Another trip down memory lane in Sacramento with these historic photos.

The rise of modern photography just about coincides with the growth of Sacramento as a city and state capital of California. We have the iconic photographs to prove it. In fact, historians trace the birth of practical photography to 1837, and it grew steadily over the decades through the 19th century before exploding into the mainstream in the 1900s. Sacramento really took off as a gold rush community in the mid 1840s, and took a great step forward as a modern, functional city in the early 20th century. In part one of this blog, we took you on a trip down memory lane in Sacramento with 20 historic photos of the city.  

Here are 20 more photos our beloved Sacramento from yesteryear, spanning from the mid 1800s to the 1970s. 

Whenever possible, we told you where, when, and even why the photo was taken. 

The Crocker Art Museum in 1893. Crocker Art is still iconic in Sacramento today!

In 1972, a small plane crashed into a Sacramento residential neighborhood, tragically killing 22 people as it slammed into Farrell's Ice Cream Parlor.

This is the Sacramento Bee headline the next morning.

The Sacramento residence of Dr. WM Moore in 1900.

The Flagstone Motel on 1530 W. Capitol Avenue in the 1960s.

Front Street in Sacramento in the 1860s - one of the first photographs of Sacramento in existence.

The Sacramento Governor's Mansion in 1907.

The Great Depression of the 1930s hit Sacramento hard, like many western communities and the whole nation. This is a photo of a woman living in the American River Migrant Camp during the Great Depression.

Another shot of a family at the American River Camp in 1936.

The original Guild Theater! Year unknown.

Old Town Sacramento turned into a river for months during the historic floods of 1861-62, which led the city planners to raise most of the downtown streets and establishments.

Levinson's Book Store on K Street around 1924.

Another shot of K Street in the 1940s.

Midtown Sacramento 1920s.

An advertisement for the new Parkway Estates real estate development, which is near Florin Road and Stockton Blvd. By the way, the phone number on the ad is just "2-0621"

J Street Sacramento in the 1900s, including the cable car.

Sacramento Fire Department with horses and carriages!

K Street Sacramento during the snow storm of 1942.

Hotel Berry, downtown Sacramento in the 1920s or 30s. 

A 1950s postcard for the Sacramento "Business District."

Sacramento in the 1840s! 

Sacramento aerial view from 1857. How did they get this shot? Hot air balloon? Or is it just a drawing?

Another photo of K Street during the snowstorm of 1942.

A squatter's camp in Sacramento during the Great Depression.

The Mansion, built in 1877.

The urbanization of Sacramento, as the city grows up and becomes a thriving community.

10 More iconic real estate quotes (with images)

There is no greater ladder to building wealth and stability for generations to come than through real estate ownership. In fact, it's been the American Dream to own a home all throughout our nation's existence. But don't just take our word for it.

In part one of this blog, we memorialized the words and thoughts of great Americans, from Robert Kiyosaki to John D. Rockefeller; Barbara Corcoran to Warren Buffet, on the topic of real estate. 

Here are ten more quotes about real estate from accomplished, famous, and iconic people for you to enjoy.

"The one thing all humans share is that we all inhabit the same limited amount of real estate, which is Planet Earth.” 

-Bjarke Ingels

“In the real estate business you learn more about people, and you learn more about community issues, you learn more about life, you learn more about the impact of government, probably than any other profession that I know of. ”

-Johnny Isakson

“In any market, in any country, there are developers who make money. So I say all of this doom and gloom, but there will always be people who make money, because people always want homes."

-Sarah Beeny 

“Landlords grow rich in their sleep without working, risking or economising."

- John Stuart Mill

“Before you start trying to work out which direction the property market is headed, you should be aware that there are markets within markets." 

-Paul Clitheroe

"I would give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren ground."

-Shakespeare

"Buy on the fringe and wait. Buy land near a growing city! Buy real estate when other people want to sell. Hold what you buy!"

-John Jacob Astor

"Real estate investing, even on a very small scale, remains a tried and true means of building an individual's cash flow and wealth."

-Robert Kiyosaki

"Buy real estate in areas where the path exists and buy more real estate where there is no path, but you can create your own." 

-David Waronker

10 Real Estate Trends to Watch in 2018 (part 2)

2018 is already well underway and that includes the real estate market, as homeowners, sellers, and buyers alike all have critical questions about what the rest of the calendar year will hold.

