Armanda Bosley, longtime owner of Lou Ella's, dies; UC Santa Barbara alumni looking for reunion

 * ... BRAIN DRAIN: Reader Elaine McNearney wrote to tell me about all the alumni from University of California at Santa Barbara who call Bakersfield home. Apparently there are so many local kids applying to UCSB that Bakersfield is one of the few communities with a full-time UCSB staff person, working primarily at South High but also at Bakersfield High. McNearney said Catalina Mendiola works to help kids through the maze of paperwork required to be admitted to the UC and tries to identify students who qualify for the Research Mentoring Program targeting students from different disciplines. In addition, she said "a group of UCSB alumni are trying to locate other Kern County alumni and plan some social activities. So if this little ditty makes it to print please plug our brand new FaceBook page ...UCSB Alumni of Kern County." Any other Santa Barbara alums out there?

 * ... RIP ARMANDA BOSLEY: If you have lived in Bakersfield any length of time, you will remember the old Baker Street location of Lou Ella's Children's Boutique, which catered to generations of local families. One of the long-time former co-owners was Armanda Bosley, who died of a heart attack last week. She was 95. Reader Greg Cowan wrote to tell me of her passing, calling his aunt "a Bakersfield  institution" who worked alongside her daughter, Brenda, to serve thousands of local families. Bosley's parent's immigrated from France, and her father opened what would become the original Pyrenee's Bakery. After school, a young Armanda would deliver fresh bread to customers on her bicycle. She and Brenda purchased Lou Ella's in the 1960s and it served our community well for over 40 years. (The store later changed hands and moved to the Southwest). If you have memories of Armanda or Lou Ella's on Baker Street, feel free to email me and I will share on this blog.  Keep this special family in your thoughts.

 * .. NO NAME BAND: It's always nice to see local folks getting together for a worthy cause. That's what happened over at B. Ryder's bar and restaurant on White Lane Thursday when the "No-Name Band" was scheduled to play for a crowd to support the Bakersfield Ronald McDonald House at Memorial Hospital. The leader of this Baby Boomer band is Dr. John Heidrick, who along with Dr. Raj Patel owns Preferred Family Physicians off Truxtun Extension. You will no doubt recognize some of the "No Name Band" members: Jill Harlander on vocals, Jerry Stewart on guitar and vocals, Tim Montgomery on drums, harmonica flute and guitar, Leslie King on bass, John Brock on drums, Mike Hall on lead guitar, Michael Bell on rhythm guitar and Dr. Heidrick on guitar.

 * ... VALLEY PUBLIC TV: Learned the other day that Esther Brandon, a former local First Five Kern Commissioner, has been appointed to the Board of Directors of Valley Public Television. This is yet another indication of how KVPT is reaching out to the south Valley, and Kern County in particular, to gain support through partnerships and collaborative efforts. Brandon is active in Temple Beth El off Panorama Drive, has two boys (one at the University of Colorado and the other a senior at Garces Memorial High School, not to mention a sweet yellow lab named Blue) and is married to Rogers Brandon, president of the American General Media radio group.

 ... * BAKERSFIELDISMS: You know you're from Bakersfield when .... "You no longer associate bridges or rivers with water" and "You swear that just last week there was an orchard where there is now a whole new housing development."

One more thing to worry about: Why low appraisals may be scuttling the housing recovery

It was a few weeks ago that Watson-Touchstone Realtor Mary Christenson tipped me off to the latest hiccup standing in the way of a housing recovery: new federal regulations that are leading to flawed appraisals and derailing sales. Here's the deal: a buyer and seller come to terms to sell a home for say $400,000, yet the appraisal comes in consistently low, say $350,000. And the home had multiple bids and the comps hold up in the area. So what's wrong here? Mary and others point to rules that went into effect May 1 requiring lenders that sell loans to Fannie Maie or Freddic Mac to set up a firewall between appraisers and loan officers. All this to prevent "improper influence" between the appraiser and the Realtors. (Check out a Seattle Times story for a more complete explanation.
Now I see CNBC has picked up the story and I include a brief report from their website here. This is a serious issue, folks, and another case where over-regulation has simply gummed up the works. We have a market that is struggling to find its sea legs and regulation that is killing legitimate deals. Enough already.

