U.S. Congressman Jerry McNerney attends opening of Eden Housing development

Run Date: April 11, 2009

Contra Costa Times

MANTECA—With a goal of providing more affordable, high quality housing options for low income senior citizens in the Central Valley, non-profit Eden Housing on Monday held a grand opening event for Almond Court, an $8,700,000, 40-unit apartment complex in
Manteca for independent-living senior residents. The development is located at 2030 North Union Road.
The ceremonial ribboncutting at Almond Court was attended by U.S. Congressman Jerry McNerney; Manteca Mayor Willie Weatherford; San Joaquin County Supervisor Steve Bestolarides; Keith Land, Farmers & Merchants Bank; and Eden Housing Executive Director Linda Mandolini. Representatives of Assemblymember Bill Berryhill and Senator Lois Wolk also attended, along with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development representatives.

“I’m glad to join with the City of Manteca to celebrate the opening of Eden Housing’s Almond Court apartments for seniors,” said Congressman McNerney. “Our area has been particularly hard hit by the tough economy and housing crisis, and many senior citizens are struggling to make ends meet. It’s good to know that with the opening of the Almond Court apartments our community’s seniors will now have greater access to affordable housing.”

“Affordable housing is a critical, ongoing issue throughout the Central Valley which has been deeply affected by the nation’s housing crisis,” said, Eden Housing Executive Director Linda Mandolini. “Our public-private partnership with Manteca and the city’s Redevelopment Agency represents a viable solution to providing dignified living choices for senior citizens. We are looking forward to expanding our efforts throughout the Central Valley to deliver affordable housing communities for lower income families, seniors and persons with disabilities.”

The Almond Court project consists of five residential buildings arranged around a central courtyard, housing 40 560-square foot, one-bedroom units. In early March, tenants began moving into Almond Court apartment homes, which also feature living rooms, kitchens, dining areas and private porches.

A central community building houses a multi-purpose room, outdoor patio area, laundry facility, restrooms and on-site management offices. Almond Court’s outdoor space includes a bocce ball court, community gardens with raised vegetable planting areas, a potting table and comfortable landscaped seating areas under redwood trees. A pedestrian walkway and trellis connects Almond Court with the adjacent Almond Terrace Senior Apartments, completed by Eden Housing in 2004 and now home to nearly 80 seniors.

Almond Court was designed and planned by the Sacramento-based architectural firm of Mogavero Notestine Associates. The project’s general contractor was Brown Construction, Inc of West Sacramento.

Almond Court is ideally located across the street from a major shopping center anchored by a Raley’s Supermarket. A new bus shelter is expected to be built in the near future adjacent to Almond Court on North Union Road, on the North/South (Red) line, connecting with the San Joaquin Regional Transit District #91 Hopper bus. This transit network also serves neighboring communities. The Manteca Senior Center is less than 2 miles away.

“Despite the challenges facing our nation’s banks, lending institutions and global financial markets, Eden Housing continues to develop and maintain very productive investor relationships,” continued Eden Housing’s Mandolini. “We want to express our gratitude to the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, San Joaquin HOME Fund, the Federal Home Loan Bank and Farmers & Merchants Bank. The success of Almond Court reflects that community and civic partnerships are equally as important. Cities are under increasing pressure to offer affordable housing. As a result, many homebuilders consider our organization to be a key resource when working with municipal planners to meet local requirements for affordable housing.”

Walnut Creek students experience homelessness through “Project Safety Net”

Run Date: February 7, 2009

Contra Costa Times

WALNUT CREEK—Up to 50 students at Walnut Creek’s Las Lomas High School will experience what it means to be homeless through HomeAid/Northern California’s “Project Safety Net” starting Monday, Feb. 9 through Thursday, Feb. 12.

Project Safety Net is an immersion project where students give up their “safety nets” and generate increased awareness among fellow students about what life is like for the temporarily homeless.

