A very basic map of Nevada County in California (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The deadline to turn in entry forms to enter a still exhibit in the Nevada County Fair has been extended – so there’s more time to enter an exhibit or two in the Nevada County Fair. The deadline for submitting paper entry forms or to enter on-line using the Fair’s on-line entry system is Friday, July 27 at 4 pm. There are no entry fees for most categories (that’s right – it’s FREE), so simply visit the Fair Office on McCourtney Road or log-on to the Fair’s website at Nevada County Fair to complete the entry process.
This deadline extension is for still exhibits only, as livestock exhibit entries are closing on July 20.
Complete descriptions of all categories are available in the Fair’s Competition Handbook, which is available on the Fair’s website at www.NevadaCountyFair.com, at the Fair office, area libraries, and local chamber of commerce offices.
The 2012 Fair is August 8 – 12. For more information, call (530) 273-6217 or visit Nevada County Fair
The magnificent six-up competition is always a crowd favorite at the Draft Horse Classic and Harvest Fair at the Nevada County Fairgrounds in Grass Valley.
By Wendy Oaks
Donate blood on July 30 and receive a free admission ticket to the Fair
The Nevada County Fairgrounds and BloodSource are teaming up for a community blood drive. Make a blood donation on Monday, July 30, from 1 – 6 pm at one of the BloodSource bloodmobiles located in the main parking lot at the Nevada County Fairgrounds, and receive a free admission ticket to any day of the Fair.
As a result of this partnership, at last year’s community blood drive, 78 pints of life saving blood were collected.
Donating blood is safe, easy and takes about an hour. Donors must weigh at least 110 pounds, be generally healthy, and at least 17 years old. If you are 16 years old, you can donate blood, as long as you have a parent consent. For more information and eligibility about blood donation, visit BloodSource.org or call 1-866-822-5663.
This year’s Fair is August 8 – 12. Visit NevadaCountyFair.com for more information or call the Fair Office at (530) 273-6217. The Nevada County Fairgrounds are located on McCourtney Road in Grass Valley.
Wendy Oaks
Publicist, Nevada County Fairgrounds
(530) 273-6217
Arriving in Auburn on a hot Sunday in July, John and I decided to tour a couple of museums. First was the historic Bernhard Museum just off Auburn Folsom Boulevard near the fairgrounds. The house is over 150 years old, built in 1851 by George Bishop and John Long as the Traveler’s Rest Hotel, one of Auburn’s oldest surviving buildings.
In the Gold Rush, this hotel held teamsters traveling the old Auburn Folsom Road, and miners working in nearby Rich Flat. In 1858 the building was converted to a home for one of the builders, George Bishop. The house and 30 acres were sold in 1864 to Eliza Caruthers, and again in 1868 to the Bernhard family. This family and their descendants lived here for over 100 years. They started planting vineyards, making wine and then built a two story natural rock winery into a hillside in 1874.
Now with only 2+ acres left, the house has become a beautifully restored museum of the Victorian Era (mid 1830’s to 1900). No pictures are allowed inside the museum, but it is truly a sight to see. Also on the grounds is an old wine processing building, displaying wine making and barrel making artifacts, as well as a barn with a hearse, a sleigh, buggies and wagons of days gone by.
The top of the stone winery is now an art gallery, while the bottom still houses and operating winery, Bonitata (more on this later).
Next we visited the Gold Country Museum, housed in a historic Works Progress Administration (WPA) building, on the Auburn fairgrounds itself. We began by touring a replicated hard rock mine (thanking our lucky stars that we didn’t have to do that job!) Many other mining displays are also on display, as well as a model stamp mill, and an assayer’s office, a miner’s cabin and an old saloon.
After this tour we went back to the Barnhart Museum Parking lot, but walked down to the winery to do a little wine tasting in the Bonitata Boutique Winery (see last picture in the slides).
Judy J. Pinegar is a writer and winemaker, and her articles appear in many publications.
