“The Real Story with Colleen Edwards” Visits 2009 West Coast Green October 1-3 at San Francisco’s Fort Mason

Run Date: September 26, 2009

San Mateo County Times

ON THE MARKET: THE DAILY NEWS REAL ESTATE GUIDE

West Coast Green, one of the nation’s most popular annual conferences focusing on green and sustainable issues will welcome Colleen Edwards, host of “The Real Story” during the event’s October 1-3 presence at Fort Mason in San Francisco.

“Without a doubt, West Coast Green has attracted the industry’s most impressive collection of top environmental innovators and thought leaders this year at Fort Mason,” says Edwards. ”We’re looking forward to interviewing many of these pacesetters for ‘The Real Story,’ engaging them one-on-one about what’s really occurring in terms of advances, challenges and opportunities in green and sustainable building and lifestyle practices.”

West Coast Green is an annual conference launched out of a need for a common conversation for decision makers influencing the greening of the built environment. Today, four years since its inception, West Coast Green continues to provide dynamic, big-picture, systems-thinking education, strategy, connections and professional development to these leaders.

Edwards is bringing the production team of “The Real Story” on-site to Fort Mason on Friday, October 2 and anticipates a full day of covering West Coast Green’s revolutionary products, emerging trends and inspiring creators.

Colleen Edwards, host of the on-line resource “The Real Story with Colleen Edwards” visits the West Coast Green exhibition on Friday, October 2 at Fort Mason in San Francisco.

“Against the backdrop of a rapidly changing real estate market, ’The Real Story’ has always had an emphasis on these types of issues and products—we certainly know that living green and incorporating environmentally-sound construction techniques are top of mind with many people and companies,” said Edwards. “With our blog, podcasts and regular content updates, we’re providing an all-inclusive on-line resource for those individuals wishing to stay current or learn more about the industry’s evolving landscape.”

Each year West Coast Green has grown to meet the needs of industry leaders, practitioners and homeowners; this year the conversation will deepen to include a focus on the intersection of the built environment and technology. And, attendees can gain exposure to products within the Cleantech sector that have the greatest ability to reduce global warming such as solar, wind and waste reduction.

At West Coast Green over 300 exhibitors will showcase the latest in resource-efficiency among a stunning array of green and healthy building products. Over 100 experts and visionary leaders will be presenting their latest developments, insights, and inspiration at the expanding frontiers of the field. And over 14,000 attendees including the entire chain of professionals and decision-makers rarely reached by other conferences are expected.

Fort Ord project comes back to life

Run Date: September 20, 2009

By Jim Johnson
Monterey County Herald/Salinas Bureau

EAST GARRISON PROPERTY CHANGES HANDS AFTER DEFAULT

A new developer is gearing up to start work at the stalled East Garrison community development.

And, according to county Redevelopment Director Jim Cook, “the project is much more alive today.”

While officials for the San Jose-based Union Community Partners are working with county housing officials to secure financing for the first phase of affordable housing on the site, a big chunk of the project will likely be delayed until the area’s housing market rebounds.

Cook said Union Community Partners has indicated it intends to move forward with the project under the existing development agreement previously approved by the county with another developer.

The new company paid $22.5million for the East Garrison site in a recent trustee’s sale after the previous developer, East Garrison Partners, defaulted on about $62million in loans on the proposal.

Union Community immediately covered about $400,000 in payments owed to both the county and the Fort Ord Redevelopment Authority after completing the purchase.

“That’s a really good sign that these developers are serious about moving forward,” he said.

In the works since the 1990s, the $145million, 1,400-unit mixed-use project has earned plenty of praise for its “smart-growth, new-urbanist” design.

But the project — on 244 acres of Fort Ord land on a bluff overlooking the Salinas Valley — has been stalled since last summer as a result of the housing slump, and the original developer eventually defaulted.

The original development group included Urban Community Partners and Woodman Development Company, both of Monterey, as well as William Lyon Homes of Newport Beach.

Since taking over the project, Union Community Partners has indicated that work will proceed on the project’s infrastructure, some of which has already been finished, in preparation for construction of the first phase of home building on the site. Work still to be completed includes installing utility lines and housing pads, Cook said, while most of the grading has already been completed.

