Monday, December 19, 2011

Bay Area rent fraud traps unwary

People who are relocation need to be real careful right now when seeking rentals on Craigslist.com
Scammers are pretending they own homes to get large checks from rentors...
so if it looks like a great deal and too good to be true, it might be =)
just be careful out there people!




http://www.mercurynews.com/bay-area-news/ci_19548086



Bay Area rent fraud traps unwary

By Pete Carey
pcarey@mercurynews.com
Posted: 12/15/2011 08:23:27 AM PST
Updated: 12/15/2011 10:21:15 AM PST


File this under too good to be true: One bedroom condo in Walnut Creek a short distance from the city's tony downtown; water, Internet and garbage included; pets OK; $850 a month.
As if the housing crisis wasn't plagued with enough fraud already, a new bunch of scammers is advertising homes for rent that they don't own and probably have never even seen.
The homes are often foreclosed and empty, or are for sale. The advertised rent is rock bottom, and the would-be renter must send a deposit to get the keys. The scam has become more frequent as unemployment and foreclosures have flooded the rental market with people desperate for something they can afford.
Legal secretary Sherry Davis said she regularly encounters these scams on Craigslist and other online classified ad sites. She's trying to find a place to rent, after losing her Walnut Creek condo to foreclosure following a hospitalization and loss of a job.
"It's rampant," Davis said. "The bottom line is if they can't show you the inside of the property, be very wary."
The Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office has received complaints, some from people who have made the deposit, moved in and paid rent, only to find out later they've been victimized.
"With so many foreclosures on the market, we have had complaints of people lying and saying they have the right to rent the property, and they don't," said Paul Colin, a deputy district attorney. "We've heard of


situations where people have moved in."
Prosecuting is not easy. "If someone reports a crime and can't tell you anything about who ripped them off, then it's very difficult for us to pursue the culprit," he said.
Steve Mun, of Keller Williams Realty in San Jose, said he's had homes listed for sale offered as rentals by online scammers.
"They take my listing, flip it around, advertise it as a rental. People are told to wire money to an overseas account," Mun said. Monday, the Web page of one of his listings, a home offered for $760,000 on Alisal Avenue in San Jose, was copied and listed by scammers as a rental for $3,000 a month.
"Usually, the common thread is, I'm the owner, I'm out of the country for some reason, and that is why I can't come and meet you. If you're interested, here's my bank account, for the deposit," Mun said
It has become such a problem that Mun has blogged about it several times. Mostly, people aren't taken in, he said, especially if they go by the home and see a "for sale" sign on the lawn.
Mun said one scammer told a would-be renter they couldn't go in the house but only look inside through the window.
In her search for an apartment, Davis -- who from 1993-99 was

Friday, December 2, 2011

1126median

Zynga IPO seeks to raise $1 billion

Although ZYNGAS founder may be moving out of SF most ZYNGA employees, oh about 1000 of them, are going to be buying homes in SF!!
This is great news for SF Sellers selling their homes soon, because SFs home values will go even further north! Zynga is proof HIGH TECH is flourishing in SF...especially the hottest companies.
Bay Area is home to companies from FACEBOOK to GOOGLE to HP and APPLE!
great place to start a high tech company, all day long....
http://www.upack.com/press/article/real-estate-news/zynga-ceo-selling-san-francisco-home-800629162


Zyngas employees will be looking to buy homes near their company soon...after all that IPO money comes home...

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/12/02/BUD61M7HOD.DTL

Anti-ballpark group "Stand for San Jose" sues city

This is GIANTS PAID garbage!
what right does a fake group paid for by SF have to sue San Jose?
Very anti south bay and should be investigated....probably very little support by
mainstream SAN JOSE....SF shouldnt be able to try to influence what happens in San Jose
as much as they try to....I find this very distasteful...
Bringing a baseball team to san jose is what silicon valley has needed since its inception to
give us credibility. Not to speak of it would help retail and property values in general.
The As should be allowed to Relocate to San Jose!!!


