Writely — You Bet It Is! September 23, 2006
Posted by Geri in General, Technology, Uncategorized, Word Processing.4 comments
| An avid reader of industry blogs, I came across a great find last night on Jim Cronin’s always well thought out RealEstateTomato. In what may be the death knell for Bill Gates’ Microsoft Word or at least a major threat to his monopolization of word processing, Writely, a newer tentacle in Google’s far reaching universe will no doubt be a major player. |  |
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With an intuitive interface and capabilities far outstripping those currently available from it’s competition, Writely offers its users an option of collaborating on a document online in real time by merely inviting others to join. This could be a powerful tool for group projects. For the bloggers out there, imagine the ease of creating an article and with a simple click, click it appears on your blog. Because files can be stored online you can access them from anywhere, that alone makes for ease of operation. Start a project on one computer, finish it on another. An additional and clever option is the ability to save your documents in a variety of formats, giving you much more control over the process. I could go on and on about my budding love affair with this technology, but this is one you’re going to have to try for yourself. If I were you I’d go right over to Writely and sign yourself up. |
| An admitted technophile, I found myself blogging about this late into the night on ActiveRain and sharing it with my fellow CyberStars®. So Jim if you’re out there I suspect my gratitude for finding this little gem will be ongoing. You definitely have me as a devoted reader. |
Things — Do You Own Them or Do They Own You September 16, 2006
Posted by Geri in Clutter, family, feelings, General, Home, Uncategorized.1 comment so far
Clutter can sneak up on you and turn your world upside down. It can start with something as simple as putting down your mail and telling yourself you’ll get to it later, then not focusing on it till you’re drowning in paper, or the unconscious need to collect things. I’m guilty of both and finally, out of desperation made a decision awhile back that was liberating. “Just because I own it,” I reminded myself, “doesn’t mean it has to be on display.” A simple truth, but acknowledging it was a biggie for me. I don’t want to give you the impression that my world is now pristine, clutter free and organized, it’s anything but. I feel like I’m in a twelve step program and I’m at step three.
I’ve watched all the television shows in which they take someone’s littered space and turn it into a model of organization and planning. The before pictures, embarrassing at best, give the viewer the impression that no amount of time or talent can free these people from a lifetime of bad habits. Amazingly though, the outcome is always spectacular and the invariable revisit by the host within a few months of the project’s end reveals a happy convert to an orderly and more stress free existence. I hold that out as my hope as I slog through the process.
For anyone out there who can relate, I strongly recommend watching HGTV’s Mission Organization.
9/11 Remembered September 12, 2006
Posted by Geri in family, feelings, General, New York, Uncategorized.add a comment
I shall never forget the morning of September 11, 2001. It’s one of those moments in time when everyone knows exactly where they were and what they were doing. It was a beautiful morning with clear blue skies and the promise of summer extended. An early morning phone call to an attorney I often work with revealed the beginning of what was to be a day that would go down in infamy and forever change the landscape of a world I thought I knew so well.
“Hi, how are you?” I asked when Ted picked up the phone. “Not at all well,” was his immediate response. To my query, “what’s wrong?” he said “you don’t have your television on do you? If you’re near one turn it on.” He then told me a plane crashed into the World Trade Center. It couldn’t be, it had to be a mistake. When I finally got that it wasn’t, I thought a small plane had somehow gone horribly off course. Together we watched the nightmare unfold. Commentators were speaking to people trapped on high floors, above the inferno. They had been told to stay where they were and that they would be rescued. It was amazing how calmly they recounted their experiences of what happened.
With the phone still attached to my ear I gaped in horror as the second plane appeared out of nowhere and slammed full force into the second tower. In an instant we knew we had been attacked by some unknown force for evil. It conjured up President Kennedy’s assassination. That was the only other time in my life I remember the world turning in an instant from full color into a painful, silent, endless sea of gray. I stood transfixed watching replay after replay of these unspeakable acts perpetrated on an unsuspecting nation.
Things like that don’t happen here. We’re a world away from the atrocities brought about by brainwashed soldiers of an evil war. What kind of hatred propels people to gleefully rob children of their parents, lovers of their loved ones, mothers and fathers of a child? The world turned upside down that day, we were robbed of our innocence. We could no longer go to work in the morning with an absolute expectation of returning home again at night. My heart broke that day for all those trapped by happenstance and for their would be saviors, the bravest of the brave who went into that holocaust with eyes wide open.
In the dark days that followed, thousands of photos bore witness to the devastation as families and friends searched for missing loved ones. A woman I worked with was among them, hoping against hope that her 31 year old son was injured and taken to a hospital somewhere. Perhaps he had amnesia. Perhaps he couldn’t speak. As days became weeks, the grim reality settled in for all of us. We would never be the same.
Five long years have passed, years of untold sadness for those directly affected by this insanity. As I watched the services at ground zero it was as if it happened yesterday.
