Irvine Real Estate And Life Styles

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!

Easter Date Facts:
1) The next time Easter will be this early (March 23) will be the year 2228 (220 years from now). The last time it was this early was 1913 (so if you’re 95 or older, you are the only ones that were around for that!);
2) The next time it will be a day earlier, March 22, will be in the year 2285 (277 years from now). The last time it was on March 22 was 1818. So, no one alive today has, or will ever see it any earlier than this year

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.

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Woodbridge is one of the beautiful villages in Irvine. The bridge that crosses over Barranca is truly made of wood & connects the North Lake to the original shopping area of Woodbridge.  This village was the first one built in Irvine north of the 405 freeway.  The city of Irvine didn’t have to worry about moving inland from the Turtle Rock and University Park areas as the village was immediately popular & there are now approximately 9,500 diverse homes in the village.  

Woodbridge is one of the best areas for walking & biking.  There are churches, shopping areas, a senior community, top schools, the north & south lake, pools, spas, tennis courts and so much more to enjoy in this great community.

I love Sunday Brunches…BUT they must have champagne to meet my criteria of a good  brunch.

My top favorites are Bayside Inn, Five Crowns, El Torito Grill and Muldoons.

Runner-ups are Taco Rosa and Don Jose

To help keep you informed of outstanding brunches, I plan to try new ones as many Sundays as possible to find some more that I can recommend. I may actually even enjoy doing that.

by Kaye Fretz

So you want to remodel your kitchen, however, you are worried about the costs. There’s no need to worry though, since you’ll find cheap kitchen remodeling prices everywhere! Let’s talk about kitchen remodeling without the high cost.

What you need to do first is to have a redesigning plan. This will give you a good vision of your transformed kitchen. This will help you find all the necessary materials too, without spending extra.

Cabinetry is usually what makes up a huge part of any kitchen. You should think about what you can do with the existing cabinetry instead of replacing it. You won’t have to worry about costly kitchen remodeling prices if you just refinish.

All wooden cabinets can be refinished with a fresh coat of paint. If you have metal cabinets, you can still paint them, except you’ll need a special kind of paint. A new color can create a totally different look for your kitchen. You may also try using faux textures on your cabinetry. You can either apply glaze or distress the wood for that antique look.

You’ll find low kitchen remodeling prices when buying new cabinet handles, drawer fronts and doors. It doesn’t take hours to remodel your kitchen this way. Plus, the costs are extremely affordable.

A really easy way to change the look of your whole kitchen is by painting the walls. Paints are really cheap and by using these alone, you can add character to your kitchen. For a bold statement, you may paint just one wall with a color that stands out, such as crimson red, forest green and sunny yellow. If you want a more subdued look, go with a monochromatic color scheme. This means using different shades of a single color and applying them to your kitchen.

For a more enhanced look to your kitchen, install moldings. This is really not difficult to do on your own. You can use a design applicator to create moldings on a panel of wood. There are many techniques you can find on the Internet.

Placing a new faucet can instantly give your entire kitchen a face lift. This is certainly an inexpensive alternative to making a full kitchen renovation. Faucets often have very low kitchen remodeling prices. Materials are many as well as inexpensive, and these include chrome finishes. Just pay a bit more and you can have colorful enamel coating for your faucet.

You can install a new serving island but this can take ages. A table is so easy to add on to your kitchen. In addition to that, shops offer very inexpensive kitchen remodeling prices for tables since their materials now vary a lot. Keep in mind storage and buy a table with more drawers and cabinets.

Lighting is just as important in enhancing your kitchen. Expensive kitchen remodeling prices don’t necessarily mark lighting fixtures. In fact, there are cheap halogen and accent lights that can dramatically widen your kitchen area. Lighting can also generate an elegant ambience in your kitchen.

Now that you know some cheap ways to remodel your kitchen, start working on your floor plan. There are so many designs to choose from when it comes to furnishings, fixtures and materials with low kitchen remodeling prices.

About the Author:

Find out how to save on home remodeling cost. Find your options from the cheapest kitchen remodeling prices.

I just found a really great website if you would like to view free movies or TV shows you missed during the week, your favorite sports or featured videos. I heard about it on a news report and they said it was an excellent website and a legal one for watching. When I searched it I did find some TV shows I had wanted to see as well as some older movies I had missed. Of course you do have to watch it on your monitor but it is so clear you would think you had HDTV.

Have FUN and enjoy. Hope you find something you had been wanting to see.

clipped from www.hulu.com

Hulu offers U.S. consumers a vast selection of premium video content, on demand, free and ad-supported: full episodes of TV shows, both current and classic, full-length movies, thousands of clips, and much more.

As an investor, you should always be on the lookout for real estate investing opportunities. Every once in awhile, these opportunities might come your way easily, but for the most part, you must look for them. There is much more to property investing opportunities than a low purchase price. Too many times investors have made this assumption only to find out the hard way that an easy buy is not always an easy sale. Knowing some tips to recognize foreclosure investing opportunities will help make your investing much more simple.

