Feature

Remember the good ol’ days when the American Dream could become a reality by simply coming up with 20% down? Oh sure, 20% down wasn’t easy, but with a few years of diligent savings, some help from Aunt Betty, and accepting the fact that your starter home wasn’t going to be your dream home, people did it.

And then something changed. Suddenly everybody could become a homeowner. How about 5% down or better yet, how about 0% down? People who had no business becoming homeowners were quickly signing on the dotted line, and it was all fun and games until the dream became a nightmare. Lives were destroyed, banks failed, and the Great Recession of 2008 was born.

That was seven years ago, about the time it takes for foreclosures and bankruptcies to cycle off a credit report, so guess who’s back? Boomerang Buyers, poised to make a huge comeback in the world of home ownership. But what’s going to keep us from repeating the mistakes of a decade ago? It helps that mortgages are harder to get again, with down payments of 30% or more the new normal. But beyond that, hopefully we all learned a valuable lesson from our errors: buying a home is not for the uninformed.

The Home Sweet Home Handbook by Ron Kaminski, MBA, JD and legal real estate appraiser specialist, is the complete guide to buying and selling a home. It would have been a handy tool to have back when everyone was signing their lives away, but as Kaminski says, “Buying and selling a home is kind of like arranging a funeral; too often, decisions are based on emotion with a rush to get things done.” And unfortunately, the real estate industry, like other occupations, has its fair share of lazy, careless, ignorant, and unscrupulous people who masquerade as real estate salespeople, mortgage loan officials, appraisers, home inspectors, and so on. You, the buyer/seller, have to know what you’re doing.

The Home Sweet Home Handbook takes the complex issues of home buying and selling, breaks them down, and gives the average buyer or seller, as much, if not more information than the so-called professionals in whom they are putting their trust. It will tell you of your rights, your responsibilities, what key questions to ask your real estate professional or lender, and how to avoid fateful consequences before embarking on this expensive proposition.

ALIVE Magazine: Why did you write the Home Sweet Home Handbook?

Ron Kaminski: I began writing for my own self-knowledge as I was specializing in appraisal work for attorneys and accountants. It also became a reaction to the savings and loan mess 25 years ago, followed by the greater mess leading up to the Great Recession of 2008. I wanted to capitalize on my nearly 30 years of training and experience by memorializing my thoughts about real estate and the appraisal of real properties.

AM: Who is your audience?

RK: Anyone who deals in residential real estate, including buyers, sellers, appraisers, realtors, financial advisers, landlords and tenants. Knowledge is power and education is the best way to participate in the largest industry in the USA.

AM: What makes your book unique?

RK: It’s more inclusive and not devoted only to specialized topics. Furthermore, additional information will be available in future editions that will add to the glossary sections and will touch upon collateral matters that are part of residential real estate. For instance, what is the value of ownership in a good school district? What are the pros and cons of reverse mortgages? What new laws and regulations are coming up in the future?

AM: You have quite a diverse background…

RK: Yes, well years ago I took a four-day aptitude course at the Johnson and O’Connor Institute and discovered that I had the necessary skills to be a lawyer, detective, reporter, or appraiser; careers that require organization, investigation, communication, and analysis. Apparently, people tend to use their hands or their brains in their work, but a small percentage of us need to use both at the same time. I like getting out in the field, but I also like putting on a suit to testify in court and then coming back and working out the details to produce a good report.

AM: When things go wrong in real estate, they go terribly wrong. Why is that?

RK: When times are good, most people tend to be more optimistic and less careful because values everywhere are rising. This creates a wealth effect whereby people take more chances with their money. It then attracts more people to get into real estate as brokers, agents, appraisers, etc., with more motivation to jump on the bandwagon and get rich quick. It takes a stronger will power not to get swept away in the euphoria. Recently, the regulatory officials were asleep, sometimes operating deliberately slowly for their own monetary gain, and the politicians didn’t resist the heavy pressure from the financial big shots. Before you know it, the federal laws from the Great Depression were scrapped so that financial organizations could benefit from great wealth for their executives until the value balloon they created, burst.

AM: What are the most important parts of the Home Sweet Home Handbook?

RK: It depends on what you’re doing. If you’re in the market to buy, there’s a section just for you. If you’re selling, looking for a contractor or a mortgage, there are appropriate sections to go to first. You can always read the other chapters later, if you wish.

AM: Does the book provide foundation information?

RK: Yes, in chapters devoted to the nature of property; what constitutes value; who are principals and agents; what economic principles affect residential property, etc.

