Tribute to Chris Loveall Former Team Leader of Keller Williams Simi Valley

March 22, 1970 - June 27, 2009

 

 

 

Chris Loveall past away yesterday of a possible heart attack while visiting his father.  This unexpected and sudden passing is shocking to all of us who new Chris.  Chris was a big part of recruiting me to Keller Williams Realty in Simi Valley just last year.  Chris was very supportive of the Simi Valley Moorpark Association of Realtors serving on committees and also as a director.  Please keep Chris and his family in your thoughts and prayers.  You will be missed Chris.

 

Chris Loveall is seen here with Robert Harris Owner of Keller Williams Simi Valley and Denise Rasmussen taken this last Christmas 2008 in the Keller Williams Simi Valley Market Center.

Arrangements for Chris are as follows:

A service for Chris will be held on Sunday July 5, 2009 at 2:00pm at Griffin Family Chapel located at 101 East Wilbur Road Thousand Oaks, Ca 91360.

Please share you memories of Chris below in the comments.

 

 

Simi Valley Homes For Sale Video Tour 1267 Fitzgerald Road Here is another Simi Valley home to see just down the street from Mike's listing. Check out the video tour below.



Some of the great Features Include:

• Dual pane windows
• Upgraded HVAC
• Spectacularly Remodeled Gourmet Kitchen with granite
• Whole house Water filtration and softening system
• Large master suite with two person Spa Tub
• Mountain Valley Views
• Two car garage with Third stall workshop
• Additional work shed in yard with 220 electric
• Flat rear yard with waterfall stream and fountain
• 4 Bedroom
• Immaculately Maintained

For more information on Simi Valley homes for sale and Simi Valley Real Estate market conditions please visit www.HomeBuysBlog.com

I recently wrote a post on my blog about how the HVCC is negatively affecting Simi Valley Home Sales. This video is is a must see as the new legislation is already creating major problems for Simi Valley Home Buyers and Sellers. The "True"Value for your home is under attack and a bad appraisal will only cause more home Buyer - Seller frustration.

Simi Valley Emergency Preparedness - Lesson Learned

As a young boy I was a boy scout and trained in First Aid.  When Cathy and I were the owners of the Simi Valley Gold's Gym in the Target Center, we had CPR certification and basic first aid training.  Well, years later you get rusty.  

This past Sunday we were preparing for a large family party at my Simi Valley home to celebrate my oldest daughter's high school graduation.  About an hour before the party I heard my wife screaming to call 911.  She had gone over to my neighbor house and about the same time she was walking in their back yard, my neighbor making repairs to his patio cover fell off on to the bricks hitting his head.  He was knocked out cold, bleeding and not moving.  The wait for the fire department, paramedics and police seemed like and eternity.  I soon realized how little first aid skills I remembered. A few other neighbors heard the yelling and came to help us.  I went into the house looking for a cell phone or regular phone to see if I could call my neighbor's family and there was no cell phone or pone with a programmed address book, nor was there an emergency list of numbers anywhere in the house.  When the police arrived, they helped locate a phone book that was not well organized and they went though the book trying to hunt down contact information for his adult children and a possible cell phone for his wife.  

My neighbor was very lucky, by the time the paramedics arrived he was talking and moving his arms and legs.  He broke a couple of ribs and hurt his shoulder along with a concussion, but is already home from the hospital.  

I learned that I need an emergency list of important contacts and family members on the refrigerator; also that I need to go get my first aid training and CPR certification updated.  I feel fortunate that I live on a street where we are all not total strangers, but we all walked away from that day thinking about how we could improve our own Emergency Preparedness.

Simi Valley Homes For Sale Inventory Update 5-09

This certainly is a crazy market for Simi Valley Real Estate.  Multiple offers, low inventory prices not moving up, low interest rates, tax credits.  If you want to see where the action is look at the chart below.  The Green line is very important this is how the inventory is pacing with the sales.  It is clear that once we get over the $600,000 price range in Simi the market is very different.

The unsold inventory index is calculated by dividing the inventory by the aver number of homes sold each month and when we break it down by price ranges, the higher we go the worse the news is for home sellers.

The index typically works that less than 5 months supply is a Seller's market, 5-6 months is a balanced market. over 6 months is a Buyer's Market. The Higher end homes in Simi Valley all have over a 13 month supply.

I will have more on Simi Valley homes for Sale at http://www.homebuysblog.com soon.

