Dangling on a limb today

Today's Featured Listing









Fulfill the dreams of the entire family! Room to run and play, with huge shop and brand new kitchen. New carpet, new counters, koi pond with water feature, roof approx 12 years old on a dead end street, tube lights for energy efficiency, just shy of a half acre in town but located in the County. Not a short sale or REO. You won't be disappointed!


So in case you were wondering, I'm sure you were awake all night wondering, yes - the cupcakes were still home. 
There are now two. Kudos to me. 


I'm gonna go out on a limb here today and weigh in on the whole Principle Reduction debate. Part of me is totally for it but most of me is totally against it and I'll tell you why. (I know this is not popular opinion here) If the banks reduce principle for homeowners who are underwater, how much should they reduce it? Will we then go to car companies and ask them to reduce the principle two days after we buy a new car? How about to Macy's for my blender? No. Here's the deal - a home is NOT an investment. It's your home! If you treat property as an investment, you have to accept it as that. Investments sometimes lose value. See the stock market for more details on this. This is gonna make me very unpopular here. Yes a lot of good hardworking folks bought their homes at the top of the market. I sold homes at the top of the market. Heck! I bought homes at the top of the market. We all were in some way affected by it. If you bought a home in that market and you still are able to make your payments comfortably, should you get a principle reduction? If you, like me, borrowed money to make home improvements, should you get a principle reduction? What if the banks took 20% off your mortgage, recast the balance and put in place a 0% interest silent second mortgage with that 20%. What if they did this only for homeowners in distress?  What if that silent second mortgage was due at time of sale. Would you stay in your home until your value had recovered? Would you rent it out? I lived in my first home for 10 years before I was no longer upside down. This is not the first time that the housing market has dropped. But my first home was my HOME. I raised my children there, planted my garden there - made friends with my neighbors there. Lived there. Loved there. I do not have the answers to the housing problem but I do not think that Principle Reduction is feasible. Just my opinion here.


In Shasta County today there were 11 new listings and 29 pending - dang! 717 Residential listings in Shasta County.