Foreclosures were a common sight in many towns, such as San Pablo (pictured), just two years ago. Now with fewer foreclosures and home values surging, many people who got a temporary property-tax reduction will see a bump up this year. (Chronicle staff photo)

It’s a letter from Larry Stone or Ron Thomsen or Gus Kramer or another Bay Area county assessor.

You open it up and your eyes pop. Steam starts coming out of your ears like a little cartoon character.

Your property taxes are going up by a hefty amount for the 2013-14 tax year.

What happened? What about California’s Proposition 13, which guarantees a 2% annual cap on property tax increases?

Think back to 2009, when a similar missive arrived. Remember what a relief it was that your property taxes were slashed by about a third? Your house had plunged in value due to the real estate downturn. Under Proposition 8* — a companion to Prop 13, also passed in 1976 — assessors are supposed to cut your property taxes  temporarily when your home’s market value goes below your previous assessed value. That went on extensively throughout the state over the brutal downturn; it’s one reason cities, counties and California itself had to tighten their belts so much.

But the key word is “temporarily.” That same Prop 8 requires assessors to bring the values back up when the market recovers. It can go up by a big chunk. There is still a ceiling.  The maximum you can be assessed is what’s called your “factored base value.” That’s you original base value (what you paid for the house) plus 2% a year increases (or even less; if the California consumer price index is lower than 2%, that gets used instead).

Thousands of people will be getting these notices in coming weeks.  For instance, in Alameda County, 9,800 properties are being fully restored to their “factored base value” after having had a temporary tax cut. Another 69,000 are being partially restored in sync with the changing market. In San Francisco, 4,900 properties are being fully restored, and another 9,900 are being partially restored.

All the assessors have extensive explanations about Props 8 and 13 on their websites. The one on the Sonoma County Assessor’s website has a helpful graphic showing the interactions between Prop 13 values and Prop 8 market values.

Assessors are hopeful that homeowners will see the bright side.

“We are getting out of the market-value reductions and increasing our values,” said Ron Thomsen, Alameda County assessor. “It’s good for homeowners as they see increases in the equity of their homes.”

But many folks may not be jazzed about this.

Still, for the counties, cities, special districts and schools that depend on property-tax revenue, it’s definitely good news that the assessments are going up after several brutal years of steep declines. For a detailed look at what’s happening for Bay Area county assessments, click here. For more information about the impact on homeowners, click here.

Remember, you have the right to appeal your property-tax assessment — and you definitely do not need to pay anyone else to help you with this. Information on filing an appeal is available on each county assessor’s website.

*Not the Prop 8 about same-sex marriage that just went to the U.S. Supreme Court. California thriftily recycles proposition numbers; it wouldn’t be that catchy of a slogan to say: “Vote for Proposition 46,787?!

Carolyn Said is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. For news and insights on Bay Area real estate, follower her on Twitter: @csaid

Article source: http://blog.sfgate.com/ontheblock/2013/07/05/brace-yourself-your-property-tax-bill-is-on-its-way/

Foreclosures were a common sight in many towns, such as San Pablo (pictured), just two years ago. Now with fewer foreclosures and home values surging, many people who got a temporary property-tax reduction will see a bump up this year. (Chronicle staff photo)

It’s a letter from Larry Stone or Ron Thomsen or Gus Kramer or another Bay Area county assessor.

You open it up and your eyes pop. Steam starts coming out of your ears like a little cartoon character.

Your property taxes are going up by a hefty amount for the 2013-14 tax year.

What happened? What about California’s Proposition 13, which guarantees a 2% annual cap on property tax increases?

Think back to 2009, when a similar missive arrived. Remember what a relief it was that your property taxes were slashed by about a third? Your house had plunged in value due to the real estate downturn. Under Proposition 8* — a companion to Prop 13, also passed in 1976 — assessors are supposed to cut your property taxes  temporarily when your home’s market value goes below your previous assessed value. That went on extensively throughout the state over the brutal downturn; it’s one reason cities, counties and California itself had to tighten their belts so much.

