Marnie Matarese / DWELL REAL ESTATE

It has taken awhile for me to be able to post this.  Our realty company is one of the sponsors of the Phantom 9 race boat that was in the lead in the Sarasota Grand Prix Race over the 4th of July Weekend.  It is a magnificent machine and the pilot, Mark Niemann, is amazing. We are all in awe of ...

I received a wonderful phone call today from some buyers who purchased a beautiful villa on Siesta Key back in May of 2011.  It came on the market at what I felt was a very good price and we were able to negotiate it to an even better one with it closing at $332,000.  The owner had found the perf...

  10MondayJune 2013 Martha / OMG!!! Monday brings the next round of scheduled work-outs. Here is what the schedule “suggested” we do today: 7 a.m. – Cardio kick boxing 8 a.m. – Breakfast 9:30 – Monopoly (and no kids, we weren’t sitting around a board game) 11:00 – Core Melt Noon – Lunch 1 p.m. – ...

Day Six 09SundayJun 2013 Martha / And on the sixth day we rested – well sort of. Sundays are great because there is no 7 a.m. class and our first scheduled session is breakfast at 8. Following breakfast we checked emails and waited for our 10 a.m. horse trail ride. There was a large group of us a...

  Day Five   08Saturday Jun 2013   Martha / 8:22 a.m. Peaceful morning – everyone is happy and getting along. I wonder how long this will last.   9:15 – We had the option of a class or a hike – amazingly we chose the hike. Ken led us around the ranch and whenever the terrain wasn’t too steep or r...

  2 Sisters on the range   This is the saga of my sister and me on a mission to lose weight and jump start an exercise program we could live with.  My sister managed to keep a wonderful, daily chronicle of our two weeks at the Fat Farm and I will now share it day by day with you.  My comments are...

This is a follow-up to my blog two days ago about the fact that it does not matter what the seller paid for his home.... It really does not matter what he owes either.  We are not privvy to his personal finances and what he owes has nothing to do with what he is willing to sell the home for.  Wha...

Today yet another buyer asked me to find out what a seller had paid for a home.  Why?  What does that have to do with the value of the home now? What if the owner purchased it 20 years ago at a price relative to that time’s value?  Should he now give it away because he did not pay anything near w...

Human interaction is far superior to electronic outreach.  That is one of the biggest lessons I have learned in nine years as a realtor.  The "internet lead"  was all the rage when I got my license and I spent hours in classes that touted the secret to attracting these people, how much time you h...

What would you  do?  I found myself in a very uncomfortable position at a closing and although my buyer was in tears I had to side with the listing agent.  The transaction had been very difficult in every way from the financing to the home inspection to just trying to get communication between t...