I will help you move your home, but I will not help you move..............

"I will help you move your home, but I will not help you move"

Jeffrey Barrett

Some tips found  VALET, How to move without stress: 

Using garbage bags or dumpster diving for boxes at the grocery store? That might've helped you move out of the dorms, but you're supposed to be a grownup now. It's time to invest in some professional help when it comes to packing up your life and hauling it across the country (or even across town). They'll save you a lot of time and stress. After all, moving is such a bitch.

  

Stay Offline

Looking for movers? Ask trusted neighbors or real-estate brokers for recommendations. Many "victims" of shady movers say they found their haulers on the internet (Editor's note: That's not to say the Web isn't a trustworthy place).

 

Speak Up

Look for companies that offer flat rates up front. And make sure to tell potential movers about any challenges they may face (either at your current location or new home): sleeper sofas, parking problems, multiple flights of stairs, etc. That way you can ask for any possible charges that may arise. Be sure to have them disclose the cost of common cost inflators like gas or packing materials (bubble wrap or boxes).

 

Be a Label Whore

Grab a pack of color stickers and designate a color for each room. Tag each box before it leaves and when you get to your new place, put the matching sticker in the doorway of the corresponding room. The movers will instantly know where each box goes. Color coding labels, $6 at Staples.

 

Make Friends

Sure, you're the boss, but it's always smart to be nice to the guys carrying your hi-def flat screen TV too. Introduce yourself and ask if you can get the crew anything to drink (or maybe call in a pizza for lunch). Then make sure to get the names and cell phone numbers of the crew delivering your stuff. A little personal responsibility should make them a bit more careful with your possessions.

 

Stash Your Style

Pack your favorite clothes (the ten-percent of your closet that always gets worn), along with underwear and socks in a suitcase. You'll easily be able to spot your suitcase, but you could be fishing in boxes for your favorite cardigan for weeks. 

FYI

"Estimate, binding"

 

An agreement made in advance with your mover on the total cost of the move. It guarantees the price based upon the quantities and services discussed. If the agreement is "non-binding," then the final price could vary drastically.

Get It

Boxes
Overnight.com, with five warehouses across the country, can ship your moving supplies next-day and offers the most affordable boxes and kits on the Web. 

Final Four....survive and advance

Sean Carpenter's post at Carp's Corner brings into the fact that everyone in sales has the same theory as the NCAA Basketball Teams going into the Final Four : Survive and Advance".


How can you approach your business with a “survive and advance” mentality?

• Focus today on lead generating activities until you have secured an appointment.
• Pre-qualify your customer so you are well prepared for your appointment.
• Show up on time, dressed professionally and show them how you are prepared to help them achieve their real estate goals.
• Confidently overcome objections and walk away with a listing, priced properly at a full fee.

Click here to read Sean's complete post at Carp's Corner! 

Baby boomers like discounts...just not the senior discount!!!!!!!!

Ranch style homes in all price ranges and all school districts during the past eight years have become a commodity, values hurt, but not as bad as other home styles by the recession. Baby Boomers are moving, not necessarily downsizing. Active lifestyles with different instruments such as IRA, Roth IRA and 401k helped groomed the way for "older" living.

@TIME had an interesting article I found via Twitter:
Concerning Senior Discounts:
The senior members of the Baby Boom generation are turning 65 at a clip of roughly 10,000 per day. Even so, the generation famous for being at the center of the “youth culture” of the ’60s, doesn’t particularly like to think of itself as old. Senior citizens? According to boomers, the term refers to their parents, the World War II generation, not the folks who could have gone to Woodstock. So even though Baby Boomers love getting a deal as much as the next person, they hate the idea of getting a “senior discount”—which is tantamount to accepting the fact that they’re officially old.

Concerning housing:To varying degrees, age-appropriate updates are necessary should boomers want to stay safely in their homes as they get older. And yet, “Nobody wants their home to look like a hospital facility,” says Bill Millholland, an executive at the remodeling firm Case Design. This is especially the case for a generation that doesn’t like to think of itself as old, let alone aged and dying.

Click here to read the complete TIME Magazine article.

Angry wife.........................

Young people finally move out..........

"What does that mean for the housing market? Well, for starters, it should push more buyers into the system. As more of the millenials compete to rent, that pushes rental prices up, which makes some renters look more favorably toward buying. It’s tough to predict what the ratio will be — will every 10 new renters create one new buyer? Two? Five? — but it’s clear that demand for owner-occupied housing, which has been slack for five years, is poised to swing up."
Read more about this subject at Time Moneyland.

Solving problems, building relationships & having fun............

Guru Sean Carpenter's Christmas message:

BABY BOOMER HOME BUYING TRENDS

Good Habits Come from Bad Times

Take today's rough seas as the best lesson you could possibly have in sailing through to prosperous times. On days when it seems that nothing works and times are lean, remember that today's adversity is teaching you what a boom market can never teach. Invest in yourself and form good habits now.

