We sold our house yesterday. What sold our house in this slow market?  ME. Just kidding.

Paintings, updates and attention to every detail. We kept our house staged and extremelyclean from the very first day on the market. We put new furnace in, new tankless water heater, good appliances. We spend 25,000 on landscaping last spring. Well, we didn't know that we are going to get a job transfer. Sound view and some fantastic wall finishes completed the package.

 And how important the photos of the listing? Our buyer is actually in New Orleans right now, her children came to see the house and loved it. But their mum said, yeas, let's buy it, after looking through photos of the house I took on Internet. How amazing is that?

Than we got a call from a different agent that was quite upset because his buyers were ready to put an offer on our house too. So, if you really like the house - do not wait, make an offer or you can loose it.

So, for me, my Real Estate career is almost over. It was an interesting experience even in a very slow market. Also, I got a second job - real estate photography, that I am enjoyng and exploring every day. I hope to continue working as a photographer in London. Thank you everyone for reading my real estate blogs.

We have been on  the market 40 days! Everyone who came to see this home loved it, but no buyers yet. We also drooped the price from $379,000 to $374,990. It did not change much, so I believe that price is not as important as timing now. We had people begging us to rent it to them, because they can not get mortgages.

Well, we have three months more before we will have to pay for two places. http://www.slide.com/r/7ubF2J2U5D_YgXOIZwDYDbj-Pl6uRgpj

 I think that American people are incredibly kind in general. They do help other coutries all the time. I have collected many art supplies and toys in my neighborhood and sent it to an orphanages back to my motherland - Belarus. I found so much support here. On the other hand, in Belarus, it is hard to find anyone who is willing to deliver this boxes from one city to the orphanage. People in the third world countries just do not understand a principle of charity. They used to live in a hard reality, they used to have no help, and they no more want to help others.

I would say even more - if my parents will try to give something to the orphanage in their own town, they will get no appreciation. People will look at them as they have too much money and try to show off. It makes me so sad. That's why sometimes I feel that America should help themselves first before they try to change the rest of the world.

I just competed a new mural - oil painting. It was sold as a commission work at the charity action. I just wanted to share this image with you, because it is a nice reminder about the childhood.

Five days past since the house came on the market. I had open houses on Saturday and Sunday. Saturday in my opinion was a little bit better. I realizes that I need 7 open house signs to get people from main roads to come here. My home is located on a very quite street. I have only 3 signs.

I made sure that every inch of the home is clean, and perfect. People were incredibly nice. They loved it from the very first sight. When I told them that I am not only a Realtor, but an owner of this home too, each one of them were more open and excited. Isn't interesting? People were commenting on everything and asked tons of  questions, They were not shy at all.  So, I remember someone advised me to ask other agents to hold an open houses for me, because it is my own house and people will not be comfortable. Well, they were!

It was so much better than just being a listing agent. I got lots of compliments on wall finishes and murals. Even our new, nice kitchen was in the shadow of the main mural. I had four groups of serious buyers  and four groups of neighbors. All my neighbors took flyers and convinced me that they will tell everyone they know about this home.

I will keep writing an updates on how things going here, on Osprey DR, in Tacoma, WA.

And there is a new flyer. If you have seen previous posts, you will notice the difference.

Sign was installed today and flyers were printed. I am trying to put info about this home everywhere on Internet. Any good sites you know about? It is a really lovely home and it priced right, because we are moving out of the country and would be nice to sell it. If you know anyone who is looking for a lovely home with a Sound and mountains view, big organic garden and a lot of artistic touches, please send them this page. It is an energy star home with low enery bills.

What do you use to createa listing flyers? Do you remember the best flyer you have ever seen? What was so special about it? I created a flyer for my new listing this morning by using Photoshop. It is not the most efficient way to do it, because there not templates. So everything you do is kind of against the program. You can see my flyer in my blogs.

I had to write about it, because it made my Saturday absolutely miserable. 

I love Venetian Plaster. I have done my bedroom and master bath in gorgeous marble like Venetian Plaster I have bought in Home Depot. 

