FRIDAY - rise and shine

By Studio McGee Salt Lake City - More transitional entryway

- Schedule an appointment to donate blood with the Stanford Blood Center
- To-Dos: Your April Home Checklist
- Does Increase in Home Renovation Plans Suggest People Unwilling To Move?
- Why Aren’t New Homes Going Up That Millennials Can Afford?
- California's economy expected to outpace that of U.S. this year
- Bay Area rent-control fight heats up

- Remake Your Backyard Into a Mini Farm

Enjoy!

Schedule an appointment to donate blood with the Stanford Blood Center - Stanford Blood Center strives to maintain a standard of service excellence in meeting the needs of physicians, and our diverse donor and patient populations.

Location: Campbell Community Bloodmobile, 70 N. 1st St., Campbell, CA 95008

When: 10AM - 3PM, Saturday 4/16/16

Does Increase in Home Renovation Plans Suggest People Unwilling To Move? - Twenty-eight percent of U.S. homeowners plan to remodel, expand, or otherwise improve their homes in the next 12 months, according to the latest Bankrate Money Pulse survey. Even lower-income homeowners are planning to renovate by using savings, credit cards, or bank loans. Some people might just be sprucing up their houses to sell them, but planning big projects seems to indicate many homeowners plan to stay put and finally tackle projects they put off during the recession. About 52 percent of homeowners planning a project over the next year indicate they want to work on their driveways, decks, patios, pools, landscaping, or fencing. One professor commented that the housing crisis forced many people to give up on the idea of buying a big, fancy house, especially since housing prices have risen out of reach.

Why Aren’t New Homes Going Up That Millennials Can Afford? - Hopeful home buyers who have to navigate newly strict lending standards to get the necessary cash for a new home aren’t the only ones facing a hard time to obtain financing. Developers and builders also have had a harder time getting the financing needed to embark on new projects, which limits the amount of new construction. The bulk of residential construction around the country is done by smaller builders who typically go to local lenders such as banks and credit unions for financing. Robert Dietz, chief economist at the National Association of Home Builders, commented, “There are limits to how fast the industry can grow, given the industry has to rebuild its workforce, rebuild the building lots supply, and also have an increased access to lending for builder loans.

California's economy expected to outpace that of U.S. this year - The state’s economy will grow faster this year than the national economy, and unemployment will drop to 5 percent in early 2017, according to a new report by the UCLA Anderson Forecast. In 2016, personal income in California will grow 3.6 percent, compared with 4.5 percent in 2015, the report said. Wages and salaries in the state, not adjusting for inflation, will grow about 5.7 percent this year, according to the projections. That's down from 7.5 percent last year. That means Californians will earn $60 billion more in wages than in 2015. The U.S. economy overall will expand 2.7 percent, according to the report.

Bay Area rent-control fight heats up - San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley have programs that limit rent increases and forbid evictions without cause. Tenant activists argue that cities across Silicon Valley should now adopt such policies.

Remake Your Backyard Into a Mini Farm - You can get a taste of country life by line-drying your laundry, growing some produce or going whole hog with the critters. Some of my favorites: