DCG Blog

PITTSBURG, Calif. (May 19, 2010) – Northern California Community Development (NCCD), a non-profit headed by Bishop Jerry Macklin of Glad Tidings Church in Hayward, CA and focused on providing affordable housing alternatives for struggling communities in the San Francisco Bay Area, has successfully closed its first transaction under its new affordable homes initiative. Partnering with Chase Bank, NCCD rolled out a full-service program where qualified low-income home buyers can purchase affordable homes throughout the Bay Area.

Read the entire press release

HAYWARD, Calif. (May 6, 2010) – Dutra-Cerro-Graden, Inc. (DCG), the Bay Area's leading Church Real Estate Development & Broker, has expanded its services by introducing a church lending division. DCG principals Dominic Dutra, Alan Cerro and Landis Graden recognized that churches need more than just brokerage and development expertise. The new division, Church Loans, is led by seasoned loan specialists and offers churches, religious institutions, non-profits, schools and other mission-based organizations full service financing options and support.

Read the entire press release.

Today, investors large and small are looking to purchase real estate at discounted rates (especially compared to the last decade). As people and businesses continue to struggle while defaulting and leaving their properties, investors are presented with buying opportunities that will be looked back upon with either regret or as a stroke of genius.

The Sisters of the Holy Family, a community of Roman Catholic Sisters who reside at 159 Washington Blvd. in the Mission San Jose area of Fremont, commonly known as Palmdale, recently decided to seek out proposals for the preservation of approximately 9.16 acres of their 14.82 acre grounds.

In making the recent announcement, Gladys Guenther, President of the Sisters of the Holy Family, made clear that while the Sisters are open to looking at all options, they are resolute in their desire to preserve the land, vegetation, historic buildings and shrines/grottos in as close as possible to their current serene state.

Visit http://palmdale.dcgdev.com for more details.

A Strategic Alliance is defined as “a formal relationship between two or more parties to pursue a set of agreed upon goals or to meet a critical business need.”

This has special resonance for me and my new company, Dutra Cerro Graden, because after spending over 10 years at Dutra Realty, where we rose to become the top ranked residential real estate firm in the East Bay before selling to Prudential California Realty, I never thought I would start another company. And yet here I am, having formed a relationship between myself, Alan Cerro and Landis Graden to pursue a “set of agreed upon goals” in order “to meet a critical business need.” For us, this need is defined in our Mission Statement.

We’ve now been together for almost four years and our business is flourishing in the midst of an unprecedented economic downturn.

So what has made this Strategic Alliance so successful?

One reason for our success is that we hold a shared vision to which we are deeply committed to “Create Communities of Value™.” We believe that non-profit social service agencies, cultural institutions, religious organizations, schools, cities and other “mission-based” entities form the very foundation of our society. We are convinced that we can bring real property services to these clients to help them flourish in their respective missions and, in doing so, assure that we continue to have true Communities of Value.

I am convinced that for any strategic alliance to be successful, it must create a vision and a culture that inspires people and is shared by the members of the alliance. This is true whether the alliance is between partners in a company or between multiple organizations, businesses, and agencies.

The second reason for our success is that the desire to “Create Communities of Value™” extends to the very culture of our company. Throughout my career I've found that truly successful people and companies are those that understand the importance of what I call the two "C's” - competence and conscientiousness. We believe in each other’s competence and we care about each other’s success. We don’t want to let each other down.

So, as we seek to build Strategic Alliances with other related entities such as architects, engineers and general contractors, our FIRST order of business is to ensure that they share our commitment to making our communities a better place to live. And while we are certainly cognizant of our need to meet our financial obligations – and we do - we measure success by the extent to which we succeed in our vision of “Creating Communities of Value™."

Conservation easements are one of the least known and most powerful conservation and charitable planning tools available to California landowners. A conservation easement is a permanent legal agreement by which a property owner voluntarily donates, or sells, his or her development rights to a qualified conservation organization, otherwise known as a Land Trust.

The landowners and the land trust work together to develop the conservation easement language that will accomplish the landowner’s goals and satisfy the requirements of the IRS. There can also be flexibility within the document to provide the landowner with specific rights. For example, a landowner can reserve the right to construct homes, or commercial buildings, on a certain part of the land. Or a portion of the land could simply not be subject to the easement. Of course, these decisions impact the value of the easement.

The value of the easement is determined by a qualified appraiser who appraises the property before and after the proposed donation, or sale, of the conservation easement. The difference between the two appraisals is the value of the easement. It is, in essence, the value attached to the loss of the right to develop on the property. The more rights, to the property, that are given up the more valuable the easement. For example, assume that the fair market value of a property, without a conservation easement, is $2 million to a developer who would subdivide the land and sell lots or completed homes. If the property were subject to a conservation easement, that prohibited residential construction, the value might drop to $1 million. The value of the conservation easement in this example would be $1 million. This is also the amount from which income tax, and estate tax, deductions would be based.

When the conservation easement language and the value are established, the transfer of the easement progresses as a typical transfer of real property interest. After the transaction, the landowner maintains all other rights to the property and may sell, bequest or encumber the property subject to the easement.Conservation easements are used by landowners interested in the stewardship of open space. Every easement is a unique, and tailored, agreement between the landowner and a qualified conservation organization that serves the dual purpose of preserving land as well as providing attractive income tax and estate planning benefits to the landowner. Additional tax savings can be realized if the landowner donates the land itself to a charitable organization. In some cases, depending on the landowners’ income and estate tax bracket, these tax advantages can equal the value of the conservation easement that is “given up.”

Please view a few hypothetical examples (PDF download) of the income and estate tax benefits that could potentially be derived from a conservation easement. Any interested party should seek their own tax and legal counsel and should NOT base their decision upon the information enclosed or attached. The examples are for illustrative purposes only.

Our firm is currently marketing for sale a large open space property on Hecker Pass Road just outside of Watsonville CA. The Land Trust of Santa Cruz County has confirmed their willingness to sponsor Hecker Pass Road for the donation of a conservation easement.