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What’s up with mortgage rates? Jeff Lazerson of Mortgage Grader in Laguna Niguel gives us his take.

Rate news summary

From Freddie Mac’s weekly survey: The 30-year fixed averaged 4.40 percent, up 2 basis points from last week’s 4.38 percent, marking the seventh straight week of rising rates. The 15-year fixed averaged 3.85 percent, 1 basis point higher than last week’s 3.84 percent.

The Mortgage Bankers Association reported a 6.6 percent decrease in loan application volume from the previous week.

Bottom line: Assuming a borrower gets the average 30-year fixed rate on a conforming $453,100 loan, last year’s rate of 4.16 percent and payment of $2,205 was $64 less than this week’s payment of $2,269.

What I see: Locally, well-qualified borrowers can get the following fixed-rate mortgages at one point cost: A 15-year at 3.625 percent, a 30-year at 4.125 percent, a 15-year agency high-balance ($453,101 to $679,650) at 3.875 percent, a 30-year agency high-balance at 4.375 percent, a 15-year jumbo (over $679,650) at 4.375 percent and a 30-year jumbo at 4.50 percent.

What I think: Borrowers get bogged down in title trouble more often than you think.

That is, asking a lender or title insurer to publicly record ownership in an improper or even impossible way. It’s always at its scariest when these challenges are discovered in the middle of a purchase or refinance transaction.

The worst is when a borrower wants financing for an irrevocable trust. It may start out as a revocable trust between a husband and wife, for example. Dad dies. His half of the home, goes into an irrevocable trust. Mom eventually dies. Now the entire trust is irrevocable.

It’s almost impossible to find a lender to make a loan in the name of deceased individuals because a dead person can’t be foreclosed on for non-payment.

If the executor changes the title to get out of an irrevocable trust, there could be tax implications.

I recently had this very situation. We asked a lender to review the irrevocable trust documents ahead of time, knowing it was potentially a big problem.

The trustee was the credit borrower. The new loan involved proceeds from a 1031 exchange — a previous sale with a tight deadline to close the new sale — that had a deceased parent remaining on title in an irrevocable trust. The lender mistakenly signed off during the pre-approval process.

The escrow officer put a screeching halt to this at closing, pointing out that the county recorder’s office won’t accept a signature page that has a blank page where the dead parent’s signature was supposed to go.

The problem was solved when the lender agreed to remove the decedent’s blank signature page.

What happens when a property intended for a trust was not formally transferred to the trust?

This is commonplace, said Glenn Awerkamp, title manager at Lawyers Title. It takes a court process called a Heggstad Petition to get this resolved. The filing seeks a court order declaring that the property is a trust asset even though the title never formally got transferred to the trust.

“Parents sometimes attempt to put minor children on title in case something happens to (them),” said Awerkamp. “This requires probate court permission because it can’t be assumed the parent is also the guardian.”

Probate court also has to approve the power of transaction custodianship when parents with wealthy children (successful child stars, for example) buy, sell and refinance properties.

I am often asked if it’s best to put residential rental properties in a limited liability company or LLC for liability protection — against mold, for example.

A better solution could be to get insurance for liability protection, said Wendy Holt of Rancho Cucamonga-based Holt Insurance Agency.

“Some insurance policies do cover mold property damage and liability,” Holt said. And, you can get an umbrella policy for additional protection.

Irvine-based tax attorney Rod Stern gave another reason to avoid LLC’s for residential rentals: The burdensome $1,500 annual LLC fees and maintenance costs.

Stern advises property owners to do an estate plan ahead to prevent potential title and tax trouble down the road.

Jeff Lazerson can be reached at (949) 334-2424 or jlazerson@mortgagegrader.com His website is www.mortgagegrader.com.

FULLERTON – A judge re-sentenced a drunk driver on Thursday to two years in prison after an appeals court overruled his efforts to stiffen the sentencing after learning a prosecutor had failed to give the victim’s family a chance to talk in court.

Jorge Perez, 31, was ordered to serve the two years in prison he was initially sentenced to, rather than the four years, four months behind bars he was offered after the original deal was revoked.

In the early morning hours of Jan. 28, 2017, Perez ran a red light at Associated Road and Yorba Linda Boulevard and struck Jessica Weber, now 20, who was walking with a group of friends back to the Cal State Fullerton dorms. Perez drove off but was quickly caught by police.