During Project Safety Net students will have a small bag of toiletries and can give up:
1. Sleeping in a bed
2. Changing clothes
3. Shaving or styling hair
4. Autos – They will be using public transportation, walking or riding a bike to school.
5. Use of cell phones, TV, iPod/video games, computer/Internet

Tuesday, February 10, 6:00 p.m. “A Knight Without A Home”: Starting at 6:00 p.m., HomeAid/Northern California representatives, homeless shelter operators and community leaders will discuss homelessness with students. These will include testimonials from those who have been homeless. Issues to be discussed include myths, stereotypes, how youth are affected and what might be some workable solutions.

Participating students will spend the night on cots in the school gym or cafeteria, as if in an actual homeless shelter. Students will see the movie “From Homeless to Harvard.” Their evening meal will include lentil soup and fruit with oatmeal served at breakfast the following morning. They will attend class in the clothes they slept in.

Community representatives that night to include:

1. Mark Williams and Julie O’Connor – HomeAid/Northern California
2. Ron Marlette – Mission Solano/Fairfield
3. Tim O’Keefe – SHELTER, Inc.
4. Cindy Gershen – Sunrise Bistro (discussing obesity in homeless children)

Los Lomas student Trent Sanson is coordinating the Project Safety Net program as part of the high school’s “Random Acts of Kindness” Week.

First-timers, investors spur home sales surge

Run Date: January 5, 2009

By Sue McAllister
Mercury News

MOST OTHERS MUST REMAIN ON SIDELINES AS PRICES PLUNGE

First-time home buyers Andrew and Kaori Nielson made a deal on a two-bedroom San Jose townhouse last month, even though they knew that property values are falling.

“We probably would have waited longer, but our lease was up, and we have our son,” Andrew said, referring to the couple’s 6-month-old baby. “We thought now was the time.”

Would-be home buyers in weakening markets worry about “catching a falling knife” — not wanting to ink a deal before home prices hit bottom. Yet home sales in Santa Clara County were up 14 percent in November from the same month a year before, despite a 39.5 percent plunge in the median price of a single-family home.

That raises the question: Who’s out there buying homes?

Current home shoppers, experts say, generally fall into two camps: first-time home buyers and investors. Almost all other buyers remain on the sidelines, either because they’re unable to qualify for low-interest loans or because their current home has lost so much value they don’t have enough equity for a down payment on a new one.”

MANY BENEFIT FROM LOWER INTEREST RATES

The majority of buyers are first-time-ever home buyers,” said Intero real estate agent Pete Smith, who last week toured five properties with a client who hopes to buy a house in central San Jose for about $350,000— a price that would have sounded laughably low just a year ago.

No hard data is available to determine which purchases are made by first-timers and which by repeat owners. But real estate and mortgage professionals say most buyers now in Santa Clara County are, like the Nielsons, first-timers drawn to the market by lower home prices and falling interest rates.

The Nielsons, who had outgrown their apartment in San Mateo and wanted to move closer to Andrew’s new job in Los Gatos, concluded that sitting tight was no longer an option. The couple bought their townhouse in a community built by SummerHill Homes in San Jose’s Cambrian neighborhood, paying just over $500,000.”

INVESTORS JUMP IN

But investor buyers are getting into the market as well. Public records show that investors—identified as absentee owners—now make up a larger segment of Santa Clara County purchases than they did a year ago or five years ago.

Alexis McGee—president of Foreclosures.com, which offers seminars and coaching for investing in foreclosed properties—said clients used to ask about flipping foreclosures. Now they ask about renting out and maintaining properties.
“You can actually get positive cash flow,” she said. “Even if the market stays flat and they don’t see any appreciation for a while, they’ll know the rents can cover the mortgage. That’s somethig that’s been unheard of in the Bay Area recently.”

During a three-month period ending Nov. 21, investors made 11 percent of home purchases in Santa Clara County, according to figures compiled for the Mercury News by MDA DataQuick. In the same period last year, 8 percent of purchases were made by investors.

Investors and first-time buyers alike seek bargains n homes repossessed by banks. Among the eager ranks of first-timers is San Mateo renter and Web designer Jackie Buttice, who has toured at least 30 bank-owned properties and made four unsuccessful purchase offers in the past three months.

“Literally everything is going for over that price that it’s listed,” she said. “Everyone’s scrambling right now for a house under $400,000. It’s the hottest market.”

