SAN MATEO VILLAGE SEWER LATERAL / HEALTHY HOME PROGRAM

Hello everyone, Tuesday night I sat in on the discussion regarding the new sewer lateral upgrade in the Village. 

The event was sponsored by B Street. & Vine ( located at 320 S. B St. in San Mateo) who provided a very nice spread of delicious food for all the guests.

 The Village is the first neighborhood in the City of San Mateo that this is being offered to because quite frankly, it’s the leakiest.

For a limited time, the City of San Mateo  is offering a free inspection, with no obligation, valued at $250 to come out and take a TV inspection to determine if your sewer lateral is defective

 If you do not take advantage of this now, it will move on to the next neighborhood in San Mateo.

 This outreach program is to promote the efforts and assist single family home owners with repair of deteriorated private sewer laterals. These efforts to help the Village home owners will span 5 years and will utilize $750,000 of the fines assessed as part of the March 11, 2009 Cease and Desist Order as a funding source for grants and loans to homeowners in the Village for the private sewer lateral upgrade program.

 Because times are tough, the City is offering reimbursement grants ( up to 50% of the replacement cost) or very low interest loans will be available to qualifying residents who want to replace their sewer lateral because of root infiltration, breaks, cracks, failed pipe, “ orangeburg” pipe, and alignment problems.

 The grants are for up to 50% for families with less than $81,573 combined income. If you earn more than that, there is financing at extremely low interest rates under 2%, financed up to 3  years. (If you earn less than the $81,573, you may  also be able to finance the rest.)

 In regards to real estate, one thing you may want to keep in mind is that if you are thinking of selling your home in the near future, having the inspection can also create more value if your home has been upgraded.

 But, if you decide to get the inspection and not do the upgrade if it’s needed, this could reduce the value of your home, and will also be a disclosure issue that will need to be exposed to any potential buyers.

From my experience, it’s only a matterof time before this becomes mandatory, just like the cities of Burlingame and Hillsborough. As a matter of fact, that’s the question I posed at the meeting and was told that the City Council  may take a vote on this in the Spring.

The main speaker, ( Sheri Costa-Batis) with the Dept of Public Works did a terrific job explaining the project and answering everyone’s questions. If you have any questions, please call Sheri direct at 650-522-7334 or you can email her at scosta-batis@cityofsanmateo.org.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS

 David “Tap” Tapper

Should We Try To Purchase A Home During The Holidays or Wait?

Purchasing a home during the holidays could be a real blessing because a lot of buyers have other priorities like Thanksgiving,Christmas and New Years.

Timing is everything and sometimes things fall through the cracks and there is a home just waiting to be plucked. As I said, buyers have other things on their minds and a lot of agents take a good portion of December off figuring that there won’t be any new inventory coming up and they will have some downtime.

Agents are also burned out a little. So, if you are in the market to purchase near the Holidays, it could be a stroke of luck.

For me, it’s time to put the pedal to the metal and make some things happen for my buyers.

Have a Safe And Happy Holidays.

Cheers,

Tap

“What is the address of Carolands Mansion?”

Hello TeamTapper.com Readers,

By using a program called “Google Analytics“, I can see how people come to our page. We have had a lot of inbound traffic because of the map of the Carolands neighborhood map we posted a while back. I can also see that some people came looking for the address of the Carolands Mansion address but did not find the information they were looking for. So here it is, The address of the Carolands Mansion in Hillsborough, California.

565 Remillard Drive – Hillsborough, CA 94010

If you click the link above it will take you to a satalite view of the mansion. Also be aware that the lot of the manison streches from street-to-street. Therefore, the back of the mansion can also be viewed from Craig Road in Hillsborough, CA.

Follow-Up To Yesterday’s Video

Hello Again Everyone,

Here is a follow-up to yesterday’s video! Do you want to know if I got the listing…? You will have to watch to find out!

TeamTapper.com’s First Video – Tap Goes To A Listing Presentation

Hey Folks,

So here it is Team Tapper’s first video. Yesterday on my way to a listing presentation, I had my little Flip Mino video camera next to me in the car, so I thought there is never a better time like the present. So here it is – forgive the quality & poor editing, it will only get better with time.

So, if for some reason the video isn’t working for you. The premise behind the video is that homes shouldn’t be priced by how much the Sellers want or need for the home. It’s based off comparable home sales to determine a price closest to market value.

I hope you enjoyed the video! Stay tuned for many more videos from Team Tapper at www.TeamTapper.com!