Many people talk about clearing out and organizing their homes. Few actually do it. The ones who do usually have reached a tipping point.
Two weeks ago I shared in this column how Maureen Rabazinski, a 62-year-old nurse practitioner, had emailed me for advice on how to get her house back.
Reader shares discoveries made on path to organized home
The 2,200-square-foot “private oasis” that she and her husband moved to as empty nesters when they downsized eight years ago was neither private nor an oasis. Life events had sent her two 30-something sons boomeranging back to live with them temporarily. One brought a wife and three children. Meanwhile, COVID forced Maureen, who had been working in a hospital clinic, to work from home, which led her to start a thriving home-based telehealth practice.
“My home was chaos,” she said. “I
couldn’t nd any corner I wanted to be in.”
Her tipping point came when her younger son moved out, giving her the chance to reclaim the guest room for actual guests. That caused her to look around the rest of her four-bedroom home. Grandchildren had commandeered another room, which was buried in toys. A baby crib had wound up in her o ce. And an unused elliptical machine was killing the restful vibe in her master bedroom.
That’s when she cried: “Help!”
My advice was simple: Create boundaries and give each room one purpose. We came up with an-easier-said-than-done task list, which included getting rid of the dustcollecting elliptical, reclaiming the guest room for short-term guests, taming the toy tornado in the grandkids’ room and making her o ce a purely professional place.
I asked her to check back in two weeks. (The magic of accountability.)
■ See JAMESON, page 4
has fewer toys, grandson Mason, 2, pictured here with his sisters — Emmy, 4, left, and Evy, 7 — and Goldendoodle
sleeps in an in atable car bed, which de ates and goes in the closet when not in use.
Make this your Forever Property! The possibilities are endless and all the elements are here in this 1679sf home. 3 bed, 2 bath on a 1/3 of an acre, on a dead-end road & within walking distance to Downtown Placerville. This cosmetic fixer has a good size kitchen with an abundance of cabinets and a large pantry, there’s also room for a table and chairs. There’s a large laundry room and primary bed & bath on 1 end of the home, and 2 beds & full bath on the other end. You enter into a large open concept living/dining room off the large covered patio and porch to enjoy the privacy & view!
Marni Jameson At Home
Photo courtesy Maureen Rabazinski
Now that the crib is out of Maureen Rabazinski’s o ce and the kids’ room
Riley,
Government is waging war on landlords
There were 175 reported residential sales in El Dorado county during July. The median selling price was $680,000, which works out to $337 a square foot. Two-thirds of the reported sales sold within the rst 30 days of the listing period at 99.5% of the listed price. The number of July sales were the same as last year, but prices were 10% higher.
The highest priced home that sold last month was $2.5 million. It was a 6,100-square-foot home in El Dorado Hills. The lowest priced home sold for $200,000 — a 2,000-square-foot bank repo in Grizzly Flat. Four homes in El Dorado Hills sold in excess of $2 million last month and seven homes sold elsewhere in the county under $300,000. Sales should have been better. Mortgage rates have retreated to their lowest level since February. Interest rates on the 30-year xed rate mortgage dropped to 6.75% last week. A year ago, rates were higher than 7%. A er reaching a 23-year high of 7.75% in October, rates have stayed in the 7% range for most of this year. The Federal Reserve is now expected to lower interest rates a quarter percent at the next meeting in September. In addition to slightly lower mortgage rates, buyers have had a larger selection of homes. The number of county homes listed for sale is the highest it has been in two years. July is typically one of the most active months for home sales. Not this year. I’m blaming the unusual heatwave. A year ago, we had our normal three- to four-day heatwave when temperatures were warmer than 100 degrees but then the Delta Breeze would arrive and cool us back down into the 90s. This July we had record-setting prolonged heat. It was the warmest July ever, surpassing normal temperatures by 5 degrees. From June 23 to July 12 we experienced 20 days that averaged 103.8 degrees. Fewer agents and their clients were previewing homes. I expect August and September to be better. There has been a noteworthy increase
in rental home listings. Landlords have decided they want out of the rental business and are selling their singlefamily rentals. California has about 2 million single-family rental homes where about 34% of the state’s renters live.
