All posts by jd

Real estate broker, civil engineer and general contractor.

School Serves Ice Cream, Has Health Committee Meeting At Same Time

January 12, 2010 jd

By John O’Dell

I had to do a double take on this one. Driving to Grass Valley on the Colfax Highway I saw this school sign. It appears that the Union Hill Elementary School is serving ice cream, and holding a health committee meeting at the same time! Tomorrow they’re having a board meeting. Wonder if they are going to talk about why the kids were hyper active with a sugar high from the ice cream on January 11? Or maybe the health committee is doing an experiment on serving kids sugar and fat and seeing what that does to their grades?

Just for fun, here’s a 4 once serving of Baskin Robbins chocolate ice cream: 22% fat, 11% sugar, no vitamins.

Serving Size 4 oz

Amount per serving
Calories 260	Calories from Fat 0

%Daily Value*

Total Fat 14g		22%
	Saturated Fat 0g	0%
Cholesterol 0mg		0%
Sodium 0mg		0%
Total Carbohydrates 33g		11%
Protein 0g

Vitamin A	0%	Vitamin C	0%
Calcium	0%	Iron	0%
* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet.

Source: Baskin Robbins website

So what do you think?

John O’Dell
Real estate broker -Residential Homes & Land
General Contractor
Civil Engineer

Business

Be Careful of the E-Mails You Receive!

January 11, 2010 jd

By: Federal Bureau of Investigation

Be leery of e-mails or text messages you receive indicating a problem or question regarding your financial accounts. In this scam, you are directed to follow a link or call the number provided in the message to update your account or correct the problem. The link actually directs the individuals to a fraudulent website or message that appears legitimate where any personal information you provide, such as account number and PIN, will be stolen.

Another scam involves victims receiving an e-mail message directing the recipient to a spoofed website. A spoofed website is a fake site or copy of a real website and misleads the recipient into providing personal information, which is routed to the scammer’s computers.

Tips
Here are some tips you can use to avoid becoming a victim of cyber fraud:

Do not respond to unsolicited (spam) e-mail.
Do not click on links contained within an unsolicited e-mail.
Be cautious of e-mail claiming to contain pictures in attached files, as the files may contain viruses. Only open attachments from known senders. Virus scan the attachments if possible.
Avoid filling out forms contained in e-mail messages that ask for personal information.
Always compare the link in the e-mail to the link you are actually directed to and determine if they actually match and will lead you to a legitimate site.
Log on directly to the official website for the business identified in the e-mail, instead of “linking” to it from an unsolicited e-mail. If the e-mail appears to be from your bank, credit card issuer, or other company you deal with frequently, your statements or official correspondence from the business will provide the proper contact information.
Contact the actual business that supposedly sent the e-mail to verify if the e-mail is genuine.

Source: Federal Bureau of Investigation

animals

Funny Cat Videos

January 10, 2010 jd

Here’s a video from our cat friends. This video has been viewed over 3,366,000 times. I hope you enjoy it.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IytNBm8WA1c

John O’Dell
Real Estate broker
Residential and land sales.

Angel's Dog House Listings

Funny Animal Video

January 9, 2010 jd

Here’s a great animal video. This one has been viewed 14,700,000 times.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kxa0mnDj0bs

Enjoy the weekend.

John O’Dell
Real Estate Broker
General Contractor
Civil Engineer

Business

Banks Will Continue to Gouge Consumers in 2010

January 8, 2010 jd

By John O’Dell

So the banks with their greed got us into the housing mess. Yes, you can say, well it was the mortgage brokers or the real estate agents that did it. But no, the banks made the rules for the mortgage brokers. No documentation, low down payment, the test to get a mortgage was to put a mirror to the nose of a person and if there was steam on the glass, the bank approved the mortgage! They have the final say, you know, as to will they loan the money or not.

So what else can we expect of our friendly banks? Well how about them collecting $22.9 billion in penalty fees in 2009. That’s billions, not millions, in penalty fees, that doesn’t include the 18-30 percent interest they charge the consumer for use of credit cards. Checking account fees, late fees, fees for check cashing, ATM fees and the list goes on as they continue their relentless ways to come up with more ways to gouge the consumer.

You can expect the banks to bombard you with new fees and products in 2010 as they try to replace more than $50 billion in revenue wiped out by new rules that clamp down on certain business practices. (read predatory)

So far, the changes are mostly concentrated in checking accounts and credit cards. In addition to attaching new fees to old products, banks are introducing new types of accounts that they hope will reel in new customers and reduce their funding costs.

For plastic, the new rules go into effect in February as part of the Credit Card Act of 2009. The rules will limit some interest-rate increases, require more disclosure to customers and prohibit banks from raising interest rates on current balances unless a customer is at least 60 days behind in a payment.

Credit-card companies already have been racing to slip new fees and practices into customer contracts ahead of the law. Issuers are closing accounts, switching cards with fixed interest rates to variable rates and introducing cards that have an annual fee.

So the one thing you can expect from the banks, is that they will nickel and dime us to the tune of billions of dollars in 2010. What do you think?

John O’Dell is a licensed real estate broker and specializes in residential and land sales.