“(Union Community Partners) said they believe the market has recovered to the point where they can proceed with the infrastructure,” Cook said.

Developer representatives were not available for comment.

Phase I of the three-phase project includes 470 homes, as well as 66 affordable rental housing units dubbed Manzanita Place, along with parks and a fire station. The town center, including more than 30,000 square feet of stores, shops and restaurants, was originally supposed to begin construction during the first phase of development.

In the later phases, the remainder of the homes will be built, including about 400 units designated as low-cost or work force housing. In addition, the project is designed to include a new public library, a historic live-work arts district, a sheriff’s substation, an elementary school and, eventually, a community center.

The county is working with affordable housing developer Mid-Peninsula Housing to seek stimulus funds for the Manzanita Place rental housing in the project’s first phase, according to county Housing Program Manager Jane Barr. An application for $10million has been submitted to the state; if received, it would make up for money lost when the overall project stalled.

The timeline for the rest of the project will depend on how quickly the housing market comes back, Cook said.

While the development agreement included an explicit timeline for the project, it also included a provision for delaying construction if the housing market dipped dramatically. The previous developer invoked that provision to stall progress in the hopes things would get better quickly. The timeline will kick back in when the market regains its footing, Cook said, although he acknowledged it may be some time before that occurs.

Under the original timeline, construction of the first model homes was to begin in August 2007, followed by the first round of homes and the town center. The first 400-plus homes were supposed to go on sale last summer.

The entire project was scheduled to be finished by 2014.

Bay Area executives see rebound

Run Date: September 18, 2009

By Mark Calvey
San Francisco Business Times

BUT LEADERS DIFFER ON HOW BIG, HOW SOON

An economic recovery is gathering momentum in the Bay Area, even as unemployment remains high.

Signs of better days ahead remain purely anecdotal. But dealmakers say transactions are finally coming together, while home sales are rising and new mortgage products are returning to the market — with more stringent underwriting, of course. An increasing number of economists say the region’s economy has turned the corner, but that it will feel like a downturn for a good while longer.

“Buyers and sellers are finally coming together,” says Brodie Cobb.

“The reality is we’re in that transition period where the economy has turned, but not conditions in the labor market,” said Dana Johnson, chief economist for Comerica Bank. The bank recently created a Comerica California Economic Activity Index to track the state’s economic outlook. The bank’s index on the state’s economy — representing 13 percent of the national economy — has been steadily improving since March. So has the stock market.

But unemployment, traditionally a lagging indicator, has been moving higher. California’s unemployment stood at 11.9 percent in July, and Beacon Economics predicts it will peak at 12 percent at the end of the year as job losses continue. In the Bay Area, unemployment is running at 10.4 percent, and Beacon Economics forecasts it will peak in the fourth quarter at 10.8 percent.

From a national perspective, most Federal Reserve districts reported this month that business conditions in their regions were improving. This week, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke made his strongest statement yet that the recession has ended.

Any talk of an economic rebound may come as a surprise given the depths of the Great Recession — the worst downturn most Americans have ever experienced. And the recovery is likely to be rocky.

“We have a fair amount of pain and suffering to come,” said John Conover, president and CEO of Borel Private Bank & Trust Co. He’s concerned with the economic impact of interest rates eventually moving higher, as well as the difficulty owners of commercial real estate will have in refinancing at lower property valuations in the next few years.

But it’s not all bad news for Conover, a self-described optimist. His San Mateo bank expanded its payroll 6 percent, or by 11 people, this year to handle growth in loans and deposits.

M&A on the rise

Merger activity also shows signs of picking up.

“In the past 30 days, buyers and sellers are finally coming together on price,” said Brodie Cobb, CEO of San Francisco-based Presidio Financial Partners, which advises middle-market companies selling for $300 million or less. In that arena, Cobb said credit availability has been less of a hindrance than the more difficult challenge of getting parties on opposite sides of the table to agree on what a business is worth.

Another Bay Area M&A adviser working primarily with companies generating annual sales of $10 million to $50 million, also has seen signals of a pickup since late July.

