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Hotel owner Bernard Butcher reported that Unique Inns is a 25 year old organization composed of top-quality, small lodging facilities and country inns along the West Coast from British Colombia to Southern California.
With the Tallman's addition and that of three other facilities, there will be 44 members in the group, Butcher said.
Other nearby members include the Carter House Inn (Eureka), Stanford Inn (Mendocino), Harbor House Inn (Elk), Honor Mansion (Healdsburg), Wine Country Inn (St. Helena) and Gaige House Inn (Glen Ellen).
Butcher said there are operational advantages to the Tallman Hotel's membership in the group, including the sharing of best practices in order to assure the best possible service.
On the marketing side, the Web site www.uniqueinns.com and their published brochures encourage travelers to book at other inns that have been vetted and recommended by the association, Butcher said.
There is currently a void in the Unique Inns membership between the coastal members mentioned above and those on the other side of the Interstate 5 corridor, said Butcher. As a result, he expects Lake County to benefit from the Unique Inns referral process.
In addition, the Unique Inns newsletter will give the Tallman Hotel a chance to publicize to clients and other hotels not only Tallman special events such as its “Concerts With Conversation” and the Blue Wing Blues Festival, but special events and attractions of Lake County in general.
“In other words, we're quite pleased to be part of this group,” Butcher said.
The Tallman Hotel is located at 9550 Main St. in historic downtown Upper Lake; phone, 707-275-2244; Web, www.tallmanhotel.com.
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- Written by: Lake County News Reports
LAKE COUNTY – Home sales decreased 56 percent in October in Lake County compared with the same period a year ago, while the median price of an existing home fell 21.6 percent according to information gathered from the Lake County Multiple Listing Service (MLS).
"While it is typical for the median price to dip seasonally, this decline, which was both the largest month-to-month percentage decline on record and the first year-to-year decline in more than 10 years, was mainly the result of the credit or liquidity crunch, which also drove sales below the 300,000 mark,” said California Association of Realtors President Colleen Badagliacco.
“California’s sales fell more steeply than those of the U.S. as a whole because of its heavy reliance on jumbo loans, those above the conforming loan limit of $417,000,” she said. “This speaks to the need to raise the conforming loan limit in higher-cost states like California to more accurately reflect the cost of housing.”
CPS Country Air Properties Broker Phil Smoley reported that many sellers are taking their properties off the market to wait things out.
“In October 2005, MLS reported over $100 million in real estate sales. This October the number was just over $26 million,” Smoley stated. “For the sellers who remain on the market, many are aggressively pricing their homes, and buyers are taking advantage of it.
“This is not a good time for buyers to be sitting on the sidelines,” Smoley added. “Reduced prices plus low interest rates make this the best time for buyer’s in nearly a decade. What’s bad for sellers is great for buyers.”
Closed escrow sales of existing, single-family detached homes in Lake County totaled 40 in October according to the MLS. This is a decrease of 56 percent according to the MLS. Statewide home sales decreased 38.9 percent from the 444,780 sales pace recorded in September 2006 according to California Association of Realtors.
The median price of a home during October 2007 was $215,500, a 21.6-percent decrease over the revised $275.000 median for October 2006, the MLS reported. The October 2007 median price fell 18.2 percent compared with September’s $263,500 median price.
“The impact of the credit crunch spread throughout all tiers of the market,” said California Association of Realtors Vice President and Chief Economist Leslie Appleton-Young. “While the entry-level portion of the market has been adversely affected by the subprime situation and tighter underwriting standards for much of this year, the high end of the market also saw a decline in sales, as even well-qualified buyers were affected by the lack of funds available for jumbo loans.”
Highlights of Lake County’s resale housing figures for October 2007:
Lake County’s Unsold Inventory Index for homes in October 2007 was 29 months, compared with 13 months (revised) for the same period a year ago. The index indicates the number of months needed to deplete the supply of homes on the market at the current sales rate.
Thirty-year fixed-mortgage interest rates averaged 6.38 percent during October 2007, compared with 6.40 percent in October 2006, according to Freddie Mac. Adjustable-mortgage interest rates averaged 5.66 percent in October 2007 compared with 5.56 percent in October 2006.
The median number of days it took to sell a single-family home was 144 days in October 2007, compared with 155 days for the same period a year ago.
Smoley thinks that unless a seller prices aggressively to sell, it is not wise to put their home on the market.
