February sales of new California homes weak
State tax credit for new homes in demandBy Inman News, Wednesday, April 15, 2009.
http://www.inman.com/news/2009/04/15/february-sales-new-california-homes-weak
Inman News
February sales of new homes in California were down 54 percent from a year ago, but showed modest improvement from January, the California Building Industry Association said.
Sales of single-family homes and townhomes were both down 55 percent from a year ago, while sales of condominiums were off 51 percent. That's still an improvement from January, when sales in new-home communities of 10 units or more were down 64 percent from a year ago.
Some of the non-seasonally adjusted 42 percent increase in new-home sales from January to February was expected, as new-home sales typically pick up in February. But the increase was larger than the 11 percent gain seen from January to February 2008, CBIA said.
Median base price was down 15 percent from a year ago and 6 percent from January, CBIA said, noting that the reduced sales volume in recent months can produce price volatility.
CBIA President and CEO Robert Rivinius said he expects California's newly enacted $10,000 tax credit for buyers purchasing newly constructed homes will produce a "significant increase" in March sales.
As of April 8, the California Franchise Tax Board said it had received more than 3,100 applications for the tax credit, which is available to qualified buyers making purchases during the year beginning March 1, 2009, or until the $100 million allocated for the program runs out. Applications for $30.6 million in tax credits, or nearly one-third of the program's capacity, have been received so far.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Home-tour interest is still blooming
Home-tour interest is still blooming
By Debbie Arrington darrington@sacbee.com
http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=9113871937762936798
Published: Saturday, Apr. 11, 2009 - 12:00 am Page 5D
In real estate-mad California, beautiful weather and beautiful homes used to sell tickets to home and garden tours.
But facing a housing downturn and a dire economy, organizers of these annual tours – a staple of the Sacramento area's spring calendar – fretted about a lot more than wet paint or unfinished plantings.
"We started wondering, maybe this wasn't such a good idea to do a wine- country home tour this year," said Kelly Trottier, a volunteer helping to organize the Amador chapter of the American Association of University Women's annual home tour set for next Saturday. "With the economy, it's a concern. Half of our audience is from out of the area. But so far, (advanced) ticket sales have been surprisingly good."
These tours will go on, however, because they are major fundraisers for nonprofit organizations of all kinds, supplying money for such big-ticket expenses as college scholarships, gallery renovations and garden upkeep.
Millions of dollars have been invested by homeowners and designers to create these showpieces. Although times are tight, there was no shortage of remodelers willing to open their houses and gardens to visitors.
Here are some of the best-known regional tours:
A slice of history
East Sacramento Home Tour (Six homes on 38th Street)
• When: 10 a.m.-4 p.m. April 26
• Presenter: McKinley East Sacramento Neighborhood Association
• Tickets: $15 advance, $20 day of tour
• Information: www.eastsac.org or (916) 736-3450
• Proceeds benefit: Community-improvement projects such as computers at an elementary school, benches at McKinley Park and other beautification projects.
About the tour: Showcasing six homes on 38th Street, the McKinley tour draws about 500 people – many of them from the neighborhood – who want to see the blend of architectural styles in homes built between 1910 and 1929.
"Ours is (not only) a remodeling tour but also a historical tour," noted Claudia Bordin, who chairs the McKinley East Sacramento Neighborhood Association tour.
"I've seen this one house go through such a metamorphosis. These homes have retained their character but have been updated for family life in the 21st century. What we want people to see is that you can have a grand old house but make it a modern home."
Bordin, a designer, worked on several homes on the tour while coordinating the event's 60 volunteers. Besides stellar gardens, the homes also feature such indoor renovations as remodeled kitchens and baths.
Roses and advice
Woodland Library Rose Club Garden and Home Tour
• When: Noon-5 p.m. April 26
• Presenter: Woodland Library Rose Club
• Tickets: $20 general, $10 youths
• Information: (530) 662-4020
• Proceeds benefit: The library's public gardens
• About the tour: The Woodland Library Rose Club is presenting its 20th anniversary garden tour with a trek through two public and seven private gardens.
Highlights include more than 500 roses in bloom at the Woodland Library garden and a vintage fashion show at Gable Mansion.
"The homeowners are wonderful and very willing to talk with you about what's worked and not worked in their gardens," noted Maryellen Mackenzie, president of the club.
Wine and scenery
AAUW Amador Home Tour
• When: 11 a.m.-4 p.m. next Saturday
• Presenter: Amador chapter of the American Association of University Women Home Tour
• Tickets: $22 advance, $25 day of tour
• Information: www.aauwamador.org or (209) 245-6052
• Proceeds benefit: Last year, the group gave eight community college scholarships and two upper-division and graduate school scholarships. The group also sent three girls to science camp at Mills College.
