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California Association of Realtors

Apr 22

San Rafael Resale Inspections, Point of Sale Sewer Lateral Inspections and SASM, Upcoming CAR Meetings. MAR Monday Memo 04/21/14

By California Association of Realtors, Marin Association of Realtors, Marin Community News, Marin Real Estate News, Regulations

Good morning MAR members! Happy Easter, Happy Earth Day!

With tax day blessedly behind us…so many buyers, so few houses, where is the inventory? Likely many listings in the coming weeks, but way more buyers than houses right now! The practice of auction-like pricing seems reasonable for our sellers, but it’s making so much work for so many whose buyers don’t really have a shot. Ten offers means nine sets buyers, nine agents and probably 7-8 mortgage brokers who all come away empty-handed. At least we’re all staying busy…

Last week’s big news–that the Sewerage Agency of Southern Marin is considering a model ordinance for the various agencies that fall under its advisory umbrella–generated a lot of discussion among our member community. MAR has been in touch with many relevant stakeholders, sharing our opinion that point-of-sale inspections are not the solution. Point of sale inspections will result in a 47-year resolution to an immediate problem, and the very real and substantial issue of shared laterals leaves many unanswered questions. SASM needs to come up with a real plan. The vote that was going to occur last Thursday did not occur, and SASM is seeking more of MAR’s input into the process. Stay tuned.

The other big continuing issue is the ongoing San Rafael resale inspection matter. Thank you to all of you who have contacted me with feedback. It’s edged every other matter aside as far as feedback is concerned. I literally get several calls a day. While every individual case is different, MAR is advocating on our collective behalf.

To that end, MAR CEO Andy Fegley and I met last Wednesday with San Rafael City Manager Linda Mackel, and two key members of her team: Paul Jensen, the Community Development Director, and Thomas Ahrens, head of the building department. I’ll describe it as a good meeting, but with a lot of loose ends that remain untied. But they did give us an hour, and listened intently to our feedback and they took a lot of notes and asked a lot of questions.

Again, thank you for all of your feedback as I had a ton of specific, timely, recent info to share. They were largely aware of every case we discussed. They also acknowledged that there has been a material uptick in the complaints with the enforcement process, though City Manager Nancy Mackel did not seem to be aware of the magnitude of homeowner and MAR member frustration.

My message remained simple: (1) It is because of San Rafael’s decision to have resale inspections that we find ourselves where we are; (2) there is no statewide regulation calling for resale inspections, and most municipalities don’t have the requirement; (3) because of San Rafael’s requirement for resale inspections, we all put a lot of weight in their content, and people inform what is often the largest financial decision they make based on the info in this report; (4) if San Rafael requires these inspections, and gets them wrong (in the past), and people make hundreds-of-thousands or million dollar decisions based on the contents, do not come back and penalize the new homeowner (and future seller) for mistakes or omissions that San Rafael made with its mandatory report in the past; (5) this new level of compliance enforcement for sometimes decades-old improvements are creating uncertainty, slowing escrows, and hindering commerce in the largest economic driver in the City of San Rafael.

The first Principle in MAR’s Fair Principles for Resale Inspections is “Consistency” and the second is “No Double Jeopardy”. We obviously have a current disconnect with these two principles right now. MAR is all for compliance, but if San Rafael is going to suddenly escalate the rigidness of its compliance requirement, it can’t suddenly change the way it does business and not expect substantial pushback.

San Rafael must create a smooth path to compliance, with allowances for situations, permit fees and penalties that exist today because of San Rafael’s mistakes and omissions in the past.

To his credit, Paul Jensen quickly followed up with us last Thursday to schedule a follow up meeting, and asked us for specific recommendations for improvements. I expect to be meeting with them again early next month.

Please keep sharing your stories. It’s hard to get resolution on every situation, or any one situation, but collectively they help me paint the clear picture of a broken process.

