Real Estate 411

I have been getting a lot of questions recently about the real estate market and rightly so. Is it as bad as everyone says? Are you busy? Are you still making your payments on that sleek, German engineered SUV? (LOL) Has Atlanta rebounded? What about the tax credit; is it staying or going? Ok, todays’ blog will be about the market; nationally, in metro Atlanta and the west Cobb area. I have had lots of numerical help with this so a big thank you to Nancy Hayes, our wonderful market center administrator for Keller Williams and to David Lowrimore and Sharon Lintault specifically for allowing me use the material they send us each week. David and Sharon are with W.R. Starkey Mortgage and if you are thinking about buying a home or refiniancing, please give either of them a call. They are great to work with and will help you out! (Free advertising, thank you Realtor Lady!)

In regards to the tax credit and if it is going to stay, here is the latest from our preferred lenders:

A slew of professionals tied to the housing sector made eager pleas to Congress last week requesting the $8000 first time homebuyer tax credit be extended. The benefit was part of the stimulus plan and is set to expire the end of November. The White House indicated the program “helped the economy” and led to “quite a bit of success” and noted consideration of extending the program. There are additional proposals in the Senate to not only extend the program but also to increase the tax credit and remove the first time homebuyer qualification. Unfortunately the cost to extend the credit is around $1 billion per month. This has politicians from both sides of the isle concerned. The House voted Thursday to extend the credit for American service members another 12 months. Both parties have members pushing for the extension to apply to all purchasers. Analysts indicate some sort of extension is very likely.

For what it’s worth, I hope the tax credit stay because there is NO doubt in my astute real estate mind that it has helped our market here in metro Atlanta. I have even heard rumors that the tax credit would be extended to $15,000 and would be available to anyone buying a home. A nice idea but so far no word. Let’s hope the government doesn’t screw this up like they normally do with everything else.

Is the market improving, here, there and everywhere?

Again, our faithful mortgage partners provide the following facts:

*New home sales have risen for five straight months.
*Existing home sales are up in four of the last five months.
*Construction of new homes increased for the third straight month in August.
*Home inventories are down.
*Average home prices in the conforming price range are up for the 3rd month in a row.
*The Case-Shiller Index shows prices for homes in ALL price ranges in 18 of the top 20 cities up two months in a row, and up 3 months in a row in 15 of the largest 20 cities.
*Last week’s economic data that showed a 30% drop in corporate layoffs vs last year.
*The ISM Manufacturing report shows that, although weaker than anticipated, we’ve had the second consecutive month of growth in the manufacturing sector.
*90% of our workforce is working.

AND FINALLY,

With the slide in the dollar rates have dropped back to where they were last May – 4.5% to 5% depending on program and credit. And with the low rates and lower home prices, NOW is the MOST AFFORDABLE TIME IN THE LAST 30 YEARS to buy a home.

Last but certainly not least is the market statistics just for Keller Williams Realty in trendy west Cobb. Look at these numbers and tell me if we are still in a down market:

Closed volume for the month of September was $26,962,819 – 117 units! Compare that to last month at $16,141,490 and 91 units – WOW!

Written volume was $20,279,776 – 99 units – a little down from last month but still really good!

Our average sales price went up from $177,379 to $230,451 – big jump! (Thank you, Lord!)

99 listings were taken for the month. Our total units in listing inventory at the end of September was 439 with a dollar volume of $128,516,283. Fantastic!

So yes, things are coming back not just here in Atlanta, or in trendy west Cobb but across the country as well. As longer as the government doesn’t interfere and the lenders will lend money without making us jump through hoops, things should start returning to normal. Inventory wise, we are once again approaching a seller’s market. Call me today if you are thinking about buying or selling.

Life and Lists

I cannot believe I haven’t posted anything in awhile. Believe me, it’s not because I haven’t wanted to and certainly not because I don’t have anything to write about. I’ve just been snowed under with contracts that seem innocent enough at first glance but have time consuming incidents occur with them that is neither mine nor my clients fault. I’ve spent almost a week and a half on one alone where we have been at the mercy of a wacko buyer who has had credit issues. My sweet little sellers, the DeFoors , have been troopers through out all this. Hopefully we are out of the woods on this one and they are going to get moved into a fabulous home on Tuesday.

Here’s a question for those of you in blog land, you patient souls who peruse my drivel and shout out encouragement; are you list keepers? I am a chronic list keeper! I remember as a kid my Dad always having colored slips of cardboard like paper, rectangular in shape and usually orange or yellow, that he kept a long “to-do” list on. He is left handed and he always had what appeared to me a backward check mark next to everything he had had accomplished. As a kid, I was kinda curious as to why he wrote down stuff. I mean, he was an adult, wasn’t he smart to remember what it was he wanted to do? But as I got older and wiser I realized, no you can’t remember unless you write it down.

I think my list keeping actually started in college and I started developing the anal retentive perfectionist habits I now have in regards to being organized. The biggest thrill I get from making my lists each day is the actual marking it off! No backwards check mark for this girl, I mark it off in color! I divide each daily Daytimer page in half with “Business” on the left side and “Personal” on the right. A big blue line is drawn the middle and on each side is a list of thall the things in that category I need to get done before the day is over. Whenever I get something completed I get a sick thrill of taking a yellow highlighter, usually one I have pilfered from the legendary Sue Hilton’s office, and marking it off. I feel the day has been a good one if I have more yellow then blue left. I know, I am a weirdo.

But I am going to share with you below my other list, the one that doesn’t get down to only two or three items ever, gets added to at least twice a week and one that I savor, even if it takes forever to get through it.

Yep, this is my reading list. What you can’t see is that under the books, which I’ll tell you about if you haven’t fallen asleep already, is a stack, and I do mean stack, of magazines, everything from People, to Forbes, Fortune, Money, Mother Earth News and Clean Eating. I am a magazine-holic! If the books aren’t giving me my high, I will put them down and go for a mag.

This picture shows what is currently there as of last week and I am looking forward to each and everyone of these, each for a different reason.

The first one is a book by the incredible writer, Jeffrey Deaver. It’s his latest and what I am currently reading right now. It’s a good mystery and I hope to finish it this weekend. He has a series of books with the character of Lincoln Rhyme, a paraplegic detective and this book, Roadside Crosses, has a character from one of those stories, a fictional spin off, if you will. Very good…highly recommend it!

Dave Ramsey, my man Dave. Love anything he puts out…good common sense with scripture thrown in for a bonus. I am reading this with David….he is not a reader so although I could be finished with this already, I am waiting on him to catch up to were I am. We have read everything by Dave Ramsey and he is right on target. If you want to learn more about moeny, start with his Financial Peace books or Total Money Makeover. If you know nothing about Dave Ramsey, find out more here.

No Impact Man is one I am really looking forward to, as it is a true story about a guy who decided to make a difference in the environment by living as green minded as possible for a whole year with his family in an apartment in Manahattan. His blog is great and if you want to see a little about their life with no paper, plastic or toilet paper and how they did it, visit his site here.

