Chance Gates' Blog

By Paige Tepping

RISMEDIA, June 16, 2010–Other than vacations, summer is the time of the year most popular for home improvement. The long days and warm, sunny weather make a great time to work on repairs and renovations without much of the hassles and delays that rain and other elements bring. For this reason and more, a good number of homeowners undertake home improvement projects during the summer.

Eugene Makeev, a home improvement expert offers the following tips for homeowners who are looking to spruce their homes up this summer.

Patios and Decks
What better way to enjoy the warm days than by creating an outdoor living space for the family to enjoy. Decks and patios are among the most popular summer remodeling ideas. There are various factors to take into consideration when deciding whether a patio or deck is the most appropriate project to undertake. Such factors include soil condition and consistency, site terrain, use, capacity, privacy as well as the cost and maintenance you are willing to put up with.

Home Maintenance
Throughout the seasons, your home has taken good care of you and your family and now is the best time to give back. Go through your property to evaluate and create a checklist on areas that need mending or replacement. This list is a crucial preparation before calling a contractor or handyman for maintenance and repair services. Some common maintenance and repair include:

-Waterproof the basement
-Re-caulk and replace weatherstrip
-Clean and seal wooden decks
-Trim bushes and trees
-Re-align downspouts and gutters
-Repair roof
-Clean the pool
-Mend the fence
-Seal cracks along driveways, foundation, walkways, etc.
-Maintenance of HVAC systems

Energy Efficient Renovation
When it comes to summer remodeling, there’s no better way to invest your hard-earned dollars than by making your home energy efficient. An energy efficient summer remodel is truly a worthwhile endeavor as it will result in years of savings on your energy bills. Some of the common items you can buy and integrate into your energy efficient renovation include:

-Insulation systems and materials
-Roofs that resist heat gain
-Biomass burning stoves
-Energy-efficient windows
-HVAC systems with the highest efficiency tier
-Solar panels
-Fuel cells
-Geothermal heat pumps
-Wind energy systems

As a Reno/Sparks real estate professional, I encourage all questions and comments on the Reno/Sparks real estate market or any of the articles posted in this blog.  You can email me @  chance at ballard-company.com or http://www.myspace.com/chancegates

Achievements on the golf course are not what matters, decency and honesty are what matter.
Tiger Woods

And I don’t cook, either. Not as long as they still deliver pizza.
Tiger Woods

As a kid, I might have been psycho, I guess, but I used to throw golf balls in the trees and try and somehow make par from them. I thought that was fun.
Tiger Woods

Don’t force your kids into sports. I never was. To this day, my dad has never asked me to go play golf. I ask him. It’s the child’s desire to play that matters, not the parent’s desire to have the child play. Fun. Keep it fun.
Tiger Woods

For many my behavior has been a major disappointment, my behavior has caused considerable worry to my business partners, and everyone involved in my business, but most importantly to the young people we influence, I apologize.
Tiger Woods

Green and black go well together, don’t they?
Tiger Woods

Hockey is a sport for white men. Basketball is a sport for black men. Golf is a sport for white men dressed like black pimps.
Tiger Woods

I did envisage being this successful as a player, but not all the hysteria around it off the golf course.
Tiger Woods

I do plan to return to golf one day, I just don’t know when that day will be.
Tiger Woods

I don’t get to live by different rules. The same boundaries that apply to everyone apply to me.
Tiger Woods

I get to play golf for a living. What more can you ask for – getting paid for doing what you love.
Tiger Woods

I stopped living according to my core values. I knew what I was doing was wrong but thought only about myself and thought I could get away with whatever I wanted to.
Tiger Woods

I want to be what I’ve always wanted to be: dominant.
Tiger Woods

I’m addicted. I’m addicted to golf.
Tiger Woods

I’m aware if I’m playing at my best I’m tough to beat. And I enjoy that.
Tiger Woods

As a Reno/Sparks real estate professional, I encourage all questions and comments on the Reno/Sparks real estate market or any of the articles posted in this blog.  You can email me @  chance at ballard-company.com or http://www.myspace.com/chancegates

RISMEDIA, March 27, 2010—(MCT)—It’s been 16 months since Eugene and Patricia Harrison last paid the mortgage on their Perris, Calif., home. Eleven months since the notice got slapped on their front door, warning that it would be sold at auction.

