Eric Trautmann's Morris County NJ Brokerage Blog

Name and Shame,bailouts etc do not work! The president should bail out the public and heres how; instead of going for top down bailouts try bottom up bailouts. 700 Billion dollars to homeowners with mortgages. If we had a national bailout where every mortgage holder (behind,underwater or paying i...

I wanted to wish everyone a safe and happy Thanksgiving. Please rememeber our troops who are in harms way to ensure our safety and our freedom to pursue our dreams and goals in life and work. Also, remember our emergency and law enforcement personal as they put their lives on the line so we do no...

The House that Ruth built has been sold and the family has moved into their new home. A brand new place built by the Derek Jeter Lumber and Leather Company. Pretty soon they will add some new hardware for over the mantlepiece, but they may need to add some space as 27 place settings are a lot. I ...

The National Association of Realtors has really saved our bacon this time. The Clean Energy Act was a coffin nail for our industry. Our association though has managed to change how it was interpeted and got concessions to make it workable. This bill would have shut down home selling in America! I...

Some other interesting facts about Boonton, NJ real Estate. The town of Boonton or should I say old Boonton is located underneath the Jersey City Reservoir! When I was younger during droughts I can remember seeing some remains of houses and a church. When they decided to create the reservoir wher...

A few more moving glossary terms; SIT is an acronym for Storage In Transit. This means when you are moving long distance, for example from NJ to Florida, and the shipper does not leave your old home and drive directly to your new home. The mover unloads the truck and stores your belongings in the...

I just read some other realtor blogs and saw how they do regular posts about the towns they live and work in. It hit me like a twenty pound sledge...duh...that should be part of what I am doing. So I figured I would start with a few little ancedotes about Boonton, where our office is located. Tho...

I have a home listed that is in a high end community that is in disrepair. We have rented it out three times for the owner( a good family friend) and each tenant (who I recomended that he not rent to) has made the property progressively worse. The neighbors are now calling me to complain about th...

Today October 16th is our 4th wedding anniversary so I was looking for a nice gift and also a gag gift. So I looked up the Anniversary Year Gift Chart. You know first year is paper, Twenty Fifth is silver, and fifty is gold. As a realtor I like the fourty second anniversay year gift the best . It...

One part that I was just thinking of that added to the dry wall shortages was Hurricane Katrina. If everyone remembers when the storm hit and the aftermath there was an immediate surge in prices of home repair prices and a shortage of plywood, drywall, and other building materials.  This added to...