Initially this comparison of two sales on the same street had the appearance of an extra-wide spread; $810,000 to $1,100,000. But in the end it was about right – an add of 10% for a bigger south-facing canyon-front backyard, and a minus-5% roughly for short sales.
It helped re-inforce how uniform the pricing is around the tract-house-heavy Carmel Valley, where buyers loaded with internet data are making similar decisions.
So instead of adding the two model-matches across the street from each other on Foxhound that sold within $10/sf of each other, I tacked on two recent foreclosures and a short-sale:
The flow of North San Diego County foreclosures has picked up nicely.
Last year between January 1st and February 18th, there were 42 SFRs foreclosed, and this year there were 62, which is a 48% increase. Here’s a look at a few:
Two weeks ago, as Aaron Rodgers stood on a Texas football field covered in red, white and blue confetti and cradled the Lombardi Trophy in his arms, the Green Bay Packers quarterback and Super Bowl MVP was the most celebrated athlete in sports.
Now, however, after making the traditional trek to Disney World and completing the talk show circuit, Rodgers has retreated to relative anonymity in his adopted hometown. He has returned to his new digs in Del Mar and resumed his regular golf outings with friends who can relate —- at least somewhat —- to his newfound celebrity.
“It’s my home away from Green Bay,” Rodgers said last year of North County, where he bought a house in April.
Courtesy of that Super Bowl ring, Rodgers has become the most prominent member of a group that’s unofficially known as the Del Mar quarterback club. Amazingly, he’s one of seven current or former NFL signal-callers who spend at least part of the year in the seaside town —- fellow household names Drew Brees and Carson Palmer among them —- and that doesn’t include Chargers quarterback Philip Rivers, who lives in Santaluz.
In a broader sense, Rodgers is one of the more recent additions to an ever-expanding roster of sports figures who make North County their home.
Palmer, the Cincinnati Bengals quarterback and Heisman Trophy winner from USC, lives next door to Chargers coach Norv Turner (photo), who’s one of three current or former NFL head coaches in Del Mar. Australian tennis legend Rod Laver occasionally plays golf with fellow Carlsbad resident Fred Lynn, a star outfielder for the Boston Red Sox and California Angels who finished his career with the Padres.
Poway is the residence not only of Chargers stars past (LaDainian Tomlinson) and present (Shaun Phillips), of Mr. Padre (Tony Gwynn) and the manager of the reigning World Series champions (Bruce Bochy), but also of two NBA point guards named Williams —- All-Star Deron of the Utah Jazz and Mo of the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Then there’s posh Rancho Santa Fe, where freshly retired Padres great Trevor Hoffman heads a group of nine ex-major league baseball players living in one of America’s wealthiest ZIP codes.
And the list goes far beyond the three major pro sports to include some of the most famous names in golf (Rancho Santa Fe’s Phil Mickelson), tennis (Laver), running (Carlsbad’s Steve Scott), surfing (Cardiff’s Rob Machado), skateboarding (Carlsbad’s Tony Hawk), snowboarding (RSF’s Shaun White) and even broadcasting (RSF’s Dick Enberg).
Female athletes, too, are represented in tennis star Jelena Jankovic (RSF), golf standout In-Kyung Kim (RSF) and Olympic snowboarder Gretchen Bleiler (Carlsbad).
“North County has become quite the mecca for pro athletes,” said Solana Beach’s Jud Buechler, a former NBA player.
WHAT does it take to hold your powerful bosses accountable if they try to bully you out the door?
Documents, e-mails, a former deputy district attorney as your lawyer — and a never-say-die approach.
Such was the lesson learned by Michael G. Winston, a former executive at the Countrywide Financial Corporation. Mr. Winston spent three years in a legal battle against Countrywide, the once-mighty mortgage giant, and its current owner, Bank of America, contending that he was punished and pushed out for not toeing the company line. On Feb. 4, he won: a jury in California awarded him $3.8 million in damages.
Mr. Winston’s story provides a glimpse into how business was done at Countrywide at the height of the subprime craziness — and how assiduously Angelo R. Mozilo, the company’s fallen leader, worked to quash dissent in the ranks. Mr. Winston had the audacity to question Countrywide practices. Mr. Mozilo was not pleased and, before long, Mr. Winston was marginalized and later dismissed.
Mr. Winston, a prominent executive in the field of organization management, is a rarity among corporate whistle-blowers. Most of them get run over by their former companies. A fascinating detail in his case: after providing to the opposition his list of witnesses, which included former colleagues who had also been let go by Bank of America, the bank hired several of them back. Then they testified against him.
It wasn’t long after he joined Countrywide that Mr. Winston began to worry about its business strategy, he said. He still recalls an episode from late 2005 that raised red flags for him. He found himself parked next to a man in the Countrywide lot whose car had vanity plates that read, “Fund’Em.” “I said: ‘I’m not familiar with that expression. What is this about?’ ” Mr. Winston recalled. The man replied that the term described the company’s growth strategy for 2006 — to fund all loans.
“I was brand new and I said, ‘What if the person has no job?’ ” Mr. Winston said.
The answer: “Fund ’em.”
“What if the person has no assets?”
Again: “Fund ’em.”
Mr. Winston said he immediately relayed his fears about what he saw as an anything-goes strategy to Drew Gissinger, chief production officer of Countrywide Home Loans. “I told him that you need to focus on customer satisfaction, on the quality of the loan portfolio and on building leaders who would focus their people on that,” Mr. Winston said. “I wrote him a very comprehensive proposal on how to reward people properly.”
On Jan. 24, 2007, Mr. Mozilo wrote an e-mail to Ms. Goren, the head of human resources whom Mr. Winston had told about hiring a lawyer for himself.
“As I expressed to you, I am concerned about the motivations and overall attitude and demeanor of Michael Winston,” Mr. Mozilo wrote. “I want him terminated effective immediately.”
Testifying before the jury, Mr. Mozilo said he wanted Mr. Winston gone “because I concluded that he was not the type of individual that I wanted at a senior level at the company.”
These REOs are coming from two different sources so they don’t all qualify for HomePath financing. But after seeing a few of them, I think we’ll be able to draw one conclusion – Fannie Mae got stuck with the worst of the worst:
Federal prosecutors have shelved a criminal investigation of Angelo R. Mozilo after determining that his actions in the mortgage meltdown — which led to $67.5-million settlement against him — did not amount to criminal wrongdoing.
As the former chairman of Countrywide Financial Corp., Mozilo helped fuel the boom in risky subprime loans that led to the crippling of the banking industry and the near-collapse of the financial system.
A federal grand jury in Los Angeles began probing Mozilo in 2008, and four months ago he agreed to pay a $22.5-million fine and to repay $45 million in what the government said were ill-gotten gains to former Countrywide shareholders. The payments settled a civil action by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
But the criminal investigation has wound down without indictments of Mozilo or others at his Calabasas company, according to people familiar with both the prosecution and the defense teams, all of whom spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter.
“Sometimes the public thinks all you have to do is to indict someone and that’s it,” one of the federal sources said. “But you have to be able to prove your case, and it can be worse losing a case than not bringing one at all.”
The 72-year-old Mozilo hung up the phone when contacted for comment at his home in the Lake Sherwood golf community of Ventura County.
The criminal investigation into Mozilo was never announced publicly, and as a rule federal prosecutors make no formal announcement when such cases are closed.
One defense attorney, however, said the government would probably keep a close watch on civil litigation by Countrywide shareholders against Mozilo and could still decide to bring charges depending on what develops in those cases.
“He may have to testify, and you never know what may come up,” the attorney said.
When Mikey and Zeina Kostelny found their first home in the suburbs of Altadena, Calif., it appeared to be a buyer’s dream, complete with fresh paint, carpet and fixtures.
But that dream quickly dissolved into nightmare after the sale closed in late 2008 as the couple began to discover problems hidden behind its glossy finishes — from mold to gas leaks to bad wiring — all stemming, they believe, from its undisclosed past as a marijuana grow house.
“After we moved in, we smelled fresh paint and then another smell,” Zeina Kostelny says. An inspection later revealed dangerous Stachybotrys mold throughout much of the house, forcing them to move and foot the tab for more than $42,000 in remediation and repair. Months later, an electrical fire pushed them into an apartment again.
The tsunami of vacant, bank-owned properties in many parts of the country has helped fuel a surge in indoor marijuana production, turning once-empty homes like the Kostelnys’ into high-dollar and high-risk pot farms that spell trouble for prospective buyers and neighbors.
“In the last several years, we’ve seen a dramatic increase in the number of grow houses,” says Covina, Calif., Police Chief Kim Raney, who has overseen several busts. “It’s almost a perfect environment, because you have had a housing market that’s upside down, people losing their houses to foreclosure and people trying to find ways to make their mortgage,” he says.
The “market” is a few buyers here and there with varying levels of expertise and motivations, so be reluctant to make general assumptions. But if you’re a Leucadia buyer holding out for better pricing, this will make you cringe:
