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1. "Knowledge is bliss" may not make it as a buyer's slogan either, because you don't have to know it all—just what's relevant to success as you define it. Different sets of knowledge are important in different buying situations, so the "bliss" generalization may not be specific enough to be useful. "If it is to be, it's up to me" could be an excellent mantra since determination will drive buyers, both to discover what they don't know and then, to fill that knowledge gap. This combined effort will assure a buyer is well equipped to make confident buying decisions.

2. Generalizations are self-defeating when evaluating properties since it is how each is unique that addresses specific value to a specific buyer—if you'll excuse the generalization. All first-time buyers should not seek the same type of real estate solution just because they have never owned real estate before. Each of these buyers, whether they purchase alone, as a couple or with several friends or family members, has a different set of needs, weaknesses and advantages. When generalities are stressed, real estate solutions often concentrate on weaknesses like low down payments. Customized solutions, based on real estate knowledge, should focus on strengths which would counterbalance apparent weaknesses. For instance, first-time buyers may have more creative determination, which can allow them to tolerate living with boarders or tenants. These contributors to mortgage payments create a number of financial benefits and can turn an otherwise financially-out-of-reach property into a great investment solution. (See Pur-Plexing for more on this topic.)

Good advice for buyers - make sure to click on the link and read the whole article.

Acting on an informant's tip, in June 1973, French tax inspectors barged into the offices of the 155-year-old Cruse et Fils Frères wine shippers. Eighteen men were eventually prosecuted by the French government, accused, among other things, of passing off humble wines from the Languedoc region as the noble and five-times-as-costly wine of Bordeaux. During the trial it came out that the Bordeaux wine merchants regularly defrauded foreigners. One vat of wine considered extremely inferior, for example, was labeled "Salable as Beaujolais to Americans.

An article for all wine snobs around us. Quoting more from the same aticle:

"There is a rich history of scientific research questioning whether wine experts can really make the fine taste distinctions they claim. For example, a 1996 study in the Journal of Experimental Psychology showed that even flavor-trained professionals cannot reliably identify more than three or four components in a mixture, although wine critics regularly report tasting six or more. There are eight in this description, from The Wine News, as quoted on wine.com, of a Silverado Limited Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon 2005 that sells for more than $100 a bottle: "Dusty, chalky scents followed by mint, plum, tobacco and leather. Tasty cherry with smoky oak accents…" Another publication, The Wine Advocate, describes a wine as having "promising aromas of lavender, roasted herbs, blueberries, and black currants." What is striking about this pair of descriptions is that, although they are very different, they are descriptions of the same Cabernet. One taster lists eight flavors and scents, the other four, and not one of them coincide."

Latest shower-tech from Wall Street Journal. I guess, this is a preview of things to come to a bathroom near you.

Mosca: In the executive summary of your policy analysis, "How Urban Planners Caused the Housing Bubble," you wrote, "Everyone agrees that the recent financial crisis started with the deflation of the housing bubble" but let's get into what caused the bubble and why is it so important to understand its root causes. How will this help us in the future to know the causes that relate to fixing the credit crisis?

O'Toole: A lot of people blame the Federal Reserve Bank for keeping interest rates low and the Community Reinvestment Act for encouraging lenders to offer loans to marginal homebuyers. If you look at the data for individual states and metropolitan areas, you find there was a big housing bubble in California and Florida but there were no housing bubbles in places like Texas and Georgia even though Texas and Georgia were growing faster than California and Florida. So, why did California and Florida have a bubble and Texas and Georgia not? If you look at it in more detail you find only about a dozen states had big housing bubbles, a few more states had smaller bubbles, but the vast majority of states did not have any bubbles at all. It turns out that the states with housing bubbles were all practicing some form of what urban planners call 'growth management.' Urban planners for decades have believed that it was important for people to be packed into small urban areas. These urban growth boundaries ended up boosting the price of land inside the city and making housing more expensive. There was another consequence. Normally, there is a competition between cities and between cities and counties over how to attract development. Cities and counties want to get tax paying development so they compete with one another and then try to make it easy for developers to get permits to develop vacant land. Once an urban growth boundary has been drawn that competition is heavily restricted and nobody can develop outside the boundary so then cities begin to say as long as people can't go anywhere else, we might as well impose all kinds of restrictions and they develop an honourous permitting process that can take years to get a permit to put in a small subdivision. In a lot of cases they can make it impossible. They can make it so that there is a very high risk that you will never get a permit.

