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Now what: Your builder is bankrupt One minivan, one mom, five kids The economic 'value' of Mom First-time homebuyer help People in Business: A weekly list of achievements for May 8 Wal-Marts seek OK to sell beer, wine Launch what you cook Check out what homes are selling for! Foreclosure charts! Blue=Bad; more glum housing stats January 08 February 08 March 08 April 08 May 08 Contact us with your news and information: Team leader: Christine Peterson, cpeterson@bakersfield.com, 395-7418 Assistant team leader: John Cox, jcox@bakersfield.com, 395- 7345 Reporters: Courtenay Edelhart, cedelhart@bakersfield.com, 395-7372 Vanessa Gregory, vgregory@bakersfield.com, 395-7379 Jenny Shearer, jshearer@bakersfield.com, 395-7234 Gretchen Wenner, gwenner@bakersfield.com, 395-7368 
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Real estate agent David Crisp’s former mansion sold Friday for $1.2 million, according to the Bakersfield Multiple Listing Service, which indexes properties for sale. The sale price was $500,000 lower than what Crisp, 28, paid for the 6,666-square-foot Seven Oaks home less than three years ago. When it was foreclosed on in December, he had borrowed at least $2.1 million against the property. HSBC Bank USA, N.A., a Delaware company, put the repossessed house up for sale on April 14, and had a buyer the same day. The sale was finalized on Friday, according to the listing service. Crisp and his ex-business partner, Carl Cole, 60, have been linked to dozens of foreclosed properties, an ongoing Californian tally shows. The pair are being investigated by the FBI, but have not been charged. Cole and Crisp are also named in a state regulatory complaint alleging fraud. An administrative trial to hear those charges is scheduled for Bakersfield this summer. Read the Crisp and Cole archives. -Vanessa Gregory, staff writer, So today we in the newsroom received what we call a budget line, which basically is a preview of a story we haven't seen yet. It read like this: "In a sign that the economic downturn is hitting hard among Latino immigrants, more than 3 million of them (sic) stopped sending money to families in their home countries during the last two years, the Inter-American Development Bank said Wednesday." Without waiting for the rest of the story (it was going to take hours, time we didn't have if we were going to get local comments), we got on the phone and hit the sidewalks to try and find out to what degree this trend has affected Kern County. The first thing we learned, halfway into our first dozen calls, is that a lot of people who work at businesses that wire money to other countries don't care to speak to newspaper reporters. The next thing we learned is that, among those who do care to speak to reporters, there has been no noticeable change in the amount of money being sent home to Mexico. “No, we still do plenty of Western Unions every day,” said Frances Alba, the finance person at Fastrip Financial in Delano. “I haven’t noticed any difference. It’s still pretty much the same.” Bottom line: Four money transfer businesses around the county, from downtown Bakersfield to Arvin, said their money transfer numbers have not changed significantly among Hispanic immigrant customers. Perhaps the most interesting statements we heard were these: “I think what they’re doing, they’re spending less money here and sending more or less the same to Mexico,” said Cecilia Garcia, manager of Jalisco Jewelers in downtown Bakersfield, which provides money transfers. She said the real test will come May 10, which is Mother’s Day in Mexico, one of the biggest days for Mexican immigrants to send money home. Reporter Courtenay Edelhart dug up this fine little nugget today: High-end handbag maker Coach Inc. plans to open a store at Valley Plaza Mall this fall. Until the Bakersfield store at 2701 Ming Ave. opens on Aug. 15, the closest Coach store is in Fresno. In addition to designer handbags, Coach sells clothes, accessories, business cases, eyewear, fragrance, jewelry, gloves, luggage, scarves and wallets. Based in New York City, Coach has 281 stores in the United States, and is sold at 900 department store locations in the U.S. and 140 international department stores. Can Bakersfield folks afford a Coach store? Will you be shopping there? Last fall, I wrote about a development team's plan to transform a historic downtown building into trendy urban lofts. The concept is pretty unique for Bakersfield. The lofts fell behind schedule, but a reception and preview is planned for Friday night. And the developer has posted prices and floorplans on its Web site. The preview will be from 5 to 9 p.m., May 2, at Metro Galleries, 1604 19th St. -Vanessa Gregory, staff writer How are you going to spend your tax refund and/or economic stimulus package check? A bunch of retailers are offering promotions to entice you into spending right away. Or will you pay down debt or invest with it?
