Tina To's Real Estate Blog

I was impressed by Tina’s interview at “Dine with Stephen Chen” at the TVB show.  Tina became the movie star as young as 16.  Without training, without experience, Tina ventured to go to Thailand.  Once she stepped down the isle from the airplane, she was greeted by her “fans”.  This pissed her off right away.  How in the whole world could she be recognized and welcomed since she was so green as an actress (not yet acting)?  From that moment, she looked down on movie making.  She did not hold up the minimum ethnics of an actor should have.  She would disappear and let the whole team waiting for hours in shooting movie.  I consider this as intelligent because if I were her.  I would make believe that I really am a great movie star.  That is what we call “the Star came out of Commercials”.

What do you think?

You cannot control the length of your life, but you can “widen” it.

You cannot control the weather, but you can control how you feel. – Some people feel sad because it rains and they cannot go out.  Some people feel good because it rains and they can enjoy their home more.  Who are you?

You cannot change how you look (to certain extent) but you can always smile.

You cannot change others but you can change yourself.

You cannot predict tomorrow but you can make good use of today.

You cannot win everything but you can always try your very best.

Believe it or not, gambling can make your understand yourself better.

As we all know, gambling is a risky game and a game about taking risk.  If you live in San Francisco, you may join the senior club, especially the Asian senior club, to take the gambling tour bus weekly.  The tour bus usually departs at least 4 times daily from some hot public location such as Misstion & 16th (close to the bart station), China town (where a lot of senior homes located).  The seniors by playing $13 may get back $10 coupon for slot machine plus food.  Overnite trip to the casino s at Reno is about $23 per person and one can get back about $32 coupon from different casinos in total plus 2 or 3 meals.  This is obviously a great deal if one does not lost money or just lost a little bit. 

When my parents alive, joining the gambling tour are their favorite.  While my father is very afraid of losing money, he only played penny machine and he would like to switch machines if nothing came out after 10 bets.  On the contrary, my mother liked to play with dollar machine and would not want to leave machine until she won sort of jackpot or losted all her money.  As we can see here, two very different character. 

What about you?  Have you thought about your gambling habit?  Would you stay until you hit a jackpot or at least a small one before you quit that machine?  For me, it is very tempting to stay until I can strike some “bonus play”.  There are different types of bonuses which are very amusing.  I remember one even sychronize children’s video game as the slot machine is about driving an airplane and the jackpot would allow you to shoot the enemy’s planes and the chair can actually move.  I was quite pissed off at that as I was never good at playing video games and of course, could not knock down too many planes, hence would not win much.

Some people are very discipline such as my sister.  She set a limit of her losing and if she lose straightly half of her limit, she would stop and just watch other people play.  She would take a break, get a drink, walk around and try other machine maybe an hour later.  If after an hour’s break, she still cannot win, she may quit totally.  In conclusion, she seldom lost money.  She also would budget how much she can gamble for a year and record her winning or lost.  In reality, she does not earn much money but she is never poor because she knows how to budget her income and expenses.

For myself, I am quite an adventuous person and many times do not want to leave the slot machine until I see the “bonus”.  I am also not very discipline as like many losers, I always tell myself the next one will be the jackpot and that is exactly how so many people lose money.  When I win, I do not want to leave because I think there will be more to come.  When I lose, I still do not want to leave because I think the next one will be the “hit”.  Fortunately, I also set a limit and no matter what, if I reach my losing limit, I will stop.

Have you thought about gambling can really reflect your character?  Do you agree?

