Welcome! Don and Leslie have been full time Realtors in Ventura County for over 30 years. It's been fun watching as "little" Victoria Avenue (and many other streets) have morphed into what they are today.

Just as our local communities have evolved, we've seriously considered for the past several years how we could someday "give back" and "finish well" - expressions that can mean a lot of things to different people.

As part of our research into opportunities for service, in early 2013 we contacted a Peace Corps recruiter who helped us start our journey. But our new path wasn't going to be as straight and easy as we thought! And so we began a transition into something completely different from the routines we've known for the past 30 years - and have begun a path that's leading into the exciting unknown. This will be our story!

“Moral hazard” – the great debate in foreclosures

At the beginning of this year there was great hand wringing over the sub-prime mess and the havoc it was (and still is) creating. Pundits have called our current financial crisis the biggest crisis since the Great Depression. There was great demand for Congress to “do something”, thus Congress kicked into gear (for example, limits were temporarily raised on FHA loans to make them available to high priced places like California).

But some ideas being floated around Congress are generating intense philosophical debate, namely the concept of “moral hazard”. Moral hazard is an insurance term, used to describe how people possibly may behave under certain circumstances. Read the rest of this article »

Filed under article topic: The Economy/Economics,The Fed & Housing policy
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First time homebuyer workshop on May 31st – update report

The morning was sunny and clear and about a dozen folks attended a First Time Homebuyer Workshop on May 31st. It was held in our office on County Square Drive in Ventura. Don and Leslie taught the workshop and covered the numerous aspects of the money involved in getting a loan, credit scores, qualifying yourself for a loan, common types of loans for entry level buyers, short pays and REOs, the Residential Purchase Agreement (RPA), and escrow. To wrap up our time, two past clients shared their “in the trenches” real life experiences and thoughts as they were buying their first homes.

In June, we’ll be having another homebuyer workshop and also another REO “speed dating” caravan of foreclosed homes – this time in the North Oxnard area around St. John’s Hospital. Stay tuned…

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May newsletter

The  May newsletter covers a recent REO “speed dating” caravan and local pendings (homes going into escrow) trends.

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The foreclosure process

The local company that tracks foreclosures in Ventura County is
www.ForeclosureListService.com. On a daily basis, they track the filings from the Recorders office and publish that data. We get our data from them. Read the rest of this article »

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Sellers – are you a “Short pay”?

What IS a short pay?

A short pay simply means you owe more on your home or property than what it’s worth. Many people who purchased a home in the past several years (with little or no down payment) now find themselves “upside down” in their homes, and maybe the financing on that purchase money loan (or loans) has (or will) reset to substantially higher payments. Read the rest of this article »

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Don's building a replica of a 1930s era biplane at Camarillo airport. Over the past several years, he's had numerous students help in building the plane. Track the Tiger Moth progress here!