So…I’m actually doing something that I haven’t done since 2005. Taking a vacation! We went to the Grand Canyon in Arizona (amazing place!) and are stopping in Las Vegas for a few days on the way home. Anyway…I’ll be back on Friday for the next foto contest. All the best!

Sunday was not only Father’s Day…it was actually my daughter Elena’s 10th birthday. That fact trumps Father’s Day for me all day long! Because of this milestone event, we decided to do something a little different to celebrate. My wife Lesley has been a flight attendant with United Airlines for about 25 years so we came up with a sort of unique plan. Elena and I went out to the airport on Saturday night, bags packed, and ready to get on an airplane…and go somewhere! We weren’t sure exactly where we would go but we made plans and packed for a short trip to either Los Angeles, San Diego, Denver or Seattle. Since we fly on an employee pass we just figured we would get on whatever plane had a couple of open seats and just go there. Wherever there ended up being.

Over the 21 years that Lesley and I have been married we’ve done quite a bit of traveling…and we’ve missed a ton of flights too. It’s not been an uncommon experience for us to spend alot of time in airports trying to get somewhere and wasting alot of time in the process. Particularly in the last few years it’s been tough to fly standby since most every flight is full. At any rate Elena and I were prepared for an adventure. We actually got on our first choice and went to Denver.  Upon arrival, we rented a car and drove up to Boulder where we spent all day Sunday and the morning on Monday before heading back down to Denver, where we finished our trip and came home last night.

You know what? We had a ball! Elena got the tour of the University of Colorado (my alma mater) watched a ton of street performers in downtown Boulder, went to the famous Red Rocks Amphitheater, and ended up having a fabulous meal at Jax Fish House in lower downtown Denver. That’s the birthday girl up there in that picture…I think that was right about the time she found out the waiter was going to give her a piece of chocolate cake, on the house, to commemorate the big day.

As always seems to happen, I got offers on two of my listings while I was gone and probably ended up working too much at the expense of our time together while…but the truth is it gave me some real perspective. It was amazingly wonderful to spend that time with my daughter. She’s a terrific kid and I adore her and wish I could spend more time like that with her…as well as her sister Christina too (who can’t wait for her turn to go on a trip now!). I couldn’t think of a thing to write about all day today that had any Real Estate or Foster City application. I also couldn’t stop thinking about our trip and how grateful I am to have done it.

I think being a Dad beats being a realtor all day long!

I don’t know, there’s something about this zany viral world we live in that never ceases to amaze me. Ultimately, it’s just flat out wacky. Things happen that were totally impossible just a few years ago and transparency has sometimes reached absurd new levels. Let’s take the obvious, facebook, for example. Here’s a couple of actual updates from my news-feed today:

“Just had my carpets and windows cleaned. Everything is spring fresh!”

“My wisdom tooth! ow, ow , ow! I think it weighs like a pound!”

“looking forward to hangin’ with John Stepanek tonight ”

“People are driving funny today…”

“Love my friends, love coffee… this morning I had coffee with friends, what a great morning.”

“Excited about the new comforter/bedding set I got yesterday. TOTALLY changing up the colors/shades of the MB.”

It’s deep stuff, huh? Where would we be in life without the knowledge gleaned from social media? We may actually have real conversations or something. Not that I’m judging or anything…I’m on facebook all the time.

Well, into this transparency fray leaps the wonderful world of Trulia Voices. Have you seen this site? Trulia is a real estate search site and when you’re there you should check out the tab “advice”. There you’ll find Voices and it’s Q & A section. Why do I mention this? Well, because this week we have an entry from a real live Foster City homeowner who takes real estate transparency to a new level. The first three words on this “Voices” entry…HAVE TO SELL.  Hmmm…the seller goes on to share that they listed the home on May 1 and took a price reduction earlier this week. The seller then asks “When should I lower my price again?” The seller even suggests a new price $10,000 lower than the recently reduced price! Don’t believe me? Check it out for yourself. Now that’s a poker face! Or not! It’s not exactly a realtor’s dream come true. Your client negotiating downward in the public domain for all the world to see.

What’s really funny to me is the answers! A bunch of folks from out of the area chime in, including one from the Chicago area. But really, you’ve got to take your hat off the the wonderful Vicki Moore of San Mateo’s Alain Pinel office who says “My suggestion is that you delete this question immediately.”

Like I said…only in the brave new virtual world! I love it! Oh, yeah…if you’re a buyer this may be a decent opportunity?

Earth Day 2010 from Foster City TV on Vimeo.

In case you’re looking for something fun and interesting to do tomorrow there’s a pretty cool sounding Earth Day fair happening in front of City Hall at Hillsdale and FC Blvd. It takes place between 11 and 4 and there’s vendors, food and activities for the kids. Check out this video and head on over!

Have a great Easter folks!!

Not sure if you’ve spotted the latest trend in marketing homes lately, but in the last month or so I’ve seen listing agents with problematic houses (that have been taking a long time to sell) reduce their prices to comically silly levels in an attempt to get multiple offers. One in Burlingame that had been listed for $1,880,000 suddenly reduced to $999,000 and another one in Los Altos that went from $2,199,000 down to $799,000. Needless to say, they got multiples and the price went way over asking! We’ll see how much when they close.