Remember 10 years ago, I joined the part time Census interviewer in San Francisco.  I had been working very hard to approach many homeless people and encountered a lot of obstacles.  For example, I learned that many of them although physically are capable of working but mentally not ready or reluctant to get the identity varification such as social security card that they need for work.  I had also visited many homeless temporary shelter but even we brought in many statistics with our efforts (my team memebers and myself), the government at last decided not to include this group.

http://www.examiner.com/a-2495262~San_Francisco_working_to_prevent_Census_undercount.html

As indicated from the linked message, San Francisco had been undercount a lot and so a lot of justified funding is not allocated to San Francisco.  San Francisco has long been paradise for immigrant – legal and illegal.  Many illegal residents though work hard and pay their taxes will hesitate to report their existence because of fear of the strict new immigration investigation team.  A lot of them have limited education, speak very little English and are hard to persuade they do need to report.

I, myself, also try to google the answers to many questions relating to census but cannot find it.  I believe the govenment should advertise not only to report the head counts but also set up a multi-language hotline for people’s queries and questions.  Or if you know, there is one, please do not hesitate to let me know.

When San Francisco was compared to California 10 years ago (statistics based on 2000 census), I find that San Francisco has less white people about 49%, more Asians and less homeowners  and more people stay 5 year or longer (move less than other Californian).  Indeed the house price in San Francisco is considered quite stable, has not dropped to the extent as the other part of California.  I think this might be due to the preference of new immigrants, the influx of hot money from Asia especially China.

Your opinions are highly valued. 

Very often, we heard people wanted to give up their lives because of hurdles, problems, unhappy events, issues.  But without life, nothing left.

Once upon a time, an unemployed youth went to a mountain to commit suicide because he went bankrupted, his wife went away and he felt there was nothing meaningful for him to stay alive.

He walked and walked and trying to pick the best part to jump.  then he met a monk.  The monk invited him to have a tea at the temple and insisted the youth to come.  Not willingly, this young man sat down and tasted the first cup of tea that the monk gave him.  The monk asked the youth, ” this tea was soaked with the top quality tea leaves, is it good?”  “No, it tastes just like water,” answered the youth, ” you should not soaked the tea leaves with cold water,” added the youth.

“Yes, you are right,” said the monk, then he poured another cup of tea to the youth.  This time, the monk used boiling water.  “How is it now,” asked the monk.  “Excellent, full of aroma” answered the youth.

“Do you know the difference between these two cup of tea?” asked the monk.  “Of course, one used cold water, one used boiling water.”  “Right, young man, tea leaves’ real taste can only be brought up by boiling water”

Thinking about the real meaning of this, the youth gave up his suicidale plan.

Moral of this story:  One can only live better after comquering the life’s obstacles.

Although many homeowners can still afford to pay their mortgage, many still choose to walk away  from their mortgage, we call this strategic default.  Many homeowners who purchase in the year 2005 find their current home value is more than 25% below their purchase price and the mortgage payment is higher than their rental  amount of the exact house.   So, these homeowner purposely not paying their mortgage and save at least 9 months of mortgage payment and can pocket these cash with whatever they have on hand.  They might buy another house all cash or simply rent another one of similar size, condition and location for an amount lower than their mortgage payment. 

These homeowners’ credit will be ruined and unfortunatley, in San Francisco, the mortgage debt has no recourse.  One cannot get it back by legal process.  In other county, homeowners are smart enough to claim bankruptcy to shield themselves against the recourse. 

Is it all beneficially to those homeowners?  Not necessarily, their credits were ruined and could not buy in the next 7 years and all their credit card rates will be at skyrocketed rate or be totally denied.

To me, I specially feel it unfair to let the society bear this burden.  What do you think?  Your opinion is welcomed.

Once upon a time, there was a little girl who was 5 or 6 years old lining up at a grocery store of a little village.  It was a weekend and crowded with people.  This little girl held a dirty and old procelain saving pig tightly against her breast. 

It was her turn, the shop keeper asked her, “  What do you want?”  “I want to buy a miracle.”  The shopkeeper asked again, “what?  what do you want to buy?” thinking that he might misheard her.  “A miracle,” said the little girl again.  All people waiting behind the girl started to lose patient and murmured.