Read the complete article by clicking here. Thank you Scott Levitt once again for your Tuesday Tactics.

Thinking About Joint Home Ownership?

A good friend of mine several years ago, purchased a home with his fiance. The proposed marriage was called off just before the wedding. They had already purchased a home together and spent many dollars decorating and rehabbing.

As he says today "it was the most expensive divorce anyone could have for not being married", don't allow this to happen to you.

The following was obtain via CBKTTWEET:

Whether you’re newlyweds, best friends or relatives, sharing a home purchase requires making many compromises. Decisions such as the location of the home and financial obligations by each party must be made through a joint effort. It is also helpful to involve an objective mediator when making crucial decisions.

“The idea of owning can seem overwhelming, especially for those who are new to the real estate process, but with a professional at your side it is very manageable,” said Jerry White, executive vice president of Coldwell Banker King Thompson. “Your Realtor can help by being that outside, third party who can direct you through the process of making the right decision.”

When making a collaborative purchase, here are a few things to keep in mind:


■Shared Costs. With two incomes, short-term and

long-term costs can be divided among each partner. Therefore, joint owners

do not have to spend as much time saving up for enough capital when

entering into a home purchase together.


■Shared Settings.
Whether it is a quiet neighborhood or a big kitchen, everyone has their own “must-haves” when it comes to the home of their dreams. Discuss the essentials before
beginning the search and be prepared to compromise.

■ Prepare for Future Funding.
The down payment on a new home is just one of the many financial aspects of home ownership. Maintenance costs, decorating materials, and insurance fees are all fundamentals of a home purchase that should be discussed by both parties.
.

PROCRASTINATION IS A FRIEND OF FAILURE

There is an old Spanish proverb that says "Tomorrow is often the busiest day of the week," and I think it may just be true. We allow procrastination to get in our way because that's the easy thing to do.

Our exercise and health can wait until tomorrow. We'll just run more on the weekend or we can start eating healthy next week.

Our financial decisions aren't thought out the way they need to be because it's often easier to spend based on impulse instead of planning and foresight.

Click here to read Sean Carpenter's post and read about being Proactive and not Reactive.

Click here to pick up the advice Sean receives from his favorite chocolate candy.

MOTHER-IN-LAW'S SUITE IN YOUR REAR YARD

A tour of the Cube from Mike Page on Vimeo.

The Cube Project, whose first prototype was unveiled last month during the Edinburgh Science Festival in Scotland, is a tiny, cubical house, measuring just 3 x 3 x 3 meters.

Don't let the size fool you, though. The 27-cubic-meter (953-cubic-foot) housing solution, packed with intelligent use of space, is enough for one person. Or, as its website states, "two friendly people."

It sports a comfy sofa that sits two, energy saving LED lights, a flat-screen TV, a "space saving staircase" that might be a bit tricky to negotiate if you have a few too many beers, a double bed, a full size shower, a sliding table for romantic face-to-face dinners, cork flooring and a toilet.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE.

EARLY OHIO REAL ESTATE SPECULATOR

Every year just about this time, a small grove of apple trees surrounding a grave in Fort Wayne, Ind., bursts into bloom in tribute to the man thought to be buried there -- John Chapman, aka Johnny Appleseed. Note the "thought to be." There's a chance Chapman was interred across the St. Joseph River. With Chapman, the record is rarely entirely clear.

We know for certain that Chapman was born Sept. 26, 1774, in Leominster, Mass., and that his mother died two years later, while his father was serving in the Revolutionary Army. But solid evidence of Chapman's first decades amounts to two thin entries. On Feb. 14, 1797, he bought a small auger at a Warren, Pa., trading post. Three years later, the U.S. Census found him living a day's walk south in Venango County, near Franklin.

Of Chapman's Ohio and Indiana years -- beginning roughly in 1803 -- the record is more certain. Chapman leased or bought land in eight Ohio counties. He also appears to have planted nurseries in an additional eight counties, including Licking. In Indiana, he operated in Jay and Allen counties.

If the record grows clearer as Chapman ages, though, Chapman himself has long been a hidden part of the American story, inseparable from the 1948 Disney cartoon version of Johnny Appleseed -- a celluloid sermon that stresses simple saintliness but mostly ignores the actual man.

One early Ohio chronicler calls John Chapman "the oddest character in all our history." Chapman dressed in rags and slept in hollow logs. He was a loner, a roamer, as restless as the new nation, and yet for all his eccentricities, he was deeply a part of the America of his day: a real-estate speculator and tireless evangelist who carried the revelations of the Swedish mystic Emanuel Swedenborg to rude cabins at the edge of civilization.