“Bottom line is that for anyone who needs to sell in the next six months, they better come in about 3 to 5 percent below of what the comps show,” Smoley said. “Otherwise, they will just sit without selling, adding to the impression of a depressed market.”
| # Listed | Med List $ | Avg DOM | # Sales | Med Sell Price | AVG DOM Sell | |
| ANDERSON SPR | 4 | $297,000.00 | 148 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| BLUE LAKES | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| BUCKINGHAM | 16 | $529,000.00 | 129 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| C.L. OAKS | 29 | $219,000.00 | 128 | 1 | $179,000.00 | 121 |
| CLEARLAKE EAST | 67 | $215,000.00 | 156 | 4 | $118,000.00 | 114 |
| CLEARLAKE KEYS | 30 | $339,000.00 | 133 | 1 | $290,000.00 | 170 |
| CLEARLAKE N/NW | 66 | $189,000.00 | 124 | 3 | $125,000.00 | 141 |
| CLEARLAKE PARK | 41 | $262,000.00 | 140 | 3 | $239,000.00 | 141 |
| CLEARLAKE S/SW | 58 | $239,500.00 | 166 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| CLR LK RIVIERA | 87 | $319,950.00 | 122 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| COBB | 38 | $314,450.00 | 161 | 6 | $247,750.00 | 115 |
| FINLEY | 1 | $215,000.00 | 90 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| GLENHAVEN | 1 | $739,000.00 | 75 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| HIDDEN VALLEY | 169 | $355,000.00 | 155 | 5 | $223,000.00 | 143 |
| JAGO BAY | 2 | $1,067,000.00 | 72 | 1 | $824,500.00 | 118 |
| KELSEYVILLE | 25 | $349,500.00 | 151 | 1 | $285,000.00 | 92 |
| KONO TAYEE | 2 | $557,500.00 | 100 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| KONOCTI BAY | 1 | $799,900.00 | 306 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| LAKEPORT NORTH | 78 | $477,000.00 | 216 | 1 | $375,000.00 | 63 |
| LAKEPORT SOUTH | 29 | $399,000.00 | 132 | 1 | $177,000.00 | 71 |
| LOCH LOMOND | 4 | $249,000.00 | 90 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| LOWER LAKE | 15 | $439,000.00 | 119 | 2 | $300,000.00 | 191 |
| LUCERNE | 38 | $248,500.00 | 111 | 6 | $183,000.00 | 144 |
| MIDDLETOWN | 23 | $485,500.00 | 148 | 1 | $222,500.00 | 124 |
| NICE | 19 | $275,000.00 | 142 | 1 | $250,000.00 | 180 |
| PARADISE COVE | 3 | $684,999.00 | 210 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| PILLSBURY | 3 | $199,000.00 | 79 | 1 | $215,000.00 | 339 |
| RIVIERA HEIGHTS | 16 | $369,500.00 | 162 | 1 | $220,000.00 | 445 |
| RIVIERA WEST | 11 | $429,000.00 | 182 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| SCOTT VALLEY | 1 | $769,000.00 | 115 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| SODA BAY | 6 | $837,500.00 | 72 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| SPRING VALLEY | 18 | $302,000.00 | 151 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| TWIN LAKES | 3 | $357,500.00 | 64 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| UPPER LAKE | 14 | $336,450.00 | 129 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| WINDFLOWER PT | 2 | 1850000 | 737 | 1 | $906,500.00 | 74 |
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CLEARLAKE – Ray's Foods in Clearlake has added “Buy Lake County Grown” signage to a new wine section.
“Part of our commitment to our customers is to offer as many of the locally grown products as we can,” said Ray's Foods Manager Brad Wilson. “We wanted to offer all of the local winery's wines that we can.”
Wilson, along with Joey Luiz, sales manager of Shannon Ridge Vineyards and Winery, worked with the Lake County Winegrape Commission on the "Buy Lake County Grown" signage for the newly designed "Buy Lake County" wine section at the Ray's Clearlake.
Ray's Foods is located at 15950 Dam Road, Clearlake.
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- Written by: John Jensen
The site is moving to a dedicated server with dedicated bandwidth, memory allocation and processors to accommodate the demands of its growing readership.
The upgrade comes in advance of a planned upgrade scheduled for February or March, 2008.
The previous shared hosting arrangement was working fine on an enterprise-level server until the site host notified the news organization that its Web site's consumption of server resources was affecting the performance of other Web sites on the server.
In fact, www.lakeconews.com was utilizing 25 times the norm of allocated database resources, in part due to readership and also partially because of the site's large archive of news stories. That situation resulted in site services being suspended for short periods on Tuesday and Wednesday.
The situation is being rectified with the deployment of the new server. The increased cost of hosting www.lakeconews.com is funded by Larson New Media using subscriber payments.
Larson New Media President Elizabeth Larson said that the migration to a dedicated server sends two messages.
“The fact that we have to do this, and that we can afford to thanks to subscription fees, proves that this new community media model really does work,” said Larson. “The other positive is that the readership is rapidly growing and will be able to continue to grow with the enhanced infrastructure."
The server upgrade is scheduled to take place in the early morning hours of Thanksgiving day. As a result, readers may notice some issues with site performance.
Lake County News thanks its readers for their patience during the transition.
Larson New Media, founded and based in Lucerne, is the parent company of www.lakeconews.com. The company was created to pursue hyperlocal, high quality journalism for the Lake County community.
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