October 26-6:30 PM - 7:15 PM HALLOWEEN MAGIC SHOW with TOMMY JAMES, Contact: Shirley Library 978-425-2620 TOMMY JAMES returns with his HAUNTED HALLOWEEN MAGIC SHOW (for children) This 45 minute performance has it all! A very spooky magic wand. A haunted Jack-O-lantern. A skull that takes on a life of its own and floats all over the stage! There are ghosts and goblins and a visit from his dear friend Bunnicula the Vampire Bunny, a real live bunny appearing from his magic castle! Also added into the performance are plenty of "Trick or Treating Safety Tips" to keep our children safe on their night of spooky fun. The show will begin promptly at 6:30. Attendance is limited to the capacity of the room. To avoid disappointment, please take careful note of the start time and plan your arrival accordingly. Children are invited to come to the show dressed in their Halloween costumes. A bag of candy treats will be given to each child at the end of the show. This event is sponsored by the Friends of the Hazen Memorial Library. Location: Hazen Library
Saturday October 30, 2010 Family Halloween Party at The Shirley Center Town Hall
Come enjoy food, games, dancing, costume contest, and a spooky ghost walk. Price of admission is $3 per person or $10 per family of 4 or more. Please bring either a dish to share or a canned good donation for loaves and fishes. Proceeds to benefit the upkeep and maintenance of The Center Town Hall. For more information contact either Kristan Burpo, 978-425-5075 or Jodie Rachman 978-425-2112.
Location: Shirley Center Town Hall
Sunday October 31, 2010 6:00 PM Annual Halloween Parade & Party
Contact: Charles Church charles.church48@yahoo.com
Sponsored by the Shirley American Legion Post. Parade starts at 6PM at Whiteley Park (across from the train station) and proceeds to the Shirley American Legion Hall, Church Street, Shirley. Upon arrival at the Legion Hall, costumed trick-or-treaters will be given bags of candy and there will be a costume contest with cash prizes. This event is open to the public - all are welcome. American Legion website
Location: Whiteley Park
Leominster MA : The Haunted Trail at Barrett Park- "Terror in the Woods" with ghosts, ghouls and other assorted creatures. Not recommended for young children, this haunting will happen on October 15 and 16 from 7:00 until 10:00. Tickets $7
Leominster Trick-Or-Treating : October 31 from 6-8
Fitchburg MA : Halloween Concert at the Public Library - Peter and Ellen Allard will be presenting a Halloween Concert; after there will be a costume parade and trick or treating throughout the library.Free - no costumes or registration required. October 19.
Trick or Treat Fitchburg Downtown: Saturday, October 30th from 12-3pm - there will be three starting checkpoints this year; one on Putnam Street – Premier Subs; another near the intermodal station – Second Chance, and a third at Faith United Parish. Face painting, Halloween bags and maps will be available at each site upon sign-in. Face painting will also take place here.
Fitchburg MA trick or treating: Official Trick or Treat hours for Fitchburg will be on Sunday, October 31st from 5-7pm
I am doing open houses at two locations this weekend. The first is Sunday 09/19/2010 from 11-1 - a great new 3 unit multifamily listing at 45 Middle St., Leominster MA. Check out the first flyer or follow the link to the video.
The second is a fantastic 3 bedroom home in Leominster - lots of room, carpet in main living area just replaced. Move right in! Sunday September 19 from 2-4. Call me if you would like more information on either of these listings at 978-602-6354.
3 unit multi with 4 stall garage - check out pics!!!
From a seller's standpoint, the appraisal issue near the end of the process is important - and it is what it is. If you overprice your home, and miraculously find that buyer who adores the property and doesn't mind paying what you have listed it for, you can bet that the appraiser will come in and remove any emotion from the process.
I wish it were that easy. There are 4 basic things that a borrower needs to show a lender in order to get approved for a mortgage. Each category has so many what ifs and sub plots that each box can read as it's own novel. In other words, each category has so many variables that can affect what it takes to get approved, but without further adieu here are the four categories in no particular order as each without any of these items, you're pretty much dead in the water:
Income
You need income. You need to be able to afford the home. Without it, forget it! But what is acceptable income? Basically, it all depends on the type of loan that a borrower applies for. Jumbo, V.A., USDA, FHA, Conventional, Super Jumbo? Let's just say that there are two ratios:
First Ratio - The first ratio, top ratio or housing ratio. Basically that means out of all the gross monthly income you make, that no more that X percent of it can go to your housing payment. The housing payment consists of Principle, Interest, Taxes and Insurance. Whether you escrow or not every one of these items are factored into your ratio. There are a lot of exceptions to how high you can go, but let's just say that if your ratio is 33% or less, generally, across the board, you're safe.
