Marin Real Estate Blog

Property Website   www.621NikkiDr.com

Starter Home, Priced at $399,000

Light and bright, extensively remodeled 3 bedrooms/3 full baths home is ready to move in. 

Family room has vaulted ceiling and brick fireplace with energy-efficient insert.  A display shelf separates family and dining area.  Sliders in the family open to back patio.    

Beautifully updated kitchen with new appliances, new cabinets, new sink/faucet, lighting.  The kitchen has an eat-in breakfast area with sliders opening to the side patio.

Vaulted ceiling in Master Suite.  One set of bedroom and bathroom conveniently located on the main floor.  Tastefully remodeled baths.

Large office in converted garage.  The office can be easily converted back to garage.   

Efficient fire place insert provide warmth. Double pane windows, sliders throughout.  Low maintenance yards.  Great Schools!  Conveniently located and Competitively priced.  Move right in!

Sought-after Townhome in Courtyard at Partridge Knolls

3 Bedrooms, 3 Full Baths, over 1700sf Living Space

property website:  www.30LittleCreek.com

Lovely Townhome, priced at $699,000.  Private and serene, this wonderful townhome is conveniently located on a PRIME location in sought-after Courtyard at Partridge Knolls nestled in the hills of Mt. Burdell.  Sited off path from foot traffic and adjacent to a strip of greenland, this home offers rare privacy. 

The house has three bedrooms and 3 full baths with one bedroom and one full bath downstairs.  The tastefully remodeled kitchen has gleaming granite counters, maple cabinets and stainless-steel appliances, with gas range and Pure Water Filtration System.  The adjacent breakfast nook is used by the homeowners as a quite reading retreat underneath the rose bushes and shady trees.  Bay windows frame the soothing spot to take in the view and bring in plenty of sunshine. 

The living room has a marble fireplace and opens into dining area.  Large sliding doors off living room open to the back patio.  Both rooms have plenty of windows with backdrops of greenery. 

Upstairs has master suite, master bath and one additional bedroom.  The spacious master suite has a large sitting area with vaulted ceilings and bay windows.  The master bathroom has skylight, double sinks and a relaxing oversized tub.  Upstairs bedrooms have custom built-in organizers providing plenty of storage.  

Downstairs has beautiful imported Danish beech hardwood floor.  For added privacy, the homeowners installed Hunter Douglas Duette Blinds (top down/bottom up) downstairs as well as Duette arch blind in the master suite. 

The patio off the living room has low fence which visually expands the patio and brings surrounding park-like settings in.   Surrounded by Mt. Burdell Open Space and hiking/biking trails, the home is favored by nature lovers.  

Close proximity to highway 101, downtown Novato, Trader Joe, and the future Whole Foods.  Award Winning Schools!

Property Website:   www.30LittleCreek.com 

 

 

 

 

Bamboo bags for carrying and storing loaves of bread are a new, sustainable product launched in November, 2007 by three Berkeley-based enterprenuies: Ann Arnold, a writer and illustrator of children's books; Linda Elvira Piedra, a photographer and Lauren Shi, an alternative medicine practitioner and acupuncturist-in-training who runs the Wellspring Clinic.

Ann, a Marin resident (her great grandparents gave Muir Woods, the National Monument, to California. Her grandmother was a Kent, as in Kentfield of Southern Marin), came across the bamboo cloth in a fabric store.  The cloth is woven from the substantially reproducing bamboo that's becoming one of the hottest multipurpose crops in Asia and Indonesia.  Added benefit is that the bamboo fabric also has antibacterial properties. The bamboo cloth wicks moisture very well to keep the crust crusty, but can als hold enough moisture to keep the bread from getting too hard too soon. It certainly does seem to keep it better than any regular cloth, and certainly better than plastic, which destroys the crust.

There are two sizes to the banboom bags; a drawstring pouch shape that can hold two 1-pound rounds of bread, and a long quiver capable of protecting three long loaves.

Both shapes retail for $16 plus $2 for postage if ordered online from http://www.bamboo-bag.com/.

For more information, e-mail bamboo-bag@hush mail.com.

              KEY TO YOUR FUTURE IS A GREAT EDUCATION!

        Come to Marin County - We Care for Our Children

Looking for GREAT Schools for your clients when moving to Marin County, San Francisco North Bay>?

Four Marin Schools have been selected as the 2008 California ‘Distinguished Schools' by the California State Department of Education.  

The newly minted Distinguished schools in Marin are Lu Sutton and Rancho elementary schools in Novato, Ross School in Ross and Bayside Elementary School in the Sausalito Marin City School District.

Only 343 of the states 5,250 elementary schools received the honor in 2008, which recognizes the schools' test schools and other improvements.

Marin county schools are voted by Forbes Magazine as being the best public schools for the money in 2007 among 775 counties studied.   

While Novato is voted as the most affordable town in California by Business Week

I am fortunately enough to be one of San Marin High School (Novato, Marin County, CA) Robotics Club, Penguin Empire team's mentors. 

This rookie team won the 2nd place in the First Robotics Compeitition (FRC) Davis Regional event in March, 2008; an exciting event - Check out the Video.

The chief mentor, Dave, in search of inspriring Robotics videos for the students and mentors alike, came upon a video of this robot.  Thought you'd all love it.

The Coolest Robot Ever! is the title of the email from Dave; and I would have to agree with him :-)   Duke would want one.  

