Whether you rent or own your home, whether you have children or not, it is hard to ignore Halloween. Yes, it is a very commercial holiday, but you can enjoy it as time to spend with your children, decorate your home or just enjoy the children coming to your door. I live out in the country, so we never actually have children coming to the door. My child is grown and decorating his own home.
But I do love to decorate. I would say that my style is a little understated. I have fall/autumn type decor placed sparingly around the house. I love candles and lights and use them freely. I have never gone all out decorating outside. Love to see it on other houses, but don’t usually do it myself. My decorations should be able to phase right into the Thanksgiving season. What is your decorating style? Post some pictures of your home and share your decorating tips for the holidays with us. I love to get ideas from others. And don’t forget, if you want to update your decorations, buy new ones for the next year when they go on sale this year. Have a happy and SAFE Halloween!
Month: October 2011
The Joys of Home Ownership
I love the change of seasons. It invigorates me and motivates me to do things around the house and yard. I have been extremely lucky in that I have owned a home for the last 25 years. Not the same home, I’ve had to move several times in my previous job, but I’ve loved every one of them. As we transition from fall into winter, I have several tasks that I need to finish. I need to put another coat of paint on the front porch. I need to finish painting the end of the house. We had problems with our well house this fall and I need to insulate the inside and build a new top for it. After that is done, it will need repainting. I definitely need to prioritize and get busy. The wonderful thing for me is the feeling that I get when I come home and approach my house and turn in the driveway. I feel so much pride for the little projects that we have completed ourselves and I think that our house looks wonderful! For the next several months, I will overlook the constant rain of leaves in the yard from the large tree in the back yard. As much as I work at it each weekend, I will never get ahead of that tree. For me though, it is a wonderful feeling that I own this piece of property and this house. Although it is a lot of work, it is definitely well worth it!
Thinking of Selling Your House?
People sell their houses for different reasons. They may have to relocate because of employment or the military. They may be considering a larger house or a smaller one, because their family needs have changed. A more prevalent reason lately has been because of economic hardship, maybe caused by unemployment. What ever the reason, there is usually emotion attached to making the decision and throughout the process. The reason that a person is selling maybe involuntary and so there may be anguish about a move. Even if the move is voluntary, there is often an emotional attachment to the house because of family events that occurred while you resided there or maybe you personalized the house and put a lot of yourself in it. Either way, it is a huge, important decision and you have to be very careful that the decisions that you are making are not based off of emotion. One of the largest stumbling blocks for most sellers to get past is their impression of what their house is worth and what it is really worth in the market today. Having the right real estate advisor guiding you through this process is extremely important. The advisor can give you an impartial, informed comparative analysis of your home. They will pull statistics of comparable houses that have sold recently and show you how your house compares.
The real estate advisor can give you unbiased advise on how to present your house. Yes, maybe your favorite color is hot pink and you are really happy that your living room and your dining room reflect your personality, but $100 of paint may be the difference in whether you home sells or not. Remember, the final decisions on any aspects of selling your home are entirely up to you, but do consider getting professional advice from a trained realtor to help you get the most out of the transaction.
Farming and Real Estate
I’m sitting in the living room last night catching up with my husband about our day and I told him that I was preparing to farm a subdivison. Well, my husband is actually a farmer (kind of), you know the agricultural kind, so I have completely confused him. So, I have to take a little time and explain the concept of real estate farming to him. Basically, you choose a neighborhood or subdivision to create a relationship with. I will advertise myself throughout the neighborhood and over a period of time, my name will become known to some of the residents of the neighborhood. Hopefully I can be there to answer some questions for them or explain some processes that might make their decision-making about real estate easier. The first step will be to send a letter to every house in the neighborhood and introduce myself. Within a month, I will take a few walks through the neighborhood and introduce myself in person. Over the next 6 months, I will send out a couple of mailings with some helpful information. I am advertising myself, but I need to hold up my end of the bargain that I am advertising. We believe in customer service and in repeat business and referrals. You get that by treating people well. So, I’m going to farm my little plot, see what grows and hopefully have a good harvest that will benefit the community and myself.