But the key word is “temporarily.” That same Prop 8 requires assessors to bring the values back up when the market recovers. It can go up by a big chunk. There is still a ceiling.  The maximum you can be assessed is what’s called your “factored base value.” That’s you original base value (what you paid for the house) plus 2% a year increases (or even less; if the California consumer price index is lower than 2%, that gets used instead).

Thousands of people will be getting these notices in coming weeks.  For instance, in Alameda County, 9,800 properties are being fully restored to their “factored base value” after having had a temporary tax cut. Another 69,000 are being partially restored in sync with the changing market. In San Francisco, 4,900 properties are being fully restored, and another 9,900 are being partially restored.

All the assessors have extensive explanations about Props 8 and 13 on their websites. The one on the Sonoma County Assessor’s website has a helpful graphic showing the interactions between Prop 13 values and Prop 8 market values.

Assessors are hopeful that homeowners will see the bright side.

“We are getting out of the market-value reductions and increasing our values,” said Ron Thomsen, Alameda County assessor. “It’s good for homeowners as they see increases in the equity of their homes.”

But many folks may not be jazzed about this.

Still, for the counties, cities, special districts and schools that depend on property-tax revenue, it’s definitely good news that the assessments are going up after several brutal years of steep declines. For a detailed look at what’s happening for Bay Area county assessments, click here. For more information about the impact on homeowners, click here.

Remember, you have the right to appeal your property-tax assessment — and you definitely do not need to pay anyone else to help you with this. Information on filing an appeal is available on each county assessor’s website.

*Not the Prop 8 about same-sex marriage that just went to the U.S. Supreme Court. California thriftily recycles proposition numbers; it wouldn’t be that catchy of a slogan to say: “Vote for Proposition 46,787?!

Carolyn Said is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. For news and insights on Bay Area real estate, follower her on Twitter: @csaid

Article source: http://blog.sfgate.com/ontheblock/2013/07/05/brace-yourself-your-property-tax-bill-is-on-its-way/

Buying a home is a nasty, arduous and blessed task. It’s further complicated by the glaringly obvious fact that nobody makes any money until you buy. The feeling that you are so much meat waiting to be ground into sausage rarely goes away.

I should know. I am in the process of moving from the lovely state of Wisconsin to sunny California—specifically, the San Francisco Bay Area. There are, shall we say, some bracing differences in the two real estate markets, and not just in terms of price. (Did you say the actual ground beneath your feet sometimes … moves?)

Big Market For Real Estate Apps

Luckily for me and everyone else in the market, there are many useful real estate apps available across all major smartphone platforms. In fact, there are so many good real estate apps that it can be hard to choose the best one.

This shouldn’t be too surprising. The housing market in the U.S. is valued at about $10 trillion. Numerous companies are eagerly hoping to carve out a slice of this sizable American pie—and garner your loyalty—by helping you choose among the 70 million homes located throughout the country.

Zillow, for example, recently began airing this television commercial.

Having viewed nearly as many apps as properties in my ongoing search for a home, I can recommend these three: Trulia, Zillow and Redfin.

They each provide you with an abundance of listings and include the most important details of nearly every home displayed. Each app can text new listing alerts directly to your phone. You can also search for properties using the smartphone’s GPS, or input an address or city into the app’s search bar.

All three are available on iPhone, iPad and Android, and are all free. All three also have companion websites, with additional layers of information available, such as school rankings and property taxes. 

1. Trulia

Trulia is my favorite of the bunch, with a simple, intuitive design and ample listings of properties for sale and rent—along with links to open houses and agents. You can search by city or address, although I found it most useful to let the GPS service provide a map of all nearby homes for sale (within my specified criteria). As you drive through an area, the map can adjust, updating the homes quickly as your position changes.

With Trulia, it’s also very easy to set-up notifications and to save your searches. These may be linked to their website, so you can review your favorites on your laptop later. 

Trulia’s app often displays a small ad-sized listing of an agent across their map. At the beginning, this is helpful. After you’ve selected an agent, it becomes annoying. I would have been happy to pay about $2 for the app, say, to ditch these ads.

Trulia makes it a snap to get turn-by-turn directions to any property listed, and to quickly text your spouse of your latest find. You can also sort listings by price, features (e.g. number of bedrooms), and by “newest” listing – which can be very useful to know.

