Houses and More

I've been thinking a lot about change lately.  People generally are threatened by change.  It's uncomfortable.  It's unknown.  It's unpredictable.  It requires adjustment.  Humans on the whole would rather be comfortable and not have to make a lot of adjustments.  It's the natural way.  We joke a...

Big words are a frustration to me.  I know they are a sign of intelligence, but I also think they can be a way of separating groups of people, those in the know from those not in the know.  They are similar to jargon which is understood by those in a common profession, but separates those in the ...

This is not real estate related, has nothing to do with business, is totally off topic, but fun!  Carole Cohen sent me an "elf yourself" from the Office Max website.  I could care less about "elfing" myself but have a grandson who thinks this kind of thing is grand (You know, the 5-8 year old typ...

In case you missed the news, Mary McKnight of RSS Pieces has arranged a Yankee Swap of real estate blogs.  There are 28 participants who will be writing entries on another person's blog on December 19.  I accepted an invitation thinking this would be fun and THEN found out the big guys were parit...

The last day or so, a message has popped up periodically on my computer:  "New updates are available.  Do you wish to update now."  Invariably the message pops up in the middle of composing a blog entry and if I choose to do the update, the system usually has to be rebooted thus loosing my hard s...

Most of us have seen a plat drawing like the one on the left.  It is not a survey map, but usually a copy of what the county has on file in their offices.  This particular map is my son's property.  He owns all of lot 6, lot 5 and the south half of lot 4.  In our area, that's quite a bit of land....

"Our newest data confirm last quarter's data that the housing market is in a decidedly different stage," said OFHEO Director James B. Lockhart in a statement. "With U.S. house prices growing less than 1 percent during the third quarter, it provides more evidence that the long-forecasted national ...

When your clients shop for a house, do they consider that the house style may wreak havoc with their current furniture?  I know first time buyers often plan to buy furniture for the first time with their new house, but what about your move-up buyers?  Sometimes they realize they have to have a be...

Unlike TLW, I hate shopping.  I hate it with a passion.  That doesn't mean it's a bad thing to do, I just don't like doing it.  I'd much rather sit down at my computer and shop on-line.  I can get it done in 1/10 the time and not have to hassle with crabby clerks, missing colors, missing sizes, l...

I never shop the day after Thanksgiving so when I heard the term Black Friday, I was surprised.  Black Friday?  What on earth?  I had to Google it to find out what it was.  My first assumption was that it was the time when merchants finally started to make money that didn't go for overhead and ex...