Edgewater Park is another of the big, sprawling spaces that seems to have almost everything in it. 9.55 acres of Tennis courts, baseball diamond, basketball court, picnic area, kids play structure and tons of green grass to romp on. Pretty convenient location too between Edgewater Blvd, Polaris, Regulus and Foster City School. You can’t miss it. Here’s a map link:

EdgewaterParkMap

I can’t help but wonder how many parties there will be out in these places this weekend? Have we been all fooded and partied out? Never, you say! I’m going to drive by anyway, just to see. So…what is this place? That is the question.  This weeks winner will receive a $30.00 gift card to Chevy’s at Edgewater Place. All the rules of the road are available to see on the left hand margin as well as on the bar above. Any and all correct answers will not be published until Monday morning. All decent jokes, gentle barbs, amusing Thanksgiving stories and all wrong answers will be published immediately. I’m sure you’re all overloaded with leftovers from yesterday, but hey, you can always use a night out at Chevy’s! Good luck! 

As weird as this year has been it’s undeniable, at least to me, just how much I have to be thankful for. I’m truly blessed and among many other things I’m very grateful to all of you who read and participate in this blog. It’s really been a fun time and I look forward to a blogging future with all of you as a part of it! Thanks again…have a fantastic Thanksgiving!

No, I have not turned to the dark side! I’m still optimistic about our future here…but this is one hilarious video! I’ve seen it 6 or 7 times and it never get’s old to me. It’s a classic! I hope you enjoy it too.

 There’s a good vibe coming from that “Vibe”…or the new and growing Foster City Teen Center being built near the water south of the Rec Center. Congratulations go to Erika Jahnke who nailed it early. Erika wins the $30.00 gift certificate to Athena Gyros in Edgewater Place. Great job Erika! Also arriving with the correct answer was Jessica Morales, (welcome back Jessica!) , Asif and Ed Batac. Good job folks! Thanks for playing. I hope you all have a great Thanksgiving! We’ll be back on Friday for some more foto fun, hope to see you then.

I’m suspending the photos of the parks this Saturday in favor of a guest spot by the team of Cimeron Morrisey and Andra Lorenz who are giving us the story of Project Bay Cat. Thank you Ladies! Also, there’s lots more photos of these cats, and other things, by clicking on the “Foster City Photographer” link on the left margin under “Local Blogs”.

“Oh my goodness, look at the cats!” says a woman who stops in her tracks while out for an afternoon walk along Foster City’s Bay Trail. She is mesmerized and confused by the sight of a beautiful black Himalayan mix and a brown tabby relaxing on the beach. Are they someone’s cats, she wonders? But there aren’t any houses in sight. It’s all confusing to her. As a new trail walker, she doesn’t know that just a few years ago, the scene here was quite different: there were dozens of kittens and scores unaltered adult cats crying for help. Now, thanks to a collaborative effort called Project Bay Cat, there aren’t any kittens being born here anymore, and the adult feral cat population has been reduced by over 40% – it’s all part of a humane effort to manage the cats.

The first question most people ask is how the cats got there. Years ago, people abandoned their cats on the trail (which is now illegal, not to mention inhumane). Since the cats weren’t fixed, they gave birth to many litters of kittens, who without the benefit of human contact, became feral. Thanks to the watchful eyes of trail users, police, and volunteers, we’ve been able to curb the illegal abandonment of cats on the trail.

The next question most ask is: “So what do you do with those that remain?” About 5 years ago, Project Bay Cat began, which is a collaborative effort between the City of Foster City, Homeless Cat Network, and Sequoia Audubon Society. Working together with the community,  Homeless Cat Network volunteers rescued and found homes for over 70 kittens that were born on the trail, then they set out to trap-neuter-return the adult cats. Now, almost all of the adult cats have now been spayed/neutered, which not only stopped the cat population from growing, but has enabled it to shrink (by over 40% now!) due to natural attritition and adoption. Sequoia Audubon identified sensitive bird habitats, and Homeless Cat Network migrated the cats away from those areas to minimize the cats’ impact on the bird population. The humane efforts have been working marvelously. One day, there won’t be any more cats on the trail, and the successful results will have been achieved humanely thanks to the efforts of Project Bay Cat’s volunteers.

Until that day comes, volunteers from the community will continue to provide food and water to the cats every day at feeding stations. Members of the public are asked not to feed the cats unless they are registered feeders since we have specific feeding locations and times. The program is funded by donations and staffed entirely by volunteers, so if you can help (either as a volunteer or donor), please contact Homeless Cat Network today: info@homelesscatnetwork.com

Now that’s obscure! Kind of? We’ll see.  It’s really kind of an artsy sort of picture…or at least my wife Lesley seems to think so, and she’s the photographer. The question is…what is this big yellow thing? This weeks winner will receive a $30.00 gift certificate to My Big Fat Greek Restaurant…also known as Athena Gyro in Edgewater Place. All the rules of the road are available on the left hand margin as well as on the bar above. The winner will be announced on Monday morning along with all other correct answers. Any and all semi obnoxious jokes, smart alecky comments and all wrong answers will be published immediately. Have a great weekend and thanks for playing!