I had an absolutely terrible experience with Signature Venetian Plaster from Lowes today. I am an experienced painter and I used different types of plaster before. I just recently finished plastering my bedroom with Venetian Plaster from Home Depot and it was so much easer. I had no idea that Lowe's plaster is different. First of all, it is too liquid, almost like a thick paint, so it is an impossible to handle it with anything but brush. Well, there no brush involved in plastering. Second, it dries as quickly as nail polish, so if you go back where you were 1 minute ago, you destroy everything. Third, if you walls not completely smooth, you will need at list 3 layers. I managed to do two, but than had to add some more in some places.

But the most important, which makes me really unhappy - it takes twice as much time as Home Depot's plaster and you need twice as much material!!!!!

I did read INSTRUCTIONS on the can. It says "one gallon will cover 150-190 sq.ft per coat". So, I did some math. And approximately for two coats average coverage is 87sq.ft. I used the whole gallon and I covered (with two coats) only 62 sq.ft. That is mean that for the promised cost of 37 cents per sq.ft ( $32.57/87), I realistically got $52 cents per sq.ft.

It is 11:30 p.m. and I am very disappointed to be left with unfinished project. To cover $62 sq.ft I spent 8 hours. Also, I will have to go to the store and buy the second gallon and spend my Sunday finishing up this small bathroom project! 

Please, test your product before putting it on the shelves!!!!! It is really needs to be more thick! Also, the color of "Pelle" was moredark and green than sample shows.

The funny part - after I went to Lowe's website and left my comment about this, I can not open their site on my computer anymore. It says that they perform maintenance. I hope it is not only because of me...

By the way, the result is stunning, so at the end of the day, I will love it.

Because of my Photography blogs, I started getting more Photo jobs. I really enjoy tacking photos for others agents listings. The last week I got a call from a top producer in our town and he ask me to take photos of this an absolutely beautiful home. It is located in Old Town of Tacoma. Homes like this one you can see on the pages of magazines.

So, I was thinking about all this homes that were published. Did you ever sold a home that was published in magazine before & how did you use it in your marketing?

I asked the listings agent permission to write about it and post some photos.

The MLS #28105938.

If you need to capture a room with a big windows, try to do it when the sun is on the other side of the house. Use flash and if the window is not the only light subject in the photos, you should be just fine.  Try to line up the window frame and a horizontal line of the landscape behind the window, but in the same time use angles inside of the room. By capturing the image from the far away corner will allow you not to have a flash reflection on the window. Later on adjust light for the window and room separately.

Good luck!

I have talents  but I do not use them properly. I was a good dancer; I never took classes or did anything about it. I did sing, my school used me in their concerts all the time, but since then I never did sing again. I take good photos, and I started making some money by taking photos for other agent's listings. But I never took classes and still do not have a professional camera. I live in America and I speak English somehow, but I still make thousands of mistakes. So, is it good to know how to do everything but not good enough? Or is it better to do one thing but perfectly? 

I am a painter. I think it was my destiny to be an artist. I loved to paint since I was 4. But I was going to special math school and then to Economy University in Minsk, Belarus. 

Now, I am 26 years old. I live in North West and I am a realtor. I love my job, but every day I feel that something is missing. I miss painting.

I feel that I need to develop my skills, learn arts and paint a lot. And try to put my soul on the canvas. I want to learn one thing to the end of it, so I will be able to say that I am a professional artist. I will be able to discover something new and exiting and share it with people. 

It is not too late, is it?

Below is the mural 14 by 8 feet, that I've paiting with oils in my home office.

Then a still life on the kitchen hutch cabinet I have painted a year ago and the "French village"  - was my second oil painting and one of my

Museum of Glass.

Tacoma Museum of glass in the one place you can not miss when you see the city for the first time. It is the most unusually shaped building in the downtown. I lived in Tacoma almost three years and I have been in museum three times. The last time I visited it I was completely amazed by spiritual creative energy and the fact that the best glass artist in Italy came to Tacoma to teach his techniques.. I spent three hours inside and I didn't want to leave. The new inhibition is full of the best glass vases in the world; it is so beautiful and inspiring! If you go there, my advise to start with a theater room. It shows a short movie about an artist - Limo Tagliapietra , who is the world's greatest living glassblower artist and who's works are shown in the galleries of the museum.

Read about an artist here:

http://www.museumofglass.org/exhibitions/lino/