In this case it should be “How NOT to Stage Your Home”. Matt Pellerin in Phoenix, AZ has a post on his blog about the virtual tour of the year. It seem that another agent in the Phoenix area actually listed a property, took pictures, made a video and uploaded it all to the internet. So what do you think about this.
Last night my wife and I went to the Mall of Georgia and had dinner and did a little shopping. Bear in mind that it is the end of September. Imagine our surprise when we walked into Macy’s and saw Christmas decorations already up. Now, I understand getting ready for the holidays a little early. It’s nice to have things done and ready for the festivites, after all Christmas is one of my favorite times of the year.
I guess we have all heard someone say that it looks like the retailers are getting ready for Christmas earlier and earlier each year. Do you remember when the day after Thanksgiving was so special because you got to see all the decorations that the stores had been concealing. Then we would begin to see decorations toward the middle of November and then the beginning of the month. What’s next, Santa Claus shooting fireworks from his sleigh for the fourth of July? Oops, I probably just gave some marketing guru at Macy’s their next Christmas marketing ploy. Oh well I might as well go ahead and get ready for the after Christmas Sale, it should probably begin about 3 days before Halloween!
As buyer’s in a real estate transaction you owe it to yourself to obtain as much information as possible regarding the area that you may be moving to. The best way to accomplish this is via the internet. Once you have obtained your information it is in your best interest to sit down with an Accredited Buyer’s Agent as recognized by the Real Estate Buyer’s Agent Council. Explain to the agent what your goal is and enter into a confidential discussion of how to best obtain your goal. You will also want to enter into an exclusive buyer broker agreement in writing. As a buyer you have the right to have an agent that represent your interests in the transaction. After all the subdivision agent represents the seller, not you.
It appears that a new home agent in Woodbury Junction New York is attempting to slow down the use of buyer’s agents in this subdivision by challenging the rights of an agent to include information about the subdivision on his website. Why would the agent do this? The main thought that comes to mind would be so that the real estate commission would not have to be shared. Another reason would be that the buyer’s agent site does a better job than the subdivision site.
Happy April 1st everyone. Over the years there have been some fantastic April fools jokes. I remember several years ago when Sean Hannity, Mr. Conservative, fooled some of his listeners into believing that he was changing his position and was supporting Al Gore for president. Google, the mega search engine, reported that they were changing their algorythm and page rank was going to be replaced by pigeon rank.
It seems as though the intellectual minds at Google may have a little too much time on their hands. This year they have come up with one of the funniest April Fools Jokes I have seen or heard in many years. Check it out.
Happy Spring Everyone!
So much for the indoor projects, spring is here so let’s get outside. A little bit of work now will yield itself to a spring, summer and fall of outdoor beauty. First of all take a walk around your home. Survey the areas that are in need of attention. Do the flower beds need to be cleaned out? Are trees and shrubs in need of pruning? Is it time for the deck or walkways and driveway to be pressure washed? OK, that should be enough to get you started.
Now for some must do projects. Without turning this into a political forum, I must let you know that I am definitely in favor of the death penalty for weeds. Give your lawn a fighting chance by applying a pre-emergent weed control. Also remember that your lawn is very hungry. A slow release fertilizer will help the grass to wake up when it’s time to grow. If you have an irrigation system, check for leaks or broken sprinkler heads. If you manually water, check your sprinklers for proper operation.
Well, have I left out any must do outdoor spring cleaning projects? Let me know what projects you think are most important.
Since there is a top ten list for virtually every imaginable category, I thought it would be interesting to give you my top ten list for Loving Atlanta Living in the spring.
1. Everything is starting to come to life. The dogwood trees and azaleas are full of buds and getting ready to come into full bloom along with the lawns that have been dormant for the winter are beginning to turn green.
2. Neighbors are getting together for cookouts, fellowship and a cold beverage.
3. The longer days seem to bring people outside. Leisurely walks through the neighborhoods or parks aren’t lonely as there are numerous people out getting a little more exercise.
4. More and more joggers are out training for the Peachtree Road Race.
5. Golf is much more enjoyable with the warmer temperatures.
6. Atlanta Braves baseball is back in full swing. Spring training has started and the regular season is just around the corner.
7. The spring NASCAR race at Atlanta International Raceway will help everyone who needs their racing fix in person.
8. The Atlanta Thrashers are making a playoff run.
9. Everyone gets a good laugh out of the Atlanta Falcons inefficiency in the NFL draft.
10. The University of Georgia has brought in another top ten recruiting class.
What are your thoughts?
In a recent conversation with my brother in law he informed me that he had sold an older model car to a friend’s son that desperately needed basic inexpensive transportation. Prior to the sale he of course discussed this with his wife, my sister, to obtain her blessings. What he got was a little more than he bargained for. She was now able to go into her mental spreadsheet, recall every topic related to the car in question, detail how long she had wanted him to sell the car and outline the other projects which he had been negligent in completing in a timely manner. To her credit, she performed this task so quickly that he was dumbfounded. He looked for the right words to say during the conversation, constantly searching his mental database of documents and like most of us guys ended up just agreeing with her and promised to do better.
This situation started me thinking, Do Women Have A Better Way of Organizing Their Thoughts Than Men? It’s like women are born with a mental spreadsheet, have the inherent ability to fill in the frames on it and are able to recall the needed frames for any topic in a split second. Men on the other hand seem to pull information from mentally stored documents that may not be as well organized thus putting us at a disadvantage for these types of discussions.
I thought back over the almost 31 years of my marriage and realized there may be some truth to this phenomenon. My wife is able to pull information from her mental spreadsheet in a split second also. To test it further I mentioned it to my son who has been married for only 4 years. Sure enough, it seems to bridge many generations.
I hope you enjoyed this bit of humor with a technology twist. For a little more, here is another article that talks about relationship optimization.