Age of Opportunity was given to me by a client and is a Christian parenting book. She said it was the best book her and her husband had ever read and had purchased several copies for friends. Fortunately, I received one of these and although I have had it for three months, it is on my list to get to. Who can’t use more information on parenting kids in today’s world?

In the President’s Secret Service is something that caught my eye recently while browsing in Barnes and Noble. I am a presidental history nut and I love anything connected to the presidency, the White House, etc. So after looking through the first few pages I said “what the hey” and bought the darn thing. Hope it’s worth it. I’m sure if its not I will have a blog post about it.

James Patterson, the male equivalent of Danielle Steele. This guy can crank out a book like nobody’s business and the Alex Cross series is one of my absolute favorites. This is his latest and I cannot wait to dive in.

My good friend Cheves Goble loaned me the next book, the Stuart Woods novel. Cheves and I both read like crazy, probably to combat the stress of our crazy real estate lives and we have a lot of the same passion for certain types of books. If Cheves loans me a book, I know it is going to be a good one. I have no idea what this book is about…I just know Cheves said I had to read it so there it is.

Last but not least is Social Media Marketing. Embarassing but true on this one….I bought it to read on the plane when we when to Vegas……in April…almost 7 months ago! Notice that it is at the bottom of the pile. I need this book and all its info more than anything else here but I just cant get excited about it. By the time I do get to it, it will probably be all of date, much like myself sometimes.

What about you? Are you a list maker or do you fly by the seat of your pants? Have you read anything good lately you think I might enjoy? Please share your thoughts..who knows? We may expose each other to out next favorite writer!

This and That and Then Some

Yowza! I cannot believe how busy the last two weeks have been! I know the media wants you to believe things in the real estate sector are going to hell in a handbasket but it just ain’t so!

Last week I had my annual opportunity to go to Austin, TX, and attend the Keller Williams Realty Mega Agent Camp. This was two and a half days of training, talking, teaching, discussion and brainstorming that enables me, as a Realtor, to gain some incredible perspective. Fellow Keller Williams agents from across the country come and speak on what’s working, what’s not, different marketing ideas and attitude shifts. Some markets are still in a decline, some are showing life again and agents who have “been there, done that,” share useful information of what we can expect and how to better serve our clients in these markets. The info was phenonmenal but it looks like for the next few months the market is going to be in high gear for short sales and foreclosures. Not that there is anything is worng with that, as the infamous Seinfeld espisode would say. But those deals are long and hard on everyone involved and often take forever. Guess we all need to pitch in and make it work. (Lenders, are you listening?!)

The $8,000 tax credit for those who are first time home buyers will soon be gone so you had better get going while the getting is good! You have until November 30 to get the credit if you have never owned a home or haven’t owned a home in the last three years. Contact he friendly Realtor Lady if you need more info or want to look at houses!

The West Cobb market is booming! I received two contracts this week on both a foreclsoure and a resale. I helped a wonderful family get a fantastic deal on a house in a neighborhood they had been wanting to get into for awhile now. Life is great and it’s also special to help someone find their dream house. Congrats to Bart and Daniella and their family on a new house that will be officially theirs September 30.

My family and are are still adjusting to our new green lifestyle although we have had a few small setbacks. I will update the green living blog sometime today so check back and see how that’s going with us here.

Looking for new and different ways to connect with future clients through the interent, Google Adwords, and direct mail. If any of you out here have some good, inexpensive ideas and can help me out, please contact me!

Do your part to stimulate the econmy! Buy or sell a home today!

How Foreclosures Impact All of Us

The foreclosure market here in Atlanta at the end of 2008 and the beginning of 2009 was really crowded with numerous properties. After the second quarter we saw a slight change, with foreclosure sales not being as dominant as they were. The market, both locally and nationally, seems to be absorbing foreclosed homes bit better thus having a less negative effect on the housing market. The Wall Street Journal had an article recently that there is anticipation of a new wave of foreclosures getting ready to hit, loans whose ARM’s are coming up for adjustment. The prediction is that they are going to cause yet another glut of bank owned property to hit every major market and we may be right back where we were before we started seeing the slight increase in the resale market.

Foreclosures impact everyone, not just the family who is losing their home. They significantly affect the value of all the homes in the neighborhood. If your home is up for sale in a subdivision that has a foreclosure and it sells before yours, that is going to show on the appraisal for your property, lowering your value.

But say you’re not planning to move anytime soon, however, you live where there are numerous empty lots owned by a builder that has gone under. News articles in the last two weeks from two different newspapers in two separate ends of the country show that those lots are often forgotten and neglected. The builders no longer own them and they aren’t keeping them up. Often the bank has so many lots owned across a city or region, they can’t afford to maintain them. Weeds grow up, leaving a unsigthly mess and soon become infested with all sorts of animals that further creep into the neighborhood. The homeowners are forced to see these lots everyday in all their overgrown glory. Code officials for the city or country can’t track down who owns the lots and the homeowners themselves must maintain them or live with the mess. There has also been times when vagrants or gangs will use these lots for criminal activity because it’s a place where they can’t be detected.

Just last Sunday the Atlanta Journal and Constitution ha d an article about upscale homes in a particular metro area that had swimming pools and where in foreclosure. The pools, left unattended, were now huge mosquito breeding grounds and causing major concerns for the surrounding homes. The water was filthy and stagnant, no one was around to keep them maintained and they were becoming health hazards for everyone nearby.

The lending industry three years ago was making loans willy nilly and that has finally come back around to bite everyone on the behind. They have tightened things up too tight but now they are a day late and dollar short. Those who can get loans to buy propery have numerous hoops to jump through to make the process happen and banks are notorious for moving slow or sitting on offers to see of bigger and better ones come in. Homes and properties in foreclosure have a definite impact on everyone whether they have lost their home or not. Until someone steps in and address these problems, they are only going to continue. And with the new wave that is projected to hit in the next three to four months, the problems may get worse before they get better.

Interesting Realtor Facts

Those of you in real estate or the mortgage business are familiar with Brian Buffini and his vast array of products to help us do business. I was thumbing through the latest edition of his magazine and came across these interesting facts:

-60% of all Realtors are female. (That’s why so much gets done so quickly and efficiently-lol!)
-Typical agents have been in the business an average of 10 years.
-12% of all agents have worked for a firm that was bought out or merged in the last two years.
-60% of all agents have a website.
-35% of agents use one or more social networking sites. (Hello, Facebook)
-The median age of an agent is 54 years, although there are days I feel like 154. (And probably look it too.)
-The median gross income for real estate agents fell 14% last year.

I thought these facts were very interesting, especially the one that shows only 60% have a website. I mean, in this day and age, that was an extremely surprising number. I think the facts reflect the fact that the nation has been in a vicious housing slump, and Realtors, like everyone else, are cutting whatever costs they can. I’ve said before it’s not nearly as bad as the news media makes it out to be, but there has been a lot of damage done. The fact that the median age is high shows that those who who have done this awhile have decided to try and hang on and keep doing what we’re doing. The decline in income reflects that deals are harder to close in todays market and everyone is either buying low or selling low. And the fact of real estate companies being bought out or merged again shows just the type of market everyone has had to deal with.