Finally, the California Association of REALTORS Spring Meetings and Legislative Day are next week. As I’ve said in the past, these are amazing meetings, particularly the Wednesday morning session when Governor Jerry Brown addresses the CAR Board of Directors, and later on Wednesday when the REALTOR Party makes its positions known and heard to our elected officials and their staffs. For more info on Leg Day, click here: http://www.car.org/governmentaffairs/getinvolved/legislativeday/. I hope to see many of you in Sacramento next week!

MAR’s members on the CAR Board of Directors include myself, President-Elect Matt Hughes, Katie Beacock (who is also Chair of CAR’s Region 4, of which MAR is part), Kay Moore and Mary Kay Yamamoto. If you have any concerns you’d like us to take to CAR on your behalf, please contact one of us. That’s it for now. I wish you a safe and prosperous week!

Blaine

Apr 22

San Rafael Resale Inspections, Point of Sale Sewer Lateral Inspections and SASM, Upcoming CAR Meetings. MAR Monday Memo 04/21/14

By California Association of Realtors, Marin Association of Realtors, Marin Community News, Marin Real Estate News, Regulations

Good morning MAR members! Happy Easter, Happy Earth Day!

With tax day blessedly behind us…so many buyers, so few houses, where is the inventory? Likely many listings in the coming weeks, but way more buyers than houses right now! The practice of auction-like pricing seems reasonable for our sellers, but it’s making so much work for so many whose buyers don’t really have a shot. Ten offers means nine sets buyers, nine agents and probably 7-8 mortgage brokers who all come away empty-handed. At least we’re all staying busy…

Last week’s big news–that the Sewerage Agency of Southern Marin is considering a model ordinance for the various agencies that fall under its advisory umbrella–generated a lot of discussion among our member community. MAR has been in touch with many relevant stakeholders, sharing our opinion that point-of-sale inspections are not the solution. Point of sale inspections will result in a 47-year resolution to an immediate problem, and the very real and substantial issue of shared laterals leaves many unanswered questions. SASM needs to come up with a real plan. The vote that was going to occur last Thursday did not occur, and SASM is seeking more of MAR’s input into the process. Stay tuned.

The other big continuing issue is the ongoing San Rafael resale inspection matter. Thank you to all of you who have contacted me with feedback. It’s edged every other matter aside as far as feedback is concerned. I literally get several calls a day. While every individual case is different, MAR is advocating on our collective behalf.

To that end, MAR CEO Andy Fegley and I met last Wednesday with San Rafael City Manager Linda Mackel, and two key members of her team: Paul Jensen, the Community Development Director, and Thomas Ahrens, head of the building department. I’ll describe it as a good meeting, but with a lot of loose ends that remain untied. But they did give us an hour, and listened intently to our feedback and they took a lot of notes and asked a lot of questions.

Again, thank you for all of your feedback as I had a ton of specific, timely, recent info to share. They were largely aware of every case we discussed. They also acknowledged that there has been a material uptick in the complaints with the enforcement process, though City Manager Nancy Mackel did not seem to be aware of the magnitude of homeowner and MAR member frustration.

My message remained simple: (1) It is because of San Rafael’s decision to have resale inspections that we find ourselves where we are; (2) there is no statewide regulation calling for resale inspections, and most municipalities don’t have the requirement; (3) because of San Rafael’s requirement for resale inspections, we all put a lot of weight in their content, and people inform what is often the largest financial decision they make based on the info in this report; (4) if San Rafael requires these inspections, and gets them wrong (in the past), and people make hundreds-of-thousands or million dollar decisions based on the contents, do not come back and penalize the new homeowner (and future seller) for mistakes or omissions that San Rafael made with its mandatory report in the past; (5) this new level of compliance enforcement for sometimes decades-old improvements are creating uncertainty, slowing escrows, and hindering commerce in the largest economic driver in the City of San Rafael.

The first Principle in MAR’s Fair Principles for Resale Inspections is “Consistency” and the second is “No Double Jeopardy”. We obviously have a current disconnect with these two principles right now. MAR is all for compliance, but if San Rafael is going to suddenly escalate the rigidness of its compliance requirement, it can’t suddenly change the way it does business and not expect substantial pushback.

