Irvine Real Estate And Life Styles

The Real Estate Market is improving. We are actually seeing multiple offers and homes selling over the listed price. But, these are short sales and foreclosures. The short sale listings are going into the Multiple Listing Service approximately 10% below the last sales and the buyers who have been waiting for good deals are making offers.

This is good and bad news. It is good to have active sales but difficult on the sellers who need to sell but are not pushed to the wall. They cannot compete with the short sale prices. There are negatives to short sales and I will be explaing more about short sales in subsequent posts.

In the meantime, if you are ready to buy and want the best buys available then short sales are for you.

There are wonderful hiking opportunities in the city of Irvine. The open space areas offer fantastic reasons to explore and enjoy. A few of the interesting hikes include the Night Hike which is offered to more advanced hikers and happens during a full moon period with flashlights and is between two to four miles. Another challenging hike is the Hick’s Sunday Evening Wilderness Hke. This one is a self-guided tour of Hick’s Canyon with awesome sunset views. It is aproximately two miles and fine for the entire family.

Pre registration is required on some of the tours and I will be writing about several of the other tours in subsequent posts.

by Theodre Tenretni

Needing a passport to travel is just one of the facts of life when you’re traveling outside of the United States. If it’s been more than ten years since you have used your passport, chances are your passport has expired and you will need to renew it in order to travel outside the country.

Very few countries have exceptions to the rule of needing passports to enter them. Only Mexico and Canada do not require passports for entrance, and that is only if you enter them either by sea or land. Otherwise, you will still need a passport to enter their borders if you fly into the country.

You needn’t worry about getting your passport renewed, however, because this isn’t as difficult a process as getting a new passport can be. Today, you can get your passport renewed without having to be in attendance at a passport acceptance facility - unless you choose to do it that way.

Instead of renewing your passport in person, you can now choose the easier way of renewing your passport through the mail. You can download the forms you need off of the Internet through the government’s website, so you don’t even need to leave the comfort of your home to start the process.

There are some rules to renewing your passport through the mail. You must have been at least 16 years old when your passport was issued, and your passport may not be more than 15 years old (it’s ok if it has expired). You can have held a minor passport and still renew as an adult.

Your passport must be in decent shape - at least decent enough that its authenticity can be verified. If your passport has been so mutilated, ripped or otherwise damaged that the office cannot be sure of its legality, you will need to go to a passport acceptance facility to apply for a new passport in person.

Other circumstances that will require you to get a new passport include a name change - if you have gotten married or changed your name for any other reason, you will need to apply in person for a new passport. You cannot send this type of application in the mail.

When you send in your application for renewal, you will need to send along your old passport, along with two standard passport photos (identical 2″x2″ photos taken with a passport camera) and your passport renewal forms. You’ll also need to pay the passport renewal fees.

Be prepared to wait for your new passport to arrive. The wait times are long - both for people who are applying for the first time for their passport and for those who are renewing their passports. Give yourself plenty of time before your trip to make sure that your passport arrives in time.

About the Author:

Theodre Tenretni writes for TravelYeti.com, your travel information resource. You are welcome to reprint this article - but get your own unique content version here.

My offering this Friday is another time saving hint. It is also a finger saving one for those of you that text a lot.

Next time you want to send a short text, send them a text message by using your email . How you may ask and I am happy to tell you.

Send an email to the ten digit phone number @ teleflip.com. Try it by using me as a sample. Send your email to: 7143372817@teleflip.com.

To my knowledge, this can be sent to any cell phone number anywhere. If your recipient  can receive a text message they will have your message in less than a minute.

by Pete Roberts

As gas prices continue to increase you may be wondering how to get better gas mileage. If you are finding ways to increase gas mileage or improve fuel efficiency there are several do it yourself solutions that you may want to consider as part of your standard car maintenance.

Performing a tune up can increase gas mileage up to 20% or even more if a faulty oxygen sensor is discovered. This is extreme but if your engine is idling roughly or hesitating and spiting smoke out the tail pipe then you should and get a full engine tune up you should increase gas mileage and possibly extend the life of your engine saving hundreds or thousands of dollars in future maintenance.

Check your tire pressure. Many people overlook this simple maintenance item and it should be checked monthly. By keeping your tires at recommended pressure as stated in the owners manual you could get better gas mileage of 2-3%. Not only that you could save hundreds of dollars of more because when your tires are properly inflated it also maximizes the life of the tire.

Driving habits can have a real adverse affect on mileage. Driving habits can be finding the shortest way home or the route that is the most direct and has the least amount of stops along the way. If you have been asking yourself how to get better gas mileage this is a big factor. Find an online mapping service that shows you direct routes.

