Combine the perennials that are right for your garden and enjoy easy color all summer long. If you are moving or not, color adds value, if only to your well being…
This year we are going to Bloom!
June 12, 2011Tips to avoid a foreclosure
June 10, 2011Foreclosures don't just happen to people with bad credit and reckless financial histories. Even the most well-prepared homeowner can get into serious trouble with banks from a sudden crisis — the loss of a job, an illness, another child, or a divorce.
Short Sales are one option, call me for more information on this and others…
Don’t Believe the Doom on US Housing
June 7, 2011Data from the US housing market has not made for nice reading in recent months but one analysts believes the worst could well be over and that if you take a closer look at the data prices are stabilizing.
A Short List for Long-Term Real Estate Decisions
June 4, 2011Here are key long-term factors to consider every time you buy and before you sell, just in case this is the one. The list also offers useful discussion points for constructive conversations with parents or children as they contemplate real estate purchases or sales. Mulling these ideas around makes everyone smarter buyers, sellers, and owners:
I heard you can only buy a REO house AS-IS? We closed with VA terms, thousands in repairs and Bob only had to bring in about $1000! YES!
April 8, 2011I heard you can only buy a REO house AS-IS? We closed with VA terms, thousands in repairs and Bob only had to bring in about $1000! YES!
Successful Leadership Involves Trust
February 21, 2011
"I'm glad I'm not Brezhnev. Being the Russian leader in the Kremlin. You never know if someone's tape recording what you say."
Richard M. Nixon
All we have to learn is everything…
February 17, 2011
The ability to understand people is one of the greatest assets anyone can ever have. It has the potential to positively impact every area of your life, not just the business arena. For example, look at how understanding people helped this mother of a preschooler.
Leaving my four-year-old son in the house, I ran out to throw something in the trash. When I tried to open the door to get back inside, it was locked. I knew that insisting my son open the door would have resulted in an hour-long battle of the wills. So in a sad voice, I said, “Oh, too bad. You just locked yourself in the house.” The door opened at once.
Understanding people certainly impacts your ability to communicate with others. David Burns, a medical doctor and professor of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania, observed, “The biggest mistake you can make in trying to talk convincingly is to put your highest priority on expressing your ideas and feelings. What most people really want is to be listened to, respected, and understood. The moment people see that they are being understood, they become more motivated to understand your point of view.” If you can learn to understand people – how they think, what they feel, what inspires them, how they’re likely to act and react in a given situation – then you can motivate and influence them in a positive way.
- from The Maxwell Daily Reader
One Day at a Time… Why Buyers and Sellers Should Take Advantage of Today’s Real Estate Market
February 17, 2011The Case-Shiller Index is one of the country’s most popular ways of measuring the movement of home prices. And in its latest rating, which went out in late December, the verdict was: Prices are down. The Case-Shiller report’s 20-City Composite rating was 0.8% lower than it was one year previously; the first year-on-year decrease since October 2009.
John Maxwell – Which Comes First.
February 7, 2011When we turn down little challenges it makes the big challenges a little scarier…
I found this on John Maxwell’s Blog…
When I meet people in social settings and they ask me what I do for a living, some of them are intrigued when I say I write books and speak. And they often ask what I write about. When I say leadership, the response that makes me chuckle most goes something like this: “Oh. Well, when I become a leader, I’ll read some of your books.” What I don’t say (but want to) is: “If you’d read some of my books, maybe you’d become a leader.”
Good leadership is learned in the trenches. Leading as well as they can wherever they are is what prepares leaders for more and greater responsibility. Becoming a good leader is a lifelong learning process. If you don’t try out your leadership skills and decision-making process when the stakes are small and the risks are low, you’re likely to get into trouble at higher levels when the cost of mistakes is high, the impact is far reaching, and the exposure is greater. Mistakes made on a small scale can be easily overcome. Mistakes made when you’re at the top can cost the organization greatly, and they damage a leader’s credibility.
How do you become the person you desire to be? You start now to adopt the thinking, learn the skills, and develop the habits of the person you wish to be. It’s a mistake to daydream about “one day” when you’ll be on top, instead of handling today so that it prepares you for tomorrow. As Hall of Fame basketball coach John Wooden said, “When opportunity comes it’s too late to prepare.” If you want to be a successful leader, learn to lead BEFORE you have a leadership position.
http://johnmaxwellonleadership.com/2011/02/07/which-comes-first-position-or-preparation/
Setting the stage for house-buying season
February 3, 2011The spring real estate market is approaching, and this year there is no federal tax credit to get wary buyers off the fence.