Use Trulia and you’ll wonder how people searched for homes before smartphones existed. 

2. Zillow

Because of the ease of use of the Trulia app, I have placed it above Zillow. The breadth of information that Zillow offers on each listing, however, makes it a must-have for your home search.

Zillow includes a photo tour of the property, a sales history and an estimate of its current value.

Spoiler alert: for the Bay Area, at least, the price estimate is wildly under-valued. This fact somewhat diminishes the Schaedenfreude of discovering that seemingly every buyer in the past ten years has lost a small fortune. 

Zillow includes a handy “draw” feature which lets you swipe an area on the map that then displays the listings within that area. The app also claims to include “pre-market” properties—those which may be coming on to the market soon. This might be a great feature, though I never saw any such properties in the Bay Area. And I would have jumped at them.

If you love good house porn, Zillow is the app for you.

3. Redfin

Redfin is also very good. The app provides a simple, yet robust search interface. You can search by GPS, type in a city or street—or even an MLS number—and narrow these down across several search criteria. These can include price, square footage, year built, number of baths and much more. 

For me, Redfin’s best feature was letting me know if a house was already “pending”—meaning, an offer had been made. This saved me a great deal of time. 

Redfin also lets you check out homes that have recently sold and for how much. This turned out to be extremely helpful information and has aided my subsequent searches.

Note: Redfin appeared to have as many or more listings than either Trulia or Zillow, at least within the Bay Area. In my personal app tests, looking for sales data in other states yielded fewer results.

Location, Location, App

I sometimes tell people that there are so many apps that they need to download three great ones, no more, and focus. But that’s not quite true.

While I do highly recommend all of the apps above, there remains that nagging uncertainty that some awesome property is out there, ready to slip away if I don’t reach for an alternative. So here are several backups for the paranoid house-hunters out there (i.e., all of you):

1. Foreclosures Real Estate

In the Bay Area, at least, a shocking majority of houses for sale are, in fact, houses in foreclosure. It may be the same where you are searching.

This app lists foreclosures, short sales, HUD homes and auction properties. 

2. For Sale By Owner

This app claims to be the “only” one to provide properties that are exclusively for sale by owner. It contains over 30,000 listings. As most listings in other apps are taken from the MLS, this app clearly serves a purpose.

3. Realtor.com

A very well-designed app from the National Association of Realtors. Not surprisingly, it appears to contain as many listings as any of my top three. This app also provides better in-app data on schools.

That said, I found my top three easier to navigate, and their information better optimized for my iPhone’s screen. 

4. HomeSnap

This is a popular app that includes all the available MLS listings. Its claim to fame is that the app lets you take a picture of a house and—based on the GPS data embedded in the photo—get back the sales information on that property.

I have yet to use this feature.

5. Google Glass

If you’re one of the very few people possessing Google Glass, I am not, there are already real estate apps available for you. According to the New York Times, both Trulia and Zillow offer Google Glass apps.

6. Agents and Brokers

I found no compelling reason to choose a particular realtor’s app over any of those listed above.

Article source: http://readwrite.com/2013/07/02/real-estate-apps-from-android-to-zillow

“Does the bank rep think people are sophisticated enough to know the difference? They get a notice from a bank … this is complicated stuff. They don’t know if the sheriff will be out in 30 days. In some cases they probably stopped opening the letters from the bank. Some homeowners have fatigue,” Jacob noted.

Other homeowners, however, have just walked away voluntarily. They don’t expect to see any value in the home any time in the foreseeable future, and they’re not interested in negotiating with banks for a mortgage modification. Banks are unable to find them to notify them that the lien has been released, and now cities and municipalities are left holding the bag. Eventually the homes end up in a tax foreclosure, but will likely sit empty for years.

“It’s a challenge for the cities now because if they want to redevelop that property, who do they go after?” Jacob said. (Read More: Housing Recovers, but the Repo Man Is Back.)

Again, this problem is most prevalent in the nation’s hardest hit neighborhoods, where home values are very low and where some properties are uninhabitable.