Many first-time buyers have a new tool at their disposal: loans insured by the Federal Housing Administration. In recent decades, FHA loans were rare in Santa Clara County and other high-priced parts of California because the loan maximums set by the federal government were too low. But now the loan limit is $625,000, and buyers this year need down payments of just 3.5 percent to qualify.

Eleven percent of Silicon Valley home purchases in the three-month period studied were financed with FHA loans, which are intended primarily for first-time buyers. Over the same period a year earlier, 0.1 percent of buyers used those loans.

“FHA loans are amazing,” said Milpitas real estate agent Marie Pham, who has worked with several first-time buyers this year. With low down payments, low rates and less reliance on credit scores than traditional loans, FHA-insured mortgages are tailor-made for real estate newbies, she said.

Even those who don’t qualify for FHA loans can find rates that are low by historical standards. Rates for conventional 30-year fixed-rate loans of $417,000 or less—typically loans that meet lending criteria set by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and carry the lowest rates— averaged 6.11 percent in the September-to-November period, according to Freddie Mac.

Because of falling prices and the sales surge of lower-priced houes, the average mortgage for Santa Clara County homes bought in the studied three-month period was $401,204, down19 percent from $496,200 for the same period in 2007.

Sales up 14%

All told, 4,721 new and previously owned houses and condominiums changed hands in Santa Clara County in the three-month period that ended Nov. 21. That was 14 percent more transactions than during the same period last year.

Nearly all the increase is because of rising sales in the most affordable ZIP codes, which have been hardest hit by foreclosures.

“Move-up” buyers who need “jumbo” loans of more thant $625,000 remain on the sidelines. Jumbo loans are funded by private investors or large lending institutions and are not backed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. Rates for those loans remain above 7 percent, on average.

“The real question is: When is the jumbo money going to be available to those who would like to utilize it?” said Joe Brown, president of Coldwell Banker in Silicon Valley. Without better rates for those loans, he added, “everybody is sitting tight.”

Contact Sue McAllister at smcallister@mercurynews.com or (408) 920-5833.

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China’s nod to the West

Run date: September 1, 2008

When it comes to houses, world’s newest economic superpower embraces all things California.

Fewer than 900,000 new homes were built in the United States last year, according to the National Association of Home Builders. In China, more than 10 million new housing unites were completed in 2007, according to independent estimates.

And riding the current crest of China’s 30-year housing boom is a growing luxury market that mirrors many of the Bay Area’s suburban communities in architecture and even names.

“What’s the luxury housing market like in China?” asks Colleen Edwards, who recently visited a number of residential developments across China. “It is California Tuscan goes to China. One of my favorite discoveries during our trip was a development in Cheng-du called San Ramon.”

When China’s new wealth goes house shopping, “they want to recreate success,” according to Edwards, co-founder of EMC Creative, a marketing and communications firm in Danville. “There is so much money, and such a great desire to have what looks best from the West,” she added. “The wealthy Chinese want residences that re-create successes, especially from the West Coast, from California.” In late spring, Edwards and other toured China, visiting several planned communities.

But even with the architectural similarities, much of China’s luxury residential development retains some older traditions. One example is mao pei, the buying of a residence and completing the interior after purchase.

“There is a luxury development near Shanghai where the shells are priced at the equivalent of $9 million, and it is not unusual for a home buyer to easily spend another $2 million to finish the inside. But the lot itself is sold completely landscaped,” Edwards said.

“The Chinese are slavishly European in their taste for residential design,” said Bay Area architect Chip Pierson, who has worked with Chinese developers for more than seven years. “Here’s an example: in Beijing, there was a subdivision that was a reproduction of the Forbidden City right next to other developments that were Western and called Napa Valley and Orange County. Here’s the irony: The Europeans bought the homes in the Forbidden City; the Chinese live in the Western-style developments with West Coast names.”

Pierson is principal and general manager of Dahlin Group Architecture Planning in Pleasanton. In 2001, Dahlin Group opened an office in Beijing, which has grown into a full service firm with 40 staff.

Money, and plenty of it, has been driving the Chinese luxury market, Pierson said. “But the concept of single-family homes in China is relatively new – or at least a return to something that Chinese families haven’t had for generations.” Another part of the Chinese housing boom equation, he adds, is that many of the residential developers are people who have made their money in other endeavors. “They provide the money and pass on the designs. And, in some cases, they make huge profits,” Pierson adds.