• About the tour: The Amador University Women flaunt their region's assets in a tour that includes 30 wineries and four unique homes in the Shenandoah Valley.
Now in its 37th year, the Amador tour ranks among the longest-running events of its kind in the foothills. It usually attracts 700 to 900 people every year, depending on the weather.
By Debbie Arrington darrington@sacbee.com
http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=9113871937762936798
Published: Saturday, Apr. 11, 2009 - 12:00 am Page 5D
In real estate-mad California, beautiful weather and beautiful homes used to sell tickets to home and garden tours.
But facing a housing downturn and a dire economy, organizers of these annual tours – a staple of the Sacramento area's spring calendar – fretted about a lot more than wet paint or unfinished plantings.
"We started wondering, maybe this wasn't such a good idea to do a wine- country home tour this year," said Kelly Trottier, a volunteer helping to organize the Amador chapter of the American Association of University Women's annual home tour set for next Saturday. "With the economy, it's a concern. Half of our audience is from out of the area. But so far, (advanced) ticket sales have been surprisingly good."
These tours will go on, however, because they are major fundraisers for nonprofit organizations of all kinds, supplying money for such big-ticket expenses as college scholarships, gallery renovations and garden upkeep.
Millions of dollars have been invested by homeowners and designers to create these showpieces. Although times are tight, there was no shortage of remodelers willing to open their houses and gardens to visitors.
Here are some of the best-known regional tours:
A slice of history
East Sacramento Home Tour (Six homes on 38th Street)
• When: 10 a.m.-4 p.m. April 26
• Presenter: McKinley East Sacramento Neighborhood Association
• Tickets: $15 advance, $20 day of tour
• Information: www.eastsac.org or (916) 736-3450
• Proceeds benefit: Community-improvement projects such as computers at an elementary school, benches at McKinley Park and other beautification projects.
About the tour: Showcasing six homes on 38th Street, the McKinley tour draws about 500 people – many of them from the neighborhood – who want to see the blend of architectural styles in homes built between 1910 and 1929.
"Ours is (not only) a remodeling tour but also a historical tour," noted Claudia Bordin, who chairs the McKinley East Sacramento Neighborhood Association tour.
"I've seen this one house go through such a metamorphosis. These homes have retained their character but have been updated for family life in the 21st century. What we want people to see is that you can have a grand old house but make it a modern home."
Bordin, a designer, worked on several homes on the tour while coordinating the event's 60 volunteers. Besides stellar gardens, the homes also feature such indoor renovations as remodeled kitchens and baths.
Roses and advice
Woodland Library Rose Club Garden and Home Tour
• When: Noon-5 p.m. April 26
• Presenter: Woodland Library Rose Club
• Tickets: $20 general, $10 youths
• Information: (530) 662-4020
• Proceeds benefit: The library's public gardens
• About the tour: The Woodland Library Rose Club is presenting its 20th anniversary garden tour with a trek through two public and seven private gardens.
Highlights include more than 500 roses in bloom at the Woodland Library garden and a vintage fashion show at Gable Mansion.
"The homeowners are wonderful and very willing to talk with you about what's worked and not worked in their gardens," noted Maryellen Mackenzie, president of the club.
Wine and scenery
AAUW Amador Home Tour
• When: 11 a.m.-4 p.m. next Saturday
• Presenter: Amador chapter of the American Association of University Women Home Tour
• Tickets: $22 advance, $25 day of tour
• Information: www.aauwamador.org or (209) 245-6052
• Proceeds benefit: Last year, the group gave eight community college scholarships and two upper-division and graduate school scholarships. The group also sent three girls to science camp at Mills College.
• About the tour: The Amador University Women flaunt their region's assets in a tour that includes 30 wineries and four unique homes in the Shenandoah Valley.
Now in its 37th year, the Amador tour ranks among the longest-running events of its kind in the foothills. It usually attracts 700 to 900 people every year, depending on the weather.
Friday, April 10, 2009
Fewer empty new homes means supply, demand in balance
Home Front: Fewer empty new homes means supply, demand in balance
By Jim Wasserman jwasserman@sacbee.com
Published: Friday, Apr. 10, 2009 - 12:00 am Page 1B
The first quarterly report on new-home sales in the Sacramento area during 2009 is in – and there's one good sign amid a new low of 699 sales in January, February and March.
Excess supply – houses built or almost built without buyers – are back to lows last seen in mid-2004 and early 2005, the height of the buying frenzy.
The tally as March ended was 1,159 empty houses in El Dorado, Placer, Sacramento, Sutter, Yolo and Yuba counties, says the report being released today by the Folsom-based Gregory Group.