A terse letter from a lawyer came eight months ago, telling them that their lender now owned the house. Three months later, the bank told them to pay up or get out by the end of the week.

Still, they remain in the yellow ranch-style home they bought seven years ago for $128,000, with its views of the San Jacinto Mountains. They’re not planning on going anywhere.

“We’re kind of on pins and needles, but who’d want to leave when you put this kind of energy into a house?” said Eugene Harrison, gesturing toward a bucolic mural of mountains, stream and flowers the couple painted on the living room wall.

Throughout the country, people continue to default on their home loans—but lenders have backed off on forced evictions, allowing many to remain in their homes, essentially rent-free.

Several factors are driving the trend, industry experts say, including government pressure on banks to modify loans and keep people in their homes. And with a glut of inventory in places like Southern California’s Inland Empire, Nevada and Arizona, lenders are loath to depress housing prices further by dumping more properties into a weak market.

Finally, allowing borrowers to stay in their homes helps protect the bank’s investment as it negotiates with the homeowners, said Gary Kirshner, a spokesman for Chase bank, a major lender. “If the person’s in the property, there’s less chance for vandalism, and they’re probably maintaining the house,” he said.

Economists say the situation won’t last forever, but in the meantime the “amnesty” may allow at least some homeowners to regain their financial footing and avoid eviction.

In the Inland Empire, an estimated 100,000 homeowners are living rent-free, according to economist John Husing, who based that number on the difference between loan delinquencies and foreclosures. Industry experts say it’s difficult to say how many families are in that situation nationally because only banks know for sure how many customers have stopped paying entirely.

But Rick Sharga of Irvine, Calif., data tracker RealtyTrac notes that the number of loans in which the borrower hasn’t made a payment in 90 days or more but is not in foreclosure is at 5.1% nationally, a record high. And yet the number of foreclosures last year was 2.9 million, below the 3.2 million that RealtyTrac economists predicted.

More evidence is provided by another firm, ForeclosureRadar, which says it now takes an average of 229 days for a bank to foreclose on a home in California after sending a notice of default, up from 146 days in August 2008.

“For some reason, banks are being more lenient with homeowners who are behind on their loans,” Sharga said. “Whether it’s a strategy to try and slow down the volume of foreclosures or simply a matter of the banks being able to keep up with volume is something that banks only know for sure.”

Lenders say the trend reflects their efforts to work with borrowers to modify loans to avoid foreclosure. Bank of America “continues to exhaust every possible option to qualify customers for modification or other solutions,” spokeswoman Jumana Bauwens said.

Some lenders are making it a policy to partner with delinquent borrowers. Citibank said this month that it would let borrowers on the brink of foreclosure stay at their homes for six months, whether or not they make payments, if they turn over their property deed. Such policies may partly reflect the fact that lenders can’t keep up with all the foreclosures, some say. “The mortgage lenders are so backlogged that some people are able to slip through the cracks,” said Kathryn Davis, a real estate agent at America’s Real Estate Advocates in Corona.

That was apparently the case for the Harrisons, who were told at various times that their house had been sold, that it belonged to someone else and that it was empty. “It’s been frustrating,” said Eugene Harrison.

The Harrisons missed their first payment in October 2008, shortly after Patricia Harrison lost her job as a healthcare aide and her husband’s part-time towing work dried up. They said they applied for a loan modification but were told that they couldn’t receive one until they were three months behind on their payments. So they stopped paying.

In April 2009, they received a notice warning them that their property “may be sold at a public sale,” and in July, they were told their house was a bank-owned property.

The bank sent a notice by FedEx in October demanding $3,000, and when the Harrisons called to discuss this notice, they were told they had four days to vacate the house.

Panicked, they arranged to stay with family in New Mexico and started packing their things, filling their garage with boxes of books, camping equipment and art. But no one came to kick them out. “We were afraid to leave the house, afraid the sheriff was going to come,” said Patricia.