If a bank sees any real value in a house, they will take it to foreclosure and likely sell it to an investor. What is still unclear is timelines. How long will it take for a bank to make a decision on a potential foreclosure? While some homeowners may refuse to leave until they get an eviction notice, more will walk away if they think foreclosure is inevitable.

A homeowner who leaves the house unwillingly before an eviction notice is “unusual” according to a bank source, but it can and does happen. Whether out of confusion or expectation, the person picks up and moves, never knowing that the possibility exists that the bank will walk away and leave them owning the home free and clear. (Read More: Already Time to Throw Up Caution Signs on Housing?)

The consequences could end up costing the homeowner thousands in taxes, maintenance and utilities and leaving them open to wage garnishment and legal liability. In other words, until the sheriff kicks you out, it’s probably best to stay put.

Article source: http://www.cnbc.com/id/100377676

Earlier in the year, home buying was still considered to be the more pricey route to go when compared with renting in most parts of the Bay Area.  But the tables seem to have turned recently, as both the buying and rental market have heated up all around the bay the last few months.

Real estate site Trulia recently dug into data on both rental prices and homes for sale across the U.S. in the months of June, July and August and based on their analysis, it’s cheaper to buy than to rent a comparable property everywhere in the U.S., including the bay area.

In the San Francisco metro area, it was 28% cheaper to buy than rent.  It was 31% less expensive to be a homeowner in the San Jose metro area and in the Oakland metro area, a homeowner would save 41% over renting.

Courtesy of Trulia.com

Trulia’s report made several assumptions:

Cost of homeownership assumes that the home is sold after 7 years and includes closing costs, maintenance, insurance, property taxes and other costs. Cost of renting includes security deposit and renters insurance. Monthly cost is based on net present value of costs over 7 years. Monthly costs are based on the average across all properties listed in the metro area, including those for sale and those for rent, in summer 2012.

They also assumed that a homebuyer was able to secure a 3.5% mortgage rate, was in the 25% tax bracket and was able to put a down payment of 20%.  Any change in these assumptions, such as having a higher mortgage rate, a lower tax bracket and selling sooner could significantly change the outcome.  With a mortgage rate of 4.5%, being in the 15% tax rate and only a 3 year window, the tables turn once again and it is 28% cheaper to rent than to buy in the SF metro area.

And while buying may be the way to go in the long run, many are held back by the difficulty in saving for that 20% down payment (especially in the bay area where homes are pricey) and you’re much less flexible in relocating once you’ve got a mortgage.

You can play around with different assumptions on Trulia’s fun interactive infographic here to see what how your particulars work out.  Is it better to rent or buy for you?

Article source: http://blog.sfgate.com/ontheblock/2012/09/19/what-its-cheaper-to-buy-than-rent-in-the-bay-area/

Parks are in peril across the country. The economic downturn has yielded closures and cutbacks from the national to the local level. Here in the Bay Area, 10 state parks may be shuttered in the fall, while services have been reduced in city parks from Oakland, which proposed significant programming reductions in its upcoming budget, to San Carlos, which last year outsourced maintenance.

In San Francisco, since the recession began in 2008, The City’s budget contribution to the Park and Recreation Department has decreased by $8.3 million, or 19 percent. Meanwhile, contributions from the Open Space Fund — funded by five cents out of every $100 paid in property taxes — declined by $6 million in 2010 due to falling real estate values.

Consequently, between 2008 and today, the department lost 100 employees. More than half worked in recreation, although department officials boast that last year they nonetheless managed to add 20,000 additional hours of programming. Gardening and custodial cuts have resulted in deferred maintenance throughout the system.

The solution proffered by Rec and Park has been supplementary revenue. Concessions, vendors and leases have been pressed into service to reduce the impacts of budget cuts. Yet a contingent of residents and park users hasn’t exactly embraced the changes.

At Stow Lake, the decision to bring in a new operator promising to invest $250,000 and hopefully earn The City an extra $50,000 a year was met with well- orchestrated complaints over the ousting of the previous tenant. At Dolores Park, proposals to bring in a coffee stand, and then a Yucatan-cuisine food cart, incited a group of protesters to stage a “puke-in” over what he deemed the privatization of a public park. And just this week, four progressive city supervisors introduced an initiative for the November ballot to ban new entry fees or leasing recreation center facilities to private entities.