More than American architecture has come to China. State ownership was the mantra 30 years ago. But during the past three decades, the most important economic step to private ownership has been to bring Western-style mortgages to China.

“And the mortgage market in China does resemble the U.S.,” according to Yongheng Deng, a professor at USC School of Policy, Planning and Development. Deng is a specialist in China’s real estate and mortgage markets.

“In the last two to three years, the mortgage market has grown in China. Before that it was cash,” he said, “People would just show up with cash.

“In 1998, the first mortgages were written. Three years ago, the mortgage terms became standard. And now a range of mortgage types is available. Most of them are ARMs (adjustable rate mortgages) with China’s central bank setting the rate each year. It’s not like the ARMs in the U.S., where the index for adjusting the rate relies on a number of economic factors.”

A commonly written mortgage in China today is for 20 years at 4 percent, often with low down payments. The longer, 30-year fixed mortgage, common to U.S. buyers, is little used.

“In China, there is no such things as a FICO score (a home buyer’s credit score used by U.S. lenders to determine risk). One reason is that income data is not reliable. The lender can’t rely on the income reported by a family to the government.” Families usually have income larger than what is reported, Deng said.

China’s development during the past 30 years has seen its economic position leapfrog from isolation to its position today as one of the world’s largest economic engines. A milestone economic change was the Chinese government’s shift away from providing housing. This allowed the government to pass along the financial burden to private ownership and simultaneously create a spectacular residential building industry.

China has nearly four times the population of the United States. There are more than 200 Chinese cities with a population of 1 million or more, compared with nine in the United States. More than 75 percent of this growing urban population lives in multifamily housing. And a third of Chinese city dwellers live in high-rise apartment buildings.

Low-density housing – which includes luxury homes, built for China’s newly minted wealth and a small, but growing, number of expatriates living there – accounts for less than 1 percent of urban housing.

“But don’t forget that 80 percent of the Chinese people live in the countryside,” noted Deng. “And they have been part of a nearly 30-year government program of creating private ownership. In the countryside,” according to Deng, “80 percent of the homes are now privately owned.” That compares to the U.S. home-ownership rate of about 70 percent.

With the slower economic growth in China, the housing markets have cooled in the past year. The Chinese government has imposed higher minimum down payment requirements, increased sales taxes for residential properties owned less than five years, added a 20 percent capital gains tax and stepped up restrictions on foreign investments. The investment restrictions could also be a result of the less-than-profitable building boom in Beijing during the run-up Olympics.

“There was spectacular investment in Beijing,” said Deng, “but a lot of the developments under-performed,” and the housing market softened. “The same thing that happened in Beijing is happening now on Shanghai,” he added, “which will be the site of a World Expo in 2010.”

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Solar gets sexy: Clunky roof arrays are long gone; clean designs, lower prices are getting homeowners to open their wallets

Run Date: July 6, 2008

By Richard Paoli
Special to the Chronicle

Solar energy shines during slump: Green products thriving even as builders suffer

There are two shades of green in this new eco-friendly, sustainable world: the business of providing green products and services and the green consumers pay for them.

What are you willing to spend to save? That seems to be the basic question for home buyers and homeowners.

Despite the public debate about environmental matters and energy conservation, studies of consumer attitudes show that if it isn’t affordable it doesn’t get bought – or built. It is a question of price.

And more affordable solar energy systems seem to be opening consumers’ wallets. “Right now, the residential building market is soft,” said Ron Kenedi, an executive with Sharp Solar Energy Solutions Group in Huntington Beach, “but we’re seeing instead a tremendous growth in solar panel sales for remodeling projects.” Kenedi was attending PCBC, the California building industry’s annual expo at Moscone Center last month. Sharp Energy was one of more than 20 companies exhibiting solar thermal panels.

“The technology for photovoltaic panels keeps improving the energy efficiency and reducing the cost. This is an industry that has been seeing double-digit growth for the past few years,” he noted, “and that wouldn’t happen if people didn’t see the savings.”

