Mark's Blog

Brand New Listing in Martinez Georgia with pool

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 13:56:20 -0700

Did the $8,000 Tax Credit Make a Difference?

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 19:43:55 -0700

What do you think of the $8,000 Tax Credit offered and if you believe it made a difference in selling more than normal homes amount of during this huge economic slump?

Personally, the majority of my buyers were first timers and had the ability to use the credit, but in each of their cases it was more of a plus than a deciding factor. If the money was usable upfront, as part of their down payment, it would have had a significant impact. I know of many individuals that could have bought if they only had access that the money at closing.

Health of the Current Real Estate Market

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 16:34:49 -0700

I've been reading articles and speaking with Realtors all over the country lately and it seems as though the general attitude is better than it was at the beginning of the year. Houses seem to be selling, but at slightly less than they should be. There is still an imbalance between available homes and the amount being sold. The $8,000 Tax Credit has been influential, but has not really been an overall determining factor for buyers.

At least from the people I work with and are connected to, the market is not great, but looks to be moving in the right direction. The Real Estate Market in Evans Georgia has been steady. Our economy is about as stable as you can get. We have Fort Gordon here, as well as numerous hospitals, the Medical College of Georgia, Augusta State University, SRS and Plant Vogel nearby. All are stable and steady employers. That is a huge help.

Personally, I think that if we are able to have the Tax Credit extended, it should be allowed to be used as a down payment for the purchase of the home. Thereby allowing those who are on the edge of buying a home, but just short of the necessary down payment to be ale to achieve their goal. That in itself would be a huge advantage to the overall market.

If you have some time, I would love to hear what you think of the current market conditions in your area and where you see it going in the next 6 to 9 months.

Mark Chesnick-Realtor
Blanchard and Calhoun Real Estate Co.
1202 Town Park Ln
Evans, Georgia 30809
mchesnick@blanchardandcalhoun.com
www.augustaonmymind.com
706-495-1533 Cell
706-868-1000 ext 293 Office

Selling Your Home In A Challenging Market

Fri, 12 Sep 2008 22:04:10 -0700

Above everything else, please remember, there is no magic wand to sell your home in a day. It is going to take time, effort and perseverance by you and your Realtor®. The real key question is, how is your house going to stand out compared to all of the others in the same price range and location? Here are 10 steps to help you find a buyer for your home and potentially sell it for the most money possible.

•1) First and foremost, make sure your home has curb appeal. That first impression, when a potential buyer pulls up to your home for the first time is huge. I kind of compare it to going on a first date. Does that person you are meeting look clean and groomed? Are they wearing old, torn cloths? Do they smell good? Can you see yourself going on a second date? You get the picture. You never get a second chance of impressing an individual. It has to be the same way with your home. Once you get that look going with the mowed lawn and the trimmed hedges, please keep it that way. All too often, after a month, the seller will get complacent and start slacking off. Remember, first impressions are forever.

•2) Next, walk into your home with the eyes of a first time home buyer. What do you see? Is there clutter? Do the rooms look inviting or cramped? Is it easy to move from one room to the next? Are the carpets or floors dirty? Will the colors on the walls accommodate some one else's furniture? How does it smell when you walk in? When it comes to smells, clean always wins over candles and aroma scented sprays. Think clean, bright and welcoming as you go.

•3) Get rid of any toys or personal things that clutter shelves, walls desks and floors. Always keep in the back of your mind as you do this, the people looking at your home want to imagine their stuff there. The more you have of yours, the less likely they will be able to see theirs. It is not a bad idea to rent a storage unit to start this process. Out of sight with these items is always best in the long run. Do this in every room.

•4) Next, strange as it sounds, replace the toilet seats. It does make a difference.

•5) Ok, the house is clean, neat and smelling great. Congrats! Now is the time to go back outside and start looking for things that are broken or missing on the house. Start in the front and move to the back, then work your way through the interior of the house. By doing this, you overcome potential objections from a potential buyer well before they come up in the negotiations.

•6) When you have uncluttered, cleaned, mowed, trimmed and made the beds in all of the rooms, leave for a celebratory dinner for all of the hard work you have accomplished.