Being one of the regular Trulia (a real estate website dedicated to providing buyers and sellers with advise and providing tools for realtors and consumers alike) contributors, it is of great interest to watch Trulia grow by leaps and bounds through the year (I think this is Trulia's second year ?).

The latest innovation unveiled is the Integration of Trulia and Google Street View.

This allows you to take a closer look of the house /areas you are interested in and from different angles.  Some may argue that this is not a difficult thing to do; however, the thought of Trulia taking the step to do so is different from other websites.  

I have had the pleasure of watching Trulia evolve.  Like all the start ups, there are growing pains, whether it's from consumers, real estate pros (past, current and future) and the search of it's own direction, trials and errors; one thing for sure is that Trulia is listening, trying and improving.  Like everything else, that's all I ask for.

GO GREEN, FEEL GOLDEN!  

That's the phrase for our local high school's first Green School Week!

My philosophy in life is always to take the challenge. 

So, when my son's high school (San Marin High School in Novato, CA, of which I am really involved in) decides to host it's first ever Green School Week and asked for parent volunteers to make a Green Careen presentation, I said "Yes".

I figured that I am a Realtor, not really a Green career, but I can CERTAINLY come and make a presentation about Green Housing; perhaps the students can take the ideas home. 

Now that the event is two weeks away, I thought, what a better place to get Green Housing Ideas if not from the Active Rain community?

The normal stuff:

Dual pane windows, solar panels (types), Wall Insulation, low flow toilet / shower head, gas vs wood-burning stove, fluorescent lights, drought-resiCstent plants (must have in Bay Area), etc  

What's YOUR Top, #1 Green Idea for Green Housing if YOU have to go and make a presentation to your local high school?  Can be any of the above with details, pix.

Pictures? Statistics? Special Green Home Developments? All are welcome!

Sylvia

Trulia took a shot at researching for affordable homes and great schools in and around the country.  The top choices are Philadelphia, Dallas and Boston.  While those are great selections, I feel that my hometown of Novato in Marin County, San Francisco North Bay was over looked.

While being in Marin county, San Francisco North Bay, we can not claim that we have the ‘Cheap Homes', but Trulia might have overlooked a couple recent articles about the Town of Novato in Marin and the quality of Marin county schools.

Marin County Schools was voted the best schools for the money by Forbes Magazine

And our local town of Novato was selected as the Best Affordable Suburbs in California by Business Week.

Granted, everything is relative (meaning affordability), but Novato is the most affordable town in Marin county and probably near and around the city.

A quick description about Novato:

When you drive from either North or South 101 into Novato, you will be awed by the breath-taking scenery as you enter. As you get to know Novato, and just look all aroudn you, you will be constantly amazed and reminded as how lucky you are to live here. There are several areas in Novato, each with their own characteristics. Novato is famous for it's surrounding hills and Open Spaces with small town feel and wonderful schools.Some noted areas are the Partidge Knolls areas, San Marin, Pleasant Valley; Indian Valley for Horse properties; Black Point and Green Point areas sites on a ridge overlooking acres of oak trees, distant petaluma river, marshland; Pacheco Creek, Country Club area; Hamilton, Ignacio, Stone Tree, Down Town (new town and old town), and many other areas, to name a few. Each suites many special needs for the residents. Depending on what you are looking for, we have the right place for you


And schools:

For pre-schools, there are traditional day care/pre schools/nursery school, Montessori, YMCA run, Novato Youth Center, and others. For K to 12 schools, you have religious school, none denominational; alternative schools, charter schools, and traditional public schools; there are GATE programs, special ED programs and many others; same as high schools. Our public schools have some of the best academic and performing arts programs, along with excellent athletic and extra curriculum programs. Coupling with that, the Novato Parks and Recreation offers many enrichment programs throughout the year.

Did you know that -

• Older toilets use 3.7-7 gallons per flush

• Dishwashers use 8-14 gallons per cycle

• Top-loading washers use 45 gallons/load

• A dripping faucet waste 15-21 gallons per day

• US water users withdraw enough water to fill a line of Olympic-size swimming pools reaching around the world EVERY DAY (300 billion gallons)

• Although our planet is 71 percent water, humans depend on a mere .65 percent of the water for survival - much of which is polluted.

• About a quarter of the nation's largest industrial plants and water treatment facilities are in serious violation of pollution standards at any one time.

• An estimated 7 million Americans are made sick annually by contaminated tap water; in some rare cases this results in death.

Indoor Air Quality:

• US EPA ranks indoor air pollution among top five environmental risks. Unhealthy air is found in up to 30% of new and renovated buildings

• W.H.O. reports that indoor air pollution causes 14 times more deaths than outdoor air pollution (2.8 million lives)

• Of hundreds of EPA-regulated chemicals, only ozone and sulfur dioxide are more prevalent outdoor than indoors

• 20 percent of all housing in the US has too much lead dust or chippings (causes kidney and red blood cell damage, impairs mental and physical development, may increase high blood pressure)

Wood:

• Although the US is home to only 4.5 percent of the global population, it is responsible for over 15 percent of the world's consumption of wood.

 Pesticides:

• In the US, pesticides poison 110,000 people each year. More than one-third of calls to animal poison control centers result from pets exposed to pesticides.

• The volatile organic compounds (including pesticides) found indoors are believe to cause 3,000 cases of cancer a year in the US.

• According to the New York State Attorney General's office, 95 percent of the pesticides used on residential lawns are considered probable carcinogens by the EPA

• 2,4-D-a component of Agent Orange-is used in about 1,500 lawn care products