After contacting consumer advocates about their situation, the Harrisons decided to stay put. Soon after, two men in a white pickup truck showed up at the house and peeped in the windows, telling the Harrisons that they thought the house was abandoned. The Harrisons suspected they were planning to move in themselves and chased them away.

As they wade through the red tape, the Harrisons can’t imagine abandoning a house where they’ve left their mark in the goldenrod and potpourri rose walls, the new fixtures and stenciling in the bathrooms, the fruit trees planted in the yard.

Although the Harrisons’ future is uncertain, industry observers agree that the rent-free life can’t last forever. As home values climb, banks will find it financially advantageous to foreclose on delinquent borrowers and sell their properties.

“In many cases, particularly in California, people owe a boatload of payments, and no bank is going to forgive that,” said Guy Cecala, editor of Inside Mortgage Finance, a trade publication.

In Diamond Bar, the Fraguere family is finally moving on after living rent-free for 18 months. Job loss and other setbacks prevented them from paying their mortgage, but they say they didn’t hear anything from the bank until a real estate agent showed up at their door last month saying she was going to sell their house.

Sandy Fraguere wasn’t surprised that it had taken the bank so long to ask them to move. “I don’t think they really knew what was going on or who was there,” she said.

Next stop for the Fragueres is a hotel, where they plan to stay for two weeks until their apartment in Chino Hills is ready for them to move in. Their dogs are being boarded and their belongings stored until they can retrieve them someday. The Fragueres have started saying goodbye to their neighbors, adding yet another empty house to a block that has already seen two other families forced to pack up and leave.

(c) 2010, Los Angeles Times.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

As a Reno/Sparks real estate professional, I encourage all questions and comments on the Reno/Sparks real estate market or any of the articles posted in this blog.  You can email me @  chance at ballard-company.com or http://www.myspace.com/chancegates

In the United States, Flag Day is celebrated on June 14. It commemorates the adoption of the flag of the United States, which happened that day by resolution of the Second Continental Congress in 1777.^[1]

In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson issued a proclamation that officially established June 14 as Flag Day; in August 1949, National Flag Day was established by an Act of Congress.

Flag Day is not an official federal holiday, though on June 14, 1937, Pennsylvania became the first (and only) U.S. state to celebrate Flag Day as a state holiday, beginning in the town of Rennerdale.^[1] Title 36 of the United States Code, Subtitle I, Part A, CHAPTER 1, § 110^[2] is the official statute on Flag Day; however, it is at the President’s discretion to proclaim officially the observance.

The week of June 14 is designated as “National Flag Week.” During National Flag Week, the president will issue a proclamation urging U.S. citizens to fly the American flag for the duration of that week. The flag should also be displayed on all Government buildings. Some organizations hold parades and events in celebration of America’s national flag and everything it represents.

The National Flag Day Foundation holds an annual observance for Flag Day on the second Sunday in June. The program includes a ceremonial raising of the flag, recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance, singing of the National Anthem (The Star-spangled Banner), a parade and more. ^[1]

The Betsy Ross House has long been the site of Philadelphia’s observance of Flag Day.^[1]

Read more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_Day_%28United_States%29

As a Reno/Sparks real estate professional, I encourage all questions and comments on the Reno/Sparks real estate market or any of the articles posted in this blog.  You can email me @  chance at ballard-company.com or http://www.myspace.com/chancegates

RISMEDIA, June 10, 2010–Military families seeking to buy a home can count on a little tax help. The Homebuyers Tax Credit, which provides eligible buyers with a tax credit of $8,000 for first time buyers and $6,500 for repeat home buyers, ended on April 30, 2010 for civilians. However, active duty military or those on extended overseas duty have until on or before April 30, 2011 to have a binding sales contract in place. The bill also exempts qualified service members on official extended duty from tax credit recapture rules.

“We honor those who serve our country and are glad that this bill acknowledges the unique circumstances they face,” said Benjamin Clark, 2010 President of NAEBA (www.naeba.org). “This bill ensures that members of the military have equal opportunity to participate in the homebuyer tax credit and offers relief to struggling military families by making the mortgage payment tax deductible.”

The Worker, Homeownership, and Business Assistance Act of 2009 provides a tax credit of up to $8,000 for qualified first-time home buyers purchasing a principal residence and a tax credit of up to $6,500 for repeat home buyers who have owned a home for five consecutive years out of the prior eight years. The tax credit is available for eligible purchasers who have a binding sales contract in place by April 30, 2010, and close by June 30, 2010. However, realizing that members of the military, the Foreign Service and Intelligence Community have unique circumstances the bill has special provisions for this group:

– Tax credit extended for one year for military personnel serving outside the United States for at least 90 days during the period beginning December 31, 2008 and ending May 1, 2010.
– Eliminates the 36-month recapture requirement for military personnel, including members of the Foreign Service and intelligence community, forced to sell or move from a tax credit home as a result of an official extended duty of service.

Visit www.irs.gov for more information on qualifying and claiming the tax credit. To learn more about NAEBA and the benefits of using an exclusive buyer agent, visit www.naeba.org.

As a Reno/Sparks real estate professional, I encourage all questions and comments on the Reno/Sparks real estate market or any of the articles posted in this blog.  You can email me @  chance at ballard-company.com or http://www.myspace.com/chancegates

By Heidi Stevens

RISMEDIA, June 9, 2010–(MCT)–Peter Walsh has you all figured out. You bought the melon baller because it was on sale and, heck, you like melon. You’ve held on to that 3-year-old magazine because you will make the recipe on Page 127. Some night. And those new black pumps do not look exactly like your four other pairs.

You’ve got yourself some clutter, my friend. And Walsh, best-selling author, host of TLC’s “Clean Sweep” and Oprah Winfrey’s go-to organizational expert, wants you to clear it out. Now.

“Later is the best friend of clutter,” he says. “Clutter is really just decisions delayed.”

We chatted with Walsh about tackling five common clutter zones.

THAT KITCHEN DRAWER
“Take the pizza rolling slicing thing and all those other items you bought for less than $5.99 that you just knew you’d always use and put them in a cardboard box,” says Walsh. “Whenever you use one of the items, put it back in the drawer. At the end of the month — with the exception of the turkey baster — whatever is still in the cardboard box you’ve got to ask yourself, ‘Will I ever use these?’”

THE BEDROOM CLOSET
“We wear 20 percent of our clothes 80 percent of the time,” Walsh says. Which means the vast majority of your closet is filled with — you guessed it, clutter. Walsh suggests the “reverse clothes hanger trick.”

“Take everything on a clothes hanger and turn it around back-to-front. For the next three to six months — you decide — every time you wear something hang it back the correct way after you launder it. Whatever is still hanging back-to-front, ask yourself: ‘Will I ever wear this item?’ It’s an efficient, non-traumatic way to see what you wear and what you don’t.”

YOUR SHOES
“To understand how many shoes you have, you have to release them from captivity,” he says. “Find the largest room or hallway in your house and line them up. Every pair of shoes you have. Just the visual of that can often throw people into coma.”

Sort the shoes by type — running shoes, sensible pumps, sandals and so on. Then give yourself a ratio. “Let’s say it’s 10-to-1. For every 10 you keep, get rid of one pair,” Walsh says. “Five-to-1 if you’re brave. Three-to-1 if you’re a true pioneer.”

THE CAR
“One: Get in the habit that whenever you gas up the car, in those two minutes you declutter and throw out any trash.”

“Two: Get milk crate-size containers, and put them in the way back. Whenever the kids bring something into the car — sports gear, book bags — it goes in their crate.

“Whenever you go shopping, put the groceries in the crates. Nobody leaves the car empty-handed when you get home. Everyone has to carry their crate into the house.”

THE GARAGE
“Divide your garage into clear zones: one area for gardening equipment, one area for holiday decorations, one area for luggage, one area for tools,” Walsh says. “Establishing zones is a functional way of keeping the place organized and the volume of stuff in control.

“Say the holiday decorations zone is three shelves that will hold two plastic totes each and that’s the limit for holiday decorations. Once they expand beyond six totes, you have to do some purging and discarding.”