That's far less than 3,226 the same time last year – and a peak of 4,598 in the third quarter of 2006.
It's evidence that builders and their bare-bones construction and sales staffs are finally getting supply and demand back in balance.
"That's not very much inventory," said Gregory Group President Greg Paquin. "If there's any uptick in sales the second quarter and certainly, the third, it's going to put more stress on what's available in the marketplace."
That would mean competition and higher prices. But builders aren't there yet.
Their $336,683 median sales price – where half the homes sold for more and half for less – fell for a 12th straight quarter to a six-year low.
The average new home price: $380,786.
The region's excesses, soft prices and abundance of buyers choosing bank repos gave ample negotiating power to early 2009 buyer Jay Cook.
Cook, an account executive with CitiMortgage, moved from Chicago to Sacramento, and last week into a Natomas house built by New Jersey-based K. Hovnanian Homes.
"What prompted us off the fence was the $10,000 (state) tax credit," he said. It gives new homebuyers like him up to $3,333 off taxes each of the next three years. Builders are hoping $100 million in state tax credits that went into effect for escrows closed after March 1 will help sell 10,000 excess houses statewide.
California's Franchise Tax Board counts Cook among 2,624 applicants statewide so far for $25.6 million in the credits after buying new homes.
Paquin said January and February sales were dismal, but builders reported many more visitors in March.
Overall, Sacramento and Placer counties accounted for 76 percent of first-quarter sales, he said. Which city sold the most? Roseville, with 22 percent of the region's sales.
More feel homes affordable
The crash in housing prices has hugely changed public sentiment on whether it's a problem finding a house they can afford in Sacramento.
An estimated 23 percent of area residents say it's a big problem. Just three years ago with home prices at their peak, 51 percent felt that way.
"Always, it's been a big problem, complaining for years and years. This is the first time it's been so low," said Amy Liu, director of the sociology graduate program at California State University, Sacramento. "It's because the prices have dropped so much."
The findings are in the eighth annual Sacramento State Annual Survey of the Region being released today.
In the past, the survey has shown how one-third of Sacramento-area residents considered leaving to find less-expensive housing. But with median prices down more than 50 percent from 2005 highs in Sacramento and Yolo counties and down 40 percent in Placer and El Dorado counties, almost six in 10 believe buying this year would be a good investment.
Only 30 percent believe buying stocks in 2009 would be a good investment.
As always, affordability depended on the respondent's vantage point. Seventy percent of area residents earning less than $30,000 a year say affordable housing remains a problem for them.
"A big segment of the population in our region can't afford a house even with these reduced prices," said Liu.
The telephone survey of 1,353 adults from Feb. 14 to March 4 in El Dorado, Placer, Sacramento and Yolo counties has a margin of error of three percentage points. To see the full survey, go to www.csus.edu/ssis/. Click on the link to the Sacramento State Annual Survey of the Region.
House winner to get keys
Readers may remember Jennifer Draa, the state worker from Citrus Heights who won a free house in Lincoln last October.
Today, she gets her keys. Arizona-based home builder Taylor Morrison has scheduled an 11 a.m. media event to show off the $250,000 house, which features lots of new technology and free furnishings.
Draa beat out 638,000 entrants in a Taylor Morrison contest promoting its Innoventions Dream House at Disneyland last summer.
By Jim Wasserman jwasserman@sacbee.com
Published: Friday, Apr. 10, 2009 - 12:00 am Page 1B
The first quarterly report on new-home sales in the Sacramento area during 2009 is in – and there's one good sign amid a new low of 699 sales in January, February and March.
Excess supply – houses built or almost built without buyers – are back to lows last seen in mid-2004 and early 2005, the height of the buying frenzy.
The tally as March ended was 1,159 empty houses in El Dorado, Placer, Sacramento, Sutter, Yolo and Yuba counties, says the report being released today by the Folsom-based Gregory Group.
That's far less than 3,226 the same time last year – and a peak of 4,598 in the third quarter of 2006.
It's evidence that builders and their bare-bones construction and sales staffs are finally getting supply and demand back in balance.
"That's not very much inventory," said Gregory Group President Greg Paquin. "If there's any uptick in sales the second quarter and certainly, the third, it's going to put more stress on what's available in the marketplace."
That would mean competition and higher prices. But builders aren't there yet.
Their $336,683 median sales price – where half the homes sold for more and half for less – fell for a 12th straight quarter to a six-year low.
The average new home price: $380,786.
The region's excesses, soft prices and abundance of buyers choosing bank repos gave ample negotiating power to early 2009 buyer Jay Cook.
Cook, an account executive with CitiMortgage, moved from Chicago to Sacramento, and last week into a Natomas house built by New Jersey-based K. Hovnanian Homes.
