I know this is sort of an out of character post for this here blog, but occasionally when specific homes that I have always admired go on the market I think it warrants a posting. There are certain homes in town that I have just always wanted to live in. You know, while the people who own it are on vacation. Just kidding! I’m also hoping that merely being mentioned by CoolDMZ will help move some inventory and get the market back on track.

This house, 1025 37th Street is right behind the parking lot of the Subway on 37th and Jay streets. When I was a kid I always thought that porch was pretty gnarly (that’s what we said back then), and I loved the idea of living next door to Winchell’s (which formerly occupied the Subway space). It has always been on Mrs Cool’s and my short list of dream homes. I cannot believe it is on the market for $350k, that seems like a total steal, even though it is adjacent to the parking lot of a liquor store. Somebody snatch it up! And then have me over for a sittin’ party on that wraparound porch. Did I mention it is right near a Peet’s?

A prominent billboard on 16th Street featuring the smiling, trustworthy face of Preet Kalirai, your CalPERS certified mortgage agent has been replaced by an advertisement for Lucca Restaurant. And here I thought Preet, with her market savvy, finance acumen, and ethnically ambiguous good looks, was recession proof. None of us is immune.

Help.

What was the name of that bar that was on Fair Oaks Boulevard near Cadillac Drive in the early ’90s?  It got demolished in the late ’90s and became a Smith Barney building, and I believe it’s where Lord Beaverbrooks used to be.

The sign out front had a parrot on it.  I only went there once when I first moved to Sacramento, but it came up in conversation last night, and I’ve been flipping through the rolodex in my brain trying to remember what it was called.

The thread about lack of good restaurants in Tahoe Park and our ongoing meme of “dead zones” — not to be confused with dead-to-me zones–reminded me of the dead zone that is the seeming former art deco theater building on Stockton and Broadway behind Subway, which just in the last few years has been home to 3 or 4 eating establishments that never saw the light of day. The current business hoping to reverse that trend is going to be called “Boon Boon.” I’ll let you read that name and think about it for a second. Ready? On the count of 10, what comes to mind?

Boom boom, right? Like, “I ate at that new Vietnamese restaurant on Broadway and twenty minutes later I had to make boom boom like rilly bad.”

However, in the interest of the Stockton corridor and good eateries for the greater Tahoe Park area I vow to try Boon Boon at least once. Assuming it does in fact not go the way of Po Boys, Quotes Bistro, and all the other failed restaurants that came before it…

As noted in a previous post, there are certain locations throughout the region that seem to be jinxed.  Even if the rest of the tenants in a shopping center thrive for years, there seems to be the one oddball space that is constantly changing.

Here is an update on two previously noted dead zone locations:

Fair Oaks Boulevard, just east of Watt, next to the Shell station
Previously a Baskin-Robbins, Double Rainbow, and a bevy of cell phone stores, this is now a Goodwill Xpress donation drop-off location.  With the “Xpress” spelling, I’m waiting for the word on if they accept all kinds of donations or only cast-off Xtreme sports gear.

Free-standing building in the parking lot of the really run-down looking center on Fulton just north of Hurley
It’s being demolished.   Consider it “dead” and not just part of the “dead zone.”

The building formerly known as Carlos Murphy’s/Bleachers/Asian Buffet/European Buffet Featuring Sushi and Waffles is now gone.

I noticed that it had been knocked down last week, and in its place is a pile of rubble surrounded by a chain link fence.

This is the place that was across from Cal Expo and across from the relatively new (though still with as asinine of a parking lot as the older locations) Kaiser building.

Just thought you should know, and I hope this isn’t where Radio Matthew was planning on going for his 21st birthday.

Long time no post, will try to improve. I’ve been writing a great deal for others, the paid writing kinds of thing that sort of have to take a priority slot when you’re trying to pay the mortgage.

And speaking of mortgages …

Forbes magazine has just named the Big Tomato the nation’s worst housing market. I guess that means I shouldn’t be expecting a new neighbor in the empty house next-door any time soon. Like a lot of people, the owners leveraged their equity and got caught in the downdraft as they tried to sell. It’s approved by the bank for a short-sale — that means you can get it for less than is owed on it — but with so many houses to choose from in similar straights … well, at least it’s not a meth house.

Continue reading “Location, location, location … and now opportunity” »

Local blog, Flippers in Trouble, received a mention recently in a Forbes.com article about the best places to flip a home.

Watching asking prices drop on flipper properties–those bought and sold within two years, according to real estate agents–has become a sport in the Sacramento real estate blogosphere. By filtering official Multiple Listing Service (MLS) data, the blog Flippers In Trouble tracks every area flipper–those who bought a home in the last two years–and reports who is trying to sell his property for less than he paid.

So, uh, I guess congratulations are in order? After 1 or 2 or 1,348 listings don’t you sort of get the picture that folks are having a hard time flipping properties? It’s a down market, we get it. I wonder if sacbee.com sponsors this Web site because they love them some piling on about the housing market.

UPDATE: Turns out we aren’t the only ones with the market cornered on snark. The folks over at Sacramento Land(ing) are having some fun with this post, too. Nice work, guys.

I didn’t even think about the fun one could have with the Demographics features on that new Zillow thing until my wife pointed it out. This is how one can learn that Boulevard Park folks are more likely to be females working for non-profits, or speak Gujarati. Or that New Era Park is lesbian-friendly, or that Elmhurst is home to the Humble Class. Or that there is a neighborhood called Brentwood (it’s over near the Exec Airport) that has a freakishly flat age distribution and lots of Puerto Ricans who speak Hindi and Laotian. The possibilities are endless.

Real estate site Zillow.com announced two new community features yesterday, including Neighborhood Pages, which allows residents to create content about their neighborhoods. Not just cities, but neighborhoods, like Alkali Flat or Richmond Grove or Poverty Ridge. And there is a main Sacramento page with one piece of content, a photo by yours truly.

That main page has links to all the covered neighborhoods, so make sure to check yours out.