Anti-ballpark group "Stand for San Jose" sues city


SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - The coalition group "Stand for San Jose,'' which is opposed to the Oakland Athletics moving to the South Bay and is supported by the Giants, filed a lawsuit Friday against the City of San Jose claiming the failure to perform a proper environmental review of land committed to the A's.
The 28-page suit, filed in Santa Clara County Superior Court and shared with The Associated Press, also claims the city violated citizens' rights by not putting to a public vote the contractual agreement it made with the A's to sell the discounted downtown property where owner Lew Wolff hopes to build a new ballpark. He is still waiting to hear from Commissioner Bud Selig about whether the club can relocate into San Francisco's territory.
Last month, the San Jose City Council agreed to sell nearly five acres at a huge discount to the A's as long as it is used to build a ballpark.
There was a 30-day window from Nov. 8, when the sides reached agreement on a two-year land-purchase option that costs the A's $50,000, for potential lawsuits to be filed.
"In the midst of its 11th consecutive budget deficit, San Jose politicians rushed to sell prime downtown land for only $6.9 million, even though it was acquired for $25 million and is currently appraised at approximately $14 million,'' Stand for San Jose said in a statement to the AP. "This huge discount for wealthy developers who want to build a baseball stadium comes at a time of fiscal challenges so severe that the Mayor recently admitted: `We're not as bad as Greece, I don't think.'''
The lawsuit claims that though several environmental reports have been done, the studies on issues such as traffic and air quality are insufficient relating to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and additional studies are needed.
Wolff, a successful Los Angeles real estate developer, said Friday night that lawsuits are often part of the process.
"In California, people can try to use the CEQA Act to stop someone from competing, to stop something they don't want to happen,'' Wolff said by phone. "Normally there are numerous lawsuits filed. This is a very solid EIS (environmental impact study), so it's somebody who doesn't want us to compete in that area.''
A phone message and e-mail to San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed weren't immediately returned.
Also, Stand for San Jose challenges that a public vote should have happened before the City of San Jose decided to enter into a binding agreement with Wolff and the A's for land committed to be used for a ballpark or stadium.
It reads that the city and its agencies "abused their powers and ran roughshod over their legal duties, including their duties to protect the public's right to vote and to comply with laws designed to protect the environment, prior to committing to sell public lands for a Ballpark Project.''
Selig in March 2009 appointed a committee to evaluate the issue facing the Bay Area teams, yet he has provided no timetable for when he might announce a decision. Wolff has said he hopes to hear a resolution one way or the other soon. Moving to San Jose, he has said, would help the low-budget A's generate revenue and become a bigger spender.
The Giants have a significant fan base in technology-rich Silicon Valley in Santa Clara County, and they don't want to give that up.
Wolff, a friend of Selig's dating to their days as fraternity brothers at Wisconsin, is ready to break ground on an intimate ballpark projected to cost between $400 million and $450 million - if and when he gets the OK to relocate some 40 miles south of the team's current home in the rundown Oakland Coliseum. The A's share the stadium with the NFL's Oakland Raiders.
Wolff has working drawings of the potential San Jose venue and an architect has been chosen. Wolff has said obtaining building permits would take about nine months, then the actual ballpark would require another two years to complete.
Stand for San Jose, a group of concerned residents financially backed by the Giants' Class-A San Jose club, is represented by San Francisco attorney Ronald Van Buskirk. Another portion of the lawsuit deals with complicated redevelopment issues and laws.
"Before making this sweetheart deal, the City failed to follow laws requiring a comprehensive environmental impact study and a vote of the people,'' Stand for San Jose said. "This legal filing simply asks the City to comply with the law by allowing the community to thoroughly study and understand the project's impacts and express its opinion in a public vote.''


Read more: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/baseball/mlb/wires/12/02/2010.ap.bba.athletics.territorial.rights.3rd.ld.writethru.0972/index.html#ixzz1fRi60uEK

Santa Clara, 49ers announce deal to pay for stadium

Pretty exciting at last!!!
Looks like the niners are coming to Santa Clara for real!!
I for one am jazzed to have a local football team to call Silicon Valleys!
Forty Niners will be doing a Silicon Valley Relocation soon.
Happy DAYS!!!