"What prompted us off the fence was the $10,000 (state) tax credit," he said. It gives new homebuyers like him up to $3,333 off taxes each of the next three years. Builders are hoping $100 million in state tax credits that went into effect for escrows closed after March 1 will help sell 10,000 excess houses statewide.
California's Franchise Tax Board counts Cook among 2,624 applicants statewide so far for $25.6 million in the credits after buying new homes.
Paquin said January and February sales were dismal, but builders reported many more visitors in March.
Overall, Sacramento and Placer counties accounted for 76 percent of first-quarter sales, he said. Which city sold the most? Roseville, with 22 percent of the region's sales.
More feel homes affordable
The crash in housing prices has hugely changed public sentiment on whether it's a problem finding a house they can afford in Sacramento.
An estimated 23 percent of area residents say it's a big problem. Just three years ago with home prices at their peak, 51 percent felt that way.
"Always, it's been a big problem, complaining for years and years. This is the first time it's been so low," said Amy Liu, director of the sociology graduate program at California State University, Sacramento. "It's because the prices have dropped so much."
The findings are in the eighth annual Sacramento State Annual Survey of the Region being released today.
In the past, the survey has shown how one-third of Sacramento-area residents considered leaving to find less-expensive housing. But with median prices down more than 50 percent from 2005 highs in Sacramento and Yolo counties and down 40 percent in Placer and El Dorado counties, almost six in 10 believe buying this year would be a good investment.
Only 30 percent believe buying stocks in 2009 would be a good investment.
As always, affordability depended on the respondent's vantage point. Seventy percent of area residents earning less than $30,000 a year say affordable housing remains a problem for them.
"A big segment of the population in our region can't afford a house even with these reduced prices," said Liu.
The telephone survey of 1,353 adults from Feb. 14 to March 4 in El Dorado, Placer, Sacramento and Yolo counties has a margin of error of three percentage points. To see the full survey, go to www.csus.edu/ssis/. Click on the link to the Sacramento State Annual Survey of the Region.
House winner to get keys
Readers may remember Jennifer Draa, the state worker from Citrus Heights who won a free house in Lincoln last October.
Today, she gets her keys. Arizona-based home builder Taylor Morrison has scheduled an 11 a.m. media event to show off the $250,000 house, which features lots of new technology and free furnishings.
Draa beat out 638,000 entrants in a Taylor Morrison contest promoting its Innoventions Dream House at Disneyland last summer.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
No bids at foreclosure auctions for Cal Neva Tahoe
No bids at foreclosure auctions for Cal Neva Tahoe
By Dale Kasler dkasler@sacbee.com
Published: Wednesday, Apr. 8, 2009 - 4:06 pm Last Modified: Wednesday, Apr. 8, 2009 - 4:32 pm
Unable to find a buyer for the ailing Lake Tahoe casino once owned by Frank Sinatra, the resort's reluctant owner said it will keep the place open anyway.
The Cal Neva went up for sale Wednesday at dual courthouse auctions in Roseville and Reno, but there were no bids. The 83-year-old property lies in both California and Nevada, on Tahoe's north shore.
The failure of the auction means ownership remains with an affiliate of Los Angeles real estate investment firm Canyon Partners. Canyon foreclosed on the Cal Neva last month after its former owner, a beleaguered Los Angeles businessman named Ezri Namvar, defaulted on a $25 million loan.
"We're going to assess the property and its future," said Canyon spokesman Steve Sugerman. "We have no intention of closing it." He said Canyon will likely install new management soon; the Cal Neva has been run by a court-appointed receiver since February.
Yet Bill Eadington, a gaming expert at the University of Nevada, Reno, said the Cal Neva's future is clouded by a weak economy and other factors.
"It's not likely to be viable as a casino, not likely to be viable as a destination resort," said Eadington, who lives about a block from the Cal Neva.
Court records show the Cal Neva has been losing money. Tahoe's north shore has long been a weak casino market, and the recession has been devastating. Gaming revenue on the north shore fell 24 percent in February from a year earlier, according to the Nevada Gaming Control Board.
Canyon was insisting on a minimum bid of $15 million for the Nevada side of the property, which includes the casino, at the auction. It wasn't clear what the minimum bid was for the California side.
Canyon accused Namvar, who bought the Cal Neva for $30 million in 2005, of running the place into the ground. It seized control of the Cal Neva after Namvar, facing $1 billion in debt, was dragged into personal bankruptcy.
Namvar was the latest in a series of owners who tried to recapture the glamour of the Sinatra era. Sinatra lost the Cal Neva after mobster Sam Giancana, who was barred from Nevada's casinos, was spotted on the property in 1963.
