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.

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.

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.

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.