According to the California Apartment Association about 80% of rental properties are owned by independent housing providers, who are best described as “mom and pops.” The great majority of these small investors own less than three rental homes.
Historically, single-family homes have been a good investment for small investors. They are easily nanced; owners can generally manage and provide property maintenance themselves and there is always a demand for rental homes. Up until the pandemic there was an increasing number of mom-and-pop investors. Since then, the number of investors and their rental homes are on the decline.
According to the U.S. Census, California has 81,548 fewer singlefamily rentals today than four years ago. It’s a disturbing trend since 80% of Californians cannot a ord to purchase a median-priced home. California needs more rental opportunities that can best be provided by individual housing providers. Lawmakers should be promoting policies that encourage investments in rental homes. However, they have declared war on housing providers.
The Legislature’s anti-property-right crusade done in the name of protecting tenants in a tight housing market includes rent control, free legal service, evictions protections and now AB 2216 requiring landlords to accept pets and making it a crime for landlords to charge extra rent, ask for larger security deposits or asking a tenant if they plan to have a pet.
The Legislative war against landlords traces back to the Tenant Protection Act of 2019. One aspect of this law requires
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Home insurance experts say changes coming for California — with key tips for consumers
LOS ANGELES – Important regulatory updates, coming by end of year, plan to provide homeowners insurance options to consumers, according to a panel discussion last week hosted by the Center for California Real Estate. Panelists o ered important tips on speci c actions to take now to help better protect their homes and increase their chances of keeping their policies or to improve eligibility for coverage as the changes take e ect.
Moderated by California Association of Realtors President Melanie Barker, the forum The Center for California Real Estate Presents: California’s Insurance Landscape: From Risk to Resilience featured a progress update from Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara, and a panel discussion including Amy Bach, executive director of United Policyholders; Rex Frazier, president of Personal Insurance
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Two weeks later, a period she de ned as a “whirlwind workfest,” she called to report on her progress (90% done) and the unexpected bene ts. “Besides loving how my decluttered, reorganized home looks, feels and functions,” she said, “my other discoveries were even more impactful.”
In addition to a few aching muscles from moving heavy furniture around, here’s what she realized:
• The direct donation impact. When we spoke, Maureen had a garage full of items scheduled for pickup and ready to go to new homes. For instance, a er trying to sell the barely used elliptical machine online, that behemoth in the bedroom is now going to the local Boys and Girls Club. The organization, which provides a er school and summer programs for youths, will pick it up, sell it and use the money to help those they serve. Toys (enough to ll two car trunks) will go to a homeless shelter, and three bags of bed linens are tagged for the local pet rescue. “I love knowing that these unused items that were cluttering my home will make a di erence in the community.”
• Purposeful repurposing. As Maureen was reclaiming her o ce, her older son was remodeling and replacing dark wood oors
Federation of California; and Nancy E. Wallace, professor and co-chair of the UC Berkeley Fisher Center for Real Estate and Urban Economics.
Key takeaways
1. Regulatory changes by end of year plan to add insurance options, resiliency to the market.
Commissioner Lara shared proposed changes to Prop 103, on track for implementation by December 2024, that collectively represent California’s largest insurance reform in 30 years. They hold the potential to resolve key issues that have led to sky-high rate increases, non-renewal notices and some large carriers pulling out of the state altogether.
2. Consumers need to take action now.
with lighter wood ooring. She took his old wood planks and had them installed in her home o ce, replacing her worn carpet. While clearing out the room her son had been using, she uncovered two televisions and gave them to the workers installing her ooring. The smile on their faces was worth all the e ort. Oh, and that crib that was taking up half her o ce went to a friend who had just become a grandmother. “Though making a random donation is gratifying, giving items directly to someone who really needs and wants them is even more rewarding,” she said.