AM: What about guidelines for various aspects of real estate?

RK: I’ve designed it so that readers can copy out materials in the glossary to use when they’re house hunting, looking for a mortgage, choosing a contractor, etc.

AM: And what about changes that occur regularly in real estate?

RK: The book will always be evolving, so I invite reader comments and criticisms to keep it current. Thanks to the Internet, changes can be made quickly and then offered to the readers.

AM: What about specific legal advice?

RK: I don’t offer it since local laws and regulations and state and federal rules can change or be created. For specific advice, I recommend the reader enlist the help of a local attorney, agent, etc. The Home Sweet Home Handbook is designed to make the reader think about matters they should know before jumping into the market. It’s easy to get caught up in the thrill of home ownership. I want my readers to enjoy the process, but they’ve got to know how to play the game. Knowledge is power.

AM: What’s the best advice you can give boomerang buyers and first-time home buyers?

RK: Buyers and sellers need to know how to select the 20% of all real estate professionals who do 80% of the business due to their training, initiative and personal integrity– the ones who are still in business well after the crash. If you’re in the market to buy or sell property, do yourself a favor and get a copy of Home Sweet Home Handbook. Don’t leave home without it. Really. Don’t.

Home Sweet Home Handbook is published by ALIVE Book Publishing and is available September 1, 2015 at homesweethomehandbook.com.

It’s here again. I find myself afflicted with that dreaded summer writer’s block and the first symptom is constipation of my creative orifice. In layman’s terms, for you non-professional writers in the magazine audience, I just can’t think of a dog-gone thing to write about for September’s end of summer/beginning of fall issue. As most of you know, I suffered from this same ailment last year and out of absolutely nowhere I came up with an incredibly entertaining article on our neighborhood block parties entitled Summer Writer’s Block Party. I’m so darn talented I impress myself sometimes.

But, alas that was last year. This year…I got nothing. The past few weeks I’ve been asking everyone (wife, kids, co-workers, mailman – he sure seems to be around a lot, and the milkman – I didn’t even know there was such a thing as a milkman anymore and he sure resembles the mailman), but no one came up with any suggestions, ideas, interesting stories or even a colorful Haiku? I love a good Haiku.

Perhaps the way to go about this is to simply compile a sampling of ramblings. I see it in the newspaper all the time. When a writer doesn’t have enough material for an entire article, he/she assembles a collection of short blurbs, dare I say vignettes, on a variety of topics to make his/her deadline with the required word count. I could do that. Here goes nothing.

Dreaming – I’ve been dreaming a lot lately. Get your mind out of the gutter. These are harmless PG-13 dreams. Maybe my nocturnal dreamscape is due to the warm summer nights or the Peyote toothpaste I’ve been using? Either way, I often wake-up drenched in a cold sweat having just dreamt that I was running from someone trying to kill me. Coincdentally, it’s usually our handsome mail/milkman. My kids tell me they’ve also been dreaming a lot more than usual, probably about how they’re going to adjust to a new dad who has two labor-intensive delivery jobs. Even our dogs seem to be dreaming, however their dreams are likely connected to 5 lb. steak bones, peeing in every yard in Danville or hopefully biting the mail/milkman.

There are all kinds of websites to help us interpret our dreams. Check out www.dreammoods.com, www.dreamforth.com, www.dream-dictionary.org or www.dreams.com. I’m a little reluctant to have my dreams interpreted for fear of what it could tell me, starting with my insecurity about delivery men.

Kickin’ it – Growing up, kickball was one of my favorite summertime games. For those of you unfamiliar with this totally awesome competitive sport, it’s a unique blend of softball, soccer, dodge ball and Hunger Games. On any given summer day, the kids in our neighborhood would assemble and teams would be drafted. If I happened to be selected a captain it would go something a little like this; “I’ll take Terry Ivie, Laura Faravelli, Victor Martina and the Mocking Jay—Katniss Everdeen.” To start to play, the pitcher would roll a hard rubber ball to the batter and that person would kick the ball. If someone caught it in the air the batter was out. If the ball bounced along the ground the fielders had to pick it up and throw it at a runner. If they hit the runner before that person reached a base they were out. If the runner eluded the thrown ball they were awarded the base. The offense scored runs the traditional way, every time a runner crossed home plate. However, in our neighborhood, the defense could score points by throwing the ball so hard a runner was knocked down, or if the runner cried, or in the event of a decapitation. I’ve convinced our old neighborhood has such a disproportionately high level of adult homelessness and unemployment due to the long-term effects of kickball-related concussion syndrome.