There is hope on the horizon. Median prices are coming up, there are fewer foreclosures on the market right now and there are deals getting done. Getting the housing market stabilized, whether nationally or locally, will improve things greatly for everyone, no matter what industry you’re in.

A More Convenient Way to Work With Buyers

Here’s a funny link I found on YouTube. I know there are a lot are a lot of Realtors out there who would LOVE to be able to do this way and make the sale. Who says the buyers aren’t buying when you do “help” a buyer this way?! Enjoy!

Going, Going, Green!

Those of you who friend me on Facebook or who follow me on Twitter know from posts this week that I have been earning my Green designation from the National Association of Realtors. I’ve taken a lot of continuing ed classes in my illustrious real estate career but I honestly mean it when I say this was the BEST class I’ve ever taken work wise. It’s always great to earn another designation that shows your benefit to clients but I learned so much both on a professional and personal level through this class. The information was well presented and very thought provoking.

Now don’t get me wrong, I love Rush Limbaugh, despise Al Gore, consider myself a moderate right wing conservative and have laughed at the environmental wackos. But as I grow older I am becoming more attuned to being a better steward of the over abundance of blessings God has given me and my family. And I don’t just mean that in a financial sense. Taking small intiatives in both my personal and professional life is socially responsible and the right thing to do. Plus, living here in Atlanta, we’re right were the action is. We are an extremely green metro area and I want to be more involved with that.

Being a Realtor who has the Green designation is something that will help me better serve my clients and my community. After learning so much from the fabulous class and out wonderful instructor, I have become much more educated on things my family can do to be green. (They aren’t exactly jumping for joy but they will.) None of the things we have started implementing this week are expensive, inconvenient or caused a huge fuss. (yet) In fact, it’s been easy to do and will make a huge difference in our monthly utility bills, carbon footprint and lifestyle. Just imagine that if every family who reads this (all eleven of you!) incorporated one thing from the list…..imagine what a difference we could make. So whether you chose to do it to save money, give back, or to make the world a better place….just do it!

I have become so passionate about this that I am starting a blog with tips, articles, advice, clips, whatever I can find, to convince you to make the switch with me. Please visit and see how easy this green thing really is. Just go to the site read the post for the day and see if it’s something you and your family and/or business could do. I promise not to make it too hard and will try and give you some good, thought provoking information. And I would welcome your tips and ideas as well. After all, this is our world, we’re all in this together and why not make it a better place?

Make it a green day and check back daily at the other blog for new ideas!

Numbers, Numbers, Numbers!

Hello blog world! I love all the feedback I get from the blogosphere! And for all of you kind enough to post comments, thanks very much. I had many goals in mind when I decided to do this blog, the number one of which was to get more business, as I love driving my sleek, German engineered SUV and would like to keep driving it! I also wanted to convey to anyone bored enough to read that I am passionate about real estate and love what I do. But I have to also admit that there is quite a bit of fun in doing this and it is sort of a release to compose. So there you have it, I am deeper than I appear.

I am a fanatical news junky and will watch almost anything if it is on some type of business channel. I watch a lot of real estate news and just last week was actually watching the liberal leaning CNBC or MSNBC or whatever Democratic controlled news channel that isn’t my beloved Fox news. All I was hearing was the “woe is me” pity party about how bad real estate is, how we are teetering on the brink of disaster and of course, much to my chargrin, how it is the fault of George W. Bush and all the right wingers. Ggggrrr!

Yes, yes, Ok, I will give you a little bit of it….things are not as great as they could be. The economy is slowing down and people are holding on to their money and not spending as much as before. (Everyone except those that have teenagers with no understanding of how hard money is to come by and how quickly it can get away from you. We are having a tough time getting that into a certain someone’s head here at the Spann household.) And although I love George W, don’t even get me started on his stupid idea to give all these goofy companies who foolishly and greedily threw away money a bailout. But friends and neighbors, honestly…it’s not as bad as it seems.

Case in point, you may ask? Right here in good old Hot Lanta, Ga. I live and work in trendy west Cobb and although we have been hit hard (one out of five sales is a foreclosure) listen to the stats just our Keller Williams office posted for the month of July: *

Our closed volume was $22,914,934
The average sales price for the area went from $208,730 to $224,656. Gosh, I wish that was what is was when we moved here five years ago. But I digress….
We took on 127 new listings, all of which were mine, oops, no sorry, not all were mine, but a few were!
We wrote for buyers 123 contracts for a total of $23,598,851.

Guys, this is just one office in west Cobb, albeit a heck of a great, multi talented office, but still, just one office. Even the other firms who, of course, are not near as wonderful as Keller Williams, did some business so those numbers for the area only get better. Market slow down? Where? Not in my back yard!

Even so, all we are hearing is doom and glooom. It’s still tough out there but it is getting better. Wonderful little sellers, and I love my sellers, you aren’t having to take it on the chin so much anymore. We are coming back and we are getting stronger each month. We have to get these lenders to cut us some slack and quit being so tight with the money. They also have to quit making everyone jump through hoops just to be able to afford the American dream of home ownership.

So there you have it, from a moderate right winger who has had the mantra “know your numbers” drilled into her head. The sky is not falling, Chicken Little. If you have been thinking about buying and moving up, now is the time. And if you’ve been thinking baout selling but were afraid to see the comps, they aren’t so scary anymore. Let me add you to the successful numbers Keller Williams Realty Signature Partners is boasting about!

* Thank you to my wonderful Market Center Administrator and friend Nancy Hayes for compiling these numbers and getting the word out! Love ya!

A Little of This, A Little of That

For all eleven of you who actually read this blog and have been asking when I am going to have a new post, here it is.

It has been a while since I was last on here but that is with good reason. I have been swamped blessed with business! I mean, you hear all the doom and gloom about real estate and the housing market on the news and how awful it is, but reallly, I am just not seeing it.

I’ve had two houses in the last month that I listed and sold within a week.* I have buyers with cash that just wrote a contract on a home valued at over half a million that they got a fabulous deal on through a short sale. I have at least three calls a day on a house I have through the short sale process. I have bank owned foreclosures that show at least once a day, two closings still to happen this month, two closings lined up for August with possibly three others coming on board and the market is moving.

The only two problems right now are with the appraisals and the lenders themselves. They are killing us. I have had three that we had good, solid contracts on that fell apart simply because they didn’t appraise. Is it frustrating? Oh, yeah. For everyone involved, not just my precious, sweet, little sellers. We do so much legwork getting the house listed, staged, shown, then with the contract, fighting for this or that and negotiating back and forth and then finally get it all worked out and wait. My sellers start packing, looking forward to a new home, or being relieved of a big mortgage as they are downsizing and then BOOM! The appraisal comes back and we are short. That is the hard part, trying to make it work again and keep everyone happy. Sometimes it works out but many times it doesn’t. And it is devestating for all involved.

The lenders, well, that’s a whole different story and you don’t want to get me started on that. The lenders and the government (OBAMA) are tying our hands behind our back with all the rules and regulations they impose. We were sitting at the closing table the week before last waiting to see if we were actually going to be able to close because the lender, thirty minutes before closing, said they could not close the loan without a copy of the appraiser’s license. WHAT?! I honesty thought I was going to have to open a can of whoop on an unidentified underwriter in Salt Lake City, Utah. I don’t know if my screaming and ranting convinced her she didn’t really need it after all or what, but we did get that one closed finally. I mean, c’mon. Do you really need that?! And if so, why didn’t the lender, who ordered the appraisal anyway, ask the appaisal company for that when they called and placed their order?!

But on a happier note, the market is good. Things are certainly busy and the the majority of agents I work with are market educated and professional. The old adage “only the strong survive” has prevailed and it shows in the agents left standing. Business is booming and despite what the president and all his liberal croonies up there in Washington are trying to do to ruin our country and it’s economy, we are here in the trenches fighting to make things better everyday.

God has been good to me and has blessed my business with wonderful clients, referrals, and fellow agents. I am richly and deeply blessed!

* My previous post was about “The Luxury Listing and Getting It Sold.” I am thrilled to say this home was one of the two under contract within six days.

Welcome to the Blog!

Ok, I have been toying with the idea of doing some sort of fun-filled, informative, Atlanta loving, real estate genre, work/life related blog for some time now. (Wow, that should me leave wide open with lots to write about.) I do a blog for my website but to be honest, it’s a little stuffy. Lots of meat, if you’re really into real estate and opinions and numbers and all that stuff but if you’re just looking for a light read about Atlanta, our market or some of the crazy things that happens when you’re a Realtor well, that probably isn’t the place to go. So, because of Facebook and Twitter and all the many wonderful social media sights that are supposed to save you time but actually cause you to use more of it because you’re so addicted to social media that you spend all your free time there, I now communicate with lots of friends and family that want to know what’s going on here, how are we, how is business, yada, yada, yada. This blog should be the a good place to start. I hope this serves as A.) a way to update friends and family about what we’re doing. B.) tell about Atlanta and why we love living here and C.) give you some good laughs with some “in the trenches” stories from a Realtor’s point of view. God knows, I have LOTS of those. And to hopefully pick up a new client or two and make some money along the way. Because if you know me and know me well, you know I am all about the money! love to make people happy and getting paid for it is just a small part of the process.

So, check back a couple times a week and see what’s going on with me and mine, the real estate business, my clients, Atlanta and anthing else that tickles my fancy. And I welcome your comments! Just keep clean because you never know who will be reading. I will post on Twitter and Facebook each time there is a new entry and I hope you’ll be reading.

Observations About Life and Real Estate

A rambling post about  things I learned:

Since this blog is primarily about real estate, I’ll start with a real estate associated observation first.  Never, ever, and let me repeat, never, under any circumstances, use a can of spray paint inside the house.  Trust me on that one.  You may think that you have covered every surface possible that could encounter some sort of permeation by the bazillions of particles spray paint consists of that will be nebulized into the air, but believe when I say, you haven’t.  I have learned this lesson first hand the hard way.   I got the bright idea to repaint a table we had in out kitchen, the room that was painted in neutral colors, with hardwood floors, two large windows that comprised a wall,  and, more importantly, in a home that was under contract and scheduled to close in two weeks.  I diligently covered the area where the table was located with lots of newspaper, and plastic and even covered the bottom half of the windows.   I sprayed with glee the kitchen table that would become my new creation and never gave it a second thought until I started to clean up.   It was then, with horror, that I discovered the spray paint had seeped into every nook and cranny in the floor, the cabinets, onto the glass panes, everywhere.  There was a fine white mist that looked like dust until you swept it away and it went no where or worse yet, smeared and looked ten times worse.  I was mortified.  David was already living in Atlanta at the time and I knew if he came home to close on our house and saw the mess I had created he would be furious.  Plus, our real estate agent in Murfreesboro at the time , the multi-talented Diana Wood with Bob Parks Realty, would kill me for doing something so stupid that close to closing.  I spent the rest of the evening into the wee hours of the morning scrubbing everything and scraping away the dried flecks of paint until nary a one remained.  It was heck on earth to do and I have never spray painted in the house since.  Guess there is a reason the directions state to do it outside, huh?

If you drive a car that has the words DO NOT TOP OFF printed on the outside of the gas lid, there is a good likelihood that the manufacturers of that automobile probably know what the heck they’re talking about .  Again, yet another lesson I have learned the hard way so benefit from my stupidty, save yourself some hard work and money and believe the Realtor Lady when I relate this.  You know the old adage, “If something can go wrong, it probably will?‘  Yep, that one is pretty darn true.  Picture this; I am standing in the cold, running late and supposed to meet clients for the first time to show them houses.  I have on clean slacks fresh from the drycleaner and new suede shoes.  (You see where this story is headed, right?)  I am pumping gas into my car and glance down just long enough to have the “do not top off”  phrase linger in my mind for a nano second, but alas, not long enough to make an impression.  The pump stops at 44.49.  I decide, in my infinite wisdom of course, that I would prefer a round number in my checkbook and not some funky odd number like 44.49 and decide to top off my sleek, German engineered marvel of a car in my clean slacks and new suede shoes.  I also decide that I should watch the pump as I do this and not the gas tank.  I top off and get my even number but also get a shoefull of premium unleaded gas and the wonderful smell that accompanies it .  I met my clients later than scheduled as I was trying to clean up my carand  myself and as well as to avoid anyone who might have been striking a match within 20 feet of me thus sending myself from Realtor Lady to Human Torch Lady.  Do not top off means just what it says…trust me.

Last, but certainly not least, don’t believe everything you hear.  Good gosh, to turn on the news and hear those bozos tell tale about it, there will never be another house sold in any part of the country and we are all going to hell in a hand basket!  Not so.  True, the market as a whole is down nationally.  Foreclosures are up.  The economy is bad and could get worse.  The jobless rate is seeing increases.   But there will be always be people  that have to sell and  always be people who have to buy and it’s our jobs as Realtors to put everyone together.   There is money to lend, contrary to what you’re hearing.  You have to good credit to get it but isn’t that the way it should be?   You will actually have to have some money to put down, but again, that ’s the way it needs to be to know that the buyer is serious and that they have a stake in the purchase of the home.  There are fabulous deals right now due to the record number of foreclosed properties available.  The tax credits for first time buyers are a huge incentive.  Although the news shows lots of doom and gloom, I am just not seeing it.  What I am seeing is buyers calling, contracts coming in and people being realistic in the pricing of their homes so that they can get offers and get moving. 

I welcome your comments on any lessons in life you’ve learned the hard way!

Is It Just Me Or………

First of all, just a brief note of thanks to my parents and family readers out there who are reading this and leaving comments either here or on Facebook!  I really appreciate your time and critique and hope you are able to get a laugh out of my posts.