At long last, the 49ers' drive for a new home in Silicon Valley is reaching the end zone.
The NFL team and Santa Clara announced Friday that they are on the verge of capturing all the money needed to build a proposed $1 billion football stadium next to the Great America theme park.
"It's like first and goal from the 9 yard line," said Ron Garratt, a consultant helping lead the project for the city. "We think we're going to score from here."
The two sides have lined up a consortium of lenders -- Goldman Sachs, U.S. Bank and Bank of America -- that have agreed to loan them a combined $850 million. The funds will be paid back through stadium-related revenues, such as ticket sales, naming rights, and the rent the team will pay the city. The NFL is expected to chip in $150 million, the city's redevelopment agency will contribute $40 million and another $35 million will come from a local hotel tax.
Essentially, the two sides are betting that the stadium will create so much profit that they will be able to pay off the loans over about 25 years. If that money doesn't materialize, the 49ers are on the hook to pay the difference in higher rent payments to the city.
The 49ers will contribute another $150 million form the team's own cash, largely through the luxury suite sales they have already sold. The final $20 million is expected to come from various seat sales expected before construction starts.
The two sides are now so
confident that the stadium might be able to open a year early, in 2014, though it sounds like a long-shot. The target date for starting construction in January 2013 and opening for the 2015 season seem like locks now, the city said.
The construction cost has also increased from $987 million to $1.02 million, largely because of tweaks to stadium design, more refined construction estimates and inflation.
The development agreement caps 2½ years of closed-door negotiations between city and team leaders and finally completes a planning process that began when the team announced interest in abandoning San Francisco five years ago.
The 49ers have already approved the 75-page deal and the City Council is expected to follow suit on Dec. 13, cementing the final green-light and a "formal commitment" from both sides to build the 68,500-seat, coliseum-style home field next to Great America.

THE CHALLENGE How to convince employees to relocate for work

This is a very informative article on the biggest challenge of relocating your company.
Specifically getting the employees to relocate with you =)
Many companies see the benefit of relocating for instance to the bay area.
But convincing all employees to make the move with the company is your biggest challenge!
read on blogophiles~


How to convince employees to relocate for work
BRYAN BORZYKOWSKI
From Wednesday's Globe and Mail
Published Wednesday, Nov. 30, 2011 6:00AM EST
25 comments
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Every week, we will seek out expert advice to help a small or medium-sized company overcome a key issue it is facing in its business.

Since 2003, Kathryn Fraser has called Edmonton home. It’s where she went to university and where she started her mobile software company, Great Big Solutions Ltd.

And when she relocates her company, she wants her four employees to move with her.

Vancouver’s well-established tech community will offer Great Big Solutions more resources to assist its growth, says the owner and chief executive officer of the company that last year brought in revenue of $600,000.

“I’ve done a lot of work out there and there’s a really strong tech community. We could really take advantage of the area,” she says.

As well, she believes the focus in Edmonton is more on startups, so “it’s difficult to grow from here.”

She would like to bring all of her employees with her, rather than build a new work force from scratch. Her team, she says, knows Great Big Solutions’ products and customers, and has demonstrated hard work.

Ms. Fraser aims to move by the end of next year. She only recently told her team about her plans and, while supportive, none committed to a relocation.

Her staff still have plenty of time to make a decision and she knows she'll have some trouble persuading all of them to come – some have families, including working partners, and one has a young baby, as well as other ties to Edmonton.

The Challenge: When the company relocates, how can employees be enticed to move, too?

THE EXPERTS WEIGH IN

Dave MacKay, Ottawa-based president of Ceridian Canada

If she wants to move people to Vancouver, she needs to take care of the financial and emotional impact of the move.

The financial part could include covering costs for moving, real estate transaction fees on selling a house, commission fees for an agent and opportunities to travel back home to visit family.

But she also has to tell them that she’ll take care of the emotional aspects. She’ll need to help them find things like a new gym and hockey teams for their kids. The emotional challenges should not be on the employee – that’s key.

And be transparent. Ask the employees what it would take for them to move. Make sure they understand that this won’t be a painful process for them.

Stephen Cryne, president and CEO of Toronto-based Canadian Employee Relocation Council


http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/small-business/sb-managing/human-resources/how-to-convince-employees-to-relocate-for-work/article2253633/?utm_medium=Feeds%3A%20RSS%2FAtom&utm_source=Home&utm_content=2253633