I love living here in the Plum Canyon neighborhood in Santa Clarita, California. The weather is perfect (except for a few days in August), the people are friendly, and there are so many opportunities to do charitable work.The only problem is that crime is on the rise and my street has been one of the hardest hit in the past two months. Here is an article from The Signal about this growing problem.http://www.the-signal.com/?module=displaystory&story_id=48308&format=html 05/14/2007

We have had several cars broken into and homes burglarized since November, 2006. Last night another car window was shattered and items were stolen out of the glove box. The owner heard the alarm but didn't see who had done this. We are having our first Neighborhood Watch meeting on Wednesday evening, May 16. 05/14/2007

I hike every weekend with my kids. We've got lots of great places to hike around Southern California. It's a good workout. It gets me alone with my kids for hours at a time. And it allows me to take some photos, which I love to do. I usually focus on the big picture - panoramas, the mountains and trails. Yesterday, I decided I'd test my favorite little point and shoot out on the details. The photos below were taken during a hike at Placerita Canyon Natural Area using the automatic preset for flowers that is built into the Kodak V705. I used the full zoom in each of the photos. As you can see, I was able to capture some very small Red Spiders and an active Bee. These are linked to their larger images on Localism.com. Could I have gotten better photos with my Canon EOS Digital SLR? Probab... 05/14/2007

Since moving to the Santa Clarita valley last year I have discovered many wonderful places. One of them is the Performing Arts Center at the College of the Canyons. There are performances of all types going on regularly throughout the year. This coming Tuesday, May 15, the Air Force Band will be playing. This performance id free and begins at 7:30. You can check the schedule for all of the upcoming performances at http://www.canyonspac.com 05/13/2007

Buying real estate in Santa Clarita, California continues to be a great value. The communities that make up Santa Clarita, including Saugus, Valencia, Newhall, and Canyon Country are beautiful areas that families can thrive in easily. The schools in Santa Clarita are among the best in California and many people purchase real estate in Santa Clarita, California to be able to send their children to these schools. 05/11/2007

So you've scheduled the appointment with the Appraiser to have your home appraised.  What should you do prior to the inspection, to maximize your value and possibly save some money as well?In the days prior to the appraisal inspection, do a home inventory of all the repairs you've made since you bought the home include (copies of receipts if you have them) or your contractors estimates/ cancelled checks for major improvements.  If you cant find the paperwork list them down with your best estimate for each. We recommend you bullet point all of these improvements and repairs on a piece of paper and present it to the appraiser when he/she first walks in.  This will assure that the Appraiser doesn't miss anything and will speed up the appraisal inspection.  Get copies of "signed off: permit... 05/10/2007

The rumors have been flying for a while now about the corner near the Magic Mountain entrance at the Old Road. Grading has been done, the gas station has been moved, and the freeway interchange has been upgraded. The rumor was that this entrance area was to become a new entertainment destination similar to the City Walk in Universal City.According to Lennar, the builder for this site, this is not going to be a City Walk type development. The current construction is simply two office buildings that will add about 200,000 square feet of office space to the area. There is a Regional Planning Commission (RPC) meeting on this project scheduled for May 16, 2007. Lennar expects to break ground on these buildings in June or July, with about 12-18 months to complete this first phase. These will ... 05/03/2007

The unincorporated areas of Santa Clarita Valley will soon be seeing more deputies patrolling their areas.Supervisor Antonovich worked to increase the overall police presence in the unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County, and will be adding 105 deputies starting with the new fiscal year, according to Los Angeles County representatives at the West Ranch Town Council meeting last night.Of these 105 deputies, 9 will be allocated to the unincorporated areas of the Santa Clarita Valley, and 2 of those will be patrolling the Stevenson Ranch and Sunset Pointe areas.These new deputies will start with the beginning of the County's new fiscal year, which is July 1, 2007.Linda SlocumSantaClaritaRealEstateBlog.comHoneyStartPacking.com 05/03/2007

 On the door of every LAPD police car are the words "To Protect and To Serve", but in the case of former LAPD officer turned Realtor, Connor MacIvor, these words represent a duty beyond that of a law enforcement officer.  For him, these are words that describe his work ethic, dedication, and commitment to his real estate clients.Last week I had the opportunity to meet with Realtor Connor MacIvor of Re/Max in Santa Clarita.  This was my first time meeting a fellow Active Rain blogger, and it was a great experience.  Within a few minutes Connor and I connected like old friends, we swapped stories from our previous careers, we discussed many of the articles and products that we've read about on AR, and we talked about our respective business models.  If you didn't know any better, it would... 04/28/2007

I am a Real Estate Broker as well as a California State Certified Residential Appraiser. I live in Saugus, part of the city of Santa Clarita, California. I have been selling real estate since 1983. In 1989 I became an appraiser. I have owned my own company, Greenhouse, since 1990. Prior to that I worked for Gribin von Dyl Real Estate and worked for one year as a Right of Way appraiser for the Department of Transportation, dealing with eminent domain issues. 04/28/2007

In an effort to stem the tide of "overcrowded" homes in the Santa Clarita area, the city's Code Enforcement personnel will begin doing sweeps of Santa Clarita neighborhoods looking for illegal garage conversions. This is in response to an escalating number of complaints that as many as 10-20 people are living in some of the area's homes, which can create a neighborhood nuisance with the extra cars, piles of trash, noise and traffic that this overcrowding can generate. Click here for more information on these sweeps and what areas will be covered.This is just a reminder to make sure that you know whether additions to a home or garage conversions were legally done (as in done with permits) before you buy a home. Although you may have already fallen in love with the home, and may choose to... 04/28/2007

