How bad is the news coming from DataQuick? The real estate analytics firm  released their data for July 2011 last month and the story is not good. It’s difficult, however, to determine just now “not good” it is. By the time the data gets to the average citizen it’s been filtered through a media hell-bent on sticking to the point – and the point is that it’s “not good.” The problem with data-based analyses of the housing market is that they’re limited by sample size. What might shed light on the performance of a large region -- the 5,096 homes sold in the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area …

It’s a very small thing, almost completely overlooked by local media and far beneath the radar of everyday citizens. In fact, by the time you read this it could be gone, voted out of existence by a pragmatic group of Fairfax leaders at the June town council meeting. Make no mistake, however; the call in Fairfax to begin assessing individual Realtors an annual business license fee did not go unnoticed by the Marin Association of Realtors. The response from the association was direct: “The Marin Association of Realtors opposes efforts to impose a business license tax on real estate sales people…

Because we sometimes get blindsided by the plans of government bureaucracy, because we often feel like we already pay too much to live here, because we like to have things to be outraged about, right now the local citizenry is rallying itself and its leaders in opposition to a rate hike proposed by the Ross Valley Sanitary District. Citing budget shortages caused by everything from tax revenue decreases to a reduction in rates to San Quentin, the Sanitary District plans to increase sewage rates by up to 60 percent via existing state law. While it’s easy to write this off as "Larkspur’s …

While it may seem that, two-plus years into the post-bubble economy, no one knows anything, there are some encouraging signs in the housing market. Sometimes, they come disguised as bad news. Our brave new world demands that we stop using the traditional paradigm of data analysis – the median price – to assess the present state of the real estate market. Our trained response, when The Wall Street Journal tells us that “prices declined in 28 major metropolitan areas tracked during the fourth quarter (of 2010) when compared to a year earlier,” is to start looking for the nearest cliff. In …

It was the kind of minor story that blows up in the face of a small town. Late last Saturday night, as a couple hundred hip-hop fans milled about Fairfax after the Too $hort show at 19 Broadway, 24-year-old San Anselmo resident Thomas Keating got into a scrap with a 54-year-old Fairfax resident, knocking him unconscious. Keating was so amped up, police say, that he continued to wale on his opponent even after Fairfax police officer Rico Tabaranza told him to stop. In all, police made six arrests for alcohol-related lunacy over a period of four hours. Neither Keating nor his vanquished …

This week, California is in an uproar over the new governor's proposed budget, which cuts extensively from nearly every department. But, from laid-back Fairfax the sound is a distant whistle, no more relevant to the locals than political machinations in Bolivia. The story’s the same in San Anselmo. This time, the two Ross Valley towns can just watch from the sidelines. What’s all the fuss? Incoming governor Jerry “Don’t Call Me Moonbeam” Brown has submitted a proposed budget that includes eliminating Redevelopment Agencies statewide. Forget that for the plan to work, the state government …

They are twins, connected by the stretch of Sir Francis Drake Boulevard that divides the tony east end of Ross Valley from the wilds of West Marin. To the real estate world, they are almost exactly alike, both shining examples of affordability in Marin. This is a relative term, of course; while San Anselmo and Fairfax are "affordable" by Marin standards, they still both rate a nod on Forbes.com's list of 500 most expensive towns in the U.S. But they were bottom-feeders on the list, ranking 267th and 446th, respectively. Neighbors Ross (ranked 30th) and Kentfield (#62) simply look west and …