But what about the alternative? Park and Rec General Manager Phil Ginsburg said the boost in revenues from concessions, leases and other fees has helped the department avoid severe service cuts. Without them, he said, things would be much worse. The department estimates that 69 gardener positions alone have been saved by new revenues over the last three budget cycles.

“We’re keeping our parks open, and we’re keeping our recreational facilities open,” Ginsburg said. “We’ve had to be a little more entrepreneurial in order to preserve our services.”

This entrepreneurship has taken a wide range of forms. A new citywide bike rental program is expected to earn $72,500 this year, and a Segway tour program in Golden Gate Park is projected to earn $35,000 this year and $100,000 in 2012. Then there’s the new antique fair at Candlestick ($120,000 a year), new leases with City CarShare and ZipCar in department parking lots ($150,000), and the granddaddy of them all, the Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival ($1.1 million), now in its fourth year.

The department also is redoubling its efforts to encourage philanthropic support of its operations, a departure from the more common approach of funding capital improvements. Last year, the department earned $1 million in support of operations and maintenance, including a $160,000 grant to keep the Joe Lee Recreation Center in Bayview open one extra day a week for three years, and another aimed at employing a part-time gardener at one city field.

To foster all these new relationships, two years ago Ginsburg created a six-employee department focused on property management and philanthropic giving. He said their work — plus improvements in “administrative efficiency” around overtime and worker’s comp — have helped keep the department from introducing new service reductions, fee increases or layoffs in the 2011-12 fiscal year, despite a net reduction in other revenues of $6.8 million.

But not everyone is buying it. Neighborhood activist George Wooding publicly challenged the department’s revenue-generation tactics and rationale at a charged Commonwealth Club discussion in May. “Once the city decided that the parks would have to be self-sustaining, the whole notion of public space has been destroyed,” he said at that event. “The new RPD staff now cares more about the money that it receives than the public need or sustaining the parks.”

Ginsburg said his department has been in the earned-revenue business since its inception more than a century ago, and adds that recent efforts have been geared toward improving visitors’ experience as well as increasing revenues. “That vast majority of San Franciscans want a safe and clean and fun park,” he said. “Everything that we’ve been doing has been to that end.”

Ultimately, Ginsburg said, there’s a ceiling to the amount of concessions and rentals the department can squeeze out of its parks — and that a long-term solution is likely to take other forms. For now, private revenue is a budget fix the department remains committed to.

“The best way to avoid criticism is to do nothing,” he said, “but our park department can’t afford to stand still right now.”

Presidio sets the standard for financially self-sufficient parks

Long before there was a food cart at Dolores Park, there was the Presidio, the country’s first privatized national park. Created in 1994, the park was handed over to the newly created Presidio Trust by Congress in 1996. Because of the incredible cost of maintaining the Presidio’s city-like infrastructure and hundreds of historic buildings, it was determined that the traditional financial model for public parks wouldn’t suffice. The new trust would be called upon to preserve natural, scenic, cultural and recreational resources while gradually becoming financially self-sufficient.

This scenario bears striking similarities to today, when public parks across the country are seeing year-over-year reductions in public funding and becoming increasingly reliant upon private funding. Just as the Presidio will be weaned off government funding for good after next year, California and San Francisco city parks are making financial decisions that may determine their ongoing viability.

Depending on whom you ask, the Presidio is either a cautionary tale or a role model for park preservation. The San Francisco Bay Guardian, for example, predicted disaster in calling the arrangement “a classic case study in everything that’s wrong with privatization of a public asset” in 2001. Later, it suggested that the Presidio could spawn copycats by providing privatization advocates a proven alternative to public funding.

While it’s impossible to say where city parks would be without the Presidio’s role model, the trust has succeeded in generating income to support the 1,300 acres it oversees to an extent the federal government never could. With the help of real estate leases generating tens of millions dollars annually, it has rehabilitated and rented out more than half of the park’s 469 historic buildings, some of which date to the 1860s.