Alive and Kickin’ it – I’ve only sold approximately 17.5 copies of my latest book, Alive and Chillin’. My first book, Alive and Kickin’, sold well into the 20s. Granted, Kickin’ is probably more appealing than Chillin’, but now I’m a little depressed. A good game of kickball would probably get me out of my funk, but now that all my buddies are in their early 50s someone would undoubtedly break a hip. I was truly hoping my book would be released last December so I could capitalize on the holiday gift buying season. Unfortunately, we had to push out the release date due to complicated publishing issues. I couldn’t find anyone to “Like” my book and give a positive testimonial. I’ve seen people post photos of their feet and get 50 “Likes” on Facebook. Hoping to take advantage of the Valentine gift buying season, we tried to drop the book in February, but sadly that didn’t happen either. The book finally came out in May, but the Memorial Day gift buying season did not generate the sales we anticipated. I’m hoping for a Back-to-School gift buying push or I’ll be handing out signed copies to Trick-or-Treaters on Halloween.

Fear of Flying– I’ve done a fair amount of air travel these last few months, for business and pleasure, but I’m not what you would consider a frequent flyer. First Class and Business are too pricy for me so I typically travel in the coach section. Lately, due to all the mergers and acquisitions in the airline industry, I’ve had occasion to travel in Going out of Business class. You don’t get all the perks and benefits of actual Business Class, but you can really negotiate a great deal on the fare. The seats are about as roomy as a high school math desk and to be honest, I get a little tired of the Kirkland brand drinks and snacks, but at least the seat-back televisions in GOOB Class offer a reasonably good selection of 1980s Beta and VHS tapes. Meatballs, Strips, St. Elmo’s Fire and Who ya gonna call? Ghostbusters!

Higher Education – I recently decided to further my education by getting a degree online. I liked the idea of working toward my advanced studies at my own pace in the comfort of my own home. However, things started going wrong right away. First I didn’t get into the online dorms. I got my housing application in late and now I have to look for off campus cloud housing. Next, I got cyber bullied when I rushed a virtual fraternity. Those guys from Apple Dell Toshiba (ADT) are real jerks. Finally, my 22 year-old test proctor put me on academic probation when I had an unexplained absence during my final exam. Unexplained? I had to give the kids their lunch money and sign for a Fed Ex delivery. Now I have to do 150 hours of web-based community service before I can get my e-diploma. I’m considering dropping out of school.

I’ve got more material on everything from recycled water fill-up stations to Donald Trump and the pre-election election, but frankly I’m exhausted and want to take a nap. All-in-all, I’d say this article is better than nothing unless of course there’s a general consensus that nothing might have been better? I promise to come back with something stronger in the next issue. Something that’s seasonal, topical or spiritually uplifting. Anybody have any ideas?

Most of us enjoy traveling to new, exciting, and interesting places, whether it is a domestic or an exotic foreign land. Personally, I have been in forty-nine of the fifty states, at least fifteen European, three South American, six Central American, five Asian countries, and, of course, Canada and Mexico. My wife and I have cruised twenty-seven times, including eight times when I lectured on “American Musical Theater.” Those eight cruises cost us $25 per day per person to the lecturers’ agency, and we had all the perks of any other passenger, except we needed a notarized contract that we would not play Bingo–hardly a great sacrifice as neither of us enjoys the game.

On all of our trips we usually experienced the promised goodies, some unexpected not-so-goodies, and sometimes a chuckle, or at least a story to bring home to bore family and friends. What follows are some of the unexpected, but interesting stories.

As a young, single teacher, I became a chaperone for “over-privileged” high school students in a summer program in France. Our group of 180, determined by the size of the chartered aircraft, was housed in the lovely Alpine mountains of Southern France near the site of the 1968 Olympics. The students studied the French language during the week, and we traveled on weekends. One Friday afternoon we bussed to Turin and Milan, Italy. Our dinner in Turin was enjoyable, but afterward I announced: “I did not travel from Long Beach, California to Italy NOT to have spaghetti.”