Fayetteville, NC Neighborhoods
One of the things that I like about the Fayetteville, NC area is the diversity of people and neighborhoods. The restaurant and religion choices show what a diverse community that we are. With the military personnel coming into the area, many of them decide to stay in the area with their families. And no matter what your preferences or status in life, there are multiple neighborhoods in the area to meet your needs. There are wonderful established neighborhoods with homes built in the 60’s and 70’s that have a unique charm of their own. There are subdivisions that were developed 10 to 15 years ago and have great lots and houses. And of course, there are a lot of new communities springing up everywhere with new amenities with price ranges for everyone. I have lived in the area for 7 years and over the past two weeks, I have traveled through neighborhoods that I never knew existed. It has been so enlightening and fun to find all of these wonderful areas tucked away so close to the city. If I was looking to buy a house today, I think that I could be totally overwhelmed with choices. Definitely a good position to be in!!
Now is the Time to Buy!
Yes, now is the time to buy. Great deals on homes out there. A lot of people do not think that they will qualify for a loan. My advice to them is to go through the prequalification process. It will cost you nothing and will not commit you to anything. And it will only take about 30 minutes. What it will do is to let you know exactly where you stand. You will find out if you qualify for a home loan and how much you qualify for. You can also get advice on how to improve your credit to get it where it needs to be for you to qualify. Do not assume that you can not afford a house! House prices have never been lower an interest rates are great, which means that you can afford a larger house for an affordable monthly house payment. As other circumstances in life, you will not know until you ask! Call your realtor today!
Door Knocking- a Technical Term
We are well aware of the advantages of technology in business and advertising now, as evidenced by my endeavors to start this blog. But, in harsh contrast, it was very refreshing to spend the morning door knocking. This concept is pretty self-explanatory, but for those of you that do not understand yet, let me expound on the topic. We had gotten two listings within the last week in an established neighborhood in Fayetteville. On this beautiful fall morning, armed with our descriptive fliers, we descended upon this unsuspecting neighborhood. For an hour and a half, in pairs, we walked from one house to another and rang the doorbell or knocked on the door (hence the name). Although this may sound archaic, and a lot of people were at work, it was refreshing to have a couple of productive conversations with people face to face and answer their questions. My advice, as in any other business investment, is to diversify. A combination of the new, cutting edge and the old and proven methods will work in combination to yield higher results for you. Let me know if you have another method of getting the word out…
Current Real Estate Market
Yes, we all hear over and over what the real estate market is like, but it is not the same everywhere. Here in Fayetteville, NC it is definitely a little slower than it was a couple of years ago, but we still have a lot of movement with a lot of people moving into the region. Our biggest challenge right now is new construction versus existing homes. Let us know what your biggest challenge is and how you are addressing it.
I’m losing the technology battle
Well, I hate to admit it, but I am still trying to connect this blog with facebook and linkedin. I had my son, who is so far ahead of me, try and help me. He has a problem communicating his technical ideas to me (the problem lies in my reception of them, not his transmission). We agreed to meet soon(he lives out of town) to try and do this face to face. So this is my last attempt tonight. I will publish this. If it sits here by itself, without reaching out to linkedin or fb, then I will have to wait and meet with my technical advisor. Well, keep your fingers crossed…
Progress Being Made
Well, this is more laborious than birth! Why a dog chases his tail for fun, I have no idea. That what it feels like that I have been doing trying to coordinate this blog with facebook, Linkedin, etc. I know that it is just me and my limited technical ability, but I also know that I will get there. Hopefully I am providing some entertainment for those of you peeping in to see how successful I am. At this point, I am trying to send messages to facebook, without overwhelming everyone on facebook with the entire content of this blog. Trial and error!
Fort Bragg Homes 