VA Mortgage Loans in Kensington CA and 100% VA Loans - the best loan program in the country! Designed for both active duty military and honorable discharged Veterans, VA Mortgage Loans are one of the best mortgage loan programs available today. Here are some of the highlights of this incredible program: - 100% financing, no down payment required. - Monthly mortgage insurance is not tacked on to your payment. - Easier credit qualifying compared to other types of mortgage loans. - VA Mortgage Rates are low compared to other types of home loans. So how do you qualify for a VA Mortgage Loan in Kensington CA? First of all, you must verify your eligibility. You can verify eligibility by ordering your Certificate of Eligibility or COE. A Kensington CA VA loan lender can order your COE quickly ... 08/12/2014

For a marketing campaign I'm working on, I setup a "hyper-local" web site, www.kensingtondigs.com that is all about a very small, unincorporated town near me, Kensington, CA. As part of becoming the local Kensington real estate expert, every day, I wake up and review all the various "for sale" and "for rent" properties in (or very near) Kensington. You can see the results of this work at: http://www.jibebuy.com/lists/pj/kensington-homes-for-sale http://www.jibebuy.com/lists/pj/kensington-homes-for-rent Also, I'm using a WordPress extension to pull the listing data into my hyper-local web site: http://www.kensingtondigs.com/ (scroll to the bottom) http://www.kensingtondigs.com/?page_id=31 OK, so at this point, I really do feel like the jedi of Kensington residential real estate. And, wit... 07/22/2014

I'm working on a new project called KensingtonDigs. The site is still a work in progress, but, eventually, it will be a web site that demonstrates how to use Jibebuy to help crowdsource blog content and promote real estate web sites. But, in the meantime, in the process of buildling what is effectively a real estate web site, I'm thinking a lot about what type of content a potential real estate buyer might really want to find when they land on a web site. The other day, I had one of those "shower thoughts" that maybe people new to an area would want to read about what it would really be like live there. So, I wrote this new post "A Typical Day in Kensington" about a hypothetical family living out a typical day in Kensington, CA.  I've been at this long enough to know that sometimes, my ... 07/19/2014

VA Mortgage Loans in Kensington California and 100% financing on VA Loans - the best loan program and loan payment in the country! VA Mortgage Loans are one of the best mortgage loan programs available today for both honorably discharged Vets and active duty military personnel. Here are some of the highlights of this incredible program: - Up to 100% financing, with no down required. - No monthly mortgage insurance added to your payment. - Compared to other types of mortgage loans, easier credit-qualifying requirements. - Low fixed mortgage rates result in a low monthly payment.   Here's how to qualify for a VA Mortgage Loan in Kensington California: The first step is to verify your eligibility. This is done by ordering your Certificate of Eligibility or COE. An approved Kensington Calif... 05/06/2014

  On this of all days, we celebrate the simple joys of life: heirloom tomatoes, cling peaches, blackberries, sweet corn. . . . and community. Visiting a farmers’ market provides the pleasures of top-quality products with the added satisfaction of talking with the vendors, hearing their stories and details about their products. The aromas and the sounds are vibrant. You feel part of a community, rather than just being an isolated shopper. One of my favorite ways to spend time on a Sunday morning, before heading off for an open house, is to visit the Kensington Farmers Market. It’s small but has everything I usually want: great coffee from Catahoulie (I use their Butkus or Lola for espresso). There are always several great fruit and veggie options. And this past week I enjoyed speaking wi... 09/11/2011

As you drive north on the Arlington (past my house!) you will come around a curve and suddenly you're in a different village. In fact, you've also crossed into a different county, from Alameda in Contra Costa. And you've also crossed from a City with a very bureaucratic city government, to a town run by a community council. A strong sense of community pride blends here with great views and an abundance of trees to create a tranquil place to call home.   This is Kensington, CA, named after the London borough of South Kensington, the home of one of the original surveyors of the area. Here one immediately gets a sense of this being an "old fashion" small town, and it is indeed small, with a population of roughly 5,000. You're welcomed by a town sign, installed several years ago by the Kens... 03/27/2010

              We saw some really nice homes on tour today in Kensington, CA. One of my favorites is the one shown above, and just minutes from the shops along Arlington Blvd. This home is located in a park like setting and has a small creek in the front yard. The architecture is rustic and comtemporary home, featuring vaulted ceilings, two fireplaces, five bedrooms, and three bathrooms. This home is priced to sell just below $750,000.  To view this home, or other fine Kensington homes, contact me. And winding our way back down the hill, we saw this fence and could not resist stopping to admire the beautiful stone work. This stone mason is truly a craftsman and even left plenty of space around the trees so they could continue to grow freely and naturally.   02/11/2010

I was actually surprised the other day when co-worker and fellow agent Ron Palmer brought into the office a copy of the Mark Wilson Book A Living Legacy: walking tours of East Bay Architecture. I looked in the index and looked up my favorite architect William Raymond Yelland.The usual suspects were there, Normandy Village on Spruce and The Tupper & Reed building on Shattuck. A third listing was in the index.As it turned out, a building I had long suspected as being a Yelland was actually confirmed in the pages of this book.  The building is the Pharmacy building in Kensington and the little cafe next to it "Inn Kensington".Back in the 1920s through the 1940's Yelland designed the entire neighborhood shopping district in a complex that was called collectively as the "Kensignton Neighborh... 04/07/2008

 A while ago I blogged about how W.R. Yelland's very own home which was a foreclosed property and in dire need of someone to rescue it from it's very distressed state.  The home located at 829 Coventry in Kensington, done in Cape Cod style which was rare for Yelland.  He was most noted for his storybook Normandy revival styles.Jim Jewell and Sean Steer of Bee Renovated purchased the home and in a matter of months transformed this property back into the gem it had once been.Bee Renovated works on flipping the higher end properties in Piedmont, Bekeley and Kensington in the Berkeley Hills.Their first property was in my very own neighborhood in San Leandro. That property located at 555 Diehl Avenue is on the next block from my home on Superior Avenue.  It just goes to show that San Leandro... 04/03/2008

I wanted to share with you the photograph that Robert Yelland sent to me of the architect William Raymond Yelland and his wife Edna.  Thanks Rob (btw if you need a great veteranarian doctor for your pet, go see Robert Yelland at this office on Lewelling Avenue in San Leandro)William Raymond and his wife Edna lived on Coventry Drive in Kensington in a home that he originally designed for his in-laws.It's a little Cape Cod styled home, something you wouldn't expect from him, if all you knew from him was his storybook style and Normandy Styled homes and buildings.  The home just sold in December from foreclosure.  I need to wait for the new owners to move in and tell them of the important nature of their home, having a home designed by Yelland, but also being the residence of the architect... 01/22/2008