The magnificent six-up competition is always a crowd favorite at the Draft Horse Classic and Harvest Fair at the Nevada County Fairgrounds in Grass Valley.
July 13, 2012
Want to enter something in the Nevada County Fair? There’s still time! The deadline for submitting paper entry forms or to enter on-line using the Fair’s on-line entry system is July 20 at 4 pm. There are no entry fees for most categories, so simply visit the Fair Office on McCourtney Road or log-on to the Fair’s website atthe Nevada county Fair website to complete the entry process.
Join the thousands of Nevada County residents who enter exhibits each year in the more than 300 available categories. If you can make it, bake it, grow it or show it, we have a category for you! Don’t delay – enter now!
Complete descriptions of all categories are available in the Fair’s Competition Handbook, which is available on the Fair’s website at the Nevada County Fair website, at the Fair office, area libraries, and local chamber of commerce offices.
The 2012 Fair is August 8 – 12. For more information, call (530) 273-6217 or visit the Nevada County Fair website
For all your real estate needs
Email or call today:
John J. O’Dell Realtor® GRI
Civil Engineer
General Contractor
(530) 263-1091
Email jodell@nevadacounty.com
Judy and I went to Dutch Flat in Placer County this Fourth of July to watch their annual parade. The town is small, population about 160, although on the 4th I’m sure the population was well over 800 people. Their one hotel was closed and I asked if there were any restaurants in town and the answer was no. Since we had decided to wait and eat when we got to Dutch Flat, that was disappointing. However, the weather was perfect, not too hot for a Fourth of July day.
We picked a great spot to watch, since there was a group of children there with water hoses, water guns and anything else that could squirt water. They met their match several times, since there was quite a few fire trucks with hoses that turned the tide on the kids.
Since the parade wasn’t that long, they want around twice to make up for it. Yep, around the town a couple of times.
dutch-flat-hotel
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In front of the Dutch Flat Hotel, waiting for the parade to start
A big drop in inventories of for-sale homes across the nation has led to a buying frenzy in some sought-after neighborhoods, real estate professionals report. A gradual gain in home prices is also following suit, they say.
Last week, the National Association of REALTORS® reported an increase in pending home sales in every region in the country. The number of contracts signed in May for existing homes jumped 13 percent from a year ago, according to NAR.
NAR projects a 3 percent nationwide rise in existing-home prices this year and a 5.7 percent rise next year.
But more buyers are being met with a shrinking supply of homes on the market. New construction has slowed dramatically—to record lows—the last few years. A backlog of distressed homes have not yet hit the market. And many home owners are waiting to list their homes for sale until prices rise more.
“In the Atlanta area, we are 40 percent below where inventory was this time last year,” Debra Bradley, managing broker for Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage in Buckhead, Ga., told Forbes.com “Generally inventory goes up this time of year, not down.”
Inventories of for-sale homes appear to be lowest for less expensive properties, at which investors and first-time home buyers often buy, real estate professionals report.
“It’s different today for a buyer being in the market,” says Rick Davidson, Century 21 Real Estate chief executive. “They might not find that deal of the century that they may have expected to find.”
Several housing markets are now reporting multiple offers and bidding wars surfacing, due to the lack of inventory in some markets.
“Most houses below $250,000 priced realistically are attracting large numbers of offers in a short time, and many exceed the asking price,” says Mike Orr, director of the Center for Real Estate Theory and Practice at the W. P. Carey School of Business.
Industry insiders appear less concerned about the shadow inventory of distressed homes that have yet to hit the market.
“It’s not being let out to the market in bulk,” Beth Butler, president of ONE Sotheby’s International Realty in Miami, told Forbes.com. “It’s coming slowly and it’s not seriously impacting the market one way or the other. Truth be told we could use the inventory!”
On Wednesday, a so-called “Homeowner Bill of Rights” moved a step closer to passing, with housing advocates claiming the bill would help people stave off foreclosures. The CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® (C.A.R.) opposes provisions in this measure which will allow anyone to stop the foreclosure process by filing a lawsuit, merited or not.
