Realty World - Bianchi & Associates » General Economy

Los Altos- Staying Connected In Your Local Community

Steve Bianchi — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 17:42:12 +0000

Real Estate has always been my passion but when not at work I have another passion. For the past twenty-five or more years I have actively participated in a charitable organization as a committee member. I too was very involved with our children’s school sports programs both in school and in the community here locally.

For the past fifteen years I have been very fortunate to coach and be on the Board of the Los Altos-Mountain View Pony Baseball League as the Director of Fields and Player Representative. The community involvement and working with children ages’ 5- 18 years of age was very rewarding.

For many of us it is very rewarding to interact daily with business associates and clients. What I have always been amazed at is how energizing it is to stay in contact with business people who work and contribute their talents in our local community.

Everyday we are educated by the media of the local job losses, economic challenges in our daily life and our education and state budget crisis. I believe now more than ever we all need to get involved. My personal recommendation is to get involved in your local Chamber of Commerce or Rotary Club.

Just ask yourself a big question; if I personally get involved will I make a difference?

Also can I to get more educated and network with others who live and work in my same community to make my community a better place to live?

I am proud of my local neighborhood where I work and live and I enjoy meeting business associates and community leaders who inspire me by their personal dedication. When participating in these organizations you can learn and work on committees that will deal with current city planning issues. This allows all of us to help establish guidelines that will positively affect the generations to come.

At the end of the day when you look in the mirror it is very rewarding when you can say I made a difference.

College Summer Jobs Are Hard To Find- But Be Careful of Scams

Steve Bianchi — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 23:23:33 +0000

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.

Will Our Millennial Generation be Off to College or Facing Off to Work?

Tue, 30 Nov 1999 07:00:00 +0000

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

The nest eggs set aside by the Baby Boomer generation for their children’s education is gone with the recent crisis in the economy with the stock market and stock options for many households being negatively affected.

The increase in job layoffs of many top executives in large corporations has forced many parents to change their philosophy of paying high tuitions for private universities.

In addition, many cannot mortgage their homes as in the past to help finance the monies needed for college tuitions. Many banks are not eager to refinance and even the threat for thousands is the possibility of losing their homes.

The new slogan should read, Do I Need It, or Do I Want It?

What does this mean? In the past when high school seniors applied to college and the larger envelope arrived in the mail everyone had smiles. The reality of today is the look of fear and anxiety, as parents have to tell their children you cannot go away to college right now.

The students of 2009 will thus be attending Junior Colleges and working to help their families as they did prior to the Baby Boomer generation. The reality is many students may be working while their parents are unemployed.

The budget cuts that have hit our California State, University of California and Junior College campuses are causing all to be over crowded. In addition with people out of work they too are returning to college.

We will all have to watch the trends and reports across the nation as the graduating high school classes of 2009 will be making their decisions over the next few months.