Courtenay Edelhart Business Reporter Bakersfield Californian cedelhart@Bakersfield.com Mexicana Airlines is suspending its flights to Guadalajara for 30 days to re-evaluate its service, reporter John Cox writes. The culprit? High fuel costs. And ever since the flights began, the airline has struggled to fill seats, an airport spokeswoman told John. Makes you wonder if any other flights are in jeopardy. A new shop called Tilly's — meant to appeal to the surfer and skater crowd — is set to open at Valley Plaza this May. Read reporter Courtenay Edelhart's story for all the details. Are you going? Our latest home sales map is ready for a peek. No need to grab a map and figure out where to find Pebble Beach Drive and Anchor Island Court. (Homes on those streets recently sold.) We’ve done the work for you here. This map is updated with homes that sold in Bakersfield from March 10 to March 16, color-coded by sales price. We regularly publish single-family home sale transactions that occurred between individuals. Since foreclosures, or bank-owned properties, now account for an increasing number of weekly sales, sales between banks and individuals are now being included. You can easily check out what homes are going for with the information from First American Real Estate Solutions compiled by reporter Vanessa Gregory. Highlights for the March 10 to 16: • 71 homes are new on this map. • Priciest? One sold for $577,500 in the 93308 ZIP code. • Cheapest? One sold for $70,000 in the 93304 ZIP code. What do you think of the prices? — Christine Peterson It's always fun to ogle houses you can't afford. A Miramonte resident bought a 300-acre estate near Woody last week for $2.3 million, according to a press release from J.P. King, an upscale property auction company based in Alabama. Aside from acreage, the buyer got a five-bedroom ranch house, an A-frame main lodge set on a lake and two cabins. Not bad. At one time, the Glennville Country Estate belonged to former Lakers owner Dr. Jerry Buss and Washington Redskins owner Jack Kent-Cooke, according to the release. A 32-acre portion near Bear Creek described as "ideal for a ranchette or private estate" sold to a Bakersfield bidder for $192,500. -Vanessa Gregory, staff writer A business consultant named Mark Hovind thinks it is, along with Prescott, Ariz.; Fayetteville, Ark.; Grand Junction, Colo.; Bend, Ore.; Valdosta, Ga.; and Morgantown, W.Va. According to a report from the Associated Press, Hovind, who is the president of JobBait.com, came up with a formula with data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics that shows yes, Bakersfield will be fine in any downturn. Read the full story, including comments from Bakersfield folks. But yet we keep hearing that people are pinching pennies. Is Bakersfield recession-proof? What's the evidence? Is it that we have strong oil and ag to buoy the economy? — Christine Peterson
Location:
2300 White Lane,
Bakersfield, CA
Looking to be one of the first to have the new “Grand Theft Auto IV?” For the benefit of the curious (not me!!!) I did a quick phone survey of stores. Looks like your best bet is the Wal-Mart at 2300 White Lane. It's the one place I found that plans to stay open past midnight to sell the game for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Assistant manager Mikki Hernanez said they'll be open "an hour or whatever" past midnight, or "until any crowd dies." People at the other Wal-Marts said they'll be open normal hours today. Same with Circuit City and Best Buy. — Christine Peterson Do you know the person on the left? Read about his position in the business world and those of several other locals in this week's People in Business column. It's the place to announce professional achievements, new jobs and promotions. Want to be in next week's list? It's best to submit to bakersfield.com/yourwords. You can also mail contributions to The Bakersfield Californian, business editor, P.O. Bin 