Weber’s family members, who live in Sacramento, were told by the initial prosecutor that they would be notified before the sentencing.

The Orange County District Attorney’s Office has acknowledged that a new prosecutor took over the case and inadvertently failed to notify the family of a hearing where Perez accepted a deal offered by Superior Court Judge Scott Steiner.

Weber’s family was angered, wanting a chance to persuade the judge to give Perez a longer sentence. Steiner agreed to unwind the deal, declaring that the initial plea had been “improperly entered” because the family had a right to be heard.

State appeals judges determined that taking away the initial deal was improper, and ordering Steiner to re-sentence Perez to no more than the two years.

During the re-sentencing hearing on Thursday, Weber’s mother, Bonnie Masters-Weber, told the judge that her daughter still lives with pain from the accident, when she suffered three broken vertebrae, broken pelvis, broken hip and broken arm.

Masters-Weber told the court that she was inspired by the attention the case has brought to victim’s rights.

“I urge this court to continue this path, taking the lead among his peers so the criminals and the victims are treated lawfully,” Masters-Weber said. “That no longer will criminals have the upper hand in dealings because there was no one to protect victims’ rights.”

Aliso Niguel’s girls basketball team cooled off one of the hottest teams in the Southern Section in the Division 2 quarterfinals Wednesday night.

And even accomplished the feat on the road.

Senior Madelyn Brauer scored the Wolverines’ final four points off steals by Abby Miller and Sarah Matossian to help visiting Aliso Niguel edge host and second-seeded Camarillo, 53-52, to reach its first semifinal.

The South Coast League champion Wolverines (19-7) will play host on Saturday night to third-seeded Lynwood, a 58-47 winner against JSerra in another quartefinal Wednesday. Tip-off will be at 7 p.m.

Camarillo (25-3) had won 20 consecutive games before being derailed by Coach Lindsey Sundin’s squad.

Brauer, a senior guard, led Aliso Niguel with 16 points and five assists while sophomore post Catherine Swanson added 10 points and nine rebounds.

In Division 3AA:

Oxford Academy 55, La Salle 50: Junior center Austyn Masuno racked up 24 points, 16 rebounds, five blocks and five assists to lead the host and top-seeded Patriots (28-1) to the semifinals for the third consecutive season.

Oxford will play host to Flintridge Prep in the semifinals Saturday night.

La Salle’s Julia Macabuhay scored 33 points, including 24 of her team’s 26 points in the second half.

In Division 5AA:

Anaheim 51, Fillmore 47:  Senior Shawnee Covarrubias scored 13 points, junior Eileen Sanchez had 11 and sophomore Jayleena Perez added 10 to lead the host and second-seeded Colonists into Saturday’s semifinals.

Anaheim plays at St. Pius X-St. Matthias Academy in the semifinals.

Airbnb on Thursday unveiled new luxury options and added benefits for its most frequent users — both landlords and travelers — including a new “Super Guest” program set to roll out this summer.

Over the course of the year, the home-sharing company’s highest-rated hosts, dubbed “Super Hosts,” will get access to new perks including personalized URLs for their listings and discounts on smart home products from vendors like Nest, CEO Brian Chesky told a crowd of Airbnb users and media in San Francisco. When the Super Guest program gets off the ground later this year, it will offer 10,000 guests access to special benefits such as airport pickup and exclusive activities.

Chesky also introduced new categories that will allow travelers to search for homes that have specific features, such as a rustic home with a balcony that is owned by a musician. They will also let people find homes that are best for certain types of trips, whether they are traveling for work or traveling with family.

Chesky also unveiled a new “Airbnb Plus” option, which offers an array of homes he called “insanely nice.”

The news is the latest attempt by Airbnb to diversify its product offerings and transform what was once a scrappy startup into a mature company with staying power and the ability to eventually go public. At the same time, Airbnb also is struggling with regulatory setbacks. In San Francisco, for example, after initially fighting city officials, Airbnb in May agreed to kick hosts off the platform if they didn’t register with the city — a practice the company put into place at the beginning of this year.

It was just over a year ago that Airbnb first branched beyond its trademark home-sharing platform with the launch of Experiences, a portal that lets travelers book activities led by local residents. Earlier this month, Airbnb tapped Belinda Johnson as its first chief operating officer, elevating her from her former role as chief business affairs and legal officer. Last month Airbnb appointed its first independent board member — former American Express CEO Ken Chenault. And Airbnb, which, like most startups, has been tight-lipped about its financials in the past, has promised to provide greater transparency by releasing its first annual stakeholder report in March.

