-August 25,2021-
Home sales market may be cooling
California’s housing market moderated for the third straight month in July with both home sales and prices tempering from the heated market conditions seen over the past year, while still staying above pre-pandemic levels, says the California Association of Realtors this week.
Despite the downward trend, California home sales maintained a solid year-to-date increase of 27.3 percent in July.
“The California housing market continues to normalize from the white-hot conditions we experienced at the height of the pandemic with both sales and prices moderating as we slowly transition from the peak home-buying season into the fall,” said C.A.R. President Dave Walsh.
At the same time he average rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages increased to 3.06% from 2.99% last week.Applications to refinance a home loan, which are highly rate-sensitive, fell 5% last week from the previous week.Mortgage applications to purchase a home fell 2% for the week and 19% lower than a year ago.
In Kings County, the average price of homes sold in July was $320,000 compared to $295,000 in June and $275,000 a year earlier. Sales in July were down 6.3% from June but up 6.3% from a year earlier.
Hanford Grocery Outlet will relocate
The Hanford Grocery Outlet is building a new,16,000sf store at 10th and Fargo and plans to relocate form their existing Downtown location in January .The existing site at 410 West 7th is for lease
Kettleman City will get roundabout
CalTrans is planning to build a $7.7 million roundabout in Kettleman City along Hwy 41 in the middle of the busy retail strip at the intersection of 41 and Bernard Drive . Preliminary traffic studies have shown that all Ward Drive traffic uses the Bernard Drive intersection at State Route 41, causing long queues for U-turns and right and left turns at this signalized intersection. Traffic congestion and resulting delays are more noticeable during weekends and holidays, impeding the signal’s effectiveness and requiring the California Highway Patrol to take control of the intersection to avoid possible accidents and ease traffic congestion. Project construction will start in April 2024 and finish in February 2025.
Hanford reflects global heat record
Warm nights help fuel record day time temps here
Numerous reports say the globe experienced the hottest July on record, a whopping 5.3 degrees above normal in California.It was the latest in a rash of record-setting months over the past year, as the state saw its hottest July, June, October, September and August in history, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. NOAA data indicates that the average monthly temperature in July was 80 degrees, 5.3 degrees above normal, or the average temperature from 1901 to 2000.
Hanford’s NWS office reports Hanford July’s average temp was 85.5 degrees, some 4.4 degrees hotter than average.So far in August, the average is 84.3 degrees, 3.8 degrees warmer than average.
Warm nights are contributing to problems. In July, there were 12 days in the month when night-time lows did not go below 70f.
The warm nights and extreme dry conditions this summer are a one-two punch, fueling another rash of huge wildfires in the state.
Winter cold is welcome in part because it cuts down on the pest population in the valley and in the sierra but warm nights have helped allow an expansion of the beetle population that has ravaged the forest – killing up to 129 million trees – kindling for wildfires.
Fire officials say hotter nights with lower humidity keep fires raging when they used to damp down in the nighttime hours with more extreme wind events that fan the flames. The upshot is fires burning so intensely they create their own self-intensifying fire weather.
The night heat is no friend to agriculture, cutting necessary chill hours for the nut crops, reducing crop yield across the board and drying up-the reservoirs we depend on. Then there is the constant smoke on the valley floor.
Feed technology saves water
Hanford’s River Ranch Dairy is working to further their goal of becoming more sustainable and drought resistant through the adoption of Grōv’s automated indoor feed technology. Under the terms of an agreement River Ranch will purchase an on-premises indoor vertical animal feed production center which will produce fresh Grōv HDN Superfeed™, using less than 5% of the water of traditional farm fields.
Residential solar installations strong here
Residential solar permits in Kings County number 735 so far in 2021, the best year ever. In 2020 there 621 solar permits for rooftop installation pulled by this date. By comparison, in 2014 there were 390 homes permitted that year by this date, who had installed solar panels.
Cattle Grazing Quickly Contains Wildfires
U.S. Department of Agriculture Agricultural Research Service researchers are conducting a large study evaluating a technique called targeted cattle grazing, for creating fuel breaks to help contain wildfire while not causing grazing-related damage to rangeland health.
Targeted grazing uses cattle in the early spring to eat extensive strips of highly flammable cheatgrass down to 2- to 3-inch stubble in strategic places. This reduces the fuel load that can otherwise turn small rangeland fires into megafires in a matter of hours.