Today is more of a rant than anything so you are warned in advanced.  In fact, it may turn into a serious rant because I,  for one, am fed up with the crappy customer service  that seems to be the norm today.  I am especially up in arms over the teenaged service people out there who have no common sense, no initiative,  no nothing.  They are just standing there taking up valuable  space that could happily be filled by someone who actually wants to work.  Case in point, Tuesday night my book club at church had its monthly meeting and I, unlike the other the other ladies who slave all day and bring scrumptious dishes to enjoy, was planning to take three footlong Subway sandwiches as my poor excuse of a contribution to add to the bevy of treats.  ( I know, the mere mention of Subway starts that God awful jingle in my head, and now yours, of  “five, five dollar, five dollar footlongs.  My apologies. )  I contemplated going to the Brookstone Subway because they never have adequate staffing and most of the kids they hire are complete doofuses, God love ‘em.  But I had had a crazy day, was running late and decide to chance it.  Yep, I found out the hard way that it was National Doofus Day once I got there.  I had this teenage kid that was about 6′3, weighed 110 pounds and had the top half of his boxer sports hanging out of his pants.  Excuse me, who in Heaven’s name finds this look attractive?  What moron tried this one morning and thought, “Dang I look hot with my underwear hanging two feet outta my pants?  That kids needs a swift kick in the behind but I digress. 

This kid was running the register and had another kid making the sandwiches.  There was no one in line to pay but there were people waiting to have sandwiches made.  Now, although the kid didn’t have enough initiative to think…”hhhmmm, maybe I should go help my co-worker and get this line down,”  it was his lucky day and I pointed this out to him by saying , yo doof, get your butt in gear “Excuse me sir, I know you’re busy but could you speed things up a bit and help her out?  Call me crazy,  but I don’t think he appreciated that.  He sauntered over and took about three mintes to slide those goofy plastic gloves on, adjust his hat and then  proceed as slowly as possible to make the order of the customer in front of me, all the while silently begging for a chance to madly flee back to important job of running the register.  The girl beat him to it, and began to ring up the two customers so I got stuck with Mr. Personality and his attitude, which I was certainly not in the mood for.  He took his sweet time making my order and ran out of meat on the last one.  He lazily plodded to the freezer, opens the germ ridden freezer door with his gloved hand then comes back and attempts, note the key word here, to place the meat onto my sandwich with the same glove that had touched the freezer door.  I am sure you see where this is headed, those of you that know me, correct?

“Excuse me, but I need you to remove the meat and change your gloves.” 

“What?”

“I believe you heard me; you touched that door with your gloved hand.  You then touched the meat with the hand that touched the door.  That isn’t sanitary. Please remove the meat, change your glove and finish with my stinking order already.”  (Okay, it wasn’t stinking I said… I gotta keep these posts clean and family oriented,)

He rolls his eyes and I nearly hurled my middle aged, slightly overweight body across the counter and the 3 foot glass partition to rip his eyes out but a quick glance at my watch revealed that I had no time to do so.  After he made my sandwiches and rang me up, he didn’t even say thanks so I made a point to “accidently” spill my extra large Diet Coke all over the floor and say ”Oops,  looks like you gotta mess out here”  as I ran like heck hastened out the door. 

So, is it just me?  It seems that wherever you go today, no one says thanks, no one goes above and beyond, no one really cares.  When I was growing up and had my first “sales” job, a popcorn cart at the front entrance of Opryland Theme Park, we were taught to say thank you and please and to go after the guests and suggestively sell the popcorn, hotdogs, ice cream and drinks.  (No, that does not mean we stood there naked-lol.) How many times do you go into a store and no one greets you, let alone asks if you need anything?  There are a few that still do but by and large, the customer service today is sorely lacking. 

As a Realtor, I have cut grass for clients, had my family help me clean up yards, remove overhanging branches from trees, move families in and out…no, that’s not my job but at the time it was a part of my job to get the home sold, the people moved in or moved out, whatever, to make the deal happen.  I did it; I may not have enjoyed it but it got done.  It seems the younger people today, my own kid included, don’t seem to have the focus or the desire to get off the phone, quit texting, get out of their own converations and go wait on a customer.  That’s a little  scary because these are the ones that are going to be in charge of the world in a  few short years.  What will customer service be like then?

I welcome your comment and opinions and thanks for reading!

Things I Love About Living in Atlanta

I am a transplant to the wonderful city of Atlanta, having moved here five years ago from the booming metropolis of Murfreesboro, TN.  I grew up in Nashville and Murfreesboro was a sleepy bedroom community where I thought my family and I would live forever.  Enter my husband’s job opportunity of a lifetime and here we are.  Although I lamented moving the first twleve months we lived here, and although I still miss Murfreesboro and my wonderful friends, I love Atlanta and can’t  imagine not having this place to call home.  Let me tell you why I love it:

• My in-laws are still three hours away in Nashville……..a very healthy buffer!
• The city of Atlanta  is beautiful with lots of natural spaces and parks filled with vibrant colors, beautiful flowers and the prettiest azaleas in the whole world.  When spring comes to the city, it is truly gorgeous. Drive downtown during the day and see all the planters in front of the office buildings filled with multi colored pansies.  Amazing!  
• If you’re a sports fan, we have it all for you.  We have numerous professional sports teams; The Braves (MLB)the Falcons (NFL), the Hawks (NBA), and the Thrashers (NHL) as well as SEC team Georgia and ACC team Georgia Tech.  We have the Atlanta Motor Speedway where NASCAR does their Pep Boys Auto 500 race.   If you like sports, Atlanta is the city for you!  And if you want to be a participant instead of an observer, give it a run in the annual Peachtree Road Race held every July 4 downtown.
• Several companies have their corporate headquearters in Atlanta such as Havertys, Athlete’s Foot, Coca Cola, Delta Airlines and Home Depot.  Yes, times are hard and the economy is struggling but these companies are staples of Atlanta. 
• Donald Trump is developing a new luxurious high rise condo/hotel complex right in the heart of midtown.  The Trump Towers Atlanta will be a top echelon development by the Donald himself!
• Atlanta is world renowned for its fine shopping, dining and entertainment.  There is a restaurant for every taste imagineable to satisfy your cravings.  The shopping is unparrelled with such high end places as Phipps Plaza, Lenox and Perimeter Mall.  If you’re looking for top entertainment, try the Fabulous Fox Theater or the Park at Chastain for great music, comedies shows and plays. 
• Many celebrities call Atlanta home from country crooners like Kenny Rogers to rap artists and producesr like OutKast, Usher and Jermain Dupri.  Evander Holyfield has a home in just outside Atlanta and with all the sports teams we have, there are tons of sports legends living among us. 
• Two fabulous parks right in the heart of midtown, Piedmont Park and Centennial Park.  Great places to walk the dog, see the sights, take a run or just enjoy the beauty of the day.
• Family oriented places and activities like the World of Coke, the CNN tour, The Georgia Aquarium, White Water and Six Flags Over Georgia.

Atlanta is an exciting city with many things to experience and lots of opportunities.  Almost 6 million people call the city of Atlanta and the surrounding 28 county metro area home.  And with good reason.  A city as exciting as this is a great place to live and raise a family.  Sure, we have the usual big city problems that other cities faces such as idiots managing government dollars, taxes too high and still not enough to go around, traffic tie ups  and a few Yankee transplants that haven’t adjusted to being in the south yet, but other than those things this is a great place to call home!

* Fun Fact: Did you know that Atlanta has the fastest growing millionaire population of anywhere in the country?   Must be all the real estate agents who live here!

Is It An Offer or Is It An Insult?

Ok, spoiler alert! This blog post may turn into another rant, much like the one I posted earlier about poor customer service. But you seem to like those………the last rant I wrote had 214 views within an hour.

Yesterday morning, as is my usual custom, I perused the liberal rag of the hometown newspaper, the Atlanta Journal and Constitution, online and found an article that was intriguing, being that I am a real estate agent. It discussed the state of the market here in metro Atlanta and the ridiculously low ball, hair brain offers that sellers are facing, from low end properties to high end. The post was aptly titled “Bargain Hunting Home Buyers Wearing on Sellers” and went on to describe in excruciating detail the *doofus offers sellers are receiving repeatedly throughout the home selling process. I especially like the line the writer of the article, Kevin Duffy, wrote when he said:

“The buyers’ expectation of getting a bargain are leading to numerous unrealistically low offers. And we are seeing a lot of seller fatigue. They have adjusted their price to a level often less below what they paid for the property and buyers are demanding more. Real estate agents now have to act as psychologists, mediators and sometimes marriage counselors. “

Welcome to my world. And to the world of my seller clients.

Of course, being the wonderful agent I am, I immediately emailed this article over to each of my sellers just as a word of preparation. We have that “lowball” talk at the beginning of our relationship, when I first have the opportunity of listing their home and getting it on the market. We discuss the fact that they are going to get low-balled and asked for everything in the house that is not nailed down but I tell them not to be offended. It’s an offer, we at least have a starting point and it’s all part of the game of real estate in the market today.

Until this week.

My inventory consists of almost thirty listings but I have two that have really received lots of interest the last two weeks. One is in east Cobb, a condo in an exclusive end of town in the highly desired Walton school district. This three bedroom condo with new everything is already bargain priced at $137,900 because my sellers are motivated. Read “motivated,” not desperate, stupid or foolish enough to give it away. The other home is a three bedroom ranch in Kennesaw, west Cobb in the brand new Allatoona High School district priced at $190,000 and dropped from the still below appraisal price of $225,000. These two well maintained, immaculate kept properties got offers this week but they were bad offers.

Lowball , unrealistic dog offers.

The $137,500 condo with new HVAC, water heater, paint and carpet in the highly desirable school district was offered $125,000 and asked to pay $500 in closing, provide all 110 pages of the covenants and pay the Georgia transfer tax, an additional 10 cents for every thousand. They also needed to professionally clean it and shampoo the carpets. We received this offer Tuesday afternoon of this week and the buyer wanted to close at 1 pm Friday. That’s right, four days later because it was a cash closing. No problem, we can do it but in exchange for us busting our butts to get 4 kids, I vicious poodle and 2 adults out in four days, we countered with paying no closing or no transfer tax, (which is the freaking responsibility of the buyer to pay anyway), we clean and remove all personal items and debris from unit, provided the website where THEIR AGENT could print the covenants (and in doing so do her own stinking due diligence for HER client) and we offered a steal of a price…..I won’t say it in case we do receive another offer but it was extremely reasonable and not much more that the original offer. The buyers counter back with a ridiculous offer and my seller said to forget it, which I totally supported. These people making the offer were the same people who called to schedule an appointment Saturday morning with a thirty minute notice, complained when my sellers could not accommodate them on such short notice, rescheduled the appointment for Monday morning, didn’t show up, rescheduled for the afternoon, showed up late, well, you get the picture. They were rude and disrespectful both in their offer as well as the little face to face dealing they did have with my clients.

Back to the house in Kennesaw, the one priced at $190,000. We have a lady who has come three times to look at it. She has her agent call me and ask would we take $170,000. Seriously. Now call me tater and paint me purple, but if we would take $170,000, wouldn’t we have it priced at $170,000?! That should be a no brainer. Especially when it says plainly “priced below appraisal. Price is firm.” What are these people thinking?

Another example, a seller I have has done the right thing, worked hard, paid her house off, and moved to Alabama to live on the lake. We had an offer on her house a few weeks back, a lowball, ask for everything offer and I asked the agent why she even bothered to show the property to someone who obviously could not afford it. Her reply? “Your seller doesn’t owe anything on the property, it’s paid off, why won’t she take it? She is still making money.” Yes, but about $30,000 less than she has it priced.

Last example, I recieve a phone call on a house just listed for $329,900. The caller starts off like this:
“Would he take $275,000?”
“No.”
“How about $280,000?”
“How about getting off the phone, bozo,” is what I wish I could say.

I don’t understand this. Sure, the market is bad and there are numerous foreclosed properties and short sales setting out there killing he legitimate sellers who want to move, want to move up, have to move, or are being relocated. If you go see a home and notice a family currently living there, it is not bank owned, it is a family that wants to move and make some money in the process on their investment. Why are people thinking it is okay to come in embarrassingly low and ask for everything like the washer, dryer, and fridge and honestly expect they are going to get it? To honestly believe the sellers are not going to be irate and that negotiations are not going to be a bit strained? To think if the deal does go through and they keep asking for this from the inspection or that from something else that everyone is going sit and make nice at the closing table? I cannot comprehend that and I am embarrassed for them and their agent when they do it. Sure, comps are low and sometimes the price has wiggle room built in but the offers we get seem to be so low they are not even realistic and it become s a waste of everyone’s time to haggle back and forth when there is no real way to make the numbers work. I do not overprice property. I am a professional and the prices we have on our homes are the right, well researched prices and they are fair prices with a slight amount of wiggle room built in. Do you want a good price or do you need help with closing costs? You need to decide that before you come in $20,000 plus off the price and ask for everything. Most sellers are fair and willing to work with you but the majority of them cannot write a check at the closing table and I have never had any client willing to pay someone to buy their house.

My sellers who received the lowball written offer have another showing early this morning that we hope will turn into something. My seller in Kennesaw is patient and will wait to get something realistic on paper. It takes time and I am seeing myself sometimes having to be more than agent, having to play part mediator/counselor/ vent hearer to help them get through it. It’s just part of the job. Buyers today need to think how insulted they would be if they received a very low offer and were asked for everything. If they were asked to accept less than they paid for a home and leave several of the their personal possessions, fix everything and give a warranty and oh, by the way, get out and move on someone else’s time table. It gets old and is extremely frustrating and does nothing to foster warm and fuzzy feelings, feelings that are necessary because you’re going to be sitting across from each other at the closing table.

The shoe doesn’t fit so well when it’s on the other foot now, does it?

As always, I welcome your comments, horror stories and personal experiences. Thanks for reading!

*Doofus offers (this is from the “Tammy- ictinary” ) a totally, unbelievable, why did you waste your time writing this garbage and my time having to read and present offer that there is no way in Hades anyone with a sound mind is going to accept. Unfortunately, we are seeing more of these each day.

