Lock Watch for the Week of 12/24/2018 Volatility-O-Meter:It's a holiday week and we don't know if the President will fire the Fed chairman.  Can't we just all take a vacation? Economicalendar (all times are Pacific):Mon, 12/24:      2-Yr Note Auction (8:30am).Tues, 12/25:     Markets Closed.Weds, 12/26:     Case Shiller HPI (6am), 5-Yr Note Auction (10am).Thurs, 12/27:    Jobless Claims (5:30am), New Home Sales and Consumer Confidence (7am), 7-Yr Note Auction (10am).Fri, 12/28:        Int'l Trade in Goods (5:30am), Chicago PMI (6:45am), Pending Home Sales (7am). 10-Year Treasury History2.77%     Market Open2.86%     One Week Ago3.05%     One Month Ago2.48%     One Year Ago Dr. ElmoYou may say there's no such thing as Santa, but if you ever find yourself in Marin County watching a compet... 12/24/2018

The Leasing Team at Foundation Rentals and Relocation just LEASED another property in Novato for $3,500. Thanks to everyone for a great transaction.  For any questions about Novato property management or buying or selling investment properties in Novato, call Broker Christopher Barrow at (415) 637-8934! 12/14/2018

 Saturday September 8th at 11am, Elizabeth Krivatsy with the Law Office of Elizabeth Krivatsy, Moira Brennan with Senior Settlers, Sarah Faith Walton with Keatons Redwood Chapel of Marin and Michael Jackson with Coldwell Banker will be speaking about Estate Planning and Transitioning in Life and Real Estate. Snacks, coffee provided, and a raffle prize!!  https://youtu.be/a5x_KTo_kMI 08/15/2018

 Power house of speakers here!! Saturday September 8th at 11am, Elizabeth Krivatsy with the Law Office of Elizabeth Krivatsy, Moira Brennan with Senior Settlers, Sarah Faith Walton with Keatons Redwood Chapel of Marin and Michael Jackson with Coldwell Banker will be speaking about Estate Planning and Transitioning in Life and Real Estate. Snacks, and coffee provided! http://evite.me/uwHbvmthxH 08/09/2018

The Leasing Team at Foundation Rentals and Relocation just LEASED another property in Novato for $2,950. Thanks to everyone for a great transaction.  For any questions about Novato property management or buying or selling investment properties in Novato, call Broker Christopher Barrow at (415) 637-8934! 06/07/2018

The Leasing Team at Foundation Rentals and Relocation just LEASED another property in Novato for $4,500. Thanks to everyone for a great transaction.  For any questions about Novato property management or buying or selling investment properties in Novato, call Broker Christopher Barrow at (415) 637-8934! 06/01/2018

Sold condominium with pending litigation in the Western Oaks neighborhood of Novato. Most homeowners don't know they can sell with the litigation going on. This home sold at $435,000  05/08/2018

The Leasing Team at Foundation Rentals and Relocation just LEASED another property in Novato for $3,650. Thanks to everyone for a great transaction.  For any questions about Novato property management or buying or selling investment properties in Novato, call Broker Christopher Barrow at (415) 637-8934! 03/30/2018

The Leasing Team at Foundation Rentals and Relocation just LEASED another property in Novato for $3,100. Thanks to everyone for a great transaction.  For any questions about Novato property management or buying or selling investment properties in Novato, call Broker Christopher Barrow at (415) 637-8934! 03/09/2018

Happenstance, History and Hamilton A while back, my little boy was attending a birthday celebration for one of his friends at a playground in the Hamilton neighborhood of Novato, CA.  Hamilton was a WWII-era Air Force base and you can still see the remnants of it in some of the Spanish Revival-esque buildings --- a few of which are now in a serious state of disrepair.  Since I had a fairly low tolerance for Frozen and face painting that day, I decided to cut out of the party for a bit and take a short walk.  Ultimately, I found myself peering into the boarded windows of what used to be the hospital.  As I returned to the childhood revelry across the overgrown parking lot, an elderly resident who was walking his dog volunteered that there had once been an American POW who convalesced the... 01/29/2018

The Leasing Team at Foundation Rentals and Relocation just LEASED another property in Novato for $3,000. Thanks to everyone for a great transaction.  For any questions about Novato property management or buying or selling investment properties in Novato, call Broker Christopher Barrow at (415) 637-8934! 11/28/2017

The Leasing Team at Foundation Rentals and Relocation just LEASED another property in NOVATO for $5,750. Thanks to everyone for a great transaction.  For any questions about NOVATO property management or buying or selling investment properties in NOVATO, call Broker Christopher Barrow at (415) 637-8934! 11/14/2017