An interesting view on the origins of the housing bubble. The interview comes in two parts - the second can be found at http://realtytimes.com/rtpages/20091112_growth.htm.>

Expected to contribute approximately $22 billion to the economy, Congress overwhelmingly passed a bipartisan measure this week extending the $8,000 home buyer tax credit to April 30, 2010.

The legislation, which is part of a larger bill that also extends unemployment benefits, was signed into law by President Obama today.

More people are now eligible to take advantage of the law, which includes a $6,500 tax credit for buyers who are current home owners and have lived in their home for five of the past eight years.

Income limits for eligible home buyers were also expanded to $125,000 for single buyers and $225,000 for couples, up from $75,000 for individuals and $150,000 for couples. Qualifying home prices are capped at $800,000.

NAR's Government Affairs Division has compiled facts on the changes made to the current tax credit. NAR members sent more than 500,000 letters to leaders in Congress and made nearly 13,000 telephone calls to Senate offices last weekend to encourage support. So far this year, REALTORS® have spent nearly $14 million lobbying Congress, according to federal campaign finance records compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics.

Sen. Johnny Isakson, a Georgia Republican and a former member of NAR, was key in extending the credit, as well as pushing it through initially. Other prominent boosters include the National Association of Homebuilders and the Mortgage Bankers Association.

Listen to NAR President Charles McMillan's podcast announcement.

NAR economists estimate that approximately 2 million people will take advantage of the tax credit this year.

Sources: NAR and The Associated Press, Julie Hirschfeld Davis (11/06/2009)

Finally it is on the books!!!

Google Inc. Chief Executive Eric Schmidt has snapped up Bay Area talent for years, first as an executive at Sun Microsystems Inc., then as CEO of computer maker Novell Inc. and now as the 54-year-old boss at Google.

The hiring has been particularly fast and furious at the Internet search giant, which has grown to more than 19,600 employees world-wide. Roughly a third of those workers live in the Bay Area, according to Google.

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Reuters

Google CEO Eric Schmidt cites the weather as a reason young people flock to the Bay Area.

Google recruits from Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley, among other places, and has set off hiring wars with rivals such as Microsoft Corp. Now Google is poised to beef up its work force again as the tech industry comes out of a recession and workers remain plentiful amid high unemployment rates in Silicon Valley.

Here's what Mr. Schmidt, a 33-year resident of the Bay Area, had to say about Silicon Valley hiring and the role of the weather in the local labor market:

Q: With so many other schools in the U.S. and around the world doubling down on engineering and technology, is Silicon Valley at risk of losing its edge?

A: Anyone who bets against Silicon Valley is betting against a successful track record of 40 or 50 years.

You've got the universities. You've also got a very, very effective venture-capital industry, which is very well honed and you have the creations of at least a biotech revolution and a high-tech revolution, and the possibilities of the green revolution being created here.

The Wall Street Journal debuted its Bay Area Coverage today. The weekly section will be coming out on Thursdays.

The Federal Reserve affirmed its plan to keep interest rates "exceptionally low" for a long time despite signs of economic recovery. But the Fed began to lay rhetorical groundwork for an eventual shift in its stance, suggesting that when the unemployment rate falls or if expectations of inflation turn up, it could change course.

This should help keep mortgage rates low.

"Average" students in Palo Alto may be smarter than they think: They are competing in a "rarefied" atmosphere laden with high achievers, school board members said Tuesday night.

A student with test scores in Palo Alto's 25th percentile ranks in the 75th percentile when compared to other students in California or the nation as a whole, according to data compiled by the school district.

"In some ways this makes it so hard on the kids in our community, because they think the whole world is like (Palo Alto)," school board member Barbara Klausner said.

"Do they realize they're in this very rarefied atmosphere?"

The school board Tuesday reviewed standardized test data showing that Gunn High School ranks first in the state in SAT test results and Palo Alto High School ranks fourth. In metrics from advanced placement exams to California STAR tests, both Gunn and Paly rank among the very top among California's 1,000 high schools.

"These numbers are just phenomenal. It's absurd how high these numbers are," Klausner said, referring to a chart comparing Palo Alto's mean SAT score of 1920 with the California mean of 1511 and the national mean of 1509.

Make sure to share this with your kids - they are doing the work. Alright, teachers and parents are involved too. Truly exceptional school district.