(c) 2010, Chicago Tribune.Chance Gates does welcome any questions or comments on the Reno/Sparks real estate market or on any articles that may be posted.  Send your  emails  to  chance at ballard-company.com

I believe that every single event in life happens in an opportunity to choose love over fear.
Oprah Winfrey

I don’t believe in failure. It is not failure if you enjoyed the process.
Oprah Winfrey

I don’t think of myself as a poor deprived ghetto girl who made good. I think of myself as somebody who from an early age knew I was responsible for myself, and I had to make good.
Oprah Winfrey

I don’t think you ever stop giving. I really don’t. I think it’s an on-going process. And it’s not just about being able to write a check. It’s being able to touch somebody’s life.
Oprah Winfrey

I feel that luck is preparation meeting opportunity.
Oprah Winfrey

I have a lot of things to prove to myself. One is that I can live my life fearlessly.
Oprah Winfrey

I still have my feet on the ground, I just wear better shoes.
Oprah Winfrey

I was raised to believe that excellence is the best deterrent to racism or sexism. And that’s how I operate my life.
Oprah Winfrey

As a Reno/Sparks real estate professional; I encourage all questions and comments, on the Reno/Sparks real estate market or any of the articles posted in this blog.

Image by Keenahn via Flickr

RISMEDIA, June 7, 2010–Once everything is unloaded, you may feel overwhelmed by the stacks of boxes surrounding you. Unpacking in an organized manner can make the transition to your new home less stressful and can save a lot of time. Try these unpacking tips, courtesy of Lowe’s.

1. Unpack Essentials First
You should have a few boxes of essentials marked to be unpacked first. These boxes should include items like toiletries, pet supplies, tools, a couple changes of clothes and so forth. Go ahead and unpack these boxes right away and distribute these essential items to their respective rooms.

2. Clean and Prep Your New Home
Though it’s tempting to dive right in and start unloading boxes, it’s a good idea to clean, prep and get organized. Here are some moving tips to help you prepare to unpack at your new home:

• It’s easier to wipe down shelves, clean windows, and mop under appliances before your belongings are in place.
• Complete any prep work. Line kitchen and bathroom shelves with paper. Consider installing closet systems in bedroom closets, if necessary. Once these jobs are done, you’ll be able to unpack more efficiently.
• Plan where to place certain items. For example, in the kitchen; put dishes and glassware in the cupboards above the dishwasher, coffee cups above the coffee pot, and so on. Deciding what goes where before unpacking will save you time in the long run.

3. Go Room by Room
Focus on one room at a time, and unpack essentials first. Though it can feel like an insurmountable task, rest assured: Your house is going to feel like home in no time!

Kitchen and Baths. In the kitchen, unpack most-used items first. Items that you won’t use immediately can be set aside to unpack at a later time. In the bathrooms, hang shower curtains, unpack toiletries and put out toilet paper and soap.

Bedrooms. In your bedrooms, have the beds set up and made with clean sheets by the first night. Unpacking your clothing and bedroom accessories can wait. Again, now is a good time to install a closet organization system.

Living Room. Unpacking the living room should be a combined effort by everyone in the household. There will be a lot of items to be placed and electronics to hook up.

Garage. Having an organized garage is important. If you haven’t set up shelves and hooks for placement of tools, yard supplies and sports equipment; do so now. Having organizational systems in place will help curb the tendency for making piles later.

4. Play Interior Designer
Place furniture so the room feels open and functional. Strive for balance by distributing heavier pieces of furniture around the room. Create a focal point or use a natural one like a fireplace.

When positioning furniture, it’s a good idea to make a sketch of the room, including desired locations of items. Erasing an armoire, rather than lifting it, could save you a trip to the chiropractor.

It takes time get settled in, but here are some quick and easy tips for making your house feel like home:

• Hang shades, blinds or curtains for instant privacy and a homey feel.
• Consider painting rooms a different color, or stenciling around an archway.
• Brighten up a room with self-adhesive wallpaper borders.
• Refinish old cabinets or add new knobs.
• Hang family photographs, mirrors and framed artwork.
• Add potted plants for extra color or to fill empty corners.

