Tina To's Real Estate Blog

San Francisco is a multi-cultural city full of immigrants from all over the world.  Like many other Chinatown all over the world, the Chinatown at San Francisco is within a few minutes walk from downtown San Francisco where major headquarters and offices located.  This town is a major first stop from Chinese new immigrants to land.  Here they can speak Chinese, buy foods imported from all provinces of China and find a reasonable price logging.  It also has good public transport linked to different parts of City for their work.  No wonder the house price in San Francisco is comparatively speaking stable. Every year the 15th of August in Lunar Calendar is Mid-Autumn Festival.  This year it falls on today, September 12, 2011 that is one day after the 9/11.  In spite of the potential danger of going out on 9/11, lots and lots of people still enjoyed walking.

I feel very grateful that my son, unlike other teenagers, did not share the not so good American culture of “independence” and still willing to walk the fair together with me.  He enjoyed watching all different Chinese cultural stuff and volunteered helping to carry the “goodies” I bought.  I remember when I was at his age, 14, I did not have the concept of going out with parents is shameful or sign of independence.  The big issue in the American education is lack of moral training.  I can understand this might be difficult of USA is the mixing pot and people from different cultures barely mixed like salad.  However, there are some special moral concept about relationship between parents and children from China that categorize that children should pay special respect to parents and elderly.  I have followed this concept and I never talked back to my parents even though I did not agree to their points of view sometimes.

Putting on my hat of “realtor”, it is truly amazing how the real estate price had been supported by streams of new immigrants.  I have many clients who literally shipped their money from China to buy real estate properties in San Francisco and nearby cities.  No wonder, the house price at the Sunset district of San Francisco seems have not dropped much, maximum 20% which is nothing in comparison with other places.

Thank you for checking in with my blog and feel free to contact me if you have any real estate needs or opinions about this blog.

Mr Sing Dao Contest 2011

Recently I encouraged my son Gene to enter the Mr Sing Tao Contest 2011.  At first, he had no idea of what it was and after he googled it, his comment was this was really si-si.  Anyway, he noticed my response and how happy I was picturing him enter into the competition and agreed to try.

I remembered one famous Hong Kong actor once said at the Prize Award Ceremony,” if I were the winner, the competition was very fair, if not, it was not.”  I 100% agreed to this point of view.  Who won as the Mr Sing Dao was very subjective to the judges but who won the Mr Physical, however, was very objective.  Gene has been working out everyday for the past few years in preparation for his “fighter dream” and this led him to get his first award of Mr Physical.  He had completed the 3 different physical trial and had been the champion on the first two, lifting the most up within 30 seconds the heavy ball and jumped the most times on the heavy rope in 30 seconds (I had counted for him, of course).  I was so happy that he enjoyed it and I enjoyed it.

It had taken up a lot of time for rehearsal etc. but I would say this was also a very positive experience.  He told me that he did not have stage fright or maybe he had conquered that.  He is also the final 3 competitors in the talent competition.  He performed playing drum but did not perform well enough.  Maybe the set up time was too short (1 minute allowed for setting up the whole drum set) and Gene had to move his stool in the middle of the performance.  Anyway, according to his knowledge, all competitors would only win one prize and since he already won the Mr Physical, he could not be Mr Talent.

Mr Sing Dao, 2011 Nathan Ng

The Mr. Sing Tao came out to be the guy who posted the not so good looking picture in the newspaper (not photogenic, maybe).  However, I knew that he had prepared well and had been very thoughtful.  He gave one dozen roses to the audience during the cat walk and had answered the question tactfully and humorously (has the ability to entertain the audience which is the essence of this kind of competition).  I also have to praise Mr Talent, Grant Lim.  He had joined the Mr Sing Dao Contest 2010 but still came back to try the second time.  He must have a lot of confidence in himself.  I like this “not giving up” attitude.

Mr Talent, Grant Lim

On the whole, I would say this is a fair competition as I totally have no relationship with Sing Tao Newspaper or Sing Tao Radio Chanel.

Image via Wikipedia

It is too easy to feel blue, down, discouraged and think in a negative way.  Whenever this is going to happen to me, I will turn myself to my “Happy Diary” .  I would brainstorm everything that I should feel happy about and write them down.

Here are a few things that I can easily think of.  Let me give you an example of today.

1.  It is a sunny day with clear sky, blue sky, white cloud.

2.  I have more clothes that I need whenever I open my closet, how rich am I.

3.  My kids are growing and they are healthy.

4.  I spare some time practice “Tai Chi”.

5.  I really look at least 10 years younger and I feel at least 20 years younger.

How about you?  What is your today’s happy diary?