The Presidio Trust currently manages nearly 1,400 leases, including 225 organizations employing 3,500 employees and 1,150 units housing 3,000 residents. Nonresidential tenants are as diverse as in any small city, including businesses, foundations, educational institutions, recreation providers and restaurants, from the tiny Warming Hut cafe up to the largest and perhaps most controversial tenant, Lucasfilm Ltd.

Lease revenues have grown precipitously over the years, from $15.2 million in 2000 to $68.5 million today. And the trust will have to keep growing; the park’s federal subsidy of $15 million this year will be reduced to $12 million next year, and then zero in 2013. At that point, with the exception of the 200 coastal acres still managed by the government, the Presidio will become a fully privatized public park.

Doing more with less

While the Recreation and Park Department has lost funding and employees, it has added services.

$8.3 million: Cut from Rec and Park budget
$6 million: Loss in funding from Open Space Fund
100: Employees cut since 2008
$4.9 million: Earned revenue from concessions, leases and other fees
20,000: Hours of programming added by Rec and Park since 2008

Source: Recreation and Park Department

Select sources of earned revenue

Arboretum and Carousel
2009-10: $40,060
2010-11: $290,000
2011-12: $350,000

Bike rentals
2009-10: $0
2010-11: $72,500
2011-12: $127,000

Food carts
2009-10: $144,067
2010-11: $206,168
2011-12: N/A*

Parking garages
2009-10: $6,916,777
2010-11: $8,800,000
2011-12: $7,950,000

Segway rentals
2009-10: $0
2010-11: $35,000
2011-12: $97,200

Stow Lake
2009-10: $174,645
2010-11: $175,000
2011-12: $200,000

*Projection not available

Source: Recreation and Park Department

Article source: http://www.sfexaminer.com/local/2011/06/sf-parks-advocates-worried-citys-open-spaces-will-become-less-public

Silicon Valley estate planning attorney Janet L. Brewer has released a “Guide to Choosing Your California Estate Planning Attorney“. Designed especially for San Francisco Bay Area families and individuals of high net worth, the guide includes a checklist that can help narrow down the choices when faced with dozens of attorneys.

Brewer has focused exclusively on California probate law, estate planning, and gift-planning law since 1991. She summarizes the process required for a custom-designed estate plan, and the qualities that distinguish the most capable attorneys.

Readers may be surprised to learn that any attorney can call himself an estate planner, even if he has no qualifications or experience in estate planning.

“No one wants to see his or her financial legacy come undone,” says Brewer. “If you have an estate worth several million dollars — and you likely do if you own property in the Bay Area — then you need to think about how you will protect it from being ravaged by taxes, creditors, and predators. You need to protect your assets during your lifetime, and you need to make sure that they remain available to your heirs.”

Brewer answers fifteen frequently asked questions related to estate planning, covering such topics as:

• The difference between a living trust and a will
• The impact of foreign citizenship, and
• How often an estate plan should be updated

REAL WORLD SCENARIOS

The guide also lays out a handful of scenarios, and the kinds of issues that should be dealt with in the various cases. For example:

• Barry is an entrepreneur in his 50s. He holds a green card and owns real estate, stock, cars and antiques in the U.S. He also has assets in South America and Europe. The guide tells how a good estate planning attorney can help Barry minimize estate, capital gains, and property taxes.
• Sanjay and Ling are foreign nationals whose children were born in the U.S. They want to make sure their two young children are cared for if anything bad happened. See how an experienced estate planning attorney can help them update their plan as their family — and finances — grow.
• Edna wants all four of her children to share equally in her estate. But she wants her son to have the $7 million family home. An experienced estate planning attorney will recognize some of the pitfalls in that scenario, such as the financial burden of taking over the mortgage and property taxes.
• Bill is a successful Palo Alto business owner ready to retire but lacking an exit strategy. He needs an attorney experienced in formulating personalized business exit plans and estate plans for Bay Area business owners.

TIPS ON COMPARING ATTORNEYS

Professional services can’t be judged in the same way someone might compare two models of TV sets or the various options available on a new car, Brewer says. Clients need to understand what an estate planning attorney must do, and the kind of expertise needed to do it well. When the client and attorney are a good match, the family members can feel confident that their wishes will be carried out even when they are no longer there to personally supervise.