Helpful Tips for Setting Up
• As boxes are unpacked, take an inventory of everything you have to make sure nothing has been lost. If you have any broken or damaged items, make sure to keep them as evidence for insurance claims. Claims usually need to be filed within a set number of days after the move.
• Use a surge protector when setting up a computer or stereo equipment.
• As you unpack boxes, collapse them for storage or recycling.
• Start a log of home repairs and maintenance that needs to be done.
• Create a shopping list to make sure you have everything you need.

Chance Gates does welcome any questions or comments on the Reno/Sparks real estate market or on any articles that may be posted.  Send your  emails  to  chance at ballard-company.com

By Gregory Karp

RISMEDIA, June 7, 2010–(MCT)–What if you could travel the country and pick the brains of cheapskates far and wide?

That’s what Jeff Yeager did — on a bicycle, no less. He not only went searching for tips on frugality but also set out to discover what cheapskates had in common. He details the findings in his new book, “The Cheapskate Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of Americans Living Happily Below their Means.”

Yeager, 52, is hard to impress. In his first book, he calls himself the “Ultimate Cheapskate.” He has soft-boiled eggs alongside the dirty dishes in the dishwasher and has “re-canted” box wine into bottles with premium labels.

In his journeys, he was most struck by the wide variety of people and lifestyles among those who consider themselves cheap. He also noticed that most cheapskates, because they limit spending, are weathering the economic recession fairly well.

“They’re not unconcerned about it,” he said. “They might have had a spouse who lost a job. That’s not good news, but, unlike their neighbors, it’s more of an inconvenience than a catastrophe.”

Yeager highlights some general philosophies of the American cheapskate, but the biggest part of being frugal is attitude, he said. Cheapskates don’t care about keeping up with the Joneses. In fact, Yeager describes their attitude as, “The Joneses can kiss our assets.”
Below, Yeager shares specific and unusual cheapskate advice:

—Weekly brown-bag lunch. Taking lunch to work daily instead of buying it is typical advice for spending less. But it takes effort to pack a lunch each day. Yeager coped with his own lunch-packing laziness by taking a sack of groceries into the office once a week and making his lunches there. He stored a loaf of pumpernickel in the file cabinet. Cold cuts, fruits and vegetables went in the office fridge. The method even saves a few bucks on brown paper bags and plastic sandwich bags.

—Stick-shift savings. Buy vehicles with manual transmissions. They cost less, use less gasoline and are less expensive to repair and replace. And because you can shift gears to slow the vehicle, your brakes will last longer. (And many people consider driving a stick more fun.) Yeager figures you could save $30,000 over a lifetime by driving a stick shift. Of course, with the ubiquity of automatics these days, you might have trouble finding a manual-transmission car or someone to teach you how to drive one.

—Toy libraries. It’s just like it sounds: You borrow toys for your children like you would books at a library. It’s a popular concept in other countries and is catching on in the United States. Any parent knows it’s brilliant, because a child often gets bored of a $50 toy in less time than it takes “Dora the Explorer” to return from TV commercial break. Toy libraries are often run in conjunction with book libraries. To find one near you, visit the USA Toy Library Association at usatla.org/Locations.html.

—Free-stuff Web sites. You might know about the free software suite similar to Microsoft Office at OpenOffice.org. Or you might use free calling with Skype. But there also are free audio books at LibriVox.org, free language lessons at bbc.co.uk/languages and even free booze in New York and Chicago at MyOpenBar.com. Also, try Accidentalwine.com for deep discounts due to marred labels or other problems that don’t affect the wine itself.

—Dehydrate for dollars. Grocery stockpilers are often confounded by great deals on fresh produce. They can’t stockpile because the food will go bad: That is, unless they dehydrate it. You can dehydrate fruits, vegetables and meats for use up to two years out or more with airtight storage. A good dehydrator will cost $100 or more, though.

—Frugal cleaners. Skip pricey household cleaning products and instead polish furniture with a cloth dipped in black tea, clean wood floors with a solution of one part lemon juice and two parts vegetable oil, and shine your silver with toothpaste and your copper with ketchup.

Chance Gates does welcome any questions or comments on the Reno/Sparks real estate market or on any articles that may be posted.  Send your  emails  to  chance at ballard-company.com