Most people buying real estate are either:

1) first time buyers who rented before they purchased

or

2) move up buyers who grew out of their first home.

Both types of homebuyers, should put much time into the process of buying and moving up.  In fact, they should plan for that event before they rent their first apartment, or buy their first home.

"Dont Spend Your House Money on Coffee" is a post designed to help people plan ahead, and spend the least amount on current housing expense, unless they are buying a home they can see themselves living in for their whole lives.

Setting your long term goals before you do something that hinders achieving them, is a very, very good idea.

 

Had a great meetup with Dustin Luther at Hennessey's in Hermosa Beach. He said he often is asked the question "Why doesn't ARDELL follow me on Twitter? Is it because I am not an interesting follow?"

There are so many people who blog on Active Rain that I would like to follow, but I find the redundancy so annoying.

Just posted on ActiveRain:

Just posted on ActiveRain:

Just posted on ActiveRain:

I expect that's an autofeed, but if you follow 100 people or more who blog on ActiveRain, the redundacy of "Just posted on ActiveRain" grows exponentially to the point where my whole screen is filled with "Just Posted on ActiveRain" tweets.

Sometimes "less is best" and posting your best stuff to Twitter, instead of every single post, and remembering to actually TALK to people on Twitter, will put the "social" back into Social Media.

Until then...I must admit...sometimes I hit "unfollow" the minute I see "Just Posted to ActiveRain".  Not because I don't like the people who blog here...but because the redundancy drives me up the wall and pushes me away.

Not that you should necessarily care what I think... but passing that on FWIW regarding others who may feel the same way.

 

I just returned from a trip to The Beach Cities in Los Angeles California. While I was there visiting my children. It was my youngest daughter Andrea's 21st birthday. Here she is with her boyfriend Ryan, she in "the birthday tiara".

Between turning 55 in June and my youngest turning 21, I started my quest of doing a few things I've been wanting to do, but just haven't gotten around to doing.

I'm a little young for a bucket list. I'm starting with the small stuff :)

I had my first mojito with Dustin Luther who popped a photo of it on to Twitter just as I was ready to take my first sip using his TwitPic application via his cell phone.

Didn't get around to my first "put cucumbers on your eyes".  I'll have to google how long I need to keep them on there for whatever good they may do.  If anyone does the cucumbers on the eyes thing, would apprecaite some tips on how to do that and if it is worthwhile.

I had my eyebrows waxed.  Something I've never done and always wanted to try.  The took took much off one and now they don't match one another :(

...and...I had my first ever Red Bull!

I'm seriously thinking of taking a morning walk to the 7-11 in beautiful Downtown Kirkland WA and drinking a Red Bull before starting my day today. I'm such a high energy person already, that I was afraid of going into "high gear".  I actually waited until I had some "supervision" in case I started spinning around in circles and my brain exploded.

Happy to report...had my first Red Bull...and I didn't self distruct :)

 

ARDELL DellaLoggia

I Blog about Seattle Real Estate and industry issues at Rain City Guide

I Blog about Seattle Area Real Estate including Eastside Real Estate on my blog.

I represent buyers and sellers of real estate in the Seattle Area

Front page news "above the fold" Seattle PI 2/10/09

One of the Top 10 Female Real Estate Bloggers in 2006

One of the Top 25 Most Influential Real Estate Industry Bloggers in 2007 per Inman News

Wrote one of the The Magnificent 7 Real Estate Blog Posts of 2008

From Anthony Carr - Realty Times"

"Broker and blogger Ardell DellaLoggia, reads the home sales statistics

 like a stock broker reads the daily Wall Street returns."

Quoted in:

Seattle Weekly

Business Week

Wall Street Journal

On the Dave Ross show 2/10/09 at 10:15

On the Tom Kelly Real Estate radio show, Seattle - twice

On Inman TV via YouTube "you're not the commercial; you're the show"

ARDELL on Zillow.com

ARDELL on Trulia Voices

You can follow me on Twitter @ARDELLd

Greg Swann at Bloodhoundblog has this to say: "ARDELL DellaLoggia, who writes on her own weblog and on Rain City Guide gets most, possibly all, of her new business from real estate weblogging. How does she do it? With an empathy that seems to me to be infinitely maternal. It's when she's talking about true justice for the consumer that she forges client relationships. It's not so much what she says, nor even the way she says it. What matters is that her readers believe that she believes in the high standard of customer service she upholds.