OK, it’s time again for a small rant. I signed up for a web based leads system whereby potential buyers and sellers request services from local Realtors. The vast majority of these leads aren’t worth the time to respond to. Prospective buyers wanting 5 bedroom houses in Hillsborough for under $100,000, that kind of thing. Well, one lead came up from a seller looking for a listing agent the other day that I thought would be worth commenting on here simply because it goes to the heart of the thinking of plenty of sellers who really don’t understand the unintended consequences that are headed their way via this thought process. Here’s the post:

“Need agent who is an excellent negotiator and has sold homes in my area. Agent needs to come in with a very competitive commission quote, as this home will take very little effort and time to sell. Quoted commission rates will receive preference over “negotiable” quotes.”

The property in question is a 3 bedroom, 2 bath house in San Mateo and the seller is stating that he wants $1,500,000 for the place. Here’s a few small, but relevant facts:

* The most money ever spent for a 3 bedroom house on the sellers street was $1,275,000

* In San Mateo right now there are exactly 2 pending sales on homes priced at $1,400,000 or over while there’s 15 active listings whose average days on the market are 64.

Somehow the claim that “this home will take very little effort and time to sell” seems unlikely to me…and I don’t care how nice the home is.

The obvious, most important factor for this seller is a low commission structure yet is asking for an “excellent negotiator”. If an agent caves in immediately, via an e-mail, while negotiating his or her own money…how ‘excellent” do you suppose they’ll be negotiating with the sellers money?

I guess what bugs me the most is the perception here, not an uncommon one either, that all real estate agents are the same…and since they’re all the same all that really matters is how much commission they’ll charge. If you needed surgery how comfortable would you be finding a surgeon through and an online search and then demanded that they compete for your surgical business for the lowest fee. Would you be comfortable with the discount surgeon? OK, allright…we’re not surgeons, but we’re not mowing your lawn either. There are outstanding Realtors and lousy Realtors just like there are outstanding (and lousy) painters, plumbers, contractors, babysitters, hairstylists, chefs, lawyers, accountants, acupuncturists, gardeners and coffee shops and I’m not going to any of them just because they might respond to an online query with the lowest fee. I’d simply be too worried about their competence! The unintended consequence here could easily be that the seller hires an agent willing to take an overpriced listing that will be on for too long and ultimately cost the seller significantly more money in a declining market. Make the right choice the first time…and please don’t make the commission the primary focus. It’ll cost you in the long run.

Once upon a time, there was a normal real estate market. In that market there were normal average days on market, normal numbers of both buyers and sellers and normal lenders who had a desire to loan money. During those days it was common to buyers and sellers alike to study the values of a given property by looking at recent sales of comparable properties in their area. In doing that it could be fairly reasonably ascertained what the true market value was for said property. Kind of hard to imagine, huh? Almost a fantasy.

As the market boomed it eventually became almost irrelevant what the comps showed. A house or condo listed in April could easily get 7 or 8 offers and ratify $50,000 or more over the last most recent comp. Then another similar home could be listed in July that got another 7 or 8 offers and sell for $50,000 or more over what the April sale got. Think I’m making this up? In February of 2000 the house at 204 Surfbird was listed for $799,000, got multiple offers and sold for $920,000. During the escrow the buyer discovered another house that he liked better…and listed it again right after it closed escrow in late March (without ever moving into it!) and it got multiple offers again…and it sold the second time for $990,000! During those years buyers would ask me for comparables so that they could reasonably determine what kind of offer they should make for their purchase. The truth was…the comps were irrelevant! The only real determining factor was “how much were you willing to pay over the asking price”. Often you couldn’t get a good feel for that until you made several unsuccessful offers to see how far over asking the type of property you wanted was going.

Until September 15 when the bottom fell out the market here was actually pretty much a normal one. Now the shoe is on an entirely different foot. Now it’s the sellers who want to look at recent comparable sales data! Interestingly, it’s sort of the same experience as before (only backwards). Comps from July of 2008 are irrelevant. Buyers right now are the ones who feel like they can disregard the comps…and go well under them.

Hopefully, one day soon we’ll be looking at comps as a reasonable yardstick for determining value again…I hope it coms sooner rather than later.

The big El Capitan in Leo Ryan park commemorates non other than Leo Ryan himself and his tragic death in Guyana. The anniversary of which is tomorrow. Here’s a link to some more info RyanLink . This one stumped alot of you for sure, but we did have 3 correct answers. The gift certificate goes to Mary Wong, who came in just slightly before Dana Ferri in the race to eat at Waterfront Pizza. Also answering correctly was Erika Jahnke. Good job you guys!! Thanks for playing…I hope to see you all back again this Friday!