San Rafael must create a smooth path to compliance, with allowances for situations, permit fees and penalties that exist today because of San Rafael’s mistakes and omissions in the past.

To his credit, Paul Jensen quickly followed up with us last Thursday to schedule a follow up meeting, and asked us for specific recommendations for improvements. I expect to be meeting with them again early next month.

Please keep sharing your stories. It’s hard to get resolution on every situation, or any one situation, but collectively they help me paint the clear picture of a broken process.

Finally, the California Association of REALTORS Spring Meetings and Legislative Day are next week. As I’ve said in the past, these are amazing meetings, particularly the Wednesday morning session when Governor Jerry Brown addresses the CAR Board of Directors, and later on Wednesday when the REALTOR Party makes its positions known and heard to our elected officials and their staffs. For more info on Leg Day, click here: http://www.car.org/governmentaffairs/getinvolved/legislativeday/. I hope to see many of you in Sacramento next week!

MAR’s members on the CAR Board of Directors include myself, President-Elect Matt Hughes, Katie Beacock (who is also Chair of CAR’s Region 4, of which MAR is part), Kay Moore and Mary Kay Yamamoto. If you have any concerns you’d like us to take to CAR on your behalf, please contact one of us. That’s it for now. I wish you a safe and prosperous week!

Blaine

Mar 17

General Membership Meeting Highlights, Flood Insurance Update – MAR Monday Memo 03/17/14

By California Association of Realtors, Legislation, Marin Association of Realtors, Marin Real Estate News

Good morning MAR members!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day.  Please enjoy your green beverages and snacks in moderation!

Spring is here, believe it or not!  The official first day of spring is Thursday, but it’s felt like spring real estate for a couple of weeks here in Marin.  Just as agents were lamenting an “inventory crisis”, here comes the inventory.  At our MAR General Membership meeting last Tuesday, Steve Dickason shared that we have 2.5 months of inventory in Marin right now, and that’s the most in 15 months.  I personally was scrambling to see all the places on tour this week, and I expect most of you feel the same way.  Let’s keep those listings coming MAR!

Speaking of last week’s General Membership Meeting, we had another sellout!   Thank you for all of your positive comments about the program and our efforts at MAR to provide you with timely and relevant information to use in your business and share with your clients.

Some highlights of the meeting:

  • Per Steve Dickason, with a year to year comparison, in Marin pendings are down 13%, listings are up 13%, and closings are down 10%.  That sounds to me like short inventory earlier in the year with things starting to turn around.
  • Also per Steve, average days-on-market for closed sales this year are 64 DOM; last year it was 92 DOM.
  • Another anecdote that I found interesting:  30 years ago in California, there were 5 Realtors for every lawyer.  Now there are two lawyers for every Realtor.  So be careful out there, and keep a tight file.
  • Guv Hutchison from the CAR legal department was our keynote speaker, and he had an enormous amount of useful info.  An interesting new law that started this year on January 1 is a change in the 140+ year-old law involving fences: in the past, if you and a neighbor shared a fence, and one property owner wanted to replace the fence, that property owner could ask the other property owner to split the cost…and the person receiving the request could basically ignore that request, “…the fence looks fine to me!”

    Now, the requesting property owner can give a written request, and the recipient of that fence request has 30 days to dispute that claim.  If the recipient homeowner ignores that request, after 30 days the requesting homeowner can demand that the cost be shared, and the recipient homeowner must share in the cost.  The only remedy for the ignoring homeowner is to litigate that request.  Another reason, I suppose, why we need two attorneys for every Realtor.