440, Bakersfield, CA 93302; faxed to 395-7519; or e-mailed to business@bakersfield.com. Sorry, photos that are submitted cannot be returned. For information, call 395-7345 between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. Tucked at the bottom of today's California Association of Realtors' press release was a tidbit about none other than Ridgecrest. Median home prices there rose 7.6 in March compared to the same month a year ago, putting the city in the top 10 statewide for communities that saw increases, rather than the more common decreases. Here's more about Kern: County/City/Area March 08 March 07 Year-to-year percent change And click here for more about other counties and cities. — Christine Peterson It's not every day that a book with fluorescent orange and blue writing lands on my desk. So I had to flip through "How to Be Useful: A Beginner's Guide to Not Hating Work." The book jacket suggests that author Megan Hustad "dismantles the myths of getting ahead and helps you navigate the murky waters of office life." Intrigued? I was. You can read excerpts on the book's Web site. The book is supposed to help you learn "why 'just being yourself' is a terrible idea," "why you shouldn't be nice," "how to screw up with grace and dignity" and "the right and wrong ways to talk trash about yourself." Lost me there. What do you do to love work? (Or at least not hate it.) — Christine Peterson
New-home construction stayed slow statewide in March, the California Building Industry Association reported this morning. The report noted a 65 percent drop in permits pulled this March compared to a year ago. And the first quarter, with a 61 percent year-to-year decline, was particularly rough in the San Joaquin Valley (ahem). But Kern County did better than the state average, with a 50 percent drop in single-family construction for the quarter. Builders pulled 605 permits this time around. A PDF with numbers broken out around the state is available at the association's Web site.
-- Gretchen Wenner, staff writer John D. Reynen of Reynen & Bardis Communities Inc. filed for Chapter 11 (personal) bankruptcy today. Reynen & Bardis has 8 or so projects in Kern, mostly in metro Bako and Wasco, and mostly in trouble. One Wasco community has been left with partially constructed homes standing empty and, according to anecdotal reports, folks unable to retrieve purchase deposits they put down last fall. I'll get a few more details from the filing and update y'all.. -- Gretchen Wenner, staff writer The number of building permits pulled in the Bakersfield metropolitan area continues to be low, according to a recent report prepared by Howdy Miller, the director of commercial marketing for Ticor Title in Bakersfield. According to Miller, 479 residential buliding permits were taken out between January and March, down from the 694 permits pulled during the same time last year. And the first quarter tally is a 65 percent decline from the 1,380 permits pulled during the same months in 2006, Miller's reports show. Numbers were high in the same months of 2005 and 2004 too -- 1,249 and 1,240, respectively. Here are the top 5 builders by permits pulled, January to March 2008, according to Miller: -Standard Pacific: 92 (all in March) -Lennar Homes: 56 -McMillin Homes: 54 -K. Hovnanian: 37 -Centex: 31 -Vanessa Gregory, staff writer We've learned that Uno Chicago Grill has plans for Bakersfield. When and exactly where aren't known yet, but a father-and-son team have purchased the rights to open five eateries in Central Cal. Read reporter John Cox's full report. Have you tried it? Tell us what you think. Want a peek at the menu? Click here. Here's a "raw report" press release from the taxman. Don't you feel good this Earth Day? The Franchise Tax Board (FTB) celebrated Earth Day today by recognizing the 9.6 million California taxpayers who helped to conserve resources this year by filing more tax returns electronically than ever before.