ARDELL is sui generis, non plus ultra, as fundamentally convinced of her internal rectitude as St. Jeanne d'Arc. If you regard what she is doing as schtick, a performance, you won't be able to pull it off. ARDELL glows from the inside out, and so must you to follow your own sword into Holy War. ARDELL connects, emotionally, even viscerally, and she can make clients out of her readers before they get to the second paragraph.

 

This is a Destiny Reading for one of my Twitter Friends.  I come from some gypsy lineage (tiny bit of Mongolian blood from my mother's side) with a knack for Tarot Reading, etc...  I didn't pay a lot of attention to it until my children were losing focus on the meaning of life in their pre-teen and teen years :).  I often had a house full of young girls who only worried about which boy liked them this week, so I started doing Destiny Readings.  It created a major transformation among the young women, my daughters and their friends, to think they had a personal real Destiny to fulfill.  Their self image was no longer about who liked them...how they acted...what they wore...what they looked like...

It's a combination of Chinese Astrology, Tarot, Birthday Analysis and Destiny Era charts...all rolled into one.  A bit of intuition/talent blends them together into one basic "Destiny" and primary purpose.  I do believe there is one big thing we come here to "complete". And if you don't look for it...you will leave this earth without having done it and will keep coming back until the job is done.  Of course I am also very grounded in the Catholic Faith and Judaeo/Christian teachings.  I don't view any one way as the ONLY way, and I roll everything into one until it blends into a world of great compassion and understanding. 

It's never a bad thing to FOCUS on something, so whether you believe that THIS is truly your Destiny...it really doesn't matter.  Improving focus on accomplishment is always a good thing.

The Destiny of this person is so very different from my own, that it has taken me a bit of time to blend into a primary purpose.  Your purpose is usually the OPPOSITE of what you do naturally and comfortably, day in and day out.  You may have heard the saying "What you RESIST...PERSISTS."  If you are an introvert, as example, your Destiny is likely about interaction outside of your personal world.  If you are an extrovert, then the reverse is likely true.

Sad to say that while generally speaking for this person, Spring and Summer are normally the best times to progress toward her ultimate destiny (vs. Fall and Winter), 2009 is the WORST year since 1997, and will not get a lot better until 2011 and 2012.  On  the bright side, that imposes less urgency to change in the near future :)

It is not surprising that her WORK has nothing at all to do with her destiny. Her work encompasses a wide territory and many people on a daily basis.  Her Destiny is VERY PERSONAL. She is here to work on herself.  She is not here to invent or create something for others, She is here to find contentment with her inner self.

In this Year of the Ox, that will be an exceptional struggle.  She will be pulled to areas that create self doubt and to some extent, even self loathing. For some that could create a year of great personal advancement IF they fight through it...but this person is not likely going to fight through it, so she needs to do a few things in 2009:

1) Surround yourself  with people who truly like you for Who You Are.

2) Avoid people who put you down in any way shape or form...just move away from them, hang up on them, refuse to engage with them, tune them out and nod if you must and get away from them as soon as humanly possible.

3) Declutter the area you spend most of your time in.  Remove anything that does not make you smile and add things that do make you smile, and keep them there and in the same place for a full year.  Don't keep changing your space.  Make it most comfortable and leave it alone until your birthday in 2010.

4) Expect the tendency to undervalue yourself to be the strongest this year...and fight it by ignoring it. Anytime you feel you didn't do "good enough", take a walk or better yet, indulge in an "escapist" activity like an uplifting movie that refocuses your thoughts. Don't try to reverse the feeling by "doing" (which is your natural tendency)...move away from it.

YOUR PRIMARY AND ULTIMATE DESTINY is to disassociate your feelings of self worth from your work. But that is difficult because you are work driven, and the more you stay in the driver's seat and refuse to be a passenger of life, the worse it gets.