I gathered a group of seven students and we explored Turin until we found a horseshoe-shaped bar where they served food. None of us spoke Italian, so I told the server that we wanted eight spaghetti dinners, substituting the Southern California Hispanic “ocho” for the Italian “otto, while holding up eight fingers.” The server laughed and, trying to baffle me, asked, “Con carne or no con carne?” My answer was in both Spanish and Italian, “No con carne.” I then asked the kids if anyone wanted a Coke; one did, as did I. “Duos Coca-Cola,” I told him in at best awkward Spanish. In order to confirm the number, I used the baseball signal of the thumb holding down the middle and ring fingers while the index and pinky fingers were held straight up and waved. The two gentlemen on the other side of the horseshoe bar immediately jumped down from their stools and came toward me, ready to fight. Fortunately, the proprietor stopped them saying something to the effect of, “Stupido Americano,” adding something else in fast Italian which had them laughing. It was a few months later that I learned that the American baseball gesture when used in Italy meant “The Horns of the Cuckold” or “Your wife has been sleeping around.” After that I became more sensitive and careful with non-verbal hand gestures.

On Shirley’s and my first trip to England, we flew on a BritAir hotel and theater program. Because of the time change we were up at 4:00AM reading the London Times in order to see for which two shows we would use our vouchers. When we arrived at the ticket agency, the clerk was on the phone with someone who was obviously driving him crazy. His face was red, and he appeared ready to commit mayhem. When he got off the phone, I quietly said, “I hope that wasn’t an American.” He replied that it was a German followed by a terse “What do you want?” I showed him our ranked order list of plays. He immediately softened and asked incredulously, “You know what you want? Great! Let me see what I can do.” He gave us fourth row center seats to “Les Miserables,” our first choice, and first row balcony center seats for Anthony Hopkins in “M Butterfly,” our second. That fell into the category of unexpected “goodies” with even better to follow.

On the way to “Les Miz,” we were about to cross the street to the theater when two motorcycles with flashing lights drove up followed by a large, black Rolls-Royce limousine, then two more motorcycles. The entourage with a man and woman in the back seat stopped right in front of us for a traffic light. To this day I insist that I read Elizabeth’s lips as she said to Phillip, “Oh, look, it’s Shirley and Ed.” So far nobody, however, believes the last part.

On one of our cruises we met a couple from Phoenix and buddied with them for a while. One morning near the end of the cruise the husband announced the following—his words, not mine: “We had such wonderful marital bliss last night.” Today our grandkids would say, “TMI,” too much information. While happy for them, we really felt it was nothing we needed to know. I thought of a few things to say, but bit my tongue. The relationship went downhill from there. When we got home, however, we started getting far-out political emails from them, the last one asking for $10 from us and everyone we knew in order to save “our people from annihilation.” I sent back an email informing them that I needed a new shirt, and if they and ten friends would send $100,000 each, I could get my new shirt. I wonder what ever happened to them.

Finally there was an incident on a ship that peripherally involved Rossmoor. We like to mingle at meals and meet new people. One lunch we sat at a table with three other couples. I asked the inevitable question, “Where are you from?” The first two were from the East coast; then it was our turn. I explained that we lived in the adult (retirement) community of Rossmoor in Walnut Creek, California, about thirty miles east of San Francisco. Then we all turned to the fourth couple. The lady, quite haughtily and dramatically, stated, “Oh, we are from… (dramatic pause followed by slow, measured speech) ‘Al-a-mo!’” Not being content to be put in my peasant place, I giggled, then responded for the Easterners, “That’s a little town just over the hill from us.” Strangely enough we never met the couple from “Al-a-mo!” again either.

Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. –Emma Lazarus: “The New Colossus” Engraved at the base of the Statue of Liberty

In the 1947 musical Finian’s Rainbow the bigoted Southern senator Billboard Rawkins is trying to buy up the entire valley in order to sell it at an inflated price. One of his henchmen informs him that someone is now living there. The senator asks who it is and gets the answer: “Immigrants.” He then exclaims, “Immigrants! Damn! My whole family has been bothered by immigrants ever since we came to this country.”

In the senator’s angry reply, we have a condensation of at least one part of the immigration puzzle that is currently being debated in our country. Perhaps, “screamed” would be a better verb than “debated,” as debate implies some degree of rationality.

Sometimes it appears that the longer one is in this greatest of all lands, the shorter his or her memory becomes about the ancestors who came here from so many different places. Even those with pedigrees that go back hundreds of years forget, or ignore, that a good number of those who came here in the 1600s and 1700s were “indentured servants,” fugitives from debtors prisons, or other forms of jailbirds (bad word, even if accurate). Supposedly the Mayflower carried a total of forty passengers, but today the descendants far outnumber the mathematical possibilities for four centuries of descendants.