“Little girl, we do not have miracles for sale, step aside please!” said the shopkeeper with an annoying tone.  The littel girl looked very disappointed and her tears started to roll and stubbornly stood at her position facing the shopkeeper.  Someone behind her yelled, ” go home to play, we are still waiting?”  Then the little girl talked back loudly, ” It is because my brother is very sick and we do not have money for a surgery, I heard my father told my mother only if we had had a miracle, otherwise, my brother would be dead; therefore, I have had to buy a miracle to save my brother.”

All of sudden, everybody shut up especially the guy who had scolded the girl.

Then a middle aged man came up, he looked at the little girl and asked her solemnly, ” how much do you have?”  “I have saved for a long time and  I have one dollar”, answered the little girl while pouring out all her coins.  “Maybe I should go to your house and look at your brother, I could possibly give you a miracle,” said the man.

This middle aged man holding the little girl’s hand and walked away.  At that moment, someone said loudly,” I know who is that guy, he is a very famous doctor.”

That little girl finally had really bought a miracle with one dollar.

Moral of this story:  Although the little girl thinks that “Miracle” is a commodity but she did not give up even she was pressured by the crowd behind her and the shopkeeper.  We should not give up even there is only a very slight chance to succeed.  If one never try, one will never succeed.  We had rather tried and failed but never try and regret.

I wish everyone who read this story be successful in whatever they are trying.  Happy New Year!

Visitacion Valley Business Opportunities and Outreach to Merchants (VVBOOM) is an organization that with a goal to boost the business opportunities at Visitacion Valley.

If you walk around Leland Avenue at this time, you may not like it because there are many ground digging going on.  New sewage pipeline is being put and many above ground wires are being put underground.  We call this area improvement and these work are mostly funded by the fee cost (money collected from the new developer who are building new condo and houses around the neighborhood).

Currently, Leland Avenue still has vacancy for merchandises and the rent is still fairly low.  It may be a good idea to start your business there.

VVBOOM understands the safety issue has put down the area and so as the business and suggested the followings:

1.  In 2010, holding quarterly merchand warch group meetings by inviting police and merchants together to discuss all their concerns and issues.

2.  Host at least 2 clean ups for the street.

3.  Hold the bazzar improvments with the government paying 50% of the cost and for details of this implementation, please visit www.sfgov.org and click the sfshines section.

For more details and additional information, please visit http://vvboom.vvcdc.org

Yesterday morning we continued the second meeting with Dominic Spaethling, lead person for the Caltrain Corridor Segment (SF to SJ).  This is basically part of the initial process of neighborhood hearing of the proposed project – use the Bayshore Bayland area for high speed train maintenance.

Only 20+ local residents attending the meeting and shamed to say, I am the only Chinese who attends (there are at least 50% residents are Asian or Chinese).  Some residents favored this project as it will bring about 150-200 jobs.  Not much had been discussed this time for the limited time alloted.

The Visitacion Valley area has notoriously brought in with all those “Goodies” such as low cost housing, garbage company and now the high speed train maintenance yard proposal.  While a lot of existing residents hope the old schlage lock site will be cleaned and developed into a decent townhouse, condos, parks mixed use area, this yard will once again reinforce its historical industrial land use. 

For more information about this project, please go to www.cahighspeedrail.org

What do you think?

Image via Wikipedia

Everybody is cordially invited to attend the community meeting On December 12, 10am-noon, Saturday at 66 Raymond Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94134

Dominic Spaethling, lead person for the Caltrain Corridor Segment (SF to San Jose) of the High Speed Rail Project (HSRP) & Gia Daniler, community liaison will discuss the impacts of the HSRP on the Valley.

This will be an ooportunity to learn about this massive state transportation project from an authority and find out more about the possibility of a 95 acre train service yard on the Brisbane Baylands that could be taken by eminent domain.  At the informative October meeting (my formal blog has given out briefing about general background of this project), there were still unanswered question and great concern about the service yard, which would have a negative impact on our entire valley.   Once again you voice is needed.