 

Simi Valley E-Waste Recycling May 16, 2009

This Saturday May 16th, 2009 is the day to get rid of al the electronic junk you have stored in the garage.  Old computers, Monitors, TVs, VCR, you name it.  Bring your waste to the Simi Valley Unified School District office at 875 Cochran Street between 9:00 am and 3:00 pm.   The Simi Valley Education Foundation will earn money for every pound of your electronic junk.

 

Simi Valley Market Commentary (Video Blog) May 2009 This Simi Valley Real Estate market is a roller coaster and if you have been caught up in the craziness, then watch this report so you can catch a breath and think about getting caught up in a eBay style auction frenzy. Cooler heads will prevail. We're at the end of the beginning of this foreclosure mess so don't get carried away just yet.

The cost to own a Windows based PS is nebulous at best as Microsoft regularly offers newer version of their Windows operating System and their Office Suite for word processing, spreadsheets and presentation software in Word, Excel and Power Point. These regular major upgrades typically require an upgrade in hardware and the purchase of a flavor of the new product.  Both Micorsoft and Adobe could learn something from software developer Intuit who's Quick Books and Quicken products seemed to have the most reasonable upgrade pricing.  While Microsoft's dominance is troubling to many and others just accept their products in lemming-like fashion, there are alternatives that are compatible with Microsoft Office documents.  Since there is a good chance you will get a Word doc, Excel file or Power Point presentation as an email attachment, it will be difficult to completely unplug form the Microsoft grid.

My departure from the Widows based Operation System challenged me to see if I could leave MS Office dependence. Five months prior to leaving the Windows OS, I have broke completely with Microsoft's Outlook and dove into gmail usage full time.  I knew that after five months of being Outlook free, that I could do the same over the rest of the Office Suite if I could deal with the occasional MS Office attachments that come to my email.  Being a Adobe Acrobat user it is far more advantageous to convert all files to PDFs that will be attached to emails, but the cost of Acrobat and the fact 

that most users are not willing to go past the free offering in Acrobat Reader,  MS Office docs will be attached to email docs for a while to come.

My solution to dumping MS Office completely came in three forms.  

• My first option was to use Google Docs.  However the formating really did not hold up as well as I needed.  
  
• My second option was just to use Apple's iWork.  While iWork is fine 80% of the time it seems that MS Office docs I tend to share with others has very complex formating.  Many of the documents I deal with are forms and files with a TOC, tables and footnotes. There are times it just does not work with iWork to my satisfaction.  
  
• Last comes OpenOffice.org  This is a free suite owned by Sun, it works on many different Operating Systems including Windows and allows me to open Word, Excel and Powerpoint files.  So far it looks like the docs I get hold up well with this software and allow me to share those files without worry. While I still use iWork the majority of the time, I now have open office as a backup with the few trouble some MS Office docs that are sent my way.

Just to side track everyone a little on the Windows side, there is a free PDF printer driver that will allow you to turn any document on your Windows PC that you can send to your printer.  It will allow you to combine several different files into one PDF file as well.  That is the Bullzip free software.

If you are tired of the expensive upgrading of MS OFfice or have moved to a different operating system and want to break ties with Microsoft,  products like OpenOffice.org are providing an opportunity.

 

 

 

Locally, if you have not notice the sales Tax Increase or your vehicle registration fees and the clever ways our state government has increased your taxes by finding a loop hole to label taxes fees....your day of reckoning is coming.  This problem is not only isolated to our state, but our federal government as well.  A national effort to bring attention to the serious missteps of our beltway politicians is scheduled to take place on Tax Day, April 15th.  In California we can use this day to protest both Federal and National Taxation, the stimulus bill & TARP faux paux and career politician waste.  

The two closest demonstrations you can participate in will be at the Ventura County Government Center and the Los Angeles City Government Center in Van Nuys.  You can learn more at Tax Day Tea Party What you see on the news and what is happening with the bail out money is not even close to reality.  The waste and profiteering the banking industry is engaged in while crying 'Poor" is disgusting.  We are fortunate to live in a country where protest can not be silenced.  I will be out at the demonstration in Van Nuys with my video camera to catch the action. 

Video Blog - Simi Valley Real Estate Market Update

 

 

The archived reports are at my main Blog http://www.HomeBuysBlog.com  Please stop by and subscribe via RSS or email if you would like to be notified when future reports are posted.  The market continues to remain interesting and it will still be a while before any of us can make a claim as to where the market is headed.  One key issues sticks out and that is the low inventory.  Once the market returns to a more balance inventory and balanced sales across all price ranges will we really see where this is going.