Well, this phenomenon went to a really extreme level right here in Foster City yesterday when this house came on the market as a new listing at the incredible price of $112,000. I couldn’t believe it myself when I saw it…I thought it must be a typo and it should have been $1,112,000, so I called the listing agent, Anna Dupont with Re/Max Today and asked her what was up? 

Turns out the elderly seller has plenty of money, the house is pure ownership and she doesn’t really care about receiving market value for the house. She wants it to go to a young family who she can help get started much the way she did 40 years ago. $112,000 is the actual price for this place at 382 Pompano. Overall the place is in really good shape too. Both Anna and the seller aren’t interested in a bidding war or overbids…they’ll look at offers at anytime and the first family with a really good story gets the house.

Pretty amazing, huh! Who knows…this might be your lucky day!

April Fools!

Be honest, doesn’t the new year sort of feel a little (alot!) like this? Every year the alot two weeks of the year remind me a whole bunch that the new year is coming and that boulder is at the bottom of the hill again. I always feel like the Myth of Sisyphus really isn’t a myth after all…it’s the reality of our lives. So, here we are in January and it’s beginning all over again.

 I’m expecting 2010 to be a whole lot better year than 2009 was. It sure is starting off for me differently than last January. I’ve received a fairly large number of calls from folks either wanting to buy or sell homes and that sure differs from last year when everything was sound asleep. There really is no doubt in my mind that a corner has been turned. I’ve probably said this before, but my office is the most productive one in San Mateo county and has been so for about 20 years. In 2006 it did over 1000 transactions. In the first four months of 2009 it did 42 transactions…and was still the top office in San Mateo county. Now, if that doesn’t speak to how slow the market was a year ago, nothing will. December’s numbers haven’t come in yet but my office did 50 transactions in November 2009 alone.

I would suspect that applies to alot of other businesses as well. The outlook seems to be quite a bit rosier now than it was a year ago. The boulder still needs to be pushed back up the hill now…it’s just that it may not be quite as intimidating as it was last January. All the best to you in 2010! May your respective boulders be lighter!!

Is this house just really a house? I suppose it all depends on the kind of “house” you grew up in. We have all heard discussions about what makes a house a home, and again, this can be very subjective. What happens when a home is sold and it is your first Holiday Season thinking about someone else making memories in that home? I am thinking about a very special home this Christmas season. It is the home where I spent every Christmas day for most of my years, and fortunately, my children were able to share in many of these memories.

900 Flying Fish street, my grandma and grandpa’s house. The home was sold this past summer and I was so anxious awaiting the close of escrow. Of course we all know that memories don’t get sold with the house…as memories are all in your mind and in your heart, but that’s much easier said…

Truth be told, I haven’t been able to drive near Flying Fish since the home sold. I actually drove down the street for the first time the other night (happy to say it was in the opposite direction) to look at the eventual winner on his lights contest. Even this was difficult. It is very hard to think about my grandma and grandpa’s house and not envision a large Santa sign on the door which read “The Minkey family wish you a Merry Christmas”, or the lights my grandpa hung so meticulously. Or the best…the 10 or so different types of cookies grandma made which totaled hundreds and hundreds of dozens. The smell walking up the driveway was amazing, but the love and laughter coming from inside was even better. Everyone was always welcome in this home, always.

I wonder all the time what kind of family will live there. Will they feel the love and joy that we experienced in that house? Will they play games until the wee hours of the night? Will there be children who will run back and forth from the path to Gull Park over and over again? Many kids form Foster City ate snacks and lunch that my grandmother lovingly made after play in that park. Of course, those were days when kids could stay in the park all day with no adults and go freely back and forth, but that’s a story for another day…

Houses get sold, people move on, but memories that are built in a home can move with you wherever you go. My children’s memories are now being built in the home my husband and I have made, and also in their grandma and grandpa Minkey’s home. Even though I will always have a difficult time driving by grandma and grandpa’s house I plan to keep the memories alive for my children with the hope that it will move with them to their home someday.

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and a joyous New Year from our home to yours!

First of all, I just wanted to invite all of you who happen to be addicted to facebook (like me) to become a fan of this blog. Next time you’re on fb go to search and type in FosterCityBlog.com and jump on in.

The reason for that addition to the blog family is a technology conference I attended in San Francisco last week that spoke at great length about the power of social media. That video below is filled with amazing facts and there’s no question that anybody in business today who doesn’t pay attention to it is making a serious mistake. I spoke to a friend of mine today who has a blog related to her business as an esthetician, and on which she was marketing an ancillary business selling  jewelery. An attorney for the jewelery company told her to remove a link to it because she didn’t pay a fee to them for using their site and name. Are they completely out of their freaking minds?

Well, in addition to all the fun social media stuff we learned there was a discussion of new websites that can be helpful for small business people. Whether or not these will be actually helpful is debatable but I thought these were sort of fun sounding:

RunPee.com You may not believe this but this site lists movies that are currently in theaters and tells you the best time to run pee during those films. It also tells you what you’ve missed while your were gone. I’m not kidding! Click that link!

Slydial.com This ingenius site is a voice messaging service that connects you directly with someones mobile voicemail…need to call your mother in law, but don’t really want to talk to her? This is your site!

There’s a bunch of others that have great business applications too, but they aren’t as fun as those two. Anyway, check out the socialnomics video…it’s very powerful!

Even in this really kooky year, I’m very thankful today. Among other things I’m sure thankful for all of you have read this blog, have made it successful and have broght me business as a result. I truly hope that you all have a great day today! Happy Thanksgiving!