The Leasing Team at Foundation Rentals and Relocation just LEASED another property in Novato for $4,085.  Thanks to everyone for a great transaction.  For any questions about Novato property management or buying or selling investment properties in Novato, call Broker Christopher Barrow at (415) 637-8934! 10/30/2017

The Leasing Team at Foundation Rentals and Relocation just LEASED another property in NOVATO for $3,750.  Thanks to everyone for a great transaction.  For any questions about NOVATO property management or buying or selling investment properties in NOVATO, call Broker Christopher Barrow at (415) 637-8934! 10/24/2017

Most of us favor a high degree of predictability when it comes to things like the interest rates on mortgages. In that realm, “poised” is a bad word. When anything is poised, it means it’s about to do something different: change. For those who like predictability, change is unwelcome.But this week should provide both good and bad news when it comes to change and Marin mortgage rates. For once, a change in the immediate future is pretty nearly a sure thing. Although rates are poised, they’re poised for a comfortingly predictable change.What happens after that is a different story.Up until very recently, the mortgage interest rates offered to Marin home buyers has been an island of calm in a sea of…well, less calm, if the year’s turbulent election cycle is any example. Predictability has ... 12/12/2016

The idea of “fake news” and how to tell it from the real thing has gotten scads of attention lately, so Novato web users are entitled to be more skeptical than usual of news items. Last week, there was one of those “come hither” headlines you run across on the web—but with a byline from The Washington Post, it looked like it would contain actual news.Sure enough, this one was for real: “How to Spot a Housing Rental Scam.” Housing rental scams aren’t totally unknown in California—so dispatches about how to spot any new kind of Novato housing rental funny business figured to be worth checking into. It turns out that the article originated in the Washington Post for a good reason: it centered on a surge in housing rental rip-offs being attempted right now in the nation’s capital.It seems t... 12/12/2016

Some breakthrough good news has come to light. It deals with first-time home buyers.Across the U.S., first-time home buyers have been staging a disappearing act for a worrisome long time. The causes were pretty universal across much of the country: a sluggish economic recovery and tight labor market contributed to the national phenomenon. Rises in Corte Madera residential prices haven’t helped those seeking to become new homeowners locally.For Corte Madera homeowners who follow such things, the phenomenon was slowly becoming a worrisome fact—one that didn’t look like it was going away anytime soon. When you own a home, its value as collateral and at sale depends on a healthy real estate market—one that supports sustainable activity.That means that new buyers should appear in numbers at ... 12/12/2016

Real estate articles that are really just lists are now being called “listicles”—and there are certainly plenty of them around. The other day one appeared that just had to be read: Bankrate’s “7 things that could turn off homebuyers.”The actual listicle may not have been the product of much real research into houses for sale, but it was amusing. In the best social media tradition, I’d like to add a few thoughts in order to come up with a modified/improved “7 things” (for starters, there are 9):9 Things Bound to Offend Nicasio Homebuyers       Monkeys.       All right, that first requires an explanation. It headed up the Bankrate list, with a picture of a rhesus macaque clinging to a balcony railing. I’d have to agree that monkeys freewheeling around a Nicasio house for sale might drive ... 12/08/2016

You don’t have to be beyond your 40s to begin plotting a direction for your retirement years. Most younger Novato residents know this full well but (truth be told) do precious little about it. For most of us, we’re all so busy tending to career and daily living concerns that most of the time it seems like self-indulgent wool-gathering to go daydreaming about retirement plans. Besides—who has extra cash to be doing more than the bare minimum about financing retirement? It’s so far off in the future…That may be the 21st-century reality for most Novato adults who aren’t close to retirement age, but in fact, some of the real estate decisions we make early on can set the stage for satisfaction in later years. That’s one of the takeaways from the brains at Age Wave, a think tank who consult o... 12/08/2016

If you listen to the Chairman of the Index Committee at Standard & Poors-Dow Jones, the nation’s housing market has reached an important milestone—one likely to be appreciated by real estate holders—Stinson Beach homeowners and investors included.The gentleman in the spotlight is David Blitzer, who is the head man when it comes to the S&P Case-Shiller Index, the most widely-respected measure of housing activity.Mr. Blitzer’s comments were aimed at the latest report, released last Tuesday. It covered three-month price averages for the quarter ending in September. They notched a 5.5% higher average residential price over the previous year.Now at this point, Stinson Beach real estate observers might wonder what is so newsworthy about yet another appreciation in residential real estate pric... 12/08/2016