Chance Gates' Blog

Apple Picking Resource Guide – go Apple picking in Carson City, Nevada!

Want a unique, fun activity for fall in the Carson City, NV area? This is where you can find Carson City area apple picking orchards, apple farms, apple festivals for Carson City and Carson City County, Nevada.

Apples are one of the easiest fruits to gather – even for little hands. Here are a few tips to get the most out of your apple picking experience:

- Apples on the outside of the tree tend to ripen first. Because there are so many varieties, color isn’t necessarily an indication of ripeness. If you’re not sure, ask.
- When going to pick your own apple picking farms, choose firm, bruise-free fruit and place it gently in your basket (just throwing them in will make them bruise and go bad more quickly).
- To increase shelf life, keep your apple haul in a cool, dry place, like a basement. Don’t wash them until you use them. Then bring on the apple pies, sauce and cider!

Some fun Carson City, Nevada Apple Picking facts:
-Apple trees take four to five years to produce their first fruit.
-There really was a Johnny Appleseed, famous for planting apple trees. His real name was John Chapman and he was born in 1774
-There are about 8000 varieties of apples around the world. Only about 100 types of apples are grown commercially in the U.S.
-After you go apple picking, amaze the kids with this trick: when you slice an apple in half, the core resembles a star

As a Reno/Sparks real estate professional I encourage any questions or comments or the Reno/Sparks real estate market or any of the articles posted.

Contact me at  chance at ballard-company.com www.myspace/chancegates

RISMEDIA, February 10, 2010—Home values across the country declined again in the fourth quarter of 2009, as the Zillow Home Value Index fell 5% year-over-year, and -0.5% quarter-over-quarter, to $186,200. That marked the 12th consecutive quarter of year-over-year declines, according to the fourth quarter Zillow Real Estate Market Reports. Despite home value declines seen across most of the country throughout 2009, some markets experienced what appeared to be a bottom in home value declines, or even increases in home values during the year. However, the fourth quarter of the year brought signs that the fledgling recovery of home values in many of these markets is slowing again. If the declines are sustained, the result will be a “double dip” in home values, defined as two periods of sustained declines in home values separated by a brief period of stabilization or recovery.

One in five, or 29 of the 143 markets tracked by Zillow, showed at least five consecutive month-over-month increases in home values during 2009 before beginning to flatten or fall again in the second part of the year. These markets include the Boston metropolitan statistical area (MSA), the Atlanta MSA and the San Diego MSA.

Home values in an additional 29 markets, including the Los Angeles and New York MSAs, increased on a month-over-month basis each month throughout the fourth quarter. However, the rate of increase slowed from November 2009 to December 2009 in 21 of those markets, and several appear likely to experience several months of sustained decline in early 2010.

The percent of single family homes with mortgages in negative equity was essentially flat from the third to the fourth quarter, changing from 21% in Q3 to 21.4% in Q4. This comes after a decrease in negative equity from the second quarter’s 23%.

The number of homeowners losing their homes to foreclosure across the country reached a peak in December, with more than one in every thousand homes being foreclosed–a number not reached since Zillow began recording national foreclosure data in 2000.

“While we have seen strong stabilization in home values during 2009, there are clear signs that they will turn more negative in the near-term,” said Zillow Chief Economist Stan Humphries. “What we saw in mid-2009 was a brief respite from a larger market correction that has not yet run its course. The good news is that, for those markets that will see a double dip in home values before reaching a definitive bottom, this second dip will not be a return to the magnitude of depreciation seen earlier, but rather will look more like a modest aftershock of the earlier downturn.

“The recent stabilization owed a lot to policy support in the form of tax credits, lower interest rates and increased Federal Housing Administration lending. The remaining correction in home values we’ll see in the first half of this year is a function of market fundamentals, such as the increasing flow of foreclosures, high levels of inventory in the market and a probable decrease in demand as the impact of the tax credit wanes and mortgage rates rise. While the next few months are likely to bring further home value declines in most markets, we do expect to see a national bottom in home prices by the middle of this year. Thereafter, home values are likely to bounce along the bottom with real appreciation remaining negligible for some time.”

Foreclosure re-sales across the country remained high, making up more than one-fifth (20.3%) of all U.S. home sales in December. Foreclosure re-sales also made up the majority of sales in several MSAs, including the Merced, Calif. MSA (68.3%), the Las Vegas MSA (64%) and the Modesto, Calif. MSA (62%). Additionally, 28.5% of home sales nationwide sold for less than what the seller originally paid.

Several markets across the country showed positive longer-term appreciation. Home values increased year-over-year in 27 of 143 markets and remained flat in 15.

The Boston MSA was the largest area with year-over-year appreciation, despite its more recent downturn in home values. The area’s Zillow Home Value Index rose 1.9% in 2009. Home values in the Boston area rose for eight months in 2009, which outweighed the recent declines.

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

contact information, on the Attorney General’s website at www.ag.state.nv.us

As a Reno – Sparks real estate consultant I encourage any questions or  comments on the Reno – Sparks real estate market or about any of the articles I post.  You can email me at chance@ballard-company.com