Location:
3100 Camino del Rio Court,
Bakersfield, CA 93308
Restaurants and hotels are invited to get involved in the Bakersfield Hospitality Olympics, an event to show off workers’ skills, build friendly competition and raise funds for the Bakersfield Rescue Mission. Teams will play timed games such as a tray run relay race and toy assembly, according to Sharon Fuller with Doubletree Hotel Bakersfield. Registration of $150 per team is due May 9; contact Fuller at 632-2216 for details and forms. The event takes place from 2 to 5 p.m., with an awards banquet from 5 to 7 p.m., June 9 at the Doubletree. — Christine Peterson Bakersfield appraiser Gary Crabtree released a report with some housing market statistics for the first quarter of 2008, broken down by ZIP code. (Click on the blue icon to see the PDF report.) The house price statistics are given by mean, rather than median, so that's not ideal. But this is interesting: sales are down, across the board, except in the 93314 ZIP code. Anyone got a theory on what's going on there? -Vanessa Gregory, staff writer Our latest home sales map is ready for a peek. No need to grab a map and figure out where to find Loon and Memory courts. (Homes on those streets recently sold.) We’ve done the work for you. This map is updated with homes that sold in Bakersfield March 1 to March 9, color-coded by sales price. We regularly publish single family home sale transactions that occurred between individuals. Since foreclosures, or bank-owned properties, now account for an increasing number of weekly sales, sales between banks and individuals are now being included. You can easily check out what homes are going for with the information from First American Real Estate Solutions that's compiled by reporter Vanessa Gregory. Highlights for the first nine days of March: • 66 homes are new on this map. • Priciest? One sold for $500,500 in the 93312 ZIP code. • Cheapest? One sold for $67,000 in the 93307 ZIP code. What do you think of the prices? — Christine Peterson Cal State Bakersfield senior Cameron Connally took first place at the Western States Collegiate Sales Competition held recently at Arizona State University, Polytechnic campus. “I am very proud of our team’s outstanding performance,” said marketing professor Ron Pimentel in a university press release. “They trained hard throughout winter quarter in preparation for the competition, and they are each exceptionally bright, capable students.” No surprise here: state foreclosures levels hit their highest mark in 15 years last quarter, Dataquick reported this morning. Here's the beef: Lending institutions sent homeowners 113,676 default notices during the January-to-March period. That was up by 39.4 percent from 81,550 the previous quarter, and up 143.1 percent from 46,760 for first-quarter 2007, according to DataQuick Information Systems.
Kern's stats broke out this way for default notices: County/Region 2007Q1 2008Q1 Yr/Yr% Kern 1,297 3,211 147.6%
Some other counties of interest: Fresno 1,116 2,464 120.8% Santa Barbara 372 897 141.1% Los Angeles 8,843 20,339 130.0% Orange 2,644 7,082 167.9% Ventura 965 2,176 125.5%
Regions: Socal 26,748 65,309 144.2% Bay Area 6,730 16,398 143.7% Coast 1,182 3,197 170.5% Central Valley 11,054 26,793 142.4% -- Gretchen Wenner, staff writer
Location:
2800 Gateway Ave.,
Bakersfield, CA
Looking for work? The state’s Employment Development Department is holding an “Honor a Hero, Hire a Vet” Job and Resource Fair from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesday at the Army National Guard Armory, 2800 Gateway Ave. It’s a chance for veterans, National Guard members and reserve troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan to meet with employers. The event is sponsored by the California Labor and Workforce Development Agency’s Employment Development Department. Partners include the California Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Industrial Relations’ Division of Apprenticeship Standards, and the California Community Colleges.