I am a “happy” real estate agent who can help you move into a happy home.  Please feel free to visit or contact me.

Thank you for checking in.

Image via Wikipedia

Just turn on the “Printer” and here you go, the money that we need.  Is it just that simple?

How about cutting tax for the higher income group to trade for the extension of another year of unemployment payment? 

Recently, I called one of my potential buyer who ended up not buying because of unemployment.  She still had that much of downpayment handy but can no longer qualify for any loan.  She is an experienced dentist assistant and I do not expect less people will see a dentist because the economy is bad.  If you have serious toothache, no matter what, you will see a dentist.  But what about that periodic cleaning or minor toothache, can you go without it?  Oh yes.  So her boss has to cut cost and so do many other businesses.  Instead of hiring full time employee, many firms fired the permanent staff and replace them with the temporary staff.  Of course, no fringe benefits, no 401K, no medical insurance payment, these add up figures help.  Now what?  Why should the unemployed work the part time job, being deducted the hard earned money from their unemployment benefits?  So, it ends up while business people try to survive by cutting cost but the unemployment money take away their part time helpers.  18 months are long enough and now another year, no kidding.

My prospect actually turned down many part time jobs.  She did not want to work for nothing.  What I mean is the money she earn from the part time job will be deducted from her unemployment paid.  So she only look for permanent position and so are thousand of many others.

Thank you for checking in.

What do you think?  The latest figure is 64% of population can now afford to buy a house but not so many people are really buying.  Why?  Will tell you next time.

Tina To – agent with heart, serving San Francisco Bay Area

Image by Emery Co Photo via Flickr

Have you winterized your home yet?  How about change your aged single pane windows into the updated double pane and keep your home a little warmer and in the meantime obtain a tax deductible amount up to $1500 for your federal tax?

If so, you need to hurry to do so before December 31, 2010.  For details please visit

http://www.energystar.gov/

Source from: C.A. R. Newsline

Thank you for checking in with me.

 

If you have a child at 8th grade like I do, you should be busy helping your child to enter his appropriate high school.  Most parents like myself have already got some help from the school counsellor or teachers or administrators of your child’s current school.  Having made a mistake with my elder son in choosing his high school, this time, I am spending more time to do my research.  Usually we (my son and I) can check schools through 3 ways:

1.  To check the websites of different schools

2.  To go to the school Open House

3.  Shadowing – shadowing means let your child shadow one student of the high school and join all the daily school regular activities including attending classes, go to recess, taking lunch etc.

There are basically 3 types of schools that all parents should consider.

1.  Public school – in San Francisco, Lowell High School ranks academically way higher than all other public school and will only consider straight A students application in their first round of “lottery” and then open to the second round of lottery which will include students from ALL – basically giving chance to those “handicapped” financially, academically, socially, racially.   There are also other highly favored public school boosted by their good academic results or other specialties.  For example, School of the Arts hold a very high Arts standard requirement beside academic results.  All candidates has to passed their board of examiners to study their chosen Arts area.  If your child plays piano very well and choose piano as their arts subject, then your child has to play one prepared piece (by memory) and then another piece by sight but was given by the examiner with no advance preparations allowed.  I have more insight of School of the Arts because my elder boy is graduated from there last year.

2.  Charter Schools – Charter Schools are public schools but have an independent administrative power to run their school in their own ways.  It is like an experimental school and usually starts from a small one.  For example, my younger boy’s current school , Rooftop, can also be considered as a Charter but it is named as alternative.  It is different from other public school in many ways.  First, the size is very small.  Each grade only has 60 students and at kindergarten and elementary level, each class has 20 students.  The students come from every where throughout San Francisco.  In addition to “standard” academic subjects, there are gardening, sensory motors and many different arts which usually integrated into the academic subject as well.  Rooftop originally starts from the roof only.  The recent Hot charter school is Gateway High School.  This year, Gateway also introduce its middle school.  However, if you are interested please check www.gatewayhigh.org.

3.  Private school

Each student can apply separately public school, charter school and private school.  In this way, your child will have at least 3 choices.  For me and my son we are still in the process of investigating different public and charter schools.  We have opted out private school for financial reasons.  Although there are scholarships or grants could be applied for students who like to attend private schools, I would not like my son to feel inferior.  By looking at the questionaires of the private schools and also Gateway High School, I feel that my son is not applying school, instead he is more like applying a very important job in the adult world.  The way both Toby and I interpretate the question is how can Toby and I contribute to Gateway so they may consider accept Toby.  What is good about Toby so that Gateway should take him as his student.  It sounds so ridiculous.  Also I do not believe the so called “lottery system”.  Lottery is just an excuse for the school to turn down one particular student’s application.