Ramblings From An Overtaxed Mind

Wow, a lot has happened since my last blog post. My goal with this blog is to write about Atlanta and the real estate market here but today I’m making it a bit more personal. Not that we have anything unusually exciting going on in our lives but just to bring everyone up to date with the Spanns. I want to be sure that my readers, all 11 of you, (lol) know what’s happening!

We returned from our trip to Vegas last Monday and I have to say it was really fun. Dave ended up working most of the time but that freed me up to spend some quality hours at the stores along the strip and the huge outlet mall they have there. We also made time to see Bette Midler at Caesars Palace and she put on a fantastic show! If you ever have an opportunity to go see her, do. She is hilarious!

We returned home and since it was the week of spring break, I decided it would be a great time to tackle some of those “around the house projects” that we David had been putting off getting started on. I had had a ferocious battle with one mean spirited wasp earlier in the week and the window in our two story foyer was coated in wasp spray where he and I had battled it out. Armed with a five gallon jug of bug killer, I single handedly won the battle but it took forever for the son of a gun to die and even longer for him to finally fall to his death and get off the window. Naturally, we had to use a ladder to ascend high enough to clean the thing and in the process learned an extremely valuable lesson in this endeavor. When placing a ladder in a foyer to go up twenty feet, never place it on a large foyer rug that can move. David, my six foot tall, 240 pound husband, went up to clean and came down even quicker when the thing flew out from under him. He ended ripping his Achillies tendon and having that rewired back together and currently has a metal screw attempting to hold his ankle in place. Another valueable lesson learned……when your spouse is up on the ladder, be there to hold it for him. I think we will just use a window service next time!

Atlanta has had some rough weather the last week or so with the extreme cold and terrible storms. My favorite city in the world and my former home town, Murfreesboro, TN, has been rocked by a terrible tornado that did extensive damage. Our friends are ok but several have damage of some sort to their homes or property. We had a storm here yesterday that toppled a few trees in the neighbor’s yards around us but fortunately avoided our yard. We had lots of debris to clean up but with a sixteen year old daughter who always needs money, it was easy to farm that work out and at a reasonable rate. Her and her friend Josh Forbes came to the rescue and cleaned up a half acre yard for thirty dollars a piece…not a bad deal! The yard is now completely tree limb and pine cone free and the beautiful birds we have, like cardinals, blue jays, finches and woodpeckers, are back and enjoying the free bird seed we keep out for them.

That’s it with the Spanns for right now. Dave is home for at least a week and in a cast for the next ten. I have three buyers my wonderful buyer’s agent is working with and I am working with a couple from Spain who are coming here to make an offer on one of my listings Friday. I have a closing happening at the end of the month if we can get one small detail resolved before it turns into a big problem. Real estate is good but crazy, as are our lives right now, but really, I wouldn’t want it any other way!

Are You Believing This?!

I have been completely flummoxed the past couple of weeks with purported “serious” buyers. I mean, hey, I am a real estate agent and my mantra is “show me the money,” so if I have someone who appears to be a ready, willing and able buyer, I will do one of two things:

A. Take them out myself to see selected properties that are exclusively listed by moi, or
B. Turn them gently and lovingly over to my multi talented buyer’s agent, the ever capable Paige Brantley, who will take them to see other properties and hand hold them through the entire home buying process and most importantly, give me half the money when the deal closes. (This is the preferred scenario.)

Okay, but things don’t always work out as planned and in the last few weeks I have gotten an enormous amount of sign calls and web hits. I have farmed as much as this as possible out to Paige but I had one couple who I had to work with personally. They had visited my website and found a house there they absolutely loved. They did the virtual tour, pulled up tax records, the whole nine yards and we began five weeks of emailing back and forth. I say email because they live in Spain and it was the most cost effective way for us to communicate. Bottom line, they email me, say they love the house, they are coming to Atlanta on such and such date, they want to see the house AND write a contract. They further state that they will be in the good ole USA until the end of April and could we close before they leave. Sounds like a done deal, huh?

Wrongo.

Well, do the math here…they are in Spain so that means they are flying into the ATL. To the airport that is on the other side of Atlanta from where we live. I fill up the premium gas guzzling, German engineered SUV and drive the one hour out there to meet them, being the gracious, commission loving, Southern hostess that I am. We meet and only one speaks English, but hey, I am good with that as long as the other can interpret. We then drive one hour back out here to look at the house. We stay there forty-five minutes, checking eveything out, walking the lot, re-drive the neighborhood, the whole nine yards. We get back to the house and I say, “are we ready to write the offer?”

You would have thought I had just ask the two of them to engage in something kinky between the three of us.

“Well, we need to see more houses,” they stammer. “You have more houses to show us, no?”

“No, I don’t. You said you wanted to write an offer on this one.” (Excuse me, but when someone tells me they want to write an offer on a house, there is no way I am going to say, well, wait, you want to see more? Just to be sure?)

“Well, we need to see others. We can’t make decision only seeing one house, no?”

Ggrrrrrrr. “Well, okay, let’s drive the area and see if you see anything you like. If so, we will call the agent and we take a look.”

We hop back into the gas guzzling SUV and nothing else catches their fancy after another hour’s worth of driving. Then, my passenger turns to me and excitedly says “We can go out tomorrow no?” No, I think in my my head, because I have other plans. “Well, what time tomorrow would work for you?” I stupidly ask.

And then she says those words that no Realtor ever wants to hear.

“We can go out after we get back from looking at house with the other Realtor we are meeting tomorrow.”

Other Realtor?
Tomorrow?
After you told me you weren’t working with a Realtor and you were ready to go on my listing?
After I drove an hour to get you and hour back, took another hour and half with you, you are going out with another Realtor tomorrow?

So I promplty said, “No, I can’t” and proceeded to drive another hour back to the airport to take them to the hotel. Steaming the whole ride back…. I thought I was doing pretty good keeping myself in check until the lady turns to me and says “We no have time to go to the grocery and we need some things to eat in the room. You can take us, no?

The look on my face must have said it all because she recoiled in horror when I quickly turned to her and snapped off an exasperated WHAT?!

“We no have food to eat in room, please stop us at store.” I almost made a comment about the Realtor tomorrow could do it but decided God was giving me the opportunity to do a good deed and I needed to go with this one. I whipped into a CVS and she goes in, leaving me with the husband in the back seat that spoke no English.

“El nice o day o” I say, trying to be nice.

Anyway, long story short, I wasted all stinking day with two people who had no malice in their heart but who had no freaking idea how an agent works or for that matter, gets paid. I wasted a day with people who couldn’t communicate what they wanted to do and who had unintentionally mislead me. Lesson learned. The hard way.