“We gauge the temperature of the economy, or the propensity to take risks, by the number of calls my firm receives from private equity groups. We received a call a day two or three years ago. Then six to 12 months ago, it was a call a month. Since late July, early August, we’re getting three to four calls a week,” said John Simpson, a managing director at investment bank Onyx Associates.

He also notes that these private equity groups are hiring MBA graduates and ponying up more equity capital to pursue deals.

“These private equity groups are gearing up for an economic recovery,” Simpson said. “But their due diligence is way up and their negotiating pencils are very sharp.”

Those observations suggest that the M&A activity grabbing the national headlines, such as Adobe Systems buying web analytics company Omniture for $1.8 billion or Kraft Foods’ $16.7 billion bid for Cadbury, is also occurring at the lower levels of corporate America.

Housing market finds pulse

A modest improvement in the housing market is another sign of a turnaround underway in the Bay Area. The latest findings by the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index found that the Bay Area had one of the biggest monthly gains in June, up 3.8 percent from May but still down 22 percent from June 2008.

Pioneering mortgage products squeezed out of the market amid the turmoil are clawing their way back. San Ramon-based CMG Mortgage — once one of the Bay Area’s fastest-growing private companies, based on Business Times research — this month brought back its Home Ownership Accelerator loan program, which combines a mortgage and household checking account in an effort to build equity faster by temporarily reducing the mortgage balance by money flowing through the checking account. But the maximum loan-to-value on most HOA loans is now 75 percent, down from as much as 90 percent during the days of easy credit. CMG says it’s confident that the HOA mortgage, popular with sales professionals and others earning good, but volatile paychecks will eventually move to 80 percent loan to value as the housing market stabilizes.

CMG offered the mortgage program from 2005 to 2008, when the financial crisis shut off funding for the mortgages. It’s a sign of credit markets improving slightly that CMG found a lender, Ameriprise Financial, willing to purchase and service the loans. Of course, with the federal government backing more than 90 percent of the nation’s mortgages, key sectors of the national economy remain on life support.

To be sure, there’s still plenty to worry about. High unemployment and tight-fisted consumers are likely to continue as drags on economic growth.

Janet Yellen, president and CEO of the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank, warned this week that the recovery might prove “tepid.” Although Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis, speaking in Tokyo Sept. 15, said the economy might recover at a faster clip than many anticipate.

Comerica’s Johnson falls closer to Yellen’s outlook, but doesn’t count himself among the more pessimistic forecasters.

“The economic outlook isn’t as pathetic as some people fear,” he said.

Photo credit: SFBT File photo

CMG Re-Introduces Interest-Saving Home Ownership Accelerator® Mortgage

Run Date: September 12, 2009

The Daily News/On the Market

SAN RAMON — CMG Mortgage, a leading wholesale mortgage lender, is re-introducing an innovative home loan that the company developed and marketed successfully between 2005 and 2008. Called the Home Ownership Accelerator, it is modeled on loans popular in Australia and Great Britain that have a proven record of helping borrowers save interest and pay off their home loans years faster. The new home loan works by combining a first-lien line of credit and a full-service checking account into an “all-in-one” instrument. The substantial efficiencies produced can enable a borrower to generate large interest savings and loan payoffs in as little as half the time, without a change to spending habits. The re-launch is particularly timely because a large group of Americans, especially Baby Boomers, are realizing that they can no longer count on home appreciation to fund retirement and must aggressively reduce their debt if they wish to retire without burdensome mortgage payments.

With the Accelerator, homeowners deposit their paychecks directly into the loan, instead of into a traditional bank account, reducing the loan balance on which interest is computed. The borrower can access their funds to pay expenses via the integrated checking features that include unlimited checks, an ATM/debit card and online bill-pay. The key difference is that until funds are needed, the lower principal balance can save a substantial amount of interest — often amounting to thousands of dollars over the life of the loan — compared to a traditional loan. The interest saved essentially allows a borrower to pay off faster without changing their spending habits.

“This is a huge win for homeowners,” said Chris George, president and CEO of CMG Mortgage. “In today’s uncertain economy, consumers are keenly aware that paying off debt is essential to securing a healthy financial future. Finally, here’s an opportunity to shift the focus from just minimizing payments to actually paying off — efficiently, quickly and with no change to lifestyle. And it’s not magic, it’s just math. You’re simply paying interest on a lower principal balance more of the time — thanks to your own money.”