The First Time’s The Hardest September 8, 2006
Posted by Geri in Buying a Home, Long Island, New York, Real Estate, Uncategorized.add a comment
If you’ve never bought a home on Long Island you may find the process a little daunting, like having your first child. Unfortunately, neither event comes with instructions, you take tentative steps and 
gain experience along the way. Couple this with a language as foreign as any you’ve yet to learn and you just might suffer inexplicable terror. Find a good agent to work with and you’ll have a guide to walk you through the process, steering you past any mine field along the way. Choosing the right broker for you will determine your level of stress. Pick someone you can talk to and voice your concerns. You’ll know the first time out whether this is the person for you. Go with your gut instincts.
There are many unique aspects to buying or selling property in downstate New York. Attorneys write contracts here, unlike most of the rest of the country. Because of this and because it’s extremely rare to have a “sit down” contract any more, the paperwork goes back and forth between both legal representatives until all the details and wording are acceptable to both. A check, traditionally in the amount of 10% (although many times negotiated to 5%) of the purchase price is written and transmitted with the signed contract to the seller’s attorney. The down payment is then put into an escrow account until the closing, typically 60 to 90 days later. In other parts of the country they’re shocked by what is perceived as our antiquated methodology for transferring title of real property. To us it’s simply business as usual.
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If You Want It Sold . . . September 7, 2006
Posted by Geri in Blogroll, Changing Market, Long Island, New York, Real Estate, Real Estate Market, Selling Your Home.add a comment
There was a time when all you had to do to get a home sold was list it. Nothing fancy, though some very classy marketing 
pieces were used by those of us who saw a value in it. It set our listings apart from the crowd, but if truth be told, the market for home sales on Long Island was white hot. Those were the years when you didn’t have to have great expertise to get the job done. The frenetic activity by a buying public did it for us.
Then came the change. As we watched the long touted “bubble burst” those in the industry for six years or less had no frame of reference for how to deal with a new environment. Prices were coming down like lead balloons and with inventory increasing at alarming rates, none of the tried and true was working. Buyers were sitting on the sidelines waiting to see how things leveled out, ignoring ads in local newspapers. Equally ignored were the full color ads in local real estate magazines. Even web sites, formerly drawing the eyes of huge numbers of potential purchasers, were sitting dormant.
In today’s real estate marketplace, at least here on Long Island, the single most important tool we have is pricing your home right from the start. We need to assess where similar homes have been selling within the last two to three months and price yours aggressively. The temptation to get you just a little bit more can wind up costing you tens of thousands of dollars as time and buyers pass you by.
A Prince Is Born September 6, 2006
Posted by Geri in Blogroll, family, feelings, General, Uncategorized.add a comment
There was nothing special about yesterday. It was another gray and threatening day on Long Island, just after the anticlimactic Labor Day weekend. Mothers scrambled to get last minute school supplies, causing long lines in superstores and clogging exits of parking lots. I needed a few report covers, nothing important enough to fight the crowds, so I decided to come back some other time. 
Good thing. I got the first call shortly after ten, telling me my son and daughter-in-law were in the hospital and she was in labor. Since I’ve been sick with an upper respiratory infection I dutifully stayed away, though my heart was clearly there. I did my pacing at home and at my office till I finally got a text message letting me know they’d had a healthy baby and I should expect a call from my grandson (the big brother) to let me know the details. What??? No sex, no weight, nothing!! Because they decided early on that they didn’t want to know the sex of the baby we waited with baited breath for the moment when we could at last focus our thoughts on a him or a her. It was cruel to leave me hanging. Admittedly my son has a warped sense of humor, much like his mother and several other members of the family. But not now. I’d waited nine long months trying not to think pink or blue. It was my moment, they already knew. I wanted to go shopping. After several text messages of my own he got the message and at long last I found out. We had another boy, Dylan Hunter. I’ll risk sounding prejudiced as I say he’s as beautiful as his name. As is befitting royalty, he had a considerable welcoming committee to witness his first interaction with our world and I could swear I heard a twenty one gun salute at precisely the moment he arrived. Seemingly unimpressed, he glanced around and decided to take a nap. He’s a very lucky young man to have a very special and loving “big brother” who will no doubt teach him everything he needs to know.
Ernesto Leaves His Calling Card September 4, 2006
Posted by Geri in Blogroll, family, feelings, General, Long Island, New York, Uncategorized.add a comment
As I sat at this keyboard on Saturday watching the wind whip through the trees, announcing Ernesto’s arrival I thought little of it. It was nothing more than a typical summer storm, or so I thought. Functioning on a limited level, I was at what I hoped was the tail end of a stubborn upper respiratory infection. As the day wore on the relentlesss rain and swirling winds were beginning to get me down. We’d had a wonderful summer on Long Island this year, with beachgoers enjoying eight weeks of uninterrupted sun. But the whole last week, as if heaven held it back as long as it could and was finally giving up, the rains fell. Nothing devastating, sometimes not even heavy rain, but the dismal gray days and moisture filled air that make you want to seek shelter and curl up with a good book.