Second Ratio- The second ratio, bottom ratio or debt ratio includes the housing payment, but also adds all of the monthly debts that the borrower has. So, it includes housing payment as well as every other debt that a borrower may have. This would include, Auto loans, credit cards, student loans, personal loans, child support, alimony....basically any consistent outgoing debt that you're paying on. Again, if you're paying less than 43% of your gross monthly income to all of the debts, plus your proposed housing payment, then......generally, you're safe. You can go a lot higher in this area, but there are a lot of caveats when increasing your back ratio.
What qualifies as income? Basically, it's income that has at least a proven, two year history of being received and pretty high assurances that the income is likely to continue for at least three years. What's not acceptable?????? Cash income, short term income and income that's not likely to continue.
Assets
For the most part this is fairly simple. Do you have enough assets to put the money forth to qualify for the downpayment that the particular program asks for. USDA says that there can be no money down. FHA, for now, has a 3.5% downpayment. Some loans require 20% down. These assets need to be validated through bank accounts and sometimes gifts. Can you borrower the down payment? Sometimes. Generally if you're borrowing a secured loan against a secured asset you can use that. But rarely can cash be used as an asset. TALK TO YOUR LOAN OFFICER FIRST when discussing what's acceptable?
Credit
Whewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww. This can be the bane to every borrower, every loan officer and every lender......and yes, to every realtor. How many times has a borrower said my credit's good, only to find out that it's not nearly as good as a borrower thinks or nearly as good as the borrower needs. Big stuff for sure. 620 is the bottom score (again with few exceptions) that lenders will permit. Below a 620, then you're in a world of hurt. Even at 620, people consider you a higher risk that other folks and are going to penalize you or your borrower with a more expensive loan. 700 is when you really start to get in the "as a lender we love you" credit score. 720 is even better. Watch your credit!!!!! Check out my post:
In many ways this is the easiest box. Why????? Generally, there's nothing you can do to affect this. Bottom line here is....."is the value of the house at least the value of what you're paying for it?" If not, then not good things start to happen. Generally you'll find less issues with values on purchase transactions, because, in theory, the realtor has done an accurate job of valuing the house prior to taking the listing. The big issue comes in refinancing. In purchase transactions, the value is determined as the
Lower of the value or the contract price!!!
That means that if you buy a $1,000,000 home for $100,000, the value is established at $100,000. Conversely, if you buy a $200,000 home and the value comes in at $180,000 during the appraisal, then the value is established at $180,000. Big issues....Talk to your loan officer.
For each one of these boxes, there are over 1,000 things that can effect if a borrower has reached the threshold to complete that box. Soooooooooooo.....talk to a great loan officer. There are so many loan officers that don't know what they're doing. But, conversely, there's a lot of great ones as well. Your loan is so important! Get a great lender so that you know, for sure, that the loan you want, can be closed on!
Larry Bettag - Regional Vice President, Midwest Region
Illinois FHA Specialist
630-417-7172
An Illinois Residential Mortgage Licensee
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Diane Guercio
Towne & Country, Realtors
Leominster and Fitchburg MA
978-602-6354
Recent stats for Shirley MA- activity has fallen since the end of the tax credit:
Shirley MA is located off of Route 2 between Harvard and Leominster MA, and is bisected by Route 2A. A small town with a well-appointed library and new municipal buildings and middle school, 2000′s census claimed that Shirley was called “home” by more than 6000 people.
Search free for 1000s of homes here. Need to sell your home? Call me; I can give you an idea of average Days on Market and help you set a price. Use the contact form to find out an approximate value for your home:
Diane Guercio
Towne & Country, Realtors
Leominster and Fitchburg MA
978-602-6354
Here is a quick slideshow of office listings. We have homes for sale throughout Central MA, in Worcester and Middlesex counties.
Right now, there are 6-7 months of inventory in most of our markets. This isn't huge. Even though sales are down in the state, so are new listings. Homes that are priced properly and are presented well to buyers ARE selling. Call us if you have any questions about your area.
Diane Guercio
Towne & Country, Realtors
Leominster and Fitchburg MA
978-602-6354
I came back from RainCamp Boston full of ideas, and about two weeks of work to implement.
I plan on integrating more video into my marketing, and this is the first one I came up with. It's a spoof of the Old Spice Guy video, and includes a link to a post about the Top 5 Things You Can Do To Sell Your Home.
Check it out and tell me what you think!
