ThinkBob

Here's what happened in Grass Valley, California Real Estate in 2010.  For those of you not familiar with Grass Valley, it's one of those charming Gold Rush towns along the spine of the Sierra foothills. About 40 minutes north of Auburn on Highway 49, Grass Valley perches at a comfortable 2,000 f...

You don't need "hill legs" to run the Cascade Canal Trail. It's flat as a pancake, quite a rarity in the Sierra Foothills.  As a runner I find this kind of terrain tedious, but it does have its uses.  Some folks need a flat trail because they can't handle long upgrades.  It's also very shady and,...

When homes being prepared for sale, should the seller obtain after-the-fact permits for non-permitted additions?  Non-permitted additions pose a dilemma for both the seller and the listing agent.  Of all the elements of home value, the size of the home, expressed in square feet, is the most impor...

You will pay three "sets" of fees to install a septic system on raw land in California: Testing Design Installation The rough estimates below for Percolation and Mantle Testing (aka Perc and Mantle) were compiled in consultation with three different engineers with offices in Nevada County, Califo...

San Bruno Mountain State (and County) Park is in that weird area where San Bruno, South San Francisco, Daly City, and Brisbane kinda mash together and you don't know exactly where you are even if you live there.  The park is largely ignored by the zillions of people who live all around it.  It's ...

Cottage Hill School is one of three public and one private schools located just outside the gates of Lake of the Pines.  The site is about 10 miles north of Auburn, California and about 15 miles south of Grass Valley, California.  This cluster of schools includes public schools Magnolia Middle an...

No, this article is not about real estate metaphors.  This is about falling on your face while running the trails.  I was going to title it "Tripping, Tripping, Tripping," but I thought that sounded too much like an acid flashback.  So here you go: my three favorite ways of taking a "header" out ...

Warren is a 46 year old bachelor who has rented a condominium at $900 a month for almost 10 years.  He has never owned his own home.  Over the years he has kept his credit clean and managed to scrape together $35,000 that he keeps in a low yield CD. Warren walked into an open house I was holding ...

Buy yourself a little piece of land with a pitiful little creek flowing across it.  You are on your way to becoming a millionaire. There is such a nondescript little creek that meanders along the perimeter of Sierra College in Placer County, California.  How much water flows throught that creek? ...

Lake of the Pines has a good reputation as a bass fishing lake.  You can also catch pan fish and a few catfish, but largemouth bass are the ticket.  The lake has a surface are of about 260 acres with lots of coves.  At the deepest point near the dam, the water is 55-60 feet.  Bass plugs work at c...