What a shock when I finally ventured out on Sunday to pick up a newspaper and a few things at the supermarket, to see all the downed trees. Stately oaks with massive trunks leveled and occasionally split down the middle, near misses as local residents ran to get out of the way of falling trees, downed power lines — this was no minor event. We generally consider ourselves lucky in the northeast when it comes to hurricanes. The last really devastating one I remember on Long Island was Gloria. It hit in 1985 and left thousands of people without power for a week or more. You could barely drive down any street without detouring around massive downed trees and huge chunks of concrete.
Every now and then we get a reminder of our place in the universe and just how vulernable we are to the things over which we have little or no control. At least now we have the technology to be warned about some upcoming natural disasters.
If Only It Were That Simple September 2, 2006
Posted by Geri in Blogroll, family, General, Long Island, New York, Real Estate, Selling Your Home.add a comment
There was a time in the not too distant past that you made a decision to put your home on the market and your 
listing agent took a picture, loaded the information into the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) and scheduled an Open House for local brokers. The theory behind it was to get as many professionals past your front door as possible so they would call their buyers and start the parade of prospects walking through the home.
Usually, within the same week an Open House would be scheduled and advertised in the newspaper. Then if you were very lucky you’d get anywhere from 8 to 20 groups of people stopping by to look at your home. Many of them would be nosy neighbors or people looking for something to do on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon. If you and your agent really hit the jackpot, the perfect buyer, looking for a home just like yours would linger and decide to make an offer. It happened occasionally, but it was a toss of the dice.
If this strategy didn’t work, an ad would be placed in the paper over and over again till someone from somewhere bought your home. Well that was then and this is now. I’m going to tell you something you may not want to hear. Newspaper advertising no longer works. The full color Real Estate books don’t work. In fact, most of the tried and true methods of the past simply don’t sell houses on Long Island in 2006.
With ever increasing inventory and a constant battle to make your home stand out from the rest, your representative has to be innovative. They have to find new ways to reach the consumer. One of the most effective being an outstanding presentation of your home on the web. Over 80% of buyers now begin their search on the Internet, so we have meet them in their marketplace. It’s often all about imagery. We create tours to entice your potential buyers to choose your home. This is one of the many options for showcasing your home.
When you hire someone to share their expertise with you and to get your home sold, have enough faith in that person to let him/her direct the marketing of your property. Remember our goal as real estate professionals is to get your home sold for the most money the current market will bear in the shortest period of time, with the least amount of stress to you. Don’t second guess the methodology, especially is a declining market. The results can be costly.
As The Seasons Change September 2, 2006
Posted by Geri in Blogroll, family, General.add a comment
There’s a certain sadness that comes with the end of summer and the frivolity associated with it. Someone certainly put 
the brakes on it this year on Long Island, with rain drenching parched parcels of land for the past week and an unwelcome visit from “Ernesto,” no longer the threat he once was, but raising his voice in protest and making his presence known through whipping winds and swaying trees.
In a few short days the children will eagerly head back to school awaiting life’s next adventure and parents, heaving a sigh of relief will set their sights at a return to normalcy, whatever that might be. For me, fall is a time to regroup. It’s a time to fine tune the systems that keep my world in check and to plan the direction of my life, at least in the short term.
This September is special. We’ll be adding a new and already well loved little person into the multigenerational fabric of our family. We anxiously await the moment in time when our little angel hears the cosmic signal to give up the warmth and security of his/her nesting place to venture into our world and our outstretched arms. We’re waiting.
The Devil’s In The Details September 1, 2006
Posted by Geri in Blogroll, feelings, Long Island, New York, Real Estate, Selling Your Home.add a comment
The phone rang and I picked up to an agitated voice at the other end. We had, a few days before, 
finalized a deal on this seller’s home with terms that worked well for my client. I was elated. She’d suffered a difficult start to her year and needed the tranquility this sale would bring her. The buyers were perfect. They had nothing to sell, had very high credit scores and were going for 80% financing, with a preapproval in place by the lending institution.
Secure in the knowledge that we had nothing to worry about, I started to focus a little more on some of the other matters calling for my attention. Now here it was just days later and I could hear the terror in her voice. She was frantic. Her attorney, away from the office, sent her the contract and she read something that set her heart racing and had her questioning the sale altogether. I went to her home to look at it with her and to try to make sense of it.
What I realized as I gazed at the document, paragraph after paragraph, was that in layman’s terms it did look frightening. It didn’t break out the cash from the mortgage amount in calculating the balance due after the down payment. It was all there if you read it as professionals would, but to her untrained eye it was missing details intrinsic to the transaction. Try as I might, explaining it and going over the math, I couldn’t convince her it was right in it’s essence. It was important in this case (as in most) that her attorney be there to explain the contract he was asking her to sign.
The lesson in it for me is to remember that the language of real estate is unique and it is incumbent on us as professionals to explain it in as much detail as necessary to those in our care. It is the responsibility of the buyer or seller to ask any questions they have in order to be completely comfortable with the process in which they’re involved. I will never again end a conversation without asking, “do you understand what’s happening, or do you need more information from me?”
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