Property worth is one of the first ways of recognizing foreclosure investing opportunities. You don’t have to hire an appraiser or a realtor to assist you in figuring out the value of a real estate property. You can use some of the same techniques these professional use to determine property worth. Look up the price of similar properties that have recently sold. Between three and five properties will give you a good idea of the property worth.

Once you have determined the property value, the next indicator of foreclosure investing opportunities is the amount of repairs the property needs. It doesn’t matter if you can purchase a property for a penny. If it costs need $50,000 in renovations and similar properties in good condition have sold for $40,000, then it should not be deemed as one of your property investing opportunities.

You can find out the repairs that are needed in one of two ways. The first way is to ask the seller what repairs are needed. Some sellers will be completely honest, some will not. The second way is to use a bonded contractor. You can get referrals for contractors from other investors or respected realtors.

The amount you can buy a property for is perhaps the second most important factor in recognizing foreclosure investing opportunities. The lower you can purchase the property for, the better an opportunity it is. In general, the best foreclosure investing opportunities are those which you can purchase a home for 20% or more below market value. If you can negotiate even lower, that’s better.

At this point you can use an appraiser to tell you the value of the property. Any repairs should be made before the appraiser reviews the home. The object is to have the appraisals as high as possible to help you set your selling price. The selling price, relative to the purchase price, is the most important factor you can use to recognize real estate investing opportunities. The higher you can sell the property for, the better an opportunity it is.

There is a fair amount of work required in recognizing foreclosure investing opportunities. The first time you go through the process, it might be difficult and take what seems like a long time. As you get more experience you will learn to recognize an opportunity much more easily and in a shorter amount of time. This, of course, will come with experience. You might make a few mistakes in the beginning, but these mistakes bring knowledge that will only make you better at picking out property investing opportunities.

The village of Turtle Rock in Irvine got its name from a rock that people thought it looked like a turtle. Original farmers called the rock “Frog Rock”.The rock use to be visible from University Dr. In the Irvine Ranch Newsletter the fate of the rock was in question as they were considering removing it.Shortly after that, it was found that the newletter story on the rock caused many people to work towards preserving the rock.It was found that it was an important Indian Shrine. The Irvine planning department at that time assured the community that the Turtle Rock was safe.

Turtle Rock, which is approximately twenty feet tall, attracted rock climbing enthusiast and it was rated sixth out of twenty climbing rocks in Orange County.

Local Gabirlino Indians were upset at the idea of anyone climbing the rock as the turtle was sacred to the Indians and Turtle Rock itself had been a sacred site for thousands of years. During the summer of 1984 they asked the city of Irvine to protect their ancestral worshipping ground. The city then planted bougainvilles around the perimeter to help keep vandals and rock climbers away from the rock.

On August 19, 1984, the Garielino Indians sanctified the rock. They sprinkled sea water and draped seaweed at the base of the rock to symbolically help the amphibious sea turtle return to the sea.

Today the rock in Turtle Rock stands tall & protected with the lovely development of Turtle Rock surrounding it.

homes homes for sale irvine real estate real estate agent turtle rockhomes homes for sale irvine real estate real estate agent turtle rock

Everyone has different circumstances for needing to pay property taxes in a given year. If you usually pay your property taxes with an income tax return, you need to make sure that you receive the money before the deadline established by your community. If you fail to pay the taxes on time, you will face a penalty and some interest charges. This is so even if you miss it by one or two days. It is always wise to have an escrow account either established by your mortgage lender or one you have yourself in the bank.

People who are low income and can apply for a homestead credit will need a copy of the tax bill to send to the state agency that handles the homestead credit. If two people are on the tax bill and only one is claiming the homestead credit, that person does need to meet the requirements for total income. There are different guidelines to follow for this type of filing. You can submit a homestead credit request even if you did not pay the property tax for the tax year you are claiming. This stated on the homestead form itself.

Property tax reduction

A property tax reduction is not as easy to obtain, as one would think. If a mortgage appraiser over exaggerated the fair market value price of your home so you could get the refinancing. Could this affect your assessed value? It might not play a big part in the assessed value, but it is considered when rendering the final assessment.

You should always try to have an assessed value and a fair market value close in range. If it is, then your property taxes should be fair. If the values are extremely different, you need to rectify the issue as soon as you can or you will continue over paying the property taxes. Appealing the property tax bill is one way to see a property tax reduction.

For low income homeowners owners, the county treasure’s office or an online source can supply you with a hardship application. You need to have proof of ownership, income documents, identification and proof of residency. You can also receive information on challenging your property tax increase, obtaining more time to pay, how to obtain relief from property taxes in the future and find information from company’s that offer low income financial assistance.

The property tax for a veteran who owns a property that is their residence can receive a discount, but they do have to meet certain guidelines. The veteran must have received an honorable discharge. The veteran must have some particle disability and be at least sixty-five or older. Residency requirements might also apply depending on your state. You can apply with your county’s tax registrar to find out if you qualify. Keep in mind that ever community has different guidelines that may be more laxed or stricter for reductions and discounts.