The changes are part of Airbnb’s long-term strategy, which Chesky laid out in a recent blog post.

“We think that a company should survive to see the next century, not just the next quarter,” he wrote. “A 21st-century company should eventually become a 22nd-century company.”

Despite its focus on Airbnb’s future, Thursday’s event also echoed Airbnb’s flashy November 2016 unveiling of Experiences in Los Angeles. There, in a bold move that signaled Airbnb was no longer threatening just hotels, but had shifted its target to the entire travel industry, Chesky explained how travelers can use the Airbnb platform to book exotic activities not found in any guidebook.

Over the next year, the program expanded from 500 experiences in 12 cities to more than 5,000 experiences in 58 markets around the world — including a Salsa dancing lesson in Havana, a visit to a wolf sanctuary outside of Seattle, and the opportunity to learn hatmaking in New York City. Experiences is growing more quickly than the initial home-sharing platform did, with more than 10 times the number of bookings as homes had at this stage in its growth, according to Airbnb.

And it’s on the verge of making the company money. The Experiences feature is on track to be profitable by the end of 2019, said Airbnb spokesman Nick Papas.

All the changes have spurred buzz about a potential upcoming Airbnb IPO. But Chesky quelled those rumors earlier this month, saying would-be investors will have to wait at least a year until they can get their hands on a piece of the company.

“Let me address this directly,” he wrote in a company blog post. “We are not going public in 2018…We’re working on getting ready to go public and we will make decisions about going public on our own timetable.”

In light of a national teenage-suicide epidemic, the Aliso Viejo City Council unanimously passed a resolution that would formally declare the city’s intent to do all it can to prevent suicide.

At this juncture, that means spreading awareness by providing outreach information, such as a 24-7 lifeline, via the city’s website, cityofalisoviejo.com.

This resolution sprung from a recent conversation Mayor David Harrington had with his three kids, one junior and two sophomores at Aliso Niguel High School.

“What I’m asking for with this resolution, first of all, is the recognition that (suicide) is a problem,” Harrington said during the Wednesday, Feb. 21 council meeting. “We need to do more as a city.”

Suicide is the second-leading cause of death for Americans ages 10-14 and 15-24, according to a 2016 report by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Nationwide, suicide among all age groups has been increasing at a 1 percent rate since 1999. That rate increased to 2 percent every year since 2006.

“Talk to your kids. Don’t assume that they’re not listening to you because they’re not looking at you. My kids got beats by dre, they’ve got their iPhones –– it’s tough to talk to them sometimes,” Harrington said. “Just talk to them. You are their foundation.”

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255.

In other news, Harrington granted a certificate of recognition to the Aliso Niguel High School’s marching band, color guard and drumline for prestigious consecutive wins last November at the Southern California School Band and Orchestra Association Championships.

In competition with 30 to 40 other 3A-Division teams, ANHS qualified in the top 12, then continued on to win the conference by four points.

“It’s the highest spread ever in history of Southern California marching band championships,” ANHS Director of Bands David Wineberg said.

This feat punctuated their undefeated season.

Site development at St. Mary’s School

The council unanimously voted to adopt a resolution that permits site development plans at St. Mary’s School. The plans outline the replacement of two modular buildings with a larger, permanent structure and a security guardhouse with new gates and fencing among additional minor alterations.

Entitlements with funding constraints have recently expired, which is why the request is being revisited, said City Clerk Mitzi Ortiz.

This decision excluded Councilmember William Phillips and Mayor Pro Tem Ross Chun due to their personal concerns of potential conflict of interest or perception of a conflict of interest.

The permit was granted, contingent upon the school’s compliance to not increase the original student capacity by more than 25 percent.

Master fee schedule

City council approved a recommended action to update the city’s Master Fee Schedule, a record of cost and services provided by the city for residents and customers, in an attempt to close the cost-to-revenue gap.

The action will “consolidate and streamline fees across all city functions,” said Ryan Smith, senior accountant to the city.

Currently, the cost is being subsidized by general fund monies. The service fees fund programs such as building planning and street improvement projects.

