Montclair Photographer, Oakland Hills

I just discovered a commercial photographer in our neighborhood who really intrigued me.

Purely by accident I was lead to her website and blog! I just love getting this kind of insider information. Check out Caroline's beautiful images here.

Caroline's website is www.carolineschiff.com

Rental Home in Montclair, Art at the Round House

Art in the Round House
Featured Artists

* Azi Jalali
* Chunck Splady
* Michael Grbich
* Rashimi Gawali
* Timothy Rose
* Bruce Johnson
* Arla Biondi

Art at the Round House in Montclair, Oakland

Speaking of interesting ways to market your property...

Tina Voight of Voight Design Innovation staged an amazing art event at a vacant home just looking for a tenant. She has great connections in the local art scene and a beautiful location to house the art.

For information on how to rent the home, call me at 510.593.7501!

Sierra Club's Green Laundry Quiz

How Green is Your Laundry?

Take the Quiz!

I just took this and I still have a way to go on greening my laundry. The quiz didn't ask about my soap choices, just how often I do the laundry. I also lost points for buying dry-clean only clothing. Bad, Bad, Bad!!!

Toxic Trailers

By now everyone has heard about the Toxic FEMA trailers.

I wanted to highlight it here in a Blog about Green Real Estate because this is a classic case of
Volatile Organic Compounds in building materials. If there hadn’t been so many trailers delivered at once, to one location, people would have never been aware of the situation. Formaldehyde is a common building component, in fact it is used as an adhesive on “green” bamboo flooring made in China. Demanding Clean, Safe, Healthy, building materials for everyone is good for people, the environment, and great for business.

FEMA’s Formaldehyde Foul-Up
from the New York Times Editorial

Published: February 15, 2008

Just when you thought the federal government could not possibly outdo its incredible record of ineptitude in the handling of the victims of Hurricane Katrina, it contrives, against all odds, to make yet another colossal mistake. The latest blunder involves the torpid response to the threat of formaldehyde contamination in trailers supplied to hundreds of thousands of New Orleans residents made homeless by the storm.

At a news conference Thursday, Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, announced that tests of 519 trailers and mobile homes in Louisiana and Mississippi revealed unacceptably high levels of formaldehyde, a suspected carcinogen that can cause serious breathing problems even in people who do not ordinarily have respiratory problems.

Dr. Gerberding was followed by R. David Paulison, the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, who briskly announced a five-point program (or was it six?) to find more suitable housing for the residents before they all keeled over.

All of which sounded great. And hopelessly disingenuous. Red flags went up about formaldehyde nearly two years ago. In June 2006, a man who had complained of formaldehyde fumes was found dead in his trailer. FEMA received many warnings, not only from the families who occupied the claustrophobic trailers but from the Environmental Protection Agency and, more recently, the House Committee on Science and Technology. Yet FEMA waited until the disease control centers had done the survey before seriously swinging into action.

The saddest part of this is that the people who are most at risk are, for reasons of age, illness or poverty, the least able to defend themselves. Just about everyone who could move out of the trailers has moved. Of the original 140,00 trailers, only about 35,000 are still occupied, and many of these are on private property, usually the occupants’ driveways. The truly vulnerable trailer population consists of former renters who are still living in FEMA parks — playgrounds, churchyards and the like — because they have no place to go.

Woolsey Street in Berkeley

In my last post I mentioned the home listed on Woolsey Street. It is a large, beautiful craftsman that needs a bit of work. I had showed it to some clients and we wondered how the offers went.

When I spoke to the listing agent, she told me that, "Luckily" she received six offers and the home went, "...way over a million." I wasn't really surprised but, a little. The way the media reports the market, it is no wonder buyers believe that there are deals out there. In lots of neighborhoods there are. I would except certain parts of certain neighborhoods. How specific is that?????

Contact me to find out the recent sales prices in your neighborhood.