Typically, Kenedi said, it costs $24,000 to put a photovoltaic system on the roof. “That’s before the government and utility incentives kick in and cut the cost by about 30 percent. What does that buy? About 50 to 60 percent of the utility bill.” When you’re not using power, the system can be set to run the home’s electricity meter backward,
he added.

The incentives address a basic green principle: With more households producing electricity, fewer fossil fuel-based generating plants have to be built to meet growing demand.

Also, for many years, a stumbling block for rooftop solar was strictly cosmetic. Homeowners didn’t want a roof that looked like the solar display on a space station. “That has been addressed,” said Kenedi, “with new panel shapes, lighter supporting structures and better design incorporation with roofing material.”

The first spike in photovoltaic research and sales came during the oil crisis in the 1970s. While early photovoltaic panels predated the 1970s, most were for light-sensing or -measuring devices – the light meter in a camera, for example.

But the advance of electronic and semiconductor technology dramatically pushed the power-generating possibilities of photovoltaic cells. In less than a decade, the efficiency of the panels increased more than
fourfold. And you don’t have to live in a sunny climate to take advantage of it. The largest growth in electric generating solar installation the past years has been in Germany.

Photovoltaic systems have two basic components. An array of solar panels that look like flat-screen televisions (in fact, the manufacturing and materials are very similar) mounted on a roof or in a field. The second component is an inverter. The system generates direct current; the inverter switches it to the household’s alternating current.

Solar farms are being incorporated in many planned communities, providing power to the public buildings. A growing number of new homes are including roof arrays. A lack of clear standards for the use and installation of PV may be keeping builders from wider use.

“Solar is still on the menu of options for most builders,” said Raymond Becker, chairman of the California Building Industry Association and a vice president of DMB, a Hollister home builder. ‘There needs to be a building standard. Right now, different jurisdictions have differing standards for what constitutes green and solar.”

Kenedi notes that one problem with rooftop installation is meeting fire department requirements. “We’re working, as an industry, with fire departments to design the rooftop panels so the firefighters can get into the rafters from the roof in the event of a fire.”

‘The newest development is something called thin film. (It) is as thin as a sheet of Mylar. The need for heavier and costly support becomes reduced,” said Kenedi.

The next step is power storage. “Imagine,” said Kenedi, “coming home after work and plugging your car into the system and having it recharged from the electricity generated and stored during the day.”

Solar power and its growth are one part of the two shades of green.

‘This whole issue of green is making us look at a lot of residential building issues,” Becker said. Among those issues:
• Design: Recent trends show buyers want new homes smaller than what has been the norm. They want more efficient use of space and better use of energy. • Vehicle mile: Builders have to think in terms of where they’re building, and how far most of the potential buyers would have to drive.
• Job centers: Large planned communities have to think about what jobs are being created near the sites.

‘The challenge,” Becker said, “is how builders are expected to do all of these and do it in a way that will make new home buyers pay for it.”

It all adds up to builders and buyers suffering from the same problems – higher gasoline and energy prices, tighter credit and hesitancy about any major financial outlay.

Education for builder and buyer can help, Becker said. “A lot of the options for green become limited unless we create a sense of value, a social sense, to buy green.”

New products designed to catch builders’ eyes

The slowdown in residential building hasn’t had a visible impact on wares displayed last month at PCBC, the California building industry’s annual expo. While construction materials, windows and energy saving may have taken most of the space at San Francisco’s Moscone Center, a few new and renewed products were on view:

Sonic bath: Kohler has combined sound vibration, chromatherapy and music into a bathtub “to slow your breathing and heart rate.” The tub comes in and 88-inch lengths with a control panel to set sound, vibration and color. Prices start at $10,000.
(www.kohler.com)

Shower drain: Quick Drain is a less intrusive drain system that gets rid of the round center shower drain. It drains the water along one edge of the shower pan, reducing the need for compound angles required for central drains. The stainless steel system is usually sold to contractors; the estimated price of a standard installation is $300.
(www.quickdrainusa.com)

What goes up: Saniflo looks like a toilet specifically designed for all those nonconforming units stashed in the lower floors of many San Francisco Sunset District homes. Saniflo uses a compact grinder and pump that pumps bathroom waste up 18 feet The grinder-pump can be tucked into the wall. A wall-hung version of the toilet is priced at $999.
(www.saniflo.com)

Call home: Lagotek’s cell phone application allows you to phone home and turn on lights, raise or lower the shades, start the coffee, neat or cool the house, or link to d security camera. Wireless Home Intelligence connects supported home systems to cell phones over the Internet. Basic installation for a 2,500-square foot, three-bedroom home would be around $25,000.
(www.lagotek.com).