YOUR PRIMARY TALENTS ARE NOT IN THE AREA OF FINANCE.  Understand that you are not meant to be good at that which you are not good at, and don't perceive those things as "your weaknesses".  Of the many things you can be good it...you are not meant to be good at all of them for a reason.

You feel a strong sense of needing to do something important for others...but the reality is, you are meant to be content with yourself. All the other things will COME to you, when you find yourself, contentment with yourself, maximum self esteem...all the things you seek you will actually drive away, until you come to a full understanding of your self and know that ultimately it is not what you DO, but Who You Are, that is most important.

To Thine Own Self Be True...the rest will fall into place once you ALWAYS honor only yourself.  Your sense of duty, ethics and fairness, which are very strong...will cause you to think this cannot be true...but it is also why it IS true.

Oddly, many on your Kharmic Path will try to fulfill their need to improve self-worth with "the need to be needed" by many, and at all times.  To make the most progress, make sure your non-work times of which there are few, are filled with non-work people and non-work activities.  On the bright side, becasue you don't indulge in pleasures enough...when you do...the pleasure from the activity is magnified.

If there was ever a year to balance work with relaxation...this is it!  If you don't...you will be much worse for the wear by the first new moon of 2010. 

 

Hi,

I'm @ARDELLd on Twitter.

The number one thing I see many doing incorrectly on Twitter is hitting "reply" to a person, but not on the "correct" comment stream.

Remember that many, many people using social media are watching vs. talking. When your followers see a reply from you to someone else, they will click on the "reply to" to follow the conversation/thread all the way back to the beginning. 

It is sufficient for you to reply to ANY Tweet, if your only objective is to reach the person you are talking to.  BUT if you reply to that person using the Tweet you are referencing, it will be much easier for the person AND others reading and watching, to follow along with the whole thread of the conversation.

Test your outgoing replies and see if what you are answering relates to the message referenced at the end of your Tweet.  At least 35% of the time, it does not.

 

 

Andrea is my youngest daughter.

 

Admiration of a beautiful lady...whom I did not love.

It is a liking
liking with no love
no want of getting
or the regret of missing
it is an admirer's eye
not a lover's eye
neither an opportunistic eye
nor an inflated eye
just the admirer of the beauty
and the admirer of the smile

The smile so lovely
so natural is the look
eyes staring at me
and a heavenly smile.
it looks...
it looks so nice
nicer than nice
the white shiny teeth
and the flashing smile
big eyes
the floating eyebrow
and the curved cheeks.

All is so beautiful
she's really so beautiful;
I admire it as of its best
best of its kind
her smile so heavenly
of the smiling lady
the look so daring
of the charming lady

Really the beauty is truth
I admire it today
Yes, the beauty is truth
looking at this exciting lass
and looking at her smile
today i felt the reality
reality as an admirer
with no love...no jealousy
with no wants and no need
beauty is always a truth
and as beauty as the truth
and as truth as the beauty
Its the smile, the natural smile
and so is she, the charming beautiful lady.

 

I apologize for making you go someplace else to read this post.  But it's long and it took a lot of time and Google doesn't like it when I cut and paste from one site to another.

I think it is an important read for every agent and anyone who has anything to do with mls systems and how they function.

Thank you for taking the time.  Open Letter to NWMLS and Local Agents

Frustrated Home Buyer

 

 

Someone did a class at Inman Connect awhile back on "Inbox Zero".  My first thought was, that's a dumb idea.  I hope I NEVER have an empty Inbox.  I didn't go to the class :)

Here's what I'm gonna do.  I'm going to FILL my inbox with one email from every important person in my life, so I can hit Reply to and get in touch with everyone I know in the first two weeks of the new year.  Past clients, current clients, future clients in my prospect folder, family, friends, FULL! 

I WANT A FULL LIFE AND I WANT A FULL INBOX!

AN EMPTY INBOX IS LIKE THE PHONE NOT RINGING!!!  I HAD ENOUGH OF THAT IN 2008!

2009?  Give me a FULL Inbox!

 
 
Rainmaker_large

ARDELL DellaLoggia

Seattle, WA

More about me…

Coldwell Banker Bain

Office Phone: (425) 602-4150

Cell Phone: (206) 910-1000

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