, Russian Hill, Parnassus Heights and Cow Hollow.

Bert has worked in sales and marketing his whole adult life and is the former Vice President of Marketing for Pacific Carbide in San Francisco. As the National Promotions Director of Warner Bros. Records in Burbank for close to a decade, he directed the company’s promotion efforts for pop radio and worked closely with some of the biggest names in the entertainment industry.

Bert’s honest and solid work ethic coupled by a service-oriented philosophy has built strong, long-lasting relationships both professionally and personally. He’s enjoyed working with an eclectic mix of clients over the years — the most memorable being John Lennon — whom he interviewed for several hours on the day he was tragically shot.

Bert uses his intimate knowledge of the city to guide buyers and sellers through each transaction process with ease. Clients value his character, integrity, and appreciate his ability to listen and relate to them on a personal level. He understands their needs and priorities, putting his excellent negotiation skills and marketing background to good use in order to provide the best service possible. Bert has personally bought and sold four homes, one TIC, and a condo.

In his spare time he enjoys playing handball and golfing. Married to his wife Ami for more than 35 years, together they raised their three sons and daughter in San Francisco. Bert served on the Board of Directors for the San Francisco Olympic Club, as well as the city’s Catholic Charities Board for eight years. He’s a proud member of the St. Ignatius Fathers’ Club and the Catholic Marin Breakfast Club.

ABOUT MCGUIRE REAL ESTATE

McGuire Real Estate has been an integral part of the San Francisco Bay Area real estate scene for over 90 years. A mid-sized, regional boutique, we specialize in luxury real estate, but apply the highest standards of service to properties in every price range and to every client. Our customer first philosophy and local focus has proved to be a winning formula as a Bay Area real estate leader. McGuire’s affiliation with Luxury Portfolio successfully connects our clients and agents to a worldwide marketplace. McGuire operates two offices in San Francisco, one in Marin County, one serving the Peninsula in Burlingame, and two in the East Bay.

To learn more about McGuire Real Estate, contact us at clientcare@mcguire.com, 1-800-4-RESULT, or visit www.mcguire.com.

Article source: http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/mcguire-real-estate-welcomes-agent-bert-keane-to-its-marina-office-1535381.htm