C.A.R. agrees that careful and balanced reforms to the foreclosure process are necessary. However, C.A.R. opposes AB 278 because it will further delay the housing recovery by inviting bad-faith lawsuits and defaults, making it difficult for even well-qualified borrowers to obtain financing.
The legislation would ban the practice of dual-tracking, in which a bank continues foreclosure proceedings while a homeowner is seeking a loan modification; require banks to provide a single of point – either a person or a team – for struggling borrowers; and give borrowers the right to sue their lenders for “significant, material” violations of the new law.
The bills also require lenders to give a clean explanation when they reject borrowers for a loan modification, to verify mortgage documents before a foreclosure, and to provide copies to borrowers upon request. Lenders can be fined up to $7,500 per loan for filing and recording unverified documents. The bills’ provisions apply to first-lien mortgages for owner-occupants.
For more information about C.A.R.’s opposition to AB 278 and to learn how to take action, visit this website
The earliest settlement in Nevada County was made in the summer of 1848 at a place called Rose’s Corral which was located between the Anthony House and Bridgeport. Early in the spring of 1849 a group of mountaineers from Oregon known as the Greenwood Company mined for gold at Illinois Bar on the South Yuba River. They were followed by emigrants from Indiana. In the fall of 1849, the Greenwood Company made winter camp at Jefferson, and the Indiana group moved further upstream to Washington. In that same autumn that Captain John Pennington’s party struck rich diggings on Deer Creek and built the first cabin on Gold Run, the site that was to become Nevada City.
Originally a mining camp founded along Deer Creek in 1849, Nevada City rapidly became the largest and wealthiest mining town in California. At one point, Nevada City was the third largest city in California with a population of 10,000. Nevada City’s good fortune allowed miners and settlers to enjoy plush gambling establishments, hotels, saloons, and stores. However, like many big cities that sprang up quickly during the rush for instant wealth, early Nevada City shared a darker side of claim jumping, murder, brothels and opium dens.
By the 1850’s Nevada City’s wealth began to wane, and as miners moved on in search of new claims and stories of gold and riches, a quiet and quaint city emerged. Two fires in 1856 and 1863 raced through Nevada City almost completely wiping out the town. The beautiful architecture that stands today is testament to the will of the people of Nevada City who rebuilt the town completely not once, but twice.
Hydraulic mining, Nevada County, CA, 1866 Photo courtesy of http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com
Nevada County was created in 1851 from parts of Yuba County because of the increase in population in the area and the distance to travel to courts which made it necessary to create a new county. The county was named after the mining town of Nevada City, a name derived from the term “Sierra Nevada.” The word nevada in Spanish means “snowy” or “snow-covered.” Nevada City has carried many monikers through its history; Caldwell’s Upper Store, Coyoteville, and Deer Creek Dry Diggings, but Nevada was chosen in the 1850s to give the town a cultured name.
Nevada City, CA, USA (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
In 1851 the newly formed Nevada County copied the name. The State of Nevada used the name 10 years later in 1861. The region came to life in the gold rush of 1849. Many historical sites remain to mark the birth of this important region in California’s formative years. Among them are the Nevada Theater in Nevada City, which operates to this day and once hosted Mark Twain among other historical figures. The gold industry in Nevada County thrived into the post WWII days.
The county had many firsts and historic technological moments. The first long-distance telephone in the world, built in 1877 by the Ridge Telephone Company, connected French Corral with French Lake, 58 miles (93 km) away. It was operated by the Milton Mining Company from a building on this site that had been erected about 1853. The Pelton wheel, designed to power gold mines, still drives hydro-electric generators today. Nevada City and Grass Valley were among the first California towns with electric lights.