For the third year in a row now, we've combed the best research by economists, analysts, and experts and summarized it for you with these ten real estate market trends to watch for the rest of 2018 – and beyond. 

In part one of this blog, we covered the first six of these ten trends to watch, so here are the final four (plus, a bonus trend).

Are you thinking about selling your home and moving up to your dream home this year? Finally investing in rental properties? Or maybe selling and downsizing? How will interest rates affect the real estate market?

You'll definitely want to read this so you can make the best, well-informed decision.

7. The GREAT news – experts predict a “soft landing”

Will home appreciation slow in 2018? We certainly hope so.

That may sound contrarian coming from someone that makes their living selling real estate, but the simple truth is that we all still feel the sting from the housing crash and Great Recession, and want to avoid those mistakes at all costs. 

Thankfully, white-hot home appreciation that is based on the "Gold Rush mentality," artificially-low interest rates, and reckless bank lending is a thing of the past.

In today’s real estate cycle, expansion is slowing, which is a completely normal and even healthy process of any market. There are still a whole lot of factors encouraging people to buy homes, as well a few economic fundamentals that point to caution. But that’s the sign of a balanced market, which is always best for everyone. 

Caution, common sense, and the impetus to buy or sell a house ONLY if it’s priced fairly act as parachutes, keeping the housing market from ever falling too quickly. 

And in Sacramento, there are even more factors that point to a home price gains this year, albeit a little bit slower and more measured than the last few years. That should inspire even more consumer confidence that the highs will be rolling hills, not sheer cliffs, and the real estate market will be strong for a long time to come.

8. Housing technology science fact not fiction

We often talk about breakthroughs in new technology for homes and real estate, but it usually applies to space-aged appliances, really cool TVs, and state-of-the-art remotely operated security systems, etc. 

But technology is shooting past luxury amenities and this year, as practical high-tech housing will rule. For instance, the incredible demand for affordable housing (homeownership rates are at an all-time modern low AND rents are rising steadily in most major markets) is pushing companies, investors, and inventors alike to create new solutions. Prefab homes that can be helicoptered in and dropped on location, homes that are 3D printed within one day, and other ingenious home construction advances aren't just a thing of science fiction, but present-day fact.  

Tech evolutions in the luxury marketplace, like sinking floors, shape-shifting walls, and complete automation of every light, door, and system in your home are sure to continue, but technology will really skyrocket when it solves real-world problems for the entire housing market. So,  2018 will be the year we look back and say it was a “tipping point” in that technology. 

9. Inventory better, but still lags

We still don't have enough houses for sale around the country to fulfill the demand, whether new construction or existing homes. In fact, while more projects that were initiated in 2016 and 2017 are finished in 2018 and available for a resident, the inventory shortage still has a long way to go. Somehow, rental prices are surging in most metro markets at that same time as home prices because of this shortage, and that double-edged sword is especially true in the Sacramento area.

Of course, no one could have anticipated the additional home shortage caused by the myriad natural disasters we suffered through in 2017. In some cities and states around the country, millions of homes were lost – for both owners and renters – due to flooding, tornados, wildfires, etc.

But the need for housing also presents incredible opportunities for landlords, investors, savvy homeowners, and even first-time buyers who put in the time and work to find the right home in 2018.

10. Tax bill shakeup

No matter where you sit on the political spectrum, the recent passing of a historic tax bill still poses more questions than it does answers. Will a rising economic tide “lift all boats” – including the real estate market? Did saving (although capping) the Mortgage Interest Deduction make it a non-factor for homeowners? Or, will the sting from new property tax rules further slow homeownership rates? We’ll find out in 2018!

Bonus trend:

Interest rate roundup

In part one of this blog, we pointed to a possible interest rate “nudge” this year, as we predicted 30-year mortgage rates settle somewhere between 4% and 4.5% this year. Since writing that only 45 days ago, guess what happened? As predicted, rates are already hair higher than we enjoyed in 2017, but rates are still FANTASTIC if you view them through a long-term lens. 

Just as important, banks will continue to ease lending standards and loosen their guidelines as the economy bustles, making homeownership a reality and more affordable for tens of millions of Americans. 

2018 is already turning out to be a great year to buy or sell a home!