For residents, this revision will increase the building permit and plan check fees by an estimated 9 percent, effective July 1, and will offset actual costs by 25 percent.

“To be clear,” Smith said. “We’re in not any way profiting off of these fees. We’re just trying to recoup our costs.”

Next meeting

The next Aliso Viejo City Council meeting will be 7 p.m. Wednesday, March 7 at City Hall, 12 Journey, Unit 100.

The storied Flag Jacket and the cropped vest Les Copains introduced in the Sixties are back for the fall season, rejuvenated by creative director Stefania Bandiera in a single-breasted version and with luxurious embellishments, respectively. Bandiera looked back to French actress Capucine for inspiration but she stayed true to the brand’s core knitwear tradition, showing a rich lineup of oversize, soft cardigans and long, fringed scarves that looked perfect for the drizzle and the sudden drop in temperatures in Milan. Jewels and sparkly details lit up ribbed knits while other sweaters had crocheted cupids to further emphasize the expertise in the brand’s bread and butter craft. A standout was an A-lined baby alpaca coat with multicolor stripes in ivory, black, camel and turquoise with asymmetric closure. Shapes were soft and fluid, made for cozying up on a cold winter day.

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Embracing a dark, rock ‘n’ roll aesthetic, Manuel Facchini delivered a sexy lineup for women who like to be in the spotlight. Inspired by fractals, abstract objects showing the same patterns at increasingly small and big scales, he decorated embroidered and sequined metallic minidresses, bomber jackets and hoodies with geometric motifs. Quilted leather pieces, including a matelassé jacket and a mini skirt, were enriched with metallic hardware, while logo elastic bands gave a sporty touch to an asymmetric gold Lurex gown.

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Loro Piana has been evolving quickly under chief executive officer Fabio d’Angelantonio, whose team has been injecting much-needed shots of youth into this heritage brand best known for its cashmere and alpaca fabrics.
There was a sporty edge to the fall collection, with contrasting stripes slicked along the edges of long capes with ribbed necks, and a lot of cashmere tracksuits — the latter fast becoming the twinset of the 21st century. Loro Piana also put its own luxury spin on that universal wardrobe staple, denim, crafting it from a mix of cashmere linen and silk for a fur-lined jacket and wide-leg trousers.
The palette buzzed with a youthful energy, too. Gone were the classic neutrals of days past, and in their place was a rainbow of pastels and brights — a radical move for such a traditional company. Shades ranged from duck egg blue for a lightweight fisherman sweater, to malachite green for a boxy turtleneck, and ballet slipper pink for a topcoat. Footwear, too, was on point — and luxurious — with beaver-lined sneakers and suede boots with cashmere on the inside.
“It’s a beautiful brand — we just have to let it flourish,” said d’Angelantonio, who was wrapped up in a soft,

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Wrong proportions, distressed details and layering were among the fashion tricks that Erika Cavallini used to inject a cool twist into her lineup.
There was a vintage feel running through the collection, which resembled a wardrobe rescued from oblivion and readjusted with a contemporary filter.
Cavallini’s signature sartorial style emerged in the range of oversize suits — their mannish attitude softened by the lingerie-inspired tunics and dresses paired with them.
Roomy coats were crafted from a patchwork of traditional fabrics, including tweed and chevron wool, while an argyle cardigan with destroyed hems was layered over a one-shoulder masculine shirt.
The sober color palette, which was strong on gray, brown and green hues, was refreshed by the lively hot pink tone of a draped silk dress and a pair of velvet trousers matched with a burgundy sweater.

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For fall, Francesca Stoppani Ruffini wanted to find new ways to evolve her pajama-centered For Restless Slippers brand. While her signature elegant and luxurious sets were still there with their fluid silhouettes and sophisticated prints, she showed revamped nightgowns layered under dressing gowns. An Eastern feel was introduced in a Chinese-inspired dress paired with an opulent jacquard floral coat with a Baroque feel, while plush velvet was crafted for a buttoned up robe with contrasting red piping cinched at the waist with a red ribbon.
Playing with fabrics, Stoppani Ruffini created a corduroylike effect by treating printed silk velvet with a devoré technique to deliver textured yet lightweight pieces.
While silhouettes were uncomplicated, she indulged in rich, vibrant prints with a nocturnal feel. Snakes, bees, wolves, flowers and fruits populated the lineup’s patterns for a touch of high-end eccentricity.

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