Before I gave up on Los Angeles and its obscene cost of living, money was really tight. More than half of my take home pay went to rent (buying a house was out of the question) and I had an hour and a half commute every day, fueled by gas that cost nearly $4 a gallon. Almost every penny of what would have been disposable income went to day care. I'm the single mother of a 3-year-old son and a daughter who will turn 6 in a couple of weeks. I tried to shield my children from all that. They were far too young to be burdened with my financial woes. But every once in a while I had to fess up, like when I pulled my daughter out of gymnastics classes because we just couldn't afford them anymore. A few months before we moved to Bakersfield I forgot to give my daughter her school lunch and snack money. I had it. It was just an oversight on a hectic morning. My kindergartener got lunch anyway because, I later learned, she was so frightened by what she perceived to be our dire poverty that she had begun hoarding money. She wouldn't buy her snack for days at a time, just in case she needed cash for an unexpected disaster. I was horrified to learn this, of course. I sat my little girl down and explained to her that while, yes, luxuries like gymnastics and vacations might have to stop for a while, we were not so bad off that we had to worry about starving to death on the streets, so please, please, go ahead and buy your snack. Are you a parent? Have you found yourself spending less in the economic downturn? If so, what kinds of cuts are you making and how are you explaining the belt tightening to your children? The Bakersfield Californian is preparing an article on this topic. Please e-mail cedelhart@bakersfield.com if you're willing to share your story. --Courtenay Edelhart Did you catch Jenny Shearer's report on a proposal to revitalize Oildale? Officials are exploring the creation of a redevelopment agency that could work on economic development issues in the area. County Supervisor Mike Maggard, who is spearheading the effort, told Jenny, “Oildale has suffered from the lack of a vision or some game plan to improve itself since I was a boy growing up in Bakersfield." What do you think? Is that true? Should Oildale change? Stay as it is? — Christine Peterson
Location:
9001 Stockdale Highway,
Bakersfield, CA
Go and talk about the gap at a forum put on by the American Association of University Women — Bakersfield Branch. It will be held from 6 to 8 p.m. Tuesday at the Cal State Bakersfield Student Union Multipurpose Room. According to organizers, there will be a panel of women with successful careers in traditionally male-dominated fields talking about their experineces and challenges. Here's what organizers say in a press release: "Equal Pay Day is a national day to commemorate the struggles involved to reach gender-based pay equity, and is calendared for April 22 this year. The date is calculated based upon national statistics for median income, which show that women must work for 16 months to earn the same salary as men, until a date in late April. According to the most recent U.S. Census Bureau statistics, male median earnings are $41,965, compared to $32,168 for women. How does your pay stack up? — Christine Peterson
Location:
Ming Avenue and Grand Lakes Avenue,
Bakersfield, CA
The Greater Bakersfield Chamber of Commerce's Business After Five Mixer is 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. April 24 at The Villas Model Homes. That's on the southeast cover of Ming and Grand Lakes avenues. The host is Castle & Cooke. Cost for the networking event is $5 per chamber member and $10 per nonmember. Here's a snapshot of what reporter Courtenay Edelhart writes in her story today: “It’s pretty bleak for those looking for a summer job,” said Cathy McCarthy, senior vice president of marketing for SnagAJob.com, a Web site that specializes in hourly employment. The Web site recently surveyed 1,000 employers nationally and found 16 percent of those who hire seasonal staff said they plan to hire fewer people this summer than last summer. That figure was higher in the west. In eight western states, including California, 18 percent said they are downsizing this season, and 53 percent said they wouldn’t hire at all. So ... if you're a teen, have you found a summer job? Parents, how's it going for your teen? Check out the blue box for some stats on teen work, too. People in Business is the place to recognize achievements of local professionals. Have a submission? Send it to business@bakersfield.com. Want to know who the person in the picture is? Read this week's People in Business column. — Christine Peterson Here's a press release from the Greater Bakersfield Chamber of Commerce: Applications for the Chamber's 2009 Leadership Bakersfield program are now available. Here's a "raw report" press release from The Pew Charitable Trusts. Read it and weep. Want more? Click here for the full report and fact sheets on every state. Or click on the funky blue rectangle to the left for the PDF sheet on California.
Washington, D.C. — One in 33 homeowners is projected to be in foreclosure primarily over the next two years, as a result of subprime loans made in 2005 and 2006, according to a new report released today by The Pew Charitable Trusts. In some states, the outlook is especially grim; for instance, nearly one in 11 homeowners in Nevada is projected to be in foreclosure and one in 18 Arizona homeowners may face the same circumstance over the next two years. |