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Gary Crabtree, one of the foremost experts on the issue locally, said the issue is complicated by the fact that local appraisers are being "low balled" by outsiders who know little of the market. I'm excerpting parts of an email Gary shared with me. Feel free to contact him for a fuller explanation. Said Gary:

"The reason the appraisals are holding up the closings is that the AMC's now control the purse strings of the fee. Once the appraiser would receive $375 to $400 for his services, today they receive as little as $175 to $285 from these AMC's. The experienced and ethical appraisers can not afford to produce a creditable report for that kind of money. So who is doing the appraisals? The lesser experienced, geographically incompetent and sloppy appraisers who are forced to produce a 'shoddy' product because they don't have the time to do a "creditable" report. To exacerbate things, now that they have independence from pressure from lenders, they can 'low ball' to their hearts content and not have to worry about anything. I have been swamped with calls from agents, buyers, sellers wanting to know why their appraisals are low? Well, see above for the answer.

"So who is hurt by HVCC (Home Valuation Code of Conduct)? Well lets see, first the experienced and geographically competent appraisers like Rich and me; the buyers who have been 'low balled' and lose the deal or has to come up with additional cash down; the sellers who are sometimes forced to lower their price to make the deal; the mortgage broker who can't close a deal because they are held captive by the AMC's on appraisal delivery and fees; the taxpayers who get to pay for the 'write downs' of the banks, Freddie, Fannie all of whom have been subsidized by the TARP money... How is the market to recover with this type of forces in play? "

Local real estate: has the worm turned? Hoping (and praying) for a rebound

Was out in Southwest Bakersfield today and spotted a tour bus with a sign reading "home tours" turning into a newer subdivision. Yes, foreclosures are still high and many folks simply can't get credit, but 30-year fixed rates are in the 4.5 percent range and housing prices are a bargain now. So I dropped an email to Mary Christenson, one of Bakersfield's premier residential Realtors to take her pulse of the local market. Mary has been one of the top performing Realtors at Watson (now WatsonTouchstone) for years, and though she is primarily known for dealing in the high end market now, she works the entire town and knows this market as well as anyone.
Old pros like Mary ignore the headlines and study the metrics behind what makes a market move. Just like a stock broker knows the market goes up when future earnings look bright, Mary realizes that home prices and sales will begin to perk up once inventory tightens. And Mary believes that's exactly where we are. In her words:

"Buyers are responding to these record low interest rates!
"According to our MLS as of last Friday, there were only 2,020 single family home listings on the market. Last April we had 4,110 listings. There have been 2,621 solds year to date. Buyers are responding to these record low interest rates."
"Look at our absorption rate: Take the number of solds, divide by the number of months (4); (that) averages about 655 houses a month. Then take the current listing count (2020): divide by 655, you get three months of supply. So if not one more home came on the market, we would only have enough inventory for three months. The typical dividing line between a buyer's market and a seller's market is six months. Less than six and we are in a seller's market. The tide is turning.
"Pricing is still key issue: we are still dealing with many foreclosure comps. But if we get this word out to the appraisers and lenders to instill some confidence in the market, maybe they will take us off the 'declining market' status. We are so tired of being known as the highest foreclosure market in the nation. That's old news."

We'll check back with Mary to see how things develop.

Finally, some good news from local real estate

Sometimes it hard to see the light when you're so far down in the salt mine, but Watson-Touchstone president Ken Carter says there is good news in local home sales. "There are more deals at lower prices, and that's not a bad thing," Carter told me. Consider: Watson's Realtors sold 241 homes in December compared to 151 the previous year, but the price dropped from an average of $254,000 to $191,000. For 2008, the average price was $226,000, down from $300,000 in 2007. But for folks like Carter, that's terrific news because houses are selling, rates are low and we're working through all that excess inventory. "We're burning through inventory," he said. "I wish you guys would report that! This is good news." We'll take the good news when it comes.