By Dale Kasler dkasler@sacbee.com
Published: Wednesday, Apr. 8, 2009 - 4:06 pm Last Modified: Wednesday, Apr. 8, 2009 - 4:32 pm
Unable to find a buyer for the ailing Lake Tahoe casino once owned by Frank Sinatra, the resort's reluctant owner said it will keep the place open anyway.
The Cal Neva went up for sale Wednesday at dual courthouse auctions in Roseville and Reno, but there were no bids. The 83-year-old property lies in both California and Nevada, on Tahoe's north shore.
The failure of the auction means ownership remains with an affiliate of Los Angeles real estate investment firm Canyon Partners. Canyon foreclosed on the Cal Neva last month after its former owner, a beleaguered Los Angeles businessman named Ezri Namvar, defaulted on a $25 million loan.
"We're going to assess the property and its future," said Canyon spokesman Steve Sugerman. "We have no intention of closing it." He said Canyon will likely install new management soon; the Cal Neva has been run by a court-appointed receiver since February.
Yet Bill Eadington, a gaming expert at the University of Nevada, Reno, said the Cal Neva's future is clouded by a weak economy and other factors.
"It's not likely to be viable as a casino, not likely to be viable as a destination resort," said Eadington, who lives about a block from the Cal Neva.
Court records show the Cal Neva has been losing money. Tahoe's north shore has long been a weak casino market, and the recession has been devastating. Gaming revenue on the north shore fell 24 percent in February from a year earlier, according to the Nevada Gaming Control Board.
Canyon was insisting on a minimum bid of $15 million for the Nevada side of the property, which includes the casino, at the auction. It wasn't clear what the minimum bid was for the California side.
Canyon accused Namvar, who bought the Cal Neva for $30 million in 2005, of running the place into the ground. It seized control of the Cal Neva after Namvar, facing $1 billion in debt, was dragged into personal bankruptcy.
Namvar was the latest in a series of owners who tried to recapture the glamour of the Sinatra era. Sinatra lost the Cal Neva after mobster Sam Giancana, who was barred from Nevada's casinos, was spotted on the property in 1963.
Tracy mourns, seeks answers in gir's death
Tracy mourns, seeks answers in girl's death
By Cynthia Hubert and Stan Oklobdzjia chubert@sacbee.com
Published: Wednesday, Apr. 8, 2009 - 12:00 am Page 1A
Under a somber gray sky, it seemed as though the entire town of Tracy was in mourning Tuesday.
Sandra Cantu's face still smiled from "missing" posters plastered in windows and on telephone poles across the neighborhood where she disappeared on March 27. But a day after farmworkers found the 8-year-old girl's remains in a suitcase floating in an irrigation pond, fear and grief replaced hope in this bedroom community of 80,000 people.
Police refused to disclose leads or name suspects in the case. But three men, including a pastor who lives in the mobile home park from which Sandra disappeared, have been the subjects of recent search warrants. Police searched the pastor's church Tuesday night but maintained that he is not a suspect.
"Whoever did this is still out there, and that's my biggest fear," said Doreen Duarte, who placed a bouquet of flowers at a shrine to the girl that grew minute by minute, even in the pouring rain. "I'm scared to death for my nieces," ages 8 and 10, Duarte said.
Police said they are combing through hundreds of tips and are "heading in a direction" in the case, but refused to be specific. Tracy Police Sgt. Tony Sheneman said that Lane Lawless, pastor of the Clover Road Baptist Church – a short distance from the Orchard Estates mobile home park where he and Sandra lived – is just one of numerous people questioned and is not necessarily suspected of any involvement in the girl's death.
"We have not closed our interest on any particular person," Sheneman said.
Lawless has been a pastor at Clover Road Baptist since 1981, according to a church Web site. FBI and Tracy police investigators began searching church grounds at about 4:30 p.m. Tuesday. Several large evidence trucks parked along the back of the church as investigators combed the ground between the building and the back fence. Inside, FBI agents dressed in white sterile suits poked through boxes stacked on shelves.
Neighbor Charlie Correia said there usually isn't a lot of action at the church.
"The congregation was real small," Correia said. "If there were five cars there (on a Sunday) I'd be shocked."
Correia said he never met the pastor or any of the congregation.
Sandra was last seen skipping through the mobile home park in a working-class neighborhood in central Tracy. A massive search of the area turned up no clues until Monday, when farmworkers found a suitcase in a collection pond two miles from Sandra's home. Police identified the girl based on the black leggings and pink shirt that she was last seen wearing.
An autopsy on the girl's body was completed Tuesday, but it could be as long as eight weeks before coroner's officials get the results of toxicology and tissue tests needed to establish a specific cause of death, said San Joaquin County Sheriff's Deputy Les Garcia.