Diane Guercio
Towne & Country, Realtors
Leominster and Fitchburg MA
978-602-6354
Looking for open houses in Leominster, Fitchburg and Shirley? Check the links below. If you are interested in another town in our area, email me a couple of days ahead with the location, specifics, and price range, and I will email you back your own personalized list of open houses.
Open houses aren't just for buyers! If you are selling your home and want an idea of pricing or what similar homes look like, open houses are good sources of information for you! You might even pick up some staging ideas!
I'm number #1 - well, after the first 10 results! That's a statement that plagues many agents who appear at the "top" of the search engines. That's because for so many local based searches, Google first shows the local "7-pack."
Suddenly, being "#1" organically means your site doesn't show up until half way down the page of the search results. With this in mind, I thought I would give some quick tips on how to ensure you show up at the true top of the page.
Now I'm sure most everyone knows about Google Local (or Google Places as they now call it). But to really optimize for the local results you have to take a step further.
Want to Rank Well for the Big 3 Search Engines? Then Pay Attention to the "Other" Big 3
Most searches happen on either Google, Yahoo or Bing. But these search engines actually rely on other companies for their local data. Localeze, infoUSA, and Acxiom are the backbone of the entire local search ecosystem. Basically, they're some of the most important sites that you have never heard of! Just take a look at the graphic below. It shows just how important they are to Google, Yahoo and Bing’s local search results.
Now that you know who really powers the Local Ecosystem, let's look at a few optimization tips to ensure you show up for the infamous "7 Pack"
Google Local Optimization Tips
Step 1: Get Listed!
The first step is to ensure you are listed in the local search engines. Fortunately, the "trickle down" approach of the local ecosystem means that you'll only really need to list your business with these top 3 providers - Localeze, InfoUSA, and Acxiom. Of course, you will also want to submit your business to Google Places - to help verify Google’s info. Localeze and InfoUSA have online submission forms. Acxion, on the other hand, doesn't allow direct submissions. Instead, you'll need to go through UniversalBusinessListing.org - (note that this is a paid service).
Step 2: Optimize when signing up for these local directories.
You’ll want to follow a few simple optimization tips...
Make it complete! Incomplete data makes it difficult to verify your business. Ensure your information is complete!
Always reference your business Name in the exact same way - EVERYWHERE! For example, don’t submit your business name as Joy Rice Realty Group on Localeze then The Joy Rice Team in Google Places. These will be seen as two separate businesses.
Local Numbers Use a local number instead of an 800 number when submitting your business information. This helps Google "localize" you.
Max out the Categories Google allows you to associate your business with up to 5 categories. Populate all 5!
Use Keywords! Use relevant keywords in your description. Don’t just say you’re a real estate agent. Say that your a Plano TX real estate agent
Build Local Link Love! Get linked up in other local directories (like BBB), Bing Local Listing Center is another great directory and is doing some really cool things with their local business search. Show Google that you focus on the local market.
Encourage Reviews Instead of sending your sellers an evaluation form, encourage them to leave a reviews on sites like Yelp!
Get Cited "Locally" Work those relationships with the local media (you ARE following them on Twitter - Right?) Reach out to other local bloggers.
Submit Your Information to Hyperlocal News Sites Sites like outside.in and topix.net allows you to submit your local content for free. Are you going to get a ton of traffic? Probably not. Is it a no brainier because it's 100% automated? YES!
Bonus Tips
Need even more tips? Here are few for the "advanced" users...
Maintain a Google Calendar (make it public) and set location information for open Houses, Local Events, etc.
GeoTag your videos and Photos! (YouTube/Flickr)
Create custom Google Maps and link them back to your site. Hoboken Condo agent Walter Burns create a simple Hoboken parking garage map that has received over 1,000 views - Make sure this is under YOUR Google account. If you have a Virtual Assistant this, have them create it under your account.
Don't forget about the contact us page of your site - as well as your footer information. And remember, ensure your address and phone number matches exactly!
I know that some may look at this list and think "This is just too much work." While it does take work, I think the pay off far outweighs the couple of hours it would take to optimize for local results. After all, if someone is looking for real estate in your area, don’t you want to be at the top of the search results?
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Diane Guercio
Towne & Country, Realtors
Leominster and Fitchburg MA
978-602-6354
Disclaimer: ActiveRain Corp. does not necessarily endorse the real estate agents, loan officers and brokers listed on this site. These real estate profiles, blogs and blog entries are provided here as a courtesy to our visitors to help them make an informed decision when buying or selling a house. ActiveRain Corp. takes no responsibility for the content in these profiles, that are written by the members of this community.
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