  • Another item that Guv shared is the routine situation in Common Interested Developments (condos, townhomes, PUDs) where the CC&Rs say one thing, the Articles of Incorporation say another thing, the bylaws say something else, and the “rules” say something different.  A common issue relates to pets:  number of pets, kinds of pets, size of pets, what breed of dog, etc.  Well, there seems to be a hierarchy of these documents:  the “rules” are lowest on the totem pole; rules are superseded by the Bylaws.  The Bylaws are superseded by the Articles of Incorporation.  And the Articles of Incorporation are superseded by the CC&Rs.  Ultimately, the CC&Rs are the controlling document, they supersede all.  I see this being the foundation of some lively neighbor conversations if the word gets out!
  • Another interesting issue relates to medical marijuana.  If a landlord has a “no smoking” policy, can that landlord also prohibit medical marijuana?  According to Guv, yes, that landlord can also prohibit smoking medical marijuana.
  • Another new law relates to tenants in homes that are for sale.  In the past, we’ve all used the “24-hour notice” guideline.  Well, the new law says that tenants are entitled to a 10-day notice for an open house.  So we’re going to need to be a bit more organized as Realtors.  Yikes…
  • Finally (and this is not an exhaustive list), relating to SB-407, the water conserving fixture retrofit law that I spent a lot of time educating the membership on earlier this year.  Several brokers and at least one attorney have told me that the current disclosure language we have in the RETDS about SB-407 is insufficient, there needs to be more.  Well, I asked Gov that question, and he said that he feels that the disclosure language in the RETDS is in fact sufficient.  He seemed pretty confident in his position.

Flood Insurance Update

The flood insurance saga continues, but relief is in sight.  Several mortgage and insurance brokers confirmed to me this week that yes, the Natural Catastrophe Insurance Program (NCIP) which is underwritten by Lloyds of London is a viable and economically reasonable flood insurance solution if FEMA has crazy rates or needs an elevation certificate.

Even bigger news is that the US Senate overwhelmingly passed the House’s Flood Insurance Reform legislation.  This is great news.  The following is what I received last Thursday from Chris Gosselin, NAR’s Senior Political Representative for our area:

“The US Senate overwhelmingly passed the bipartisan flood insurance reform legislation  that the House approved earlier this month by a 72-22 margin. The President is expected to sign the legislation in the next few days.

The legislation that passed today:

  • REPEALS (the original Senate bill only delayed) the property-sales provision in the Biggert Waters law (sec. 205) that has triggered the most excessive and inaccurate premium increases over the past year.
  • REFUNDS (the original Senate bill would not refund) excessive premiums to those who have already seen an increase but were not warned by FEMA prior to purchasing the property.  (This would apply to ALL purchases of property including purchases of a second home or commercial property).
  • RESTORES (the original Senate bill only delayed) the grandfathering of lower rates when new flood maps are issued by repealing Section 207 of the law before any increases can be implemented.”

So I guess they heard us!  Thanks to everyone who shared important flood insurance feedback, which we at MAR were able to share with Congressman Huffman and also up the chain at CAR and NAR.

There is much work and clarification to be done…we need to see how and when this is all going to get implemented, but the good news is that help is on the way!

Opportunity to meet Joel Singer, CEO of the California Association of Realtors

Thank you to Jean Ludwick, a Broker Associate at Alain Pinel.  She asked me to get the word out that the Council of Real Estate Brokerage Managers (“CRB”) is hosting a luncheon on Monday April 21st at the Acqua Hotel in Mill Valley from noon-1:45PM.  Joel Singer, the CEO of CAR, will be the keynote speaker, and Joel will provide an overview of the current housing market conditions for the state of California and the Bay Area, and will share his outlook and forecast of the market for the rest of 2014.  A light lunch will be served, and it’s FREE.  Jean is the President of the Northern California CRB, and she wanted me to invite everyone, not just brokers.  So agents, feel free to sign up!  If you’ve never heard Joel speak, this is a great opportunity to hear one of the leading minds in our industry.  I for one plan to attend.  Please rsvp by email to jbanuat@coldwellbanker.com.

That’s it for now.

I wish you a safe and prosperous week!

Blaine

 

 

 

 

Feb 17

SB407 and CAR Meeting Update – Blaine Morris’ 2014 President of Marin Association of Realtors 02/03/14 Monday Memo

By California Association of Realtors, Marin Association of Realtors, Regulations

Good morning MAR members!