GUIDANCE FROM A TRUSTED SPECIALIST

Serving Palo Alto and the surrounding region, Brewer is certified as a Specialist in Estate Planning and Probate Law by the CA State Bar Board of Legal Specialization. She writes the California Probate, Trusts, and Estate Law Blog and has authored several guides on estate planning, including:

•      U.S. Gift Tax and Estate Tax Planning for Non-Residents and Non-Citizens
•      Year-End 2010 Tax Law Update for Bay Area Families
•      Tax Law Update for San Francisco CPAs Serving High Net Worth Clients and
•      Picking Your Trustee in California

About the Law Offices of Janet L. Brewer

Janet Brewer is a certified specialist in estate planning by the California State Bar Board of Legal Specialization, and has an advanced degree in tax law. She has practiced California estate, gift-planning, and probate law exclusively since 1991. Brewer offers comprehensive estate planning probate services including:

•      Providing professional advice on living trusts wills, irrevocable life insurance trusts, charitable planning, and international estate planning
•      Probate estate administration
•      Establishing family limited partnerships and limited liability companies
•      Minimizing estate taxes preparing estate tax returns
•      Minimizing gift taxes preparing gift tax returns
•      Preparing a full range of estate planning documents, including Wills, Revocable Living Trusts, Life Insurance Trusts, Children’s Trusts, Generation-Skipping Trusts, Qualified Personal Residence Trusts, Charitable Trusts, Medical Powers of Attorney Living Wills
•      Preparing financial powers of attorney other financial arrangement, and more

To retain Brewer, please visit www.calprobate.com/get-started.

To stay up to date on Brewer’s posted tips and guides, subscribe to receive her emails or follow @calprobatenews.

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For the original version on PRWeb visit: www.prweb.com/releases/prwebestate-planning-attorney/guide/prweb8524545.htm

Article source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/06/06/prweb8524545.DTL

Why do we buy if it doesn’t make economic sense?

It’s the age old question, rent or buy? New York Times writer David Leonhardt tackled this timeless issue again in his latest weekly column. As he points out, all sorts of calculators live on the web for anyone to input a few data points to analyze whether it’s better to buy or rent. However, most of these calculators look at it from a purely financial perspective, whether the costs of buying outweigh the costs of renting. Some calculators are more sophisticated, taking into account often overlooked items such as closing costs, property taxes and the amount of interest or appreciation your down payment would have otherwise earned, if it wasn’t used towards a home purchase.

Miami Real Estate Cafe

The never ending debate

He also advises look at rent ratios, where the selling price of a house is divided by the yearly cost to rent an equivalent property. Fifteen is the magic number with rent ratios. Below 15, he advises buying over renting. Rent ratios in most of the Bay Area are still looking “bubbly,” coming in above 30 down in Silicon valley and the East Bay. In San Francisco, the rent ratio is currently at 27, still above 15 but at least closer to its 1986-2000 average of 24. The average rent ratio for the 1990-2000 East Bay and Silicon Valley was 26 and 23, meaning it has gotten more and more expensive to buy, though it’s less expensive now than in 2005 when the housing market was peaking. The rent ratios in 2005 were 47, 43 and 40 for the East Bay, Silicon Valley and San Francisco. So if it doesn’t make economic sense, why do people still keep buying?

Affluent people tend to want to own their houses, even when the dollars don’t make sense, and the Northeast and West Coast are home to much more wealth than a few decades ago.

Yet the fact remains that a lot of New Yorkers and Californians, among others, are paying a hefty premium for the privilege of owning.

A while back, readers commented on this blog that being a homeowner was a way to deal with non performing landlords. How much is that worth economically? Leonhardt says that our area is still in a state of “real estate exuberance,” but that given our current behavior and trends, it may survive.

How do you evaluate the costs of buying vs. renting? Did you buy even if it didn’t make economic sense?

For a full list of rent ratios, click here.

Posted By: Jenny Pisillo (Email) | May 13 2011 at 01:00 PM

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Article source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/ontheblock/detail?entry_id=88931&tsp=1