After a year- long hiatus that began in August 2008 driven by the disappearance of non- agency mortgage investors during the finance industry crisis, the Home Ownership Accelerator loan is now being reintroduced in five rollout states: California, Washington, Arizona, Colorado and Minnesota. It will be offered exclusively through mortgage brokers who have been certified by CMG to sell it. CMG plans to add additional states in the coming months.

CMG has aligned with Ameriprise Bank, FSB, part of Ameriprise Financial (NYSE: AMP), to purchase and service the loans once they are funded by CMG.

At the product Web site, www.homeownershipaccelerator. com, existing and prospective loan clients and mortgage professionals can access a broad range of product information and tools, including a powerful online simulator that allows a user to model the loan against conventional loans using their own unique financial situation.

San Carlos weathers the housing storm

Run Date: September 12, 2009

By Shaun Bishop
The Daily News

CONDOS AT 1001 LAUREL DEVELOPMENT SELLING IN RECESSION

In the nearly two years it took to construct a new four-story condominium complex in downtown San Carlos, the housing market took a nosedive.

The developer behind the project at 1001 Laurel St., didn’t know how well the condos would sell when the 90-unit building opened just over a month ago.

“We were all very concerned,” said John Baer, senior vice president of development for The Matteson Companies.

So far, though, Baer said he is pleased that the company has purchase agreements for 17 condos and hundreds of other potential buyers on the interest list, despite the recession.

“We think we’re early in the positive cycle,” he said.

The project is just a couple of blocks from the heart of the city’s burgeoning downtown, a feature local Realtors and city officials say has helped the housing market in San Carlos remain relatively strong.

“I think San Carlos is pretty unique because their downtown is easy to get to,” said Tatum Clark, a Realtor for Intero in San Carlos. “Pretty much anybody who lives in San Carlos can walk there within 10 to 15 minutes.”

Condo sales have been booming, according to senior vice president of development for The Matteson Companies John Baer, who stands in the courtyard at 1001 Laurel St. in San Carlos on Sept. 3.

The median price of condominiums in San Carlos was $545,000 in the first six months of this year, down about 9 percent from the same period in 2008, according to the San Mateo County Association of Realtors.

That was a less severe drop than the county as a whole, which had a median condo price of $410,000 in the first six months of 2009, down 22 percent from last year.

The median price of a single-family home in San Carlos was also relatively resilient, about $918,000 in the first half of 2009, down just 10 percent from that period last year. Countywide, the median price of single-family homes was down 28 percent to $635,000.

David Young, a Realtor with Coldwell Banker in San Carlos, said the lack of subprime buyers in San Carlos resulted in fewer foreclosures, so there was less downward pressure on prices.

“I think the prices have trickled down, not fallen off the table like in other areas,” Young said.

Local officials and Realtors also cited high-quality schools in the San Carlos area as a selling point for families looking to settle on the mid-Peninsula.

However, 1001 Laurel is targeted at empty-nesters, young professionals and single people, Baer said.

Starting prices range from $449,500 for a one-bedroom, one-bath to $753,500 for a three-bedroom, three-bath. The one bedrooms average 700 square feet in size while the three bedrooms average 1,400 square feet.

One of the first buyers is Art Wong, 86, who purchased two adjacent condos in one corner of the second floor and plans to knock out a wall to combine them.

Wong decided to move out of Los Altos Hills after living there for 46 years, saying he wanted to be able to easily walk to stores and restaurants.

In Los Altos Hills, “If you don’t drive, you’re stuck,” he said.

San Carlos City Manager Mark Weiss said the city heard concerns from some residents during the construction of 1001 Laurel that the building looked too imposing. But he said he hasn’t heard any complaints recently.

“It seems to be much more accepted and well-received in the community now,” Weiss said.

Downtown shops and restaurants trying to get by in the recession will welcome the new customers from the condo development, said Sheryl Pomerenk, CEO of the San Carlos Chamber of Commerce.

“(Those are) people who will mostly get everything done downtown, which is great,” she said.

Photo credit: Kat Wade/Daily News