•7) When you come back, look hard at the home you pull up to. Look at it with a new buyer's eye. Can you honestly say this is the nicest house on the block, without reservation? If you say yes, you are half way to selling your home.

•8) Now comes the hard part, finding a Realtor® that you can put your confidence in. Whether buying or selling a home, there is always some degree of trepidation. To ease some of the worry, do some homework on who you would like to help you sell your home. Ask friends what experiences they had with their Realtor®, make phone calls and take notice as to how long it takes to return your call and how they answer it in the first place.

•9) Invite three Realtors® to do a listing presentation. How much do they listen to what you have to say and what your concerns are, as opposed to how smart they tell you they are? Find out what their background is. Experience in all aspects of real estate is important, that includes finance as well as marketing. Ask how they intend to market your home and in what manner. Hopefully it will include Open Houses, print advertising and internet marketing. Ask them how many Open Houses you can expect within a certain period and what web sites will be showcasing your home? The question of commission will also come up. Remember, you get what you pay for, in all cases.

•10) Last and most difficult is to keep everything in your home exactly as it was the day you came back from your celebratory dinner. Leave the rest to your Realtor®. You are in good hands. Good luck in a challenging market. Always remember, cream ALWAYS rises to the top. God Bless.

Mark Chesnick

Realtor®

Blanchard and Calhoun Real Estate Co.

mchesnick@blanchardandcalhoun.com

706-495-1533 Cell

706-868-1000 ext 293 Office

First Impressions of an Open House

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 10:23:39 -0700

I am continually amazed by the lack of importance put on the appearance of a house when potential customers are allowed to view it. I went to a grand opening this weekend and found models where the floors were not swept. The A/C was not on. The problem is I see it all the time. To me it's like going on a first date with someone and they come dressed in wrinkled cloths and something stuck in between their teeth. The likelihood of a second date is not very likely. The same has to be with a home showing. I applaud the homes that go the extra mile and use home stagers. You usually get a great wow effect. However, just mowing the lawn and putting flowers inside and out can make an impact as well. Remember, first impressions do make a difference.

FINDING JUST THE RIGHT HOME FOR YOU

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 13:05:35 -0700

It is amazing how the real estate buying and selling market has changed in the last 3 years. It, as we all know has gone from a sellers market where people had to up bid to get the house they liked to having so many choices they do not know where to start looking. I find the analytical path the best for me. Gather all the information available after deciding what I CAN AFFORD and then writing down on paper what my family needs and then wants, in that order. If you go out of order from that, you end up inevitably getting confused and angry. That is where a great Real Estate agent comes into play. Their advice can help remove a large percentage of grief. I suggest finding a Realtor that when you talk to him/her they spend more time listening to your needs than talking about themselves.

Let's hear from my Real Estate peers out there with their view on how a buyer should start their home buying process. What to do and not do is the question at hand.

Moving to Evans, Georgia

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 09:38:53 -0700

I spent the majority of my life in Florida. I know its politics and its people. It is a great state. I probably would never have moved, except for one day, 15 years ago, my brand new truck broke down outside of Augusta, Georgia and was forced to stay here for a week. Looking back at it now, it was probably one of the best problems I have ever had. My wife and I fell in love with this city and everything it was and could be.

It is the second biggest city in Georgia, but it still feels like a small town. It is pretty hard to go anywhere and not see someone you know. It has an extremely stable economy with colleges, medical schools, multiple hospitals, great businesses, and a military base. The people pride themselves for their courtesy and desire to make their community a great place to live. Families with many children abound. I have a 9 year old daughter and am really glad she can grow up in a family oriented environment where people still say please and thank you.

I am a Realtor with Blanchard and Calhoun Real Estate Co. here in Evans and love everything I do, especially sharing and welcoming others to my community. If you have any notion of moving to Georgia and want to find out more about a great place to live, give me a call.

Sincerely,

Mark Chesnick

Blanchard and Calhoun Real Estate Co.
706-495-1533

Lead Services

Tue, 27 May 2008 13:58:31 -0700

I would like to take a poll as to how many of you have used lead services in the past and how many currently use them. It is amazing to me all the varied opinions there are out there. Some people I speak with are dead set against them others deal there is a place for them, if you can find the right one. Then there is the unadulterated fact that very few local Realtors that have something good will divulge the info for fear of loss of business. I think everyone knows what I mean.