As police vowed to solve the case, hundreds of brokenhearted men, women and children made a rainy pilgrimage to the makeshift memorial in front of the mobile home park. Most of them knew the Cantu family only from news reports about the case, but still felt a personal loss.
"When I heard that they had found her body, my heart just sank," said Duarte. "I didn't want to believe it. I had been hoping and praying every day that she would be found safe."
Duarte was among hundreds who arrived by car and on foot, pushing strollers and clutching the hands of young ones to pay tribute to Sandra. They brought bunches of calla lilies from their gardens, vases of roses from the florist, toy bears and dogs, red Mylar balloons in the shapes of hearts, and angels of all shapes and sizes. As the afternoon wore on, dozens of stuffed animals grew soggy from the drizzle.
It is the second time in recent months that a criminal case has shined a national spotlight on Tracy, an otherwise quiet San Joaquin County town about 60 miles south and west of Sacramento. In December, a youth with a chain shackled to his ankle fled a Tracy home where police said he had been held captive and tortured for more than a year. Four people have been arrested and charged with various crimes in the case.
Now, as then, television satellite trucks, cameras, microphones and hordes of reporters are converging on the area.
"This is a very closely knit community," said Steve Torres, assistant manager of a Best Western hotel across the street from where Sandra vanished. "It's a country type of town. Usually these types of things are associated with big cities. When something like this happens in Tracy, it affects all of us."
Monique Agenter brought her 5-year-old son William to the memorial, setting down some flowers and a Piglet doll and then quietly hugging the boy to her chest as rain soaked their sweat shirts.
"I want my son to know about strangers," she said after they stepped away. "I don't want to scare him, but I want to teach him about what he needs to do" if a stranger tries to lure him into a home or car, she said.
Was the person who harmed Sandra a stranger? Police declined to discuss the subject, but the girl's mother has told reporters that her daughter would never trust someone with whom she was unfamiliar.
Officers prevented reporters from entering Orchard Estates on Tuesday. Lawless, the pastor who lives in the park, could not be reached for comment. But The Bee spoke by telephone with his wife, Connie. She said she and her husband have "cooperated fully" with police but declined to discuss specifics of their interviews.
"They are not leaving anything untouched and not leaving any stone unturned," Connie Lawless said.
Sandra was playmates with one of the Lawless' great-granddaughters, she said, and the girl spent many hours inside the couple's mobile home.
Connie Lawless said her family was devastated to learn of Sandra's death.
"We loved her so much," she said. "She had been in many of our church's prayers."
By Cynthia Hubert and Stan Oklobdzjia chubert@sacbee.com
Published: Wednesday, Apr. 8, 2009 - 12:00 am Page 1A
Under a somber gray sky, it seemed as though the entire town of Tracy was in mourning Tuesday.
Sandra Cantu's face still smiled from "missing" posters plastered in windows and on telephone poles across the neighborhood where she disappeared on March 27. But a day after farmworkers found the 8-year-old girl's remains in a suitcase floating in an irrigation pond, fear and grief replaced hope in this bedroom community of 80,000 people.
Police refused to disclose leads or name suspects in the case. But three men, including a pastor who lives in the mobile home park from which Sandra disappeared, have been the subjects of recent search warrants. Police searched the pastor's church Tuesday night but maintained that he is not a suspect.
"Whoever did this is still out there, and that's my biggest fear," said Doreen Duarte, who placed a bouquet of flowers at a shrine to the girl that grew minute by minute, even in the pouring rain. "I'm scared to death for my nieces," ages 8 and 10, Duarte said.
Police said they are combing through hundreds of tips and are "heading in a direction" in the case, but refused to be specific. Tracy Police Sgt. Tony Sheneman said that Lane Lawless, pastor of the Clover Road Baptist Church – a short distance from the Orchard Estates mobile home park where he and Sandra lived – is just one of numerous people questioned and is not necessarily suspected of any involvement in the girl's death.
"We have not closed our interest on any particular person," Sheneman said.
Lawless has been a pastor at Clover Road Baptist since 1981, according to a church Web site. FBI and Tracy police investigators began searching church grounds at about 4:30 p.m. Tuesday. Several large evidence trucks parked along the back of the church as investigators combed the ground between the building and the back fence. Inside, FBI agents dressed in white sterile suits poked through boxes stacked on shelves.
Neighbor Charlie Correia said there usually isn't a lot of action at the church.
"The congregation was real small," Correia said. "If there were five cars there (on a Sunday) I'd be shocked."
Correia said he never met the pastor or any of the congregation.
Sandra was last seen skipping through the mobile home park in a working-class neighborhood in central Tracy. A massive search of the area turned up no clues until Monday, when farmworkers found a suitcase in a collection pond two miles from Sandra's home. Police identified the girl based on the black leggings and pink shirt that she was last seen wearing.