Schools play an extremely important role in the house price when the enrollment is giving priority to local residents but this had been slightly changed in the past few years.  I am a full time real estate agent and truly understand how the parent feel and will do for their children.  If you have any questions regarding schools or real estate, please contact me so that we can discuss.

Thank you for checking in.

Tina To

Cover of Plácido Domingo

 

Thanks to Rooftop School and being a proud parent, I have the opportunity to join my son Toby to see the Cyrano De Bergerac.  Honestly speaking, my son who attends 8th grade is not too interested in opera and so are a lot of his schoolmate.  I myself am also very green in this area.

The major lead is the famous Placido Domingo and of course, I am attracted.  It is a final run down performance and so it is free to all students and chaperons.  It is of course of the first class quality of everything: performance, voice, music, story.

I would encourage everybody to take this opportunity to see.  It will be held in San Francisco Opera as follows:

Sunday October 24, 2010 at 2pm

Wednesday, October 27 at &:30pm

Saturday, October 30 at 8pm

Tuesday, Novermber 2 at 8pm

Saturday, Novermber 6 at 2pm

Tuesday, November 9 at 7:30pm

Friday, November 12 at 8pm

Audiences are not allowed to take picture, so excusez-moi that I have no picture to post.  My personal opinion is when compared opera to Eastern opera (Chinese traditional one), I prefered the Chinese one because I feel it is more musical and the dance is very unique.

Please feel free to let me know how you feel if you have a chance to see the one I mentioned.

Related articles

• Plácido Domingo perfect to play Cyrano in S.F. (sfgate.com)
• San Francisco Symphony draws raves in Italy (sfgate.com)

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What is APR, why it is different from the interest rate that my loan agent/bank representative disclosed to me?

Almost all the time APR is higher than the actual interest rate that the loan agent quote you.  APR is actually a sophisticated jargon that the Bank wants to intimidate/scare you?  Just joking.

Let me demonstrate how APR comes up and you will understand.

If I say I loan you $100 and you pay 5% interest so your interest payment is $5

But what if you pay $5 interest but I am giving you $90 because $10 is your closing cost, then now your interest rate will be: 90 divided by 5 x 100% = 5.5%

This is exactly how the bank calculate your APR.  But then you say I even pay points to lower my interest rate and how come my APR is even higher?  It is because then your closing cost is higher.  Instead of $10 closing cost, maybe now you are paying $20 closing cost so your interest rate is still 5% but your APR will be 6.25%.

Thank you for checking in.  I am a real estate agent specialized in San Francisco and Peninsular area and will be happy to help you buy or sell your house.

Last week I made use of free family pass again to go to Cartoon Arts Museum which is located at Mission and 2nd Street.  The standard charge for adult is $8 and for kid is $6.  It shows a good cartoon history and have a good deal of collection.  However, there is nothing hands on and not really too fascinating for the young kids.

However, it is free.  So have you tried yet?  If you live in San Francisco, go to any public library and see what is still available for the free activity that you can enjoy with your family within this week.

Go to http://www.sfkids.org/checkoutSF for detailed information.

Thank you for checking in with my blog.

I am a real estate agent who specified in San Francisco and Peninsular area.  I would like to share as much as I can all the interesting local information with you.

Recently  I checked into the San Francisco public library and got a free family pass to enjoy an one hour boat ride to sail along the City’s waterfront.  It was spectacular to cross under the Golden Gate Bridge with my family.  The cool part is it is absolutely free and the pass would have cost $70.

Here is the deal:

Visit any San Francisco Public Library
Choose a Participating Attraction
Use your San Francisco Public Library Card to check out a Family Pass
Confirm the days and hours the selected Participating Attraction is open
Take the Family Pass to the Participating Attraction
Enjoy free entrance for 1 to 2 adults accompanied by 1 to 4 children
Program Valid through December 31, 2010

To check the availability of pass and participant attractions, please go to:

http://www.sfkids.org/content.aspx?id=12432

Important things to remember, each family can only get one pass per week and each library only carries one of each of the above attractions and it is of course on a first come first serve purpose.
So hurry and enjoy your free trip once a week with the whole family.