The Evolution of City Planning in America.

“A city should be built to give its inhabitants security and happiness.”- Aristotle

Way back when America was still a smattering of outposts and colonies, not even a country yet, little conscious thought went into planning towns. The first settlements, such as Jamestown, Boston, and New Amsterdam, followed no systematic design.

However, as early as 1638, the first evidence of modern town planning was seen in New Haven, Connecticut. In the birthplace of the Yale University campus, New Haven featured nice large squares of common areas carefully arranged in rows of three (still to this day called the “New Haven Green”). With a church in its center and business and government buildings on its perimeter, this layout became the standard for planning many subsequent Colonial towns.

These common greens, wide streets, canals within the city, etc. served two other important purposes. Too often, densely packed and ill-planned population centers in the 19^th century were susceptible to the spread of fires and also disease, but modern planners were wise enough to create buffer zones to help contain both. 

Thereafter, cities were expected to offer solutions to social problems – not just cause them.

City planning took a step forward in 1748, when an architect named Giambattista Nolli was the first to map out an entire city, including streets, parks, common areas, and important buildings, from a bird's eye view with no central focal point – called the Nolli Map.

The task of preparing for the growth of cities soon spawned a new field: city planner, as well as organizations and groups meant to empower its members. In fact, the American City Planning Institute was formed in 1917, and The American Society of Planning Officials in 1934.

In the 1800s and the first part of the 20^th century, cities were built fairly haphazardly, with communities springing forth in a spiraling outward pattern without rhyme or reason. However, the advent of steel in construction changed all of that in the 20^th century, with industrialists taking advantage.

Soon, cities were being built upwards towards the sky, with a focus on population density – not growing outwards. In major cities like New York and Chicago, skyscrapers exploded towards the heavens, with banks, department stores, theaters, and office buildings following suit.

Suddenly, the concept of city planning was no longer a two-dimensional task envisioned at ground level, but in 3-D with the element of altitude. For instance, newly laid streets had to adhere to the Setback Principle, developed by architect Hugh Ferriss in 1916. Streets had to be 50' to 100' wide in order to accommodate wider and taller skyscrapers, following a standard ratio of 11:2 (height to street width).

To service the growing number of new workers who needed to access these centralized downtowns, mass transit evolved, too. Most people that worked and played in the city centers no longer lived there, but commuted in from “streetcar suburbs,” which were new subdivisions laid as an extension of the downtown grid and sold parcel by parcel to homeowners, developers, and businesses.

In response to the rapidly over-crowded new cities, iconic architect and designer Frank Lloyd Wright was perhaps one of the fathers of the modern suburb. He took the model for the urban grid and transposed it into the countryside, planning structured and aligned communities where each family had exactly one acre of land.

Likewise, urban planner Le Corbusier wanted to solve the issue of overcrowding in cities by building mass housing up, not out, and his ideas became a major influence in designing high-rise public housing decades later.

Through the 1950s and 60s, architect Kevin Lynch looked to plan cities not from a top-down approach, but considering the actual experiences of regular people and inhabitants within the city. This bottom-up approach to city planning changed the landscape of blossoming metropolisis forever after.

In 1961, city planner Jean Gottamn also started considering a new phenomenon among cities – “megaregions.” He was one of the first to think about cities not as individual self-sustaining units, but within the context of other mega population centers in the region. Therefore, issues of transportation, the economy, and the environment were considered on a regional or multi-city perspective.

A renowned city planner named Andres Duany expressed his vision for the next era of urban planning in 2000 with his "Transect" approach. These take the traditional grid system but section it off into six zones, each progressively more green and less urban. Starting with SD (Special District, then T6 (Urban Core), the Transect continue with T5 (Urban Center), T4 (General Urban), T3 (Sub-Urban), T2 (Rural), and then T1 (Natural).

You know which city follows this general outline, although unwittingly? Sacramento has its Old Town as the Special District, downtown giving way to midtown, and then more rural and green East Sacramento and wooded campus of Sacramento State.

So what’ss the future of city planning? Smart cities that are walkable or easy to navigate via public transport, integrate urban forests and plenty of green areas, and are equipped with usable smart technology are on the horizon.

Look for part two of this blog where we cover the advances in technology, environmental control, and planning that will go into our smart cities of the near future.