An autopsy on the girl's body was completed Tuesday, but it could be as long as eight weeks before coroner's officials get the results of toxicology and tissue tests needed to establish a specific cause of death, said San Joaquin County Sheriff's Deputy Les Garcia.
As police vowed to solve the case, hundreds of brokenhearted men, women and children made a rainy pilgrimage to the makeshift memorial in front of the mobile home park. Most of them knew the Cantu family only from news reports about the case, but still felt a personal loss.
"When I heard that they had found her body, my heart just sank," said Duarte. "I didn't want to believe it. I had been hoping and praying every day that she would be found safe."
Duarte was among hundreds who arrived by car and on foot, pushing strollers and clutching the hands of young ones to pay tribute to Sandra. They brought bunches of calla lilies from their gardens, vases of roses from the florist, toy bears and dogs, red Mylar balloons in the shapes of hearts, and angels of all shapes and sizes. As the afternoon wore on, dozens of stuffed animals grew soggy from the drizzle.
It is the second time in recent months that a criminal case has shined a national spotlight on Tracy, an otherwise quiet San Joaquin County town about 60 miles south and west of Sacramento. In December, a youth with a chain shackled to his ankle fled a Tracy home where police said he had been held captive and tortured for more than a year. Four people have been arrested and charged with various crimes in the case.
Now, as then, television satellite trucks, cameras, microphones and hordes of reporters are converging on the area.
"This is a very closely knit community," said Steve Torres, assistant manager of a Best Western hotel across the street from where Sandra vanished. "It's a country type of town. Usually these types of things are associated with big cities. When something like this happens in Tracy, it affects all of us."
Monique Agenter brought her 5-year-old son William to the memorial, setting down some flowers and a Piglet doll and then quietly hugging the boy to her chest as rain soaked their sweat shirts.
"I want my son to know about strangers," she said after they stepped away. "I don't want to scare him, but I want to teach him about what he needs to do" if a stranger tries to lure him into a home or car, she said.
Was the person who harmed Sandra a stranger? Police declined to discuss the subject, but the girl's mother has told reporters that her daughter would never trust someone with whom she was unfamiliar.
Officers prevented reporters from entering Orchard Estates on Tuesday. Lawless, the pastor who lives in the park, could not be reached for comment. But The Bee spoke by telephone with his wife, Connie. She said she and her husband have "cooperated fully" with police but declined to discuss specifics of their interviews.
"They are not leaving anything untouched and not leaving any stone unturned," Connie Lawless said.
Sandra was playmates with one of the Lawless' great-granddaughters, she said, and the girl spent many hours inside the couple's mobile home.
Connie Lawless said her family was devastated to learn of Sandra's death.
"We loved her so much," she said. "She had been in many of our church's prayers."
Monday, April 6, 2009
Banks Plan to Auction almost 1,200 houses
Banks plan to auction almost 1,200 houses
Published: Saturday, Apr. 4, 2009 - 12:00 am Page 6B
Nearly 1,200 more Northern California bank-owned homes are headed for the auction block during a five-day sale, the Real Estate Disposition Corp. in Irvine has announced.
An estimated 252 Sacramento- and Fairfield-area homes will be auctioned at 9:30 a.m. on April 19 at Cal Expo.
Another 205 homes in the Stockton, Modesto and Merced areas will be auctioned at 9:30 a.m. on April 18 in the Stockton Memorial Auditorium.
Open houses are scheduled today and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. A follow-up open house is scheduled for the same hours on Saturday, April 11, said REDC officials.
In 2008, the firm said it auctioned 32,799 bank-owned properties for $3.4 billion. Go to www.auction.com ("Upcoming Auctions") for details.
– Jim Wasserman
Published: Saturday, Apr. 4, 2009 - 12:00 am Page 6B
Nearly 1,200 more Northern California bank-owned homes are headed for the auction block during a five-day sale, the Real Estate Disposition Corp. in Irvine has announced.
An estimated 252 Sacramento- and Fairfield-area homes will be auctioned at 9:30 a.m. on April 19 at Cal Expo.
Another 205 homes in the Stockton, Modesto and Merced areas will be auctioned at 9:30 a.m. on April 18 in the Stockton Memorial Auditorium.
Open houses are scheduled today and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. A follow-up open house is scheduled for the same hours on Saturday, April 11, said REDC officials.
In 2008, the firm said it auctioned 32,799 bank-owned properties for $3.4 billion. Go to www.auction.com ("Upcoming Auctions") for details.