Commemorating World’s First Long-Distance Telephone Line. Monument located in French Corral, California. Picture courtesy of http://www.noehill.com
The Olympics, NASA, and virtually every television station around the country utilizes video/broadcasting equipment designed and manufactured by Grass Valley Group, founded in Grass Valley. Electronic medical dosing equipment was first developed and manufactured in Nevada County. The first commercially viable picture-phone was developed in Nevada City. More than fifty high tech and applied tech companies, and more than one thousand hardware and software design and development professionals.
Judy J. Pinegar is a writer and her articles have appeared in many publications.
For all your real estate needs
Email or call today:
John J. O’Dell Realtor® GRI
Civil Engineer
General Contractor
(530) 263-1091
Email jodell@nevadacounty.com
Mortgage rates continue to set new record lows, leaving many home buyers and re-financers wondering how low rates can go and how to capture the best rates now.
Many economists are forecasting that mortgage rates will rise again later this year as the American economy gradually improves and as more global investors turn to the U.S. as a safe haven for money.
The average rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 3.71 percent the week of June 14.
The rate had averaged 3.9 percent three months earlier and 4.5 percent a year earlier.
According to one economist, rates could possibly fall further, perhaps as much as a quarter of a percentage point, but it is more likely that they would start a “slow drift” upward.
Those planning to refinance or buy a home in the next two or three months might want to consider locking in a mortgage rate now.
Borrowers with rate locks, with a built-in deadline, often receive priority treatment from lenders, because the borrower is telling the lender that he or she is serious about closing soon.
Lock-in costs and policies vary widely, and are based partly on the time frame the borrower wants covered. Most borrowers will need a 60- to 90-day lock.
If interest rates continue to fall during the lock period, borrowers can ask the lender to rewrite the rate lock at an additional cost, or obtain a “float-down” provision in the original agreement. A lock with a float-down agreement allows the borrower to change the rate, often only once, before closing on the mortgage. This option is generally more expensive than a standard lock.
Some home buyers fall for common pitfalls when purchasing a home. How can you help make sure your clients don’t fall for one?
Credit.com recently featured some of the biggest mistakes home buyers often make. Their list included:
1. Trying to fix credit scores before buying a home.
Home buyers may do more harm than good if they don’t consult a financial expert first. “Even paying down credit card balances, which is a good thing as far as your credit scores and debt ratios are concerned, could be a problem if it leaves you short the cash you need to qualify to get the loan,” says Gerri Detweiler, Credit.com’s personal finance expert.
2. Not considering the future enough in their purchase.
Buyers should consider what they want out of a house not just for today but also five or 10 years down the road. Do they plan to expand their family? If so, they may need a bigger home and want a different location. Also, how long do they plan on staying at the home? That can help determine the type of mortgage that makes the most sense for them too.
3. Failing to research financing enough.
First comes the home and then the financing? Not in today’s market. Home shoppers should get prequalified for a mortgage before they start shopping for a home so they know what they can afford. “The time to make decisions about your mortgage needs is not during this 10-day window [after you sign a contract]; at most, this is time to shop for rates and fees and such,” says Keith Gumbinger, vice president of HSH.com. “Evaluating your credit, deciding on a product you prefer, how much down payment you feel comfortable making, whether you want to pay fees or points [and, if so, how much] and even shopping for a lender [getting preapproved] should happen well in advance of even wandering through the market looking at houses.”
4. Making the assumption that the Good Faith Estimate is always what you pay at closing.
The form lenders provide that estimates closing costs is not set in stone. Closing costs may actually be more, so buyers need to be prepared. Closing costs generally are about 3 percent to 5 percent of the loan amount. “Shop around and compare the Good Faith Estimate provided by the lender with that of two or three other lenders,” suggests Ryan Himmel, a CPA and founder of BIDaWIZ, a tax advice resource. “If there is a significant disparity in estimates, then request an explanation from the lender to determine if you would like to move forward.”
5. Failing to budget for home expenses.
Budgeting to purchase the home isn’t all new home owners should be squeezing in their budget. They’d be wise to not forget to budget for maintaining the home too. New home owners should budget for an increase in utility bills as well as for future maintenance and repair costs, such as repairing a furnace or roof.