So, how about it, who says aye and who says nay?

The Real Estate Market on Memorial Day

Mon, 26 May 2008 08:42:55 -0700

It is wonderful at this point in our real estate market cycle. There are those who groan and moan about how terrible the current market is. There are those who will scramble to do whatever to get a deal, especially those who came on when it was a sellers market.

Now there is work and sales ability and negotiation and effort required to get the job done. I personally welcome it. With everything there are two sides to be dealt with the yin and yang. For those who can go back far enough to remember 18 and 19% interest rates, we still got the job done. We are still in a great time, if you are willing to look at it with the right perspective.

For those who look to find problems in our market or those around them are always welcome to move on to more suitable clerical jobs that sales ability are not necessary. I welcome and embrace those who are looking to keep their glass always half full or more, striving for the best in themselves and those around them. America was base on the willingness to bring out the best in others for the betterment the whole. On a day like Memorial Day, it is all the more important to remember what makes us who we are and why.

The Purpose of Blogs

Sat, 24 May 2008 22:29:48 -0700

I have been noticing that there seems to be more blogs than blog responses. Is it that we write to chatter as a squirrel does or are we trying to evoke thought and or response? I challenge those who use this form of communication to go beyond the day to day. Elicit, evoke, involve those around you to do more than receive AR points. I compliment those here that do just that. Thank you for challenges, without which there will never be growth.

Memorial Day

Sat, 24 May 2008 22:12:18 -0700

Let us all remember those who have given their lives to make this country the great place it is. Here are a few quotes of great individuals that will make you think a little more about what Memorial Day is celebrating...At least I was going to, but truly I am not sure I legally can. So, instead I challenge you to just Google Memorial Day Quotes and read the many that are available. I think it helps remind us what this day is about. Yes we go and enjoy our families and the freedom we have here in The U.S.A... It is because of others who have given their lives to allow us that freedom. I wish each and everyone of those reading this the very best.

God Bles America

Continued Growth for Evans/Augusta Georgia Area

Thu, 22 May 2008 20:40:58 -0700

Great Article I found about the growth going on in Evans/Augusta area:

Thursday, December 14, 2006

Out of thin air

Huge new NSA facility suddenly appears on Fort Gordon's radar
By Corey Pein

It's a boom time for spooks. Much like the Pentagon's Cold War megaprojects put entire cities on the map virtually overnight, the untold billions in tax dollars now pouring into the intelligence agencies fighting the Global War on Terrorism are beginning to trickle down to the local level.

And Augusta is about to get a $340-million taste of Sweet Tea.

The National Security Agency is building a massive new operations facility, dubbed project Sweet Tea. It will come complete with all the amenities: a workout room, nursing areas, a mini-shopping center, a credit union, an 800-seat cafeteria and thousands of exclusive parking spaces. Secret parking spaces.

There are, of course, actual operational national security-type elements to the project. For example, it will include a new shredder facility (for all those classified documents) and an antenna farm (to help listen in on enemy combatants like Osama bin Laden and Princess Di).

According to unclassified NSA documents obtained by the Metro Spirit, the project will relocate all existing antennas to the southern end of the new site. The location "provides the perfect look angles with no possibility for encroachment to their required line-of-sight in the future."

The project also includes a new 7,600-square-foot Visitor Control Center, thousands of additional square feet for warehouses, a vehicle inspection facility, modular training spaces and modular workspace for the growing Navy contingent at NSA-Georgia.

The plans will also force some adaptations to existing facilities. The primary entrance to Back Hall, the so called compartmented information facility on Chamberlain Avenue and 25th Street, will change to what is now the rear entrance.

"Anyone working or visiting Back Hall knows that space has been at a premium for years," the document says. "To ease the growth and handle new mission personnel" in coming years, an 800-workstation facility will be added in the Back Hall parking lot.

Those 800 seats translate into 1,200 new personnel, the document notes. Equipment will be added as personnel arrive, to "ensure that the IT placed for new arrivals is current technology, is under warranty, and is the best strategy for reducing initial construction costs."

