Westlake Village Real Estate Blog

If you live in Thousand Oaks, Saturday is your lucky day! Get rid 0f your electronic waste, documents for shredding, green waste and generic trash. The event will be held at Conejo Creek Park between 8 AM and 3 PM. For “special waste” disposal (paint, batteries, pharmaceuticals, for example), you’ll need to make appointment at the City Municipal Service Center. For more information on both: www.toaks.org/GoGreen.

If you live in another jurisdiction, check out your city’s website.

We celebrate Memorial Day as a day of remembrance for those who have died in our nation’s service. In contrast, Veterans Day honors all who have served. Approximately 1.1 million Americans have died in all the nation’s wars.

This year marks the 150th anniversary of the establishment of the Medal of Honor, which President Abraham Lincoln signed into law in 1861. It is our nation’s highest award for military valor.

The National Moment of Remembrance encourages all Americans to pause wherever they are at 3 p.m. local time on Memorial Day for one minute of silence to remember and honor those who have died in service to the nation.

I thank Scott Gilman, of Prospect Mortgage, for this reminder.

My first misshapen loaf of knead-less bread - neither boule nor baguette

I know this is supposed to be a real estate and community blog, not a cooking blog. But once in awhile a recipe that is too good to be true comes along, and I must share it. The last time I got carried away like this was with a scone recipe. If you missed it, click here.

Now comes a recipe for French bread that is so amazing it must be tried and enjoyed by many. When we first moved to Thousand Oaks from Los Angeles, in the Dark Ages of 1987, I couldn’t find a loaf of good bread in this community. That has now changed, with the likes of Stoneground Bakery and the presence of loaves from La Brea Bakery and various farmers’ markets.  Still, for the best French bread – the kind that is lighter than air and so crusty it cuts the top of your mouth, I ‘ve found myself buying warm loaves from The Grill on the Alley (yes, for $5 The Grill will hand over a toasty boule).

Then, without warning, my friend Kym, another “foodie,” posted a recipe first published in the New York Times several years ago. The credit goes to writer Mark Bittner and baker Jim Lahey, of the Sullivan Street Bakery. What is really amazing, however, is that this bread – yes, it’s lighter than air and the crust cuts the roof of your mouth – requires no kneading! It’ so simple a child could make it.

What it does require is timing, about 23 hours of it, as I learned with my first batch, when I had to work at home to attend to my bread’s need for flipping, flopping and baking – and, of course, savoring just out of the oven. While its shape defied geometry, its taste was divine!

Welcome, staff of life, goodbye, low-carb diet! Mange, mange – and enjoy!

Perhaps the most qualified tennis pro in the area, Nico Riego de Dios is head pro at Pacific Tennis Club in Westlake Village. In charge of both the junior and adult programs, De Dios also coaches several top-ranked area young players, including Kareena Manji, Jack Sanford, Hank Workman and Isaiah Volk.

De Dios’s tennis career began when he was four, serving as a ball boy for his father in Olongapo City. Both his parents play tennis and instilled in him great technique and a passion for the sport. He played throughout his high school years there and competed in pro circuits.

A world-class player, de Dios has represented the Philippines in numerous tournaments in Malaysia, Thailand, Hong Kong, Brunei, Vietnam and South Korea. He also manned the No. 1 position for Eastern Washington University, a well-known Division I school.

De Dios is also working to become a physical therapist, completing several PT internships. He can be reached at 805.444.2183.

If you want to follow the trends, just follow the headlines. In the past two weeks we have seen headlines pointing to a more positive real estate market. From the Huffington Post and other news outlets, 30-Year Mortgage Rates Top 5%. Why is this positive? As interest rates creep up, sooner or later home buyers begin to notice. The sentiment that there is no hurry, that an even better deal will be there tomorrow, begins to slip away. As this article points out, if interest rates rise from 5% to 6% and the price of a home drops from $500,000 to $450,000, the actual cost of the home over 30 years will be $90,000 higher.

From the LA Times, California Luxury Home Sales Jump 21% (even the wealthy like a bargain). And the Wall Street Journal, Cash Buyers Lift Housing, cites data from the National Associations of Realtors indicating 28% of home sales last year were all-cash deals – double the rate in 2008.

Finally, from the LA Times again, Now May Be the Time to Buy a Home. Says the usually pessimistic economist Christopher Thornberg, principal with Beacon Economics in Los Angeles, “Certainly, we’re pretty sure we’re at the bottom” for home prices, as quoted in the luxury home sales article.

What does it all mean? If you are a home buyer, it may be time to step up to the plate. Stories of homes selling in multiple offers are not uncommon. This means you could soon find yourself paying both a higher interest rate for your mortgage and a higher price for your home.

If you are a seller who is buying up, now may be the time to pick up that dream home. And if you are selling because of a personal or financial situation, don’t wait for prices to rise dramatically unless you have a lot of time. During the 1990s, in the LA area,it took 9.5 years for home prices to regain their 1990 peak.