Do you use your vehicle or car trunk as a storage unit? By eliminating every 100lbs in your vehicle you could be increasing gas mileage by a percentage point. Many people are so extreme in this extra weight that they may only keep their gas tank partially filled to reduce weight. Gas weighs about 6.1 pounds per gallon at room temperature. If your are deciding on how to increase gas mileage there are many solutions to help help improve gas mileage.

About the Author:

Find out How To Get Better Gas Mileage and Increase Car Mileage

It’s coming! That slow car in front of you with the driver on the phone will finally be illegal.

July 1, 2008 will bring a new law phohibiting drivers from talking on a cell phone unless they have an ear piece, speaker phone or a car with bluetooth capabilities. Unfortunately, to my understanding of the law,  the law doesn’t prohibit texting or dialing the phone numbers, so continue to be alert.

Highlights of the law are that drivers under 18 may not use a phone at all while driving, It is legal to make an emergency call, the fines are small but it takes valuable time to be pulled over & given the ticket and finally, no violation point will be assigned but it will appear on your driving record.

This information is on the DMV website and should be read in its entirety to cover the aspects I didn’t mention & to confirm all points I did cover.

Irvine began with a dream of a master planned development surrounding the campus of The University of California, Irvine.  This planning has served Irvine well as Irvine continues to be beautifully built and one of the most popular cities in Orange County.

My husband, Bob, and I moved to Irvine in 1971 just prior to cityhood. We picked  Irvine because of the reputation of the schools and we wanted our three children to get he best education available. Both Bob and I were teachers at the time and knew the value of an excellent education.

The first communities built by the Irvine Company were Turtle Rock and University Park and they were built in the 1960’s. At that time, neighboring cities like Santa Ana was trying to annex Irvine and that mobilized the goal for cityhood. Irivne was incorporated as the city of Irvine in December of 1971.

The original goal that has served us well was to have a master plan wherein the neighborhoods would be designed to be self contained villages within the city.  The plan was to have business and shopping centers near the villages, excellent schools, open spaces, parks, and trails. Many of the villages would also have greenbelts, tot lots, pools and in some cases tennis courts.

“Another Day In Paradise” became the official motto. Irvine attracted businesses and families from neighboring cities and states. The city continues to develop new villages and they continue to have the same integrity as the very first villages.

We have enjoyed living in Irvine and continue to reside here. Our three children all attended Universities  so the excellent education they received through the schools and the programs they offered served them well. As you can tell, I Love Irvine.

I received this tidbit about Easter from a friend in the real estate business and found it interesting and enlightning. I knew that Easter this year had been early but I didn’t know the significance of this particular early date.

Hope you find this as interesting as I did.

Early Easter Date
Why March 23, 2008 is a special day…

Do you realize how early Easter is this year? As you may know, Easter is always the 1st Sunday after the 1st full moon after the Spring Equinox (which is March 19/20 in 2008, depending where you live in the world). This dating of Easter is based on the lunar calendar that Hebrew people used to identify Passover, which is why it moves around on our Roman calendar.Based on the above, Easter can actually be one day earlier (March 22) but that is pretty rare. Here’s the interesting info: this year is the earliest Easter any of us will ever see the rest of our lives (March 23, 2008)! And only the most elderly of our population have ever seen it this early (95 years old or above!). And none of us have ever, or will ever, see it a day earlier!

Thank you Sue Jackson, http://nat.com, for sharing.

Regardless of the doom and gloom from the newpaper articles, it is actually a good time to BUY if you are selective.

From now until the beginning of next year may be the best time to buy. With the election coming up everyone tries to paint a rosy picture so therefore the market improves.

The new home developers want to sell their inventory so they offer fantastic incentives. Take advantage of that if a new development works for you.

Always remember the old real estate adage Location! Location! Location! In a difficult market good locations hold their value and in a down market a good location sells first and fastest.

Sign up on a search list, which I offer at www.darleneherman.com, to be emailed homes the day they come on the market and to be notified when prices are lowered on homes.

Remember you can usually save money if you are willing to do some of the repairs and remodeling yourself as some sellers do not have the time or money to fix up their home when they put it on the market and pass the savings to the buyer.

So save money and find your dream home now when the price is right.

Here is another fun web site that helps you a lot. This one www.jott.com is your own personal secretary who works for free. You sign up for this and they give you a toll free 866 number to call and you can register your own contacts or just leave a reminder message. Today I called and gave myself a reminder to make a call at 5:00 P.M. and at 5:00 P.M. on the button a message came up as a text on my phone to make the call. Awesome. Try it you will like it.