Federal immigration sweeps started in the Santa Clarita area this week and are expected to continue through the weekend. These sweeps are part of the Federal Homeland Security Act to increase border enforcement activities.While these sweeps are targeted towards finding known fugitives who have ignored previous deportation orders, there will likely be others picked up in these sweeps who are in the United States illegally as well. According to the Daily News, it's not known whether the known fugitives were wanted for crimes other than for ignoring deportation orders.The "Operation Return to Sender" program was started in May 2006 and has apprehended more than 18,000 fugitives since that time, according to Lori Haley, a spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.  04/28/2007

The Santa Clarita Sanitation District is upping the ante for the removal of all residential rock salt and potassium chloride based water softeners, with increased rebates and free removals by qualified plumbers. These rebates can range from about $325 to as high as $2,000.Why the sudden offer of free money? The Sanitation District is facing the prospect of being forced to build a new water treatment facility to reduce the salt (chloride) content of its waste water if it doesn't find ways to reduce it at its source, and the water softeners are some of the most easily-identified (and easily corrected) source of chloride in the local waste water.Click here for more information on the new "Take the Rebate and Run" program!Linda SlocumSantaClaritaRealEstateBlog.com 04/27/2007

The Castaic High School debate continues...It was previously reported that it would likely take until 2014 for the new Castaic High School to be built and ready for the new school year. This was based on the Hart School District's plans to build a super-cool site with all the bells and whistles - something that the Castaic residents would be proud of for years to come. This was to be a landmark school, with all possible amenities and state of the art buildings.However, the more building costs go up and timeframes go down, the Hart School District will have to consider other viable options. One of these options, using prefab buildings, has already been sneered at because they're "too ugly" and certainly a far cry from the initial plans for a picture postcard-style campus.But are all pref... 04/27/2007

Well, the hammer came down on Castaic High School again this week...After many frustrating delays (the last we heard it was to open for the 2010 school year), the project has now been pushed out to a (gasp!) 2014 completion date.'Not that I buy this date either, since the school is joined at the hip to SunCal's proposed housing development in the north Castaic area. With SunCal still in the EIR process on this development, many were expecting Los Angeles County officials to slam this one through just to get the high school put in place. However, cooler heads prevailed and they decided to go through the normal processes for the housing development itself, which means that the high school will have to wait as well.So, many people ask, why is the Hart School District still putting all of i... 04/26/2007

They're heeeere!The City of Santa Clarita has finally decided to start moving forward with the Old Town Newhall Revitalization Project, which means that a lot of businesses need to "exit, stage left!" to make room for the revitalization projects.First on the list to receive these lovely letters are those in the area slated to be a new public library. These are mostly businesses near the corner of Lyons and San Fernando Road that have addresses on 11th Street and Spruce Street. These include CarQuest Auto Parts, Antique Flower Garden, White Light Chiropractic Center, and the landlords for the building occupied by Just Passing Through Body Piercing.For more information on this process and how it affects these businesses, click here.Linda SlocumSantaClaritaRealEstateBlog.com 04/26/2007

This is purely an informational post for people who are looking rent out there home. Specifically in Santa Clarita, CA, but some of the tactics will work anywhere in the country. This post DOES NOT contain information on how to properly screen tenants, how to pull credit, criminal, and eviction history, how to verify income, employment, residency, late rent payments, property damage history, or the many other factors that need to be considered when renting a home. It only contains information on how to get some phone calls on your rental. Again, most of the information here is designed specifically for Santa Clarita rentals. First, let's take a look at the different basic types of advertising, and how I personally feel they rank in the scheme of things. I am going to list them in the or... 04/26/2007

What a magnificent day here in Valencia!  For those of you who are not familiar with our area, Valencia is located in the beautiful Santa Clarita Valley, in the northwestern most part of the Los Angeles county.  Our home prices has remained stable for the past few months, and some areas are showing signs of prices going up.  We still have homes that get well respected multiple offers.  In comparison with our neighboring San Fernando Valley, we have much nicer properties and in much nicer condition for less money.Santa Clarita broke away from the city of Los Angeles over 15 years ago.  This has truely been to our benefit!  Our city council members have worked hard to maintain the growth of Southern California within reason within our area.  We area a masterplanned community with like min... 04/10/2007

I am an active rain newbie, but I am jazzed about being a part of this great community! I have to share with everyone what happened this week...Our local Chamber of Commerce called about a week ago and said that they wanted to do an article on our company. They are doing a special edition of the Valley Business News that is going to be only about real estate and wanted to highlight our company in the property management portion. That is cool enough in itself. Anyway, the editor called and wanted to get our rates to publish in the article. I started talking to her about ACTIVE RAIN, and she became very interested and asked if I would e-mail her some information, which I did. She said that she is going to put this information on the FRONT PAGE of the Valley Business News! I haven't verifi... 03/22/2007

I often get asked by clients what the rental market is like here in Santa Clarita. This post will attempt to answer that question. The rental market in the Santa Clarita Valley is VERY STRONG. It has been for the last couple of years. I personally believe the reason for this is the change in the resale market. Now, I understand that is a pretty broad statement, so I am going to try and breakdown the change in our resale market and how it has impacted the rental market. 1) The resale market has softened. One of the consequences of this is the number of homes that were listed for sale but didn't sell as quickly as, or for as much as, the owner needed, and then were listed for rent. This provided us with a solid inventory of rental homes. To counter this increased inventory, we needed more... 03/21/2007