Corner of MacArthur Blvd and High St., Oakland

There sits an empty lot.

It has been empty for as long as I have been familiar with it. Today I was stopped at the light and a man (the owner, I presume) had a five-gallon tank of pesticide that he was systematically spraying inch by inch over the lot.

I embarrassed my son by hollering out the window (nicely), "Hey! Do you know that drains to the bay? It's poison!" He wasn't wearing a mask and wasn't being particularly careful about his shoes or pant legs either.

I drove on and the man just looked at me quizzically. I am not that surprised but when I meet up with my Green Chamber of Commerce geeks and they are on one about every little thing, I go back to my mantra...I encourage you to begin.

Local food, mostly vegetarian, composting, turning lights out, making it from scratch instead of buying it prepared. Make more than you need and freeze it if your busy schedule requires "fast" food. Drive less. Hold meetings by phone. Put a towel under the draft at your door and/or keep rooms closed when not in use.

Unplug appliances and chargers when not in use. They draw! Eliminate household bleach and other toxics like paint strippers, thinners. Recommend the green, household cleansers that you try and like to your friends. Carry your own shopping bags EVERY time!

Early Spring, Berkeley-Oakland Real Estate Market

I call it "The Conversation."

It's a difficult one in this market.

How much do you think this property X______ will sell for?

The media has the home-buying consumer looking for blood in the water. Sellers are hesitating to put prized properties on the market.

The fact is, there isn't much "inventory" in our neighborhoods. I showed a moderate home on the Oakland-Berkeley border in the $900,000 range last week. The listing was active that morning when I pulled it up. My client liked the home and planned to show her husband that weekend. When I got back to the office and called the listing agent later that day, she told me that she had received seven offers. The accepted offer was "solid" and over the asking price.

So much for homes sitting on the market and going for less than asking... Buyers are hoping that it is their turn to benefit from the market, but in fact, the market is balanced. It is not a true buyer's market in our neighborhood in this price range.

A stronger buyer's market exists in price ranges under $600,000, but even there, the best properties are still receiving lots of attention from buyers.

In this “weird” market the best advice is to be flexible, open and not too emotional over each home. There is another one coming down the pike.

Bad Television

1.17.2008
Events conspired this week to prompt my husband and I to stop the cable and unplug the television. It was partially the writer's strike but mostly just the deadened way we plopped in front of it when we were tired and in spite of 100's of channels rarely finding something interesting to watch....

2.3.2008
...fast forward to Super Bowl Sunday, an event my ten-year old son looks forward to if only for the buffalo wings, and we have a small problem. We opted not to go out to a sports bar and none of our friend's were doing the Super Bowl thing this year.

We bought the Guacamole fixins, the Buffalo Wings and are having our first Internet Superbowl! It's actually really fun, because there is more conversation and back and forth. We each have out bets. I've got the Giants up by 3 for dishes for a week. Elliot took the Patriots for a Seahawks cap and my husband has the Giants up by 7.

Green Chamber of Commerce Gets a New Logo!

Olivia Teter, Owner and Chief Creative Officer, Vetrazzo


Olivia Teter, a Green Chamber of Commerce board member is a designer and created the logo which depicts the green and white swirl.

James Carter, Founder of Green Chamber pictured with Olivia Teter.

Oakland Founding Conference, Green Chamber of Commerce

Keith Carson, Board of Supervisors, Alameda County

Supervisor Carson kicked off the founding conference with a discussion about the historical roots of Northern California as an environmental leader, first with the Sierra Club, whose famous founding members included John Muir.


The Mission of the Sierra Club, founded May 28, 1892 sound as fresh and modern today as when they were first written.

1.	Explore, enjoy and protect the wild places of the earth.
2.	Practice and promote the responsible use of the earth's ecosystems and resources.
3.	Educate and enlist humanity to protect and restore the quality of the natural and human environment.
4.	Use all lawful means to carry out these objectives.