Walls of glass: Want a hand-painted picture of the grandchildren on glass to hang in the family room? Four Seasons Glass, working with artists in China, specializes in custom-glass wall art, door inserts, shower enclosures, glass partitions and room dividers. The pricing, depending on the glass texture or theme, starts at $60 a square foot
(www.fourseasonsglass.com)

Up in smoke: The Greenwood Hydronic Wood Furnace burns not only the wood but the smoke. The squat boiler accelerates the internal temperature to about 1,100 degrees by burning the gases from the wood fire. Greenwood claims the wood burner saves up to 70 percent on heating bills. It’s priced at $7,250.
(www.greenwoodfurnace.com)

Lite lights: The LR6-230V uses LED technology to produce a recessed lighting fixture comparable to a 75-watt incandescent bulb. The fixture uses approximately 12 watts of electricity, 85 percent less than the incandescent. The fixtures prices start at $130, without installation.
(www.creeLLS.com)

Palm-boo: Ever wonder what happens to worn-out coconut palms? The folks who brought you bamboo flooring have introduced Durapalm, made from plantation-grown coconut palms. Palms produce nuts for up to 80 years, then nonproducing palms become flooring. Palmwood plywood is made from multiple layers of palm and contains no added urea formaldehyde. Without installation, the palm flooring is $8 a square foot
(www.durapalm.com)

Extra inch: The 12-inch dinner plate rules at Broco, an Indonesian cabinet manufacturer. Broco designed its upper cabinets 13 inches deep. The high-end manufacturer uses European systems of hinges and tracking for its hardwood faced cabinets. Prices not available because Broco sells directly to builders.
(www.brocousa.com)

Up on the roof: SunGrabber’s newest product, Solar Domestic Hot Water heating system, is an all-polymer, hot water system designed to collect solar energy, reduce water-heating bills up to 50 percent and qualify for tax credits. The price is about $4,000.
(www.sungrabber.net)

Green reading

You could probably build a well-insulated home using books about going green. Design, materials used in construction, solar power, green remodeling and the organic maintenance of homes are among the titles jamming the eco shelves in bookstores. Here are some titles that address going green:

Your Green Home
by Alex Wilson
(MOTHER EARTH NEWS, $17.95)
This is intended for homeowners planning a new home and for designers and builders seeking to meet that demand. It answers questions about where to build, energy-efficient systems, building materials and living in a green world.

It’s Easy Being Green
by Crissy Trask
(GIBBS SMITH, $12.95)
Most of us agree with the goals of the environmental movement, but we don’t do much more than recycle household waste. Environmental consultantTrask seeks to address this questionand solve the disparity – with a book that makes it easy to be an environmentalist, no matter how busy or hectic your lifestyle.

Solar Power for Dummies
by Rik DeGunther
(FOR DUMMIES, $19.99)
This book has 10 do-it-yourself solar projects. DeGunther guides you through a household energy efficiency survey and evaluation of how solar power benefits you.

Organic Housekeeping
by Ellen Sandbeck
(SCRIBNER, $30)
Sandbeck provides a guide to maintaining every part of your home – from sink to septic tank – using safe, simple cleansers and preventive measures that save time, money and the planet.

Eco Design: The Sourcebook
by Alastair Fuad-Luke
(CHRONICLE BOOKS, $35)
This is the shopping source for eco products. There is a great deal of information on the new and hybrid materials and lists of manufacturers, design studios and green organizations.

Go Green, Live Rich
by David Bach and Hillary Rosner
(BROADWAY BOOKS, $14.95)
Financial expert Bach offers 50 ways to make money while putting gre’en into life, home, shopping. He also has suggestions on profiting from investments in green businesses.

Richard Paoli is a former Chronicle real estate editor. Comment at realestate@sfchronicle.com.

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