Hiking, Local Writers & Contributors, Recreation

Walk For Health, But Stay Healthy And Pain Free

January 7, 2010 jd

by Lisa J. Lehr

Exercise is good. Some of us have undoubtedly made a New Year’s resolution to exercise more. And walking is, for most people, the best choice because it:

1. Doesn’t require much training;

2. Doesn’t require special equipment;

3. Doesn’t (usually) require travel to a special place, such as a gym, pool, or recreational area.

Now, number 3 is somewhat qualified because, while most people in Nevada County live on or near a road with reasonably little traffic, walking on a paved road poses its own set of problems. If you get your regular exercise by walking along a public roadway, you may have noticed persistent or intermittent pain in the joints or muscles of your right leg.

In most places, public roads are constructed with “crowning”; that is, the road is higher at the center and slopes down to the sides. This is to help rain and melting snow run off more quickly instead of pooling in the middle, creating a driving hazard and damage to the road.

We learned as children to walk facing traffic, for obvious safety reasons: if an approaching car is too close to you, you can see it in time only if it’s approaching from the front—unless you have eyes in the back of your head (or wear a little tiny rear-view mirror, as cyclists sometimes do). The problem for walkers is that, as you walk along the edge of the road, one foot is always landing on a higher surface than the other. And over time, this can lead to pain in the hip, knee, and/or other parts of your leg. That, in turn, may discourage you from exercising; or you may just “live with” the pain, having no idea that it’s fixable.

I actually lived with this problem, off and on, for a couple decades before it dawned on me what might be causing it!

Here are some suggestions to avoid one-sided leg pain:

Continue reading Walk For Health, But Stay Healthy And Pain Free →

nevada county fair

Now, Enter Nevada County Fair Logo Contest

January 6, 2010 jd

Mascot Nevada County Fair

WIN $250 IN LOGO DESIGN CONTEST

Submit the winning logo for the 2010 Nevada County Fair and you could win

There’s still time to enter the Nevada County Fairgrounds logo design contest. If you’re a talented or aspiring artist, and you’d like $250, this is the contest to enter! All you need to do is design the best logo to illustrate the 2010 Nevada County Fair slogan, “Rooted in Tree-dition,” which features trees.

The contest is open to Nevada County residents only and takes place until January 15. If you submit the winning design, you will win $250 and a 2010 Nevada County Fair package. Additionally, the winning artwork will be used on various Fair promotional pieces, print ads, buttons, t-shirts, banners, posters, and flyers.

Interested artists may use any medium and can submit up to three entries, which must be on 8-1/2 by 11-inch paper. Entries can be delivered to the Fairgrounds Office at 11228 McCourtney Road or mailed to the Fair Office at PO Box 2687, Grass Valley, CA 95945. A complete set of rules can be found on the Fair’s website at Nevada County Fair, or by calling the Fair Office at (530) 273-6217.

The 2010 Nevada County Fair is August 11 – 15.

Source: Wendy Oaks, Publicist, Nevada County Fairgrounds

Real Estate

Commercial Property Values Continues Downward

January 5, 2010 jd

According to commercial real estate brokerage Grubb&Ellis, the commercial real estate market will not start coming back until 2011. They are forecasting that the banks are holding back on foreclosures of commercial property and may spread them over a three or four year period Read Grubb&Ellis report for the 2010 Forecast today for Northern California and the Central Valley’s office, commercial and retail environment. The common prognosis is: the decline continues, but not as fast as last year. Look for a recovery starting in early 2011. Until then rents keep falling.

” While we expect real estate sales to pick up during the year, banks have delayed selling their REO properties in order to protect their capital reserves. As a result, distressed assets will likely come to market over the next two, three or even four years. CMBS will provide opportunities for investors to acquire distressed debt in 2010, but the structure of the original agreements often makes the process more arduous than buying a property or a whole loan from a bank.”

Source: Grubb&Ellis
John O’Dell
Broker
General Contractor
Civil Engineer

Real Estate

What’s This House Look Like Anyway?

January 4, 2010 jd

What’s a home look like? Well, they say beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Here’s a funny video with different people looking at the same house, with, well, different perspectives.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RJOGzFuVBE

What do your think?

John O’Dell
Broker
General Contractor
Civil Engineer

Real Estate

Woman Sets Record – Looks at 298 Homes Before Buying

January 2, 2010 jd

The average buyer looks at about 10 to 12 homes before they buy. However, Bay Area resident Lidia Pringle looked at 298 homes before she found what she was looking for according to the Wall Street Journal. Ms. Pringle spent 2 ½ years looking for her dream home.

Lidia Pringle looked at 298 homes before she found what she was looking for. WSJ’s Juliet Chung reports on Ms. Pringle’s 2 1/2 year quest to find her dream house. She looked at so many homes, that real estate agents would sometimes ask her for her opinion on new listings that hadn’t seen themselves.

Quoting from the WSJ:

“I’ve always given 110% to whatever it is I do,” says Ms. Pringle. “If I’m looking for a dream house, of course I’m going to follow the same methodology.”

Collecting flyers along the way, she amassed enough data to fill a two-by-three-foot box. She looked at so many homes that real-estate brokers would sometimes ask for her opinion on new listings they hadn’t yet seen themselves.

House hunts have gotten lengthier as buyers have gotten choosier during the housing downturn. A recent survey of California home buyers by the California Association of Realtors found that buyers who used brokers, on average, spent 10.3 weeks searching for homes this year, compared to 8.7 weeks in 2008. National data show a similar pattern, with an average search time of 10 weeks during the second half of 2008 and early 2009, compared to eight weeks in 2005 and 2006.”

Source Wall Street Journal