We know, of course, that immigrants often wear strange clothing, eat even stranger foods, are, by definition, morally inferior to the rest of us, tend toward criminal activity, and have carloads of children. When those charges are leveled in the 21st Century, they usually refer to–and let’s get it out in the open–Hispanics from Central and South America, as well as some Asians. In past years those exact same charges we aimed at Italians, Poles and Greeks in the early 20th Century; at Asians in the late 19th; at Irish and Germans in the mid-19th, and even at the French before that. Jews, of course, were chosen to receive these charges from 1650 until–let’s see, what day is it?

Mormons, who originally came from all over Europe, joined the Native Americans in a program especially designed for them: extermination. (Years later this became referred to by others as a “final solution”). African¬Americans or Blacks or Negroes usually do not have these charges leveled at them, because they could hardly be called “immigrants,” a term which implies at least a modicum of acquiescence.

The most emphatic cries relate to immigrants who are undocumented. That word has replaced the less politically-correct word “illegal” in the tirades. “Illegal” was preceded by the even uglier term “Wetbacks” during the insensitive 1950s. And some still use the term “Mexicans,” regardless of national origins.

I have not done any deep research or study to support my supposition, but it seems to me that most of the people who speak the loudest about modern immigrants have last names that indicate Northern European origin. Their comments often imply and sometimes even announce with pride that their ancestors came to America properly and with “documents.” When their ancestors were still in Europe, they often had to have these “documents” to travel between villages and districts within their own countries. When traveling between countries, proper “documents” were not only a vital necessity, often they were a matter of life or death-at least, incarceration.

My maternal grandparents came to America about 1905. Did their journey to freedom require papers in good order? No question! They left what is now Lithuania, but was then part of Czarist Russia, and needed to transverse Poland. From Poland it was on to Germany; from Germany they needed to travel to either Belgium or The Netherlands. Perhaps, I really do not know, they may have had to crossover to England. Either way, they suddenly encountered a rather large problem: a little wet spot called the Atlantic Ocean. For those who may not be aware of that “little wet spot,” let’s just say it ain’t a dry river bed. (How many anti-immigration people remember how difficult it was for the survivors of the “Titanic” to wade across that ocean, even though Leonardo and Kate were halfway across the Atlantic before the trouble started?)

When we throw in the complications that my grandparents had: my infant mother, and her siblings were Jewish– a group loved, admired, and persecuted beyond anything we can imagine by the Russian government and people, by the Polish government and people, and by the German government and people–we see that they damn well better have had complete, correct, and impeccable “documents.”

If someone should be wondering about my paternal grandparents’ immigration. So do I. My father was born in England, but his parents were from Germany and Poland–I do not know which was which.
Are there some criminal elements in the immigrant community? Darn tootin’! Guess what: There are also criminal elements in families that have been here for generations. We can, of course, send any criminals back to their native countries. Then Reno and Las Vegas can start giving odds on how long it will be before a given baddie crosses the border again.

We are “A Nation of Immigrants,” some with pedigrees, some with rap sheets. Perhaps we will see the day when the Daughters and Sons of the Revolution, the Civil War, or any other historical event will pick lettuce in the Central Valley. Perhaps someday they will bus tables and do the vital, if not glamorous, menial labor so necessary to our culture’s existence. Perhaps! But I, for one, would not bet on it.

There are many valid issues relating to immigration, and these issues need to be discussed and resolved as rationally and unemotionally as possible. Unfortunately, such discussions and actions need to happen in Congress, and we all know how much that body accomplishes. Like most of our “insoluble” problems, this too will be solved given sufficient time and leadership. Meanwhile, when it comes to breaking up families with children who are American citizens by birth, perhaps our leaders could show just a drop or two of common sense. Sure!

Send these, the homeless, tempest tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
(But make sure their DOCUMENTS are in order.)

N B: To any Native Americans: Just ignore this whole thing.
Some of us immigrants apologize for past 520 years.

September in Danville will be devoted to the memory of Ameroca’s greatest playwright, Eugene O’Neill. Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller are more well known to those of us who grew up in the latter part of the last century, but O’Neill, with a prodigious output, was the only American playwright to win a Nobel Prize. Let’s take a short day’s journey into his life.

1. The most notable plays of O’Neill’s life were written while residing in a home in Danville. An easy one, by what name do we know this house?

2. A 1949 classic is set in a bar with the principal players being Hickey and Harry Hope. What is that play?

3. Greta Garbo’s first talking movie was a film version of which O’Neill play?

4. In 1940, four of O’Neill’s seagoing short plays were made into a great John Ford movie featuring John Wayne. What was the movie called?

5. O’Neill moved to Danville due to medical conditions relating to his wife. What was her name?

6. One of O’Neill’s daughters, Oona, married a famous Hollywood star. Who was he?