Last week’s memo on SB-407, the new statewide water retrofit regulation, generated a huge amount of response.  Marin officials are still formulating their oversight plan, and MAR will get clarity on the changes. We will be doing so ASAP to determine the local criteria to trigger a need to retrofit based upon permit issuance.

Again, it is not a current point-of-sale requirement.  It is triggered by the pulling of permits for other things, starting this month.  However, starting January 1, 2017 (three years from now) every homeowner in the state will be required to retrofit their homes built before 1/1/1994, regardless of point-of-sale or permits… even if it’s not part of a sale.  Thus, it will become a point of sale requirement on January 1, 2017 for homes built before 1/1/1994.  Much like the recent rollout of required carbon monoxide detectors in all homes.

Some of you asked about disclosure requirements.  The Real Estate Transfer Disclosure Statement was revised over a year ago to reflect this new law.  On page 2 of the RETDS, the document specifically discloses much of this, but is brief in the description.  There looks to be an upcoming “Water Conserving Fixtures Disclosure (SB407)”, and I’m seeking clarity on when this form will be available.

MAR will continue to pass along info.

I promised to report back on the developments at last week’s CAR meetings in San Diego.  The other members of our CAR team will be reporting to back to me, and I will forward other relevant items as I learn about them.

So, in no particular order:

Transaction and Regulatory

I sit on this committee.  We voted on the following action items, and we later voted as the CAR Board to approve these action items. These are NOT new regulations; CAR is simply starting the process:

  • That CAR “SPONSOR” legislation to clarify the rules for the CalBRE to regulate the use of “Team” names by licensees.  This was an extremely busy conversation, as this subject is getting a lot of attention at the CalBRE.  Currently, brokers are supposed to file a DBA to cover team names working for their brokerages…and the broker officially owns those team name DBAs.  This policy needs clarification, and an update is planned for the May meetings.
  • That CAR “SPONSOR” legislation to require an auction company to indemnify or “hold harmless” the listing broker in a transaction against liability that results from the auction company’s actions in a short sale transaction.  This was THE big issue that everyone was talking about the whole week.  There is too much on this subject for this memo, I’ll be writing more on this soon.  Also, at the CAR Board of Directors meeting, the floor voted to direct CAR legal staff to look into the whole validity of our listing agreement, as some banks are now requiring short sale transactions to go out to auction after a purchase agreement is executed…effectively ordering the listing broker to abrogate a valid contract and turn the listing over to the auction company.  Everyone is very interested in this subject, stay tuned.
  •  That CAR “SPONSOR” legislation to prohibit short-lived communications like tweets or text messages from being considered “transactional documents” that must be retained in a broker’s file.  This will be an ongoing conversation, but for now your text messages are supposed to be retained.

Taxation and Government Finance Committee

We voted to “SUPPORT” legislation to study the revenue impact of allowing homeowners to transfer their property tax basis to a home anywhere in the state.  This relates to Propositions 60 and 90, where over-age-50 homeowners can transfer their tax basis once per lifetime.  Right now, this is governed on a county-by-county basis, and Marin does not allow a new homeowner from outside the county to transfer his or her tax basis into Marin (though an intra-Marin transfer is allowed).  I tried to discern the political will for this, and the answer was “stay tuned.”

Public Policy Forum–General Home Inspectors

This forum was packed.  Believe it or not, there is no current statewide licensing requirement for general home inspectors.  We use these valued professionals in many of our transactions, and there are current industry standards in their trade associations.  But no statewide oversight.  Pest inspectors, engineers, electricians and plumbers all have a licensing requirement, and there is a discussion of creating such a licensing requirement for general home inspectors.  We voted on the Transaction and Regulatory Committee to establish a working group to explore this subject, and also to “explore options related to home inspectors contractual limitation of liability provisions…”   More on this later in the year.

Standard Forms Advisory Committee

The other big news from CAR is that there is a substantial revision of the Residential Purchase Agreement in the works.  The current draft will be available here http://on.car.org/rpa2014 until 2/14/2014, and there will be more revisions going forward.  Take a look, and we’d love to be able to pass along any feedback.

I wish you a safe and prosperous week ahead!

Blaine

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