Even Chapman's famous nursery work had a calculated quality. The development companies that owned huge swaths of Ohio required purchasers to plant orchards as proof they were staying put.

Chapman remains increasingly relevant to our own times, as well. Nearly two centuries before the Simplicity Movement was born, Chapman had created a lifestyle that was simplicity itself. Long before all but a handful of people realized what a fragile creation this Earth is, Chapman was there, too, showing us by example how to love this whirling globe better.

The myths that built up around this infinitely gentle man during and after his life were many. No myth, though, can top Chapman's real final days in this world. He had walked 15 miles roundtrip on March 17, 1845, to repair a bramble fence that protected one of his nurseries. On the way back, he got caught in a snowstorm. Near sunset, Chapman reached a cabin and asked to spend the night. As was his custom, he refused a place at the table, taking milk and bread by the fire and later treating his hosts to "news right fresh from heaven."

That night, Chapman slept on the hearth. By morning, a fever had gripped him, and by noon, he was dead. The physician who attended him later said he had never seen a man so at peace in his final passage. Years afterward, those present would describe the corpse as almost glowing with serenity. Chapman was 70 years old.

Howard Means is the author of "Johnny Appleseed: The Man, the Myth, the American Story," published by Simon & Schuster

Copied from Newark Advocate, May 4, 2011.

THE $200 MICROHOUSE

Click here for the complete New York Times Article

Click here to watch all the details of construction

Wine bottle windows, vegetable oil heater, clear roof, south facing recycled

windows & a washing machine panel for a table.

Don't call me if you need to sell!

TOP TEN TIPS FOR BUYING YOUR FIRST HOME

FIND OUT WHAT THE HOMES NEAR YOUR ADDRESS HAVE SOLD FOR AND WHAT THE SELLERS IN YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD ARE ASKING FOR THEIR HOMES.

www.allaboutmyhomevalue.com

If you know of someone considering selling their home, no matter where they live in the USA please pass this web site along to them.

NEVER TO OLD TO LEARN NEW TRICKS

One of Licking County's most successful commercial real estate investors and prominent commercial real estate broker after almost forty years in the business has set a new goal for this year.

Steve Layman attended two seminars in November during a local real estate convention instructed by Sean Carpenter. During the next month Sean, Coldwell Banker King Thompson's corporate trainer was offering a series of courses, designed to pump agents up to do business in 2011. Steve asked if he could attend one of the classes. I believe this makes him a Sean groupie, nothing to be embarrassed about because I consider myself as one to.

The photos above shows you Steve's plan of blocking out times during the day and week for prospecting, making calls to past clients, contacting and updating sellers, for appointments and also reserving time for his family. He keeps his daily record of his progress on another page. Outstanding to take on a new habit when what you have been doing over the years works well. Steve is set for the challenge, exercising his want to improve himself.

I have one issue with his weekly chart, no open house scheduled on Sunday. Commercial guys: I always wonder what they do on Sundays.

I WANT ONE: BLACKBERRY PLAYBOOK

At the end of everyday, I have a large cloth bag that my change goes into. The Playbook is coming out within the next month and I will have enough saved to buy my Blackberry Playbook. Click here to see all the details, like using your Blackberry phone's wifi to connect to the internet.

10,000 a Day for the Next 19 Years: Retiring Boomers

The first Baby Boomer officially hit 65 on January 1, 2011.

The 65th birthday of Baby Boomers has been the most-awaited date for marketers, salespeople and politicians for the last decade. Considering Boomers represent nearly 1 in 4 people in America, there’s good reason to keep an eye on Boomers in the marketplace. Especially because the generation, as a whole, is still the richest in history, even withstanding the recent recession.

We know a lot about Boomers – so much so that figuring them into your sales and marketing plan should be a piece of cake. Consider, just for starters:

*There are nearly 79 million Baby Boomers in America (Pew Research)
*Boomer households earn an average of $62,300 of income (New York Life Co.)
*Male Boomers expect to live to 79 years of age; females to 83 years old
*79% of Americans over 55 own their own home
*Most Boomers don’t believe old age begins until 72 years of age

Simply put: That’s a lot of people earning a lot of money and planning to spend it for nearly the next twelve years of active retirement.

Thanks to Steve Layman for passing along this information. Read the complete article here, a must read if you are in sales or a boomer.

HOW SHAQ FOUND A HOME

"I live in a small town called Sudbury. I signed kind of late, so I really didn't have a chance to find a house, so I went on Google and put 'big house outside of Boston,' and I found this big 10-acre farmhouse..."

This clip of Shaq and Dave Letterman just shows you why we make sure our listings are very prevalent on the internet!

Thank you to Sean Carpetner and David Meerman Scott

SELLING REAL ESTATE