– Jim Wasserman
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Anti-sprawl rules to steer Sacramento development
Anti-sprawl rules to steer Sacramento development
By Jim Wasserman jwasserman@sacbee.com
Published: Wednesday, Apr. 1, 2009 - 12:00 am Page 8B
When Sacramento gets past the housing crash, its next wave of growth will play out under stricter rules that limit greenhouse gases and clamp down on cars, area real estate officials were told Tuesday.
Panelists at a real estate forum peering beyond the region's current downturn said state legislation to curb emissions from cars and far-flung-residential living will push more growth into existing area neighborhoods.
It's an idea that runs counter to a capital-area housing boom that spread 80,000 new houses, mostly single-family detached residences, onto empty suburban-area land between 2002 and 2007.
The region's next housing boom will – and must – rely more on trains, buses and alternatives to cars, said William Hudnut, an advocate for cities and former Indianapolis mayor credited with reviving his Midwest state capital.
"The less driving there is the less carbon dioxide that is being emitted into the air," he told a gathering of nearly 100 public- and private-sector architects, city planners, land-use attorneys, real estate consultants and elected officials. "The challenge is to reduce dependence on the car."
The notion is central to implementing the state's Assembly Bill 32, which aims to lower greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, and SB 375, which ties that goal to new housing and commercial development.
Hudnut spoke at a forum organized by Sacramento's affiliate of the Urban Land Institute, a research arm of the U.S. real estate development industry. He praised the two bills and the Sacramento Area Council of Governments' regional Blueprint for higher-density growth through 2050 as models for the nation.
"You seem to get it," said Hudnut. "A lot of the country doesn't."
Longtime Sacramento redevelopment attorney Joseph Coomes Jr., said that while the Blueprint is voluntary, "we're now getting mandatory imperatives in AB 32 and SB 375. And more imperatives will be coming down the line."
Sacramento County Supervisor Roger Dickinson told the gathering the county aims to put most of the 53,000 new homes it will need by 2030 into existing neighborhoods.
"We are very dedicated to revitalizing a lot of those older first-tier suburbs," he said. But he said the idea worries home builders and developers who find it easier to build on empty land. Also raising concerns are existing residents who don't want up to 20 percent more people living in their areas.
Nonetheless, Hudnut said the new century will be a "gargantuan business opportunity," with half of all U.S. and European growth income to come from "restorative development" in built-up areas.
"Reinvesting, rebuilding, revitalizing, redeveloping and re-engineering. We live in the 're-century,' " he said.
By Jim Wasserman jwasserman@sacbee.com
Published: Wednesday, Apr. 1, 2009 - 12:00 am Page 8B
When Sacramento gets past the housing crash, its next wave of growth will play out under stricter rules that limit greenhouse gases and clamp down on cars, area real estate officials were told Tuesday.
Panelists at a real estate forum peering beyond the region's current downturn said state legislation to curb emissions from cars and far-flung-residential living will push more growth into existing area neighborhoods.
It's an idea that runs counter to a capital-area housing boom that spread 80,000 new houses, mostly single-family detached residences, onto empty suburban-area land between 2002 and 2007.
The region's next housing boom will – and must – rely more on trains, buses and alternatives to cars, said William Hudnut, an advocate for cities and former Indianapolis mayor credited with reviving his Midwest state capital.
"The less driving there is the less carbon dioxide that is being emitted into the air," he told a gathering of nearly 100 public- and private-sector architects, city planners, land-use attorneys, real estate consultants and elected officials. "The challenge is to reduce dependence on the car."
The notion is central to implementing the state's Assembly Bill 32, which aims to lower greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, and SB 375, which ties that goal to new housing and commercial development.
Hudnut spoke at a forum organized by Sacramento's affiliate of the Urban Land Institute, a research arm of the U.S. real estate development industry. He praised the two bills and the Sacramento Area Council of Governments' regional Blueprint for higher-density growth through 2050 as models for the nation.
"You seem to get it," said Hudnut. "A lot of the country doesn't."
Longtime Sacramento redevelopment attorney Joseph Coomes Jr., said that while the Blueprint is voluntary, "we're now getting mandatory imperatives in AB 32 and SB 375. And more imperatives will be coming down the line."
Sacramento County Supervisor Roger Dickinson told the gathering the county aims to put most of the 53,000 new homes it will need by 2030 into existing neighborhoods.
"We are very dedicated to revitalizing a lot of those older first-tier suburbs," he said. But he said the idea worries home builders and developers who find it easier to build on empty land. Also raising concerns are existing residents who don't want up to 20 percent more people living in their areas.
Nonetheless, Hudnut said the new century will be a "gargantuan business opportunity," with half of all U.S. and European growth income to come from "restorative development" in built-up areas.
"Reinvesting, rebuilding, revitalizing, redeveloping and re-engineering. We live in the 're-century,' " he said.
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