Commercial Sales & Leasing, Multi-Family & Residential Real Estate Services

When a friend asked the other day, what are your best memories of the Fourth of July? My reply came very easy as I drifted back over the decades to my early childhood.

The celebrations were at a local park called Blackberry Farm in Cupertino. We would spend hours in the pool, playing games where I would always win a free Italian Salami. Then came the best part when families would just sit for hours on the picnic tables talking and enjoying each other while a few would BBQ. At the end of the day we went home and then the neighbors would all meet in the streets with fireworks and sparklers.

As the years passed the traditions stayed the same and sometimes the location would change. From Cupertino we went to Palo Alto and the years passed and soon we were old enough to enjoy our own celebrations.

The fireworks were always great on Clear Lake, California and after boating and skiing we would stay at Konocti Harbor Inn and have BBQ’s once again.

Traditions of fire works and BBQ’s always stayed the most important traditions. As the children grew up we made a new family tradition to go to Reno, Nevada and just watch the downtown hotels send off the beautiful display of fireworks from their rooftops. All celebrating another year of our country’s traditions.

Our venue once again changed with the event of sports and All Star Tournaments that always were played on the Fourth of July. So once again as the generation before us had had their special BBQ’s with family and friends, we too now celebrated with our baseball families. The kids played in the pool, shot hoops and had fun while the adults cooked a great BBQ for them.

I think that traditions make our country special and I’m sure everyone has their own special memories.

Have a fun Fourth of July Weekend.

College students need to work during the summer and like many millennial this generation utilizes the Internet and often they search online to find that job

opportunity for summer work. Many of us from the baby boomer generation found work in our local neighborhood. This generation of students is faced will different challenges they are competing for jobs with many who have experience and have lost their regular jobs in a rough economy. The other issue is that many are just home for three months and will return to colleges outside the area. They are faced with a difficult time to find summer employment.

So we need to educate these trusting students many of whom have just began working to help pay for their education. My friend’s daughter was about to reply to e-mail for a nanny position that she thought sounded interesting and she was very excited to respond and take the job.

She did say she thought the way the payment would take place sounded unusual from other jobs she has had in the past few summers.

With experience in posting our rental properties on the Internet, I too had a similar response to one of our rental ads in regards to how payment would occur.

The person sounds very sincere in their e-mail and in her case a father wanted a qualified nanny to watch his son every afternoon while the mom was recuperating from an illness. It sounded interesting and she loves watching children, but he specified how payment would be sent. The cashier’s check would be $500 over the agreed compensation and she would in return need to mail the extra money in a form of a cashiers check and mail it to a specific location.

I explained that this was not the correct way to be paid and from others getting this type of e-mail as well as myself I knew this was a scam. We try to protect our children by always stressing safety but how do we educate them against people who can take advantage of them financially. My friend instructed her daughter to never give home addresses, social security information and try to find work from a company that we can verify is legitimate. In the case of the nanny position she should only take a position if she meets the people and checks references from the people who have worked for them in the past.

She decided not to respond to the e-mail and realized that this was a scam. She will continue to look for a summer job.

Simple ways I have helped assist clients turn their extra commercial space into DOLLARS  $$$$$.

As a professional Real Estate Broker, I am always assisting my Clients by reviewing their lease space and or business space and advising them in concepts that will bring in extra cash flow.

One example is a client who owns their own building and runs their daily business from that location. On a recent visit to the client I observed that there was valuable space that

was not being utilized. I pointed out that with minimal construction costs and refiguring the space I could lease that space to a potential tenant. I recommend that we meet with a contractor who can provide a proposal and my client can determine if they want to make the changes and lease their space.

Often times the construction costs are minimal compared to the additional cash flow they will receive when I lease their space. The positive results for my clients have been on many occasions a minimum of a three-year lease rental with a three-year option.

Another success story is seeing a clients operation and commenting that one employee’s office was only being used at a quarter of the entire office space. In further talking with my client I determined that much of the employee’s work is in the warehouse and he needs to walk back and fourth across the building. By simply building an office in the mezzanine area over the warehouse, adding stairs and a window the employee can oversee the warehouse operation and be more accessible to the other employees.

The benefits to my client are a more efficient workflow. Once again I leased out the entire extra office space and my client has income from a new three-year lease with a three-year option.

As my clients professional Real Estate Broker I need to be creative, a problem solver and always thinking out of the box. These success stories are a “win win” for everyone.

Real Estate will always be a great investment here in the Bay Area.

When you have an “A”, location with a well-maintained apartment building you can rent in these difficult times.

People are very educated and know what they want and often it is the reason they come here to California and especially to the Bay Area.

With a building just a few miles from Stanford University we see very intelligent people from all over the world who come to learn and work here locally.

Flexibility and good common sense says that when the market you are in demands creativity because of the individuals in your market having creative work schedules you to must meet their demand.

Our conventional leases have always been One year with an option to renew for another year if both parties are happy with the lease.

We now find a very interesting situation that worked out extremely well at one of the properties.

The unit was beautifully remodeled and we had multiple offers for people who wanted to begin renting in early July. Instead of remaining vacant and without income for two months we decided to approve the tenants for a shorter time period.

The applications were taken and everything checked out house according to our house rules and we rented the apartment.

Our success story is that going out of the box and meeting the requirements of your target market you to can be very successful in a challenging economy and rental market.

Silicon Valley has for decades attracted businesses and with the beginning and growth from the “dot com mania”, our population has grown.

The weather and climate along with excellent healthcare facilities has also allowed our aging population to live longer to enjoy living here in Silicon Valley.

It is an international magnet for professionals all over the world to come and work and raise their families.

What has changed over the years is the dynamics and geography of the area. Our local cities all began to prosper by being towns of orchards and ranches with, horses and buggies traveling along the dirt roads.

Businesses began in the late 1880’s and continue to flourish as specialty stores from lumber stores, canneries and factories to modern day businesses today.

But with the new chain stores many of these mom and pop businesses are struggling against the big box stores today.

These old time businesses are in ideal locations and therefore we see in many of our cities like Los Altos, Mountain View, Palo Alto, and Sunnyvale just to mention a few locations that large real estate developers are purchasing these businesses.

Many of these developers have and will continue to build new apartments and homes as well as commercial shopping locations all in close proximately to the downtown shopping area and locations close to VTA light rail, caltrains and bus transportation.

With opposition from neighbors and many asking why would they build more units in this economy?

The answer is simple, our economy will recover and as in the past Silicon Valley will thrive for the same reasons it has over the past century.

The key factors are location with an excellent climate. Excellent healthcare and education attracting people from all over the world.

With limited land to build new housing our cities must focus on these issues to assure adequate housing within the cities and transportation to work for our growing population.

My only hope is that when we lose one of these mom and pop businesses that a sign or some relic of the past allows us all to drive by and say to our next generation here once stood “XYZ” Company.

The path in the next few years from high school to college may be very different than the previous generation.

A new phenomenon has recently occurred in our current market that is changing the commercial leasing market for Lessor and Lessee.

#1. Join the California Apartment Association or Your Local Apartment Association in your state. Order CAA’s Managing Rental Housing Encyclopedia Book.

Why is this unique Brisbane community unaffected by the negative Real Estate Economic conditions we read about everyday in the papers and hear on the news?