We see it all the time…buyers today are just a different set of people then they were even three years ago. Paige recently took out a couple who were chain smokers and who proceeded to light it up in every house they went to see, even when she specifically asked them not to. They smoked in her car, cursed like crazy and then have proceeded to show up unannouced at “their” new house even thought they don’t close on it until the end of next month. We have people schedule us to show them houses, we set aside the whole day, call and confirm the appointments with them, then they never show up to meet us. Or call to say they aren’t meeting us. And we also have the ever popular couple who has Paige shown 53 houses, written one contract (way too low, against her expert advice) and who have now decided want to wait and see what happens with the market. (sigh)

If you are a buyer in todays market, you need to be serious and courteous. We are not getting paid just to haul you around and although we love what we do, going out to show house just isn’t that fun if you’re only there just to look. You need to be ready, willing and able so that when the right house comes along, you can go for it and do so with a solid offer. If you don’t hear dropping the F bomb, it’s probably not a good idea to do either and please, for the love of Mary, don’t light one up in our car. (If the ashtrays are clean, that’s probably a good sign we aren’t smokers.) And don’t smoke in someone elses house!

Ah, the life of a real estate agent. Yeah, some of us drive flashy cars and carry designer bags but all the stuff we put up with to get there will drive you crazy. Real estate, it really ain’t all that glamorous!

Give Where You Live

I gotta say, in my 46, er, few years here on this earth I have had many jobs, most of which I performed well at but never really loved. Then I found real estate and I have become enraptured by the thrill of the pursuit. Getting the lead, going all out for it, competing with other strong agents and ultimately winning the prize of the listing and sticking my sign in the front yard. It’s a high all the way, from getting the appointment to maintaining the listing and getting the thing sold, then moving on to the next deal.

I didn’t start out with the right company when I got into real estate four years ago but finally got it right about nine months into the ballgame when I switched over to Keller Williams. Man, what an awesome company! Their business motto of “God, family, business,” is incredible and they truly talk the talk and walk the walk.

Recently, the entire company participated in the first annual Keller Williams Red Day, which was last Thursday, May 14. Every office in the country went out and and proceeded to “give where we live” by doing some type of community service project. It helped us to give back, reflect on how blessed we are, get off ours butts and go out and do. It was a fabulous day, a wonderful opportunity and a great chance to show the Keller Williams spirit.

I don’t know about you but when I plan to do a good deed, it seems that that is the time that the evil one tries his best to foil my plans. I had gotten up that morning rather excited, because I, along with several other agents, where volunteering at the Feed My Lambs programs in Austell, one of three places KW had set up for our office. This is a facility that provides daycare, love and meals to underpriviledged kids who might not get a balanced meal, a hug or encouragement without being there each day. We planned to play with the kids, do some centers and have lunch catered in by the ever popular Chick Fil A.

I got a late start, and I hate to be late so that kinda got things started for me. Couple that with the fact that I have NO sense of direction and NO ability to work the navigation system in my sleek, German engineered SUV and you can see where this story is going. I was lost, late and angry and totally gave that wonderful morning over to Satan. What a waste. I was mad, frustrated and decided to just forget it and turned around in a vain attempt to find my way home.

Then it hit me.

This was exactly what was supposed to happen. Because if I quit, if I gave up, if half of us that day who had signed up and volunteered to help got ticked off, or a late start, or had some other unforseen monkey wrench thrown into the plan, it would fail and the chance to give back would be stolen from us. That’s exactly what he wanted, for me to give up, be mad and stew the rest of the day.

I pulled over and and finally figured out the navigation system in the car for the first time in three months. I said a prayer asking for forgiveness and the strength to go ahead even though I would be arriving late and still have a chance to make a difference. I got back on the highway without ramming into anyone or flipping anyone off and continued on to my original destination with a determined smile and spirit.

Wow, I am so glad I did! The kids were great and I had a wonderful time hanging out with them, many of whom I am probably on the same level with, goofball wise. We had lots of centers and I was “in charge” of angel drawing, where we drew their body in chalk on the sidewalk, colored in eyes, hair and smiles and they were thrilled! We planted seeds with them, did face and finger painting and they loved it. They were so excited from these things and they told us thank you over and over.

Then lunch came and I was truly humbled.

I sat with three little kids for lunch, Favour, Mark Charles and a little girl whose sweet name I cannot recall as I write this. We had the Chick Fil A cow come and we passed out chicken nuggets, chips and milk. You would have thought we had passed out the most scrumptious meal there ever was to these kids. They were so thankful and ate every bite. What really broke my heart is the little guy sitting next to me asked if he could take his empty box of nuggets home. He said he had never been to Chik Fil A before. It really made me think.

Many times I am guilty of taking the tremendous blessings that God has bestowed on me for granted or, worse yet, often times thinking I am the reason I have what I have. That is so wrong. I have been richly and deply blessed and I am so grateful I work for a company that allowed me the chance to be reminded of just how blessed I am. I hope we will make KW Red Day a monthly opportunity because it was one of the best days I have had in awhile.

And I am glad I didn’t allow the the evil one to take it from me!

The Luxury Listing and Getting It Sold!

Today I’m starting an ongoing post on the blog about this fabulous new listing and what my team and I are doing to get it marketed, out there and hopefully under contract soon.

All I can say about this house is wow! I have had high end luxury listings before and have several coming on board in Roswell next month that are bank owned but I truly cannot express in words how spectacular this home is! I would love to post some pictures now of it but the ones I took do not do it justice. I have planned for a professional photographer to come out and take photos on June 1 so as soon as he gets my copies completed, I will post them along with a link to my website so that you can view the entire virtual tour.

This house is a masterpiece and has been built with every upgrade imaginable. (Let’s just say this, if you have allergies, this is the home for you. It is built to be allergy proof!) It is the largest home I’ve listed with almost 9,000 square feet of living space. Can you imagine keeping that thing clean? I mean, we have roughly half that and I feel like our house is always dirty! This wonderful family has four kids and three dogs and whenever I have been over, it always looks perfect.

We are hitting the market on June 1, the day our photographer does the shoot. My handy dandy assistant Mayar will post it live that evening. We’ve had a stager, the wonderfully talented Pat Shankle at Georgia Home Staging, come out and give recommendations for what stays, goes, moves around, and relocates and she supplied my sellers with a list of things to do. Pat will be with me for the photo shoot to ensure that everything looks great!

Just to give you an idea of the size of this home, here are the stats. It has 8 bedrooms and five and a half baths. It has five magnificent fireplaces, one of which is a stacked stone fireplace in the master bedroom. The terrace level alone could be a separate home for someone. It is in the exclusive enclave of The Aviary, in trendy West Cobb and falls into the new Allatoona High School district. The kitchen is to die for and there is a breakfast room with fireplace, breakfast bar, breakfast alcove, family room, formal living room/office, another family room, a bedroom with full bath, formal dining room, half bath and grand foyer on the main level alone.

We have a strong marketing plan in place and the first quarter statistics for West Cobb real estate show that homes on the high end are seeing movement. The summer frenzy of home buying as begun and as soon as a family sees this house and its tremendous value, we should see a contract. Check back the first week of June to see pictures and I will blog about the house room by room. It’s truly incredible and I can’t wait to share it with you!

New green blog post-check it out http://ping.fm/qcF6k Thought about composting? This may help.