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.

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.

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In my last post, I mentioned that my son went through shadowing of all schools that he was interested.  There was one in our neighborhood, Visitacion Valley, that I recommended him to shadow.  Visitacion Valley is notorous for its high crime rate and is part of District 10.  About 50% are African American, rest are Asian and Latinos, very little Caucasians.  From the public school fair, I learned that our neighborhood school Burton High School has coordinated with the career development programs.  These programs had been successfully implemented int  Galileo High School and had turned Galileo from a “so so” school into a good one.  Therefore, I attended Burton’s School Open House.   At the open house, there are very few parents & visiting student: only 2 Latino families, 2 Chinese families (including my son and I), 1 caucasian family and 0 African American.  The principal is young, energetic and enthusiastic.  He answered all our questions and showed a good cooperative attitude.   Long story cut short.  My son shadowed all the AP classes and his comments are the teachers are excellent and he liked them.  He also found the school campus and everything else is “OK”.  So, in my Choice of School form, we put down Burton High. 

Schools are like eveything else, changed all the time.  The principal is the soul of the school.  Very often when the new principal joins a “bad” school, s/he can introduce new elements and convert the “bad school” into “good school” gradually.  This had been the case for Galileo High and Balboa High.  I am now seeing this sign for Burton and Mission High.

Thank you for checking in with me.  Happy Holidays!

Tina To, real estate agent serving San Francisco and Peninsula area

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)

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.

“Oh , we are experiencing the worst depression!”  ARE WE? ? ?

If you are Jewish and aged over 50, your parents may had been ran away from the Nazi Camp or forced to run away from homes.  If you came from China and aged over 50, you should have experienced the Cultural Revolution.  The point is if you asked those people, which period is worse, now or then?  What is your hinge?

Yes, we have a high unemployment rate.  Yes, a lot of people lost their homes because of foreclosure.  Yes, the government is keep on cutting budgets.  Yes, our economic growth is a negative figure or close to zero.   But how many years have our ancestors live a “simple” life before the Industrial Revolution kicked in?  Could we call those years the worst?  Would our ancestors said so?

During the 1929 depression, a lot of people hid themselves in the theaters and enjoyed the extra low ticket fee.  A lot of family actually felt those were the time they felt the closest as parents were jobless and had plenty of time with their children.  Can we still enjoy some of those side “benefits” today?

So, cheer up.  This is not the end of the world.  We are not at our worst period and so will not be tomorrow.

Thank you for checking in with my blog.  By the way, if you are thinking of making use this golden chance of low house price, low interest rate in San Francisco or Peninsular, feel free to contact me.  I have over 20 years experience helping people acquire their first home.

最近當我去借書時，無意間發現三藩市居民可以憑有效圖書証去取一個免費旅遊紙，圖書館職員會告訴你有什麼參加的單位尚有位讓你一家人（二位大人，四位低於１８歲小朋友）一起免費去的勝地。地點包括有：免費船河﹑科學館等。。詳細情形請上以下網頁www.SFPL.org/checkoutSF

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.

Going Green is not only a fashion but a MUST.  But everyone without asking knows the issue is always about money.

If I come to you today and say, “Hey, I will install the solar energy for your home and gaurantee you will save 25% in your energy bill for free, will you do it?”  I bet, everyone will say YES and find no reasons to object.

Now, the government of San Francisco has passed something SIMILAR, but of course, not exactly.  How about if I tell you after you install your solar energy roof etc, the money you save on your utility bill will be sufficient to pay back the loan you get from the government?

This is still in a very initial stage and nobody has applied the funding yet.  In short, anyone can go to www.greenfinancesf.org and apply online for “going Green on your home”.  The application fee is $300 and to hire an energy auditor to put up a proposal is “free” according to one of the approved auditor I talked to.  However, the audit process might take several hours and is not a simple clip broad type of inspection.  The current interest rate posted on the website said 7% and the paid back period will be spread according to the expected life span of the new instrunments such as solar panels of the roof (approximately 20 years) and the repayment is by paying the special tax portion of the property tax.  This 7% can also be treated by mortgage interest and claimed deductible from the ordinary income tax portion.

If you live in San Francisco and is interested in this kind of improvement to your homes, I urge you to go online and dig into more details or attend the public meeting.

I was inspired by reading the book “Journey of a Thousand Miles: My story” by Lang Lang.  I read this in Chinese version.

For those who are not interested in music, particularly piano, may not know who is Lang Lang.  Lang Lang is the youngest famous pianist in this century so far.  I am not going to summarized his story because you can check it out from his book by which I believe should be the English version and/or should be the original.

Lang Lang won the first place as young as 5 years old.  After he watched the cartoon “Jerry and Tom”, he could replay the background music when he was only 3 years old.  Before he could read words, he could read notes.  He was recognized and had been set a goal as “the great pianist” as young as he was 3 years old.  I said set the goal because this goal was not set by him but by his parents.  His parents had sacrificed a lot to help him to reach where he is now.  Aged 9, Lang Lang left his mother and moved to Beijing together with his father.  His mother had to stay at work in Sheng Yang to support them financially.  In order for Lang Lang to be further trained and reach his parents? Lang Lang’s? goal, Lang Lang’s father became Lang Lang’s full time supervisor – to supervise and gaurantee Lang Lang had practised to his maximum ability and strength.  Lang Lang had practised mimumum 7 hours daily, 7 days a week since childhood.  All Lang Lang has is piano practice and nothing else. 

Lang Lang is very talented but unfortunately to say, Chinese has too much political reasons to restrain his growth and development.  Lang Lang’s father finally took Lang Lang to USA and Lang Lang’s talents and efforts had successfully earn himself the scholorship into the famous Musical Institute at Philapdelphia.  He later became very successful and recognized by the world.  HOWEVER, WHEN HE WANTED TO RETURN CHINA TO PERFORM, HE HAD BEEN VIGOROUSLY REFUSED TO DO SO.  The reason is he had not earned enough competitions and was not famous in China.  In China, an artist’s role has to be realized by the number of  trophy that artist has. !!!

The real reason:  Lang Lang is not from a rich family.  He does not has any Chinese official to back him up.  In the strong sea of competition, not only in piano, or in music but in all areas, athelets and other competitors may be pre-selected already.  If Chairman X’s son has certain talent, the selective board should make him the first place and if only the first place can join the international competition, then he has to be the one and try all the streams to block other OSTACLE “Lang Lang” OUT.  As throughout this book, you will see Lang Lang had met many people (all are Chinese, a few even his teachers)  said “Lang Lang, for sure you will not win!”  trying to down put him, making him not to win.

I, myself, am Chinese but fortunately I was born and raised in Hong Kong.  I could not say that I have the best education, but I have the freedom to speak, to think and to act.  I bet Lang Lang, in some way, is quite disappointed with his ‘MOTHER” – China because only recently his talent and achievements were recognized.  China, actually, has the resources and abilities to help Lang Lang to achieve what he acheives today, but refused to do so despite Lang Lang and his father’s vigorous efforts.  I feel shame on this and the pain is, this has not ceased yet.

China has literally abandoned Lang Lang in his early years.  On the other hand, it is America who saved him and allowed him to be what he is.  This is many Chinese’s American dream and this is also many immigrant’s dream.