• Teaching moment. Maureen enlisted her grandkids, ages 7, 4 and 2, to help her decide which toys could go to children in a homeless shelter and which ones should stay. “The two older ones would say, ‘We don’t play with this anymore. Let’s give this to them.’ They learned how good it feels to be generous. They also found they’d rather play with Gigi and PapPap than with their toys.”
• Biggest di erence. “The change in my home o ce was the most dramatic,” she said. Besides losing the crib and gaining wood oors, she moved a bookshelf into the closet and added a chic area rug and two cowhide chairs across from her desk to create a stylish
Lara advised homebuyers and sellers to start shopping early, as insurance needs to be in place for a home sale, just like nancing. Assessing the home’s wild re risk and potential upgrades to more rewise features will be important considerations on both the selling side and the buying side.
3. Interdisciplinary collaboration and new technology are advancing solutions.
Nancy Wallace, a survivor of the 1991 Oakland Hills re, is spearheading collaborations to address the insurance crisis, working with her team at UC Berkeley’s Fisher Center, along with cross-sector academics and industry experts to build a comprehensive data store with climate,
seating area. “I was seriously surprised by how much more energized and productive I feel now that I look forward to going to my o ce every day.”
• Biggest lesson. “Stopping the bleed over was the hardest habit to break. I didn’t realize how much stu that belonged in one room had over owed into another.” Now that each room has one purpose, she’s not going back, she insists. “My job is to keep the boundaries and stop the creep, so I can maintain the new order and simplicity. If a toy comes in, a toy goes out.”
• Biggest realization. “I can still have a house that’s for the grandkids, but the toys can come out only when they visit. A er they leave, we can put the kid stu away and our home can look like an adult home again.”
• Advice for others. “If the project seems overwhelming, as mine did, break the job down to small parts,” she said. “Once I got started, however, I couldn’t stop. Seeing the progress kept me going.”
Marni Jameson is the author of seven books including the newly released “Rightsize Today to Create Your Best Life Tomorrow,” “What to Do With Everything You Own to Leave the Legacy You Want” and “Downsizing the Family Home.” You may reach her at marnijameson.com.
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landlords to have a “just cause” for removing a tenant past the end of their lease. If a tenant that the expiration of a lease is not a justi able reason for ending a lease, they may sue the landlord for triple damages and attorney fees using free legal services, compliments of taxpayers. Another aspect of this law is limiting rent increase to a yearly 10% regardless of market rents or a landlord’s increased cost. But that’s not far enough. The Biden administration is pushing for national rent control.
In a statement revealing his plan, Biden said, “I’m sending a clear message to landlords: If you raise rents more than 5% on existing units, you should lose valuably tax breaks.” Responding, Kevin Sears, president of the National Association of Realtors, said, “Price controls may seem appealing, but they have back red on local governments and harmed the people we need to help the
most.”
High rent is a national concern. The Joint Center for Housing at Harvard University estimates that about 22 million rental households are nancially struggling. Their rent is more than 30% of their income. That’s a record high and the numbers have grown by 2 million households in the past three years.
If the government wins its war against landlords, developers will build fewer apartments and more momand-pop investors will sell o their rental homes. Less rental housing will exacerbate the housing shortage. The real solution is more housing. Lawmakers need to adopt tax policies that incentivize all housing providers.
Ken Calhoon is a real estate broker in El Dorado County. He can be reached for questions and comments at ken@kencalhoon. com.
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housing, topography and mortgage market data. The e ort is helping develop better predictive modeling systems and generating ways to leverage data into new proactive tools for the marketplace.
4. Community-wide hazard mitigation will be critical going forward, but funding remains a challenge.
Panelists advocated for a collective long-term solution in which not just individual homes but entire communities embrace wild re mitigation practices. “The much bigger issue driving this is not individual home hardening, it’s community-level hazard,” said Frazier. “Community-level mitigation is what is going to dramatically change our situation.”
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