The document says the main new structure, a 525,000- square-foot Regional Security Operations Center, should be complete by May 2010.

The NSA and its allies in the U.S. Congress have been pushing this project for years. The Defense Department requested a $340.8 million appropriation for the Georgia Regional Security Operations Center back in February. And a construction award was scheduled for Sept. 25, NSA documents show.

Maybe the deal was awarded on schedule. Maybe there was a delay. Either way, it wasn't announced until Dec. 8, one day after the Metro Spirit started calling around with questions. The announcement was one of only eight press releases that the usually silent spy agency had issued all year.

The NSA announcement said The Army Corps of Engineers, Savannah District, awarded the contract on Dec. 7.

The world is full of strange coincidences. But this deal is rife with them.

Not only was the long-awaited contract ostensibly awarded the very day a reporter happened to call a Congressional staffer about it, the press release was sent out three days before the award was published on federal contracting Web sites.

It almost gives the impression that if the government hadn't been asked, it wouldn't have bothered to say how it planned to spend more than a third of a billion dollars.

"NSA is not in the habit of announcing these contracts. Certainly not in any kind of expedited manner," says Steven Aftergood, who runs the Project on Government Secrecy for the Federation of American Scientists in Washington, DC.

"If the overall intelligence budget is on the order of $45 billion, only a small fraction of that is publicly reported," Aftergood says. "The largest and most consequential programs, which have annual appropriations in the $100-million or larger category, go completely unremarked on in public. It's a strange way to do business."

Military and intelligence agencies enjoy the luxury of so-called black budgets, pools of money intended for top-secret projects that even members of Congress are prohibited from knowing about.

The blanket secrecy increases the likelihood of corruption, such as last year's garish, prostitute-ridden bribery scandal surrounding former California Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham.

"When billions of dollars each year are allocated in secret, you can be pretty confident that that money is not being adequately overseen," Aftergood says.

Indeed, there is reason to believe that the NSA-Georgia project's actual cost will be even higher than the $340 million that's known to have been appropriated.

A military source familiar with cost analysis told the Metro Spirit that the facilities may wind up costing more than $1 billion.

The $286 million award for the new NSA facilities went to Phelps/Kiewit Joint Venture, which is, as the name suggests, actually two companies sharing the work and the profits. This is an increasingly common practice in the world of major military projects, where competition between lead contractors is often more theoretical than actual.

Phelps appears to be part of Hensel Phelps Construction, which, four days after the 9/11 attacks, won the rebuilding contract for the Pentagon. It was worth up to $758 million. Kiewit is not as high-profile. In 2002, one of the company's divisions won a $15 million contract to build a vehicle maintenance facility at Fort Gordon. Both companies are based in the military contracting mecca of Virginia.

Clyde Taylor, military legislative assistant to Georgia Sen. Saxby Chambliss, said his office spent a couple of years obtaining the appropriation. Taylor also gave credit to Georgia Rep. Charlie Norwood, whose office issued its own press release last Friday.

The need for the new NSA facility is driven by the growth in overseas surveillance activities, Taylor said. He said that the agency plans to move linguists and analysts down from its Fort Meade, Md., headquarters to the Augusta listening station, which targets the Middle East.

Billy Birdwell, chief of public affairs with the Army Corps of Engineers, Savannah District, says Phelps/Kiewit will probably get the go-ahead to proceed in January.

---

From the Dec. 14 issue of the Augusta, Ga. Metro Spirit

What will you do when gas prices reach $8.00?

Thu, 22 May 2008 00:12:42 -0700

It is not too unheard of the way things are going right now. These are some very uncertain times with the cat chasing its tail. As gas prices go up, everything else goes up except wages. Will the cat catch it tail and scream no more or will it spin until it is a puddle of nothing (like in the children's novel)? We use less gas to save pennies and the prices go up for the lack of demand. At what point does the consumer get a break? I apologize for ranting, but truly it scares me for my daughter's future.

What Would You Do?

Wed, 21 May 2008 23:47:33 -0700

Here is a question I often ask myself when I question the logic of working for myself. If I had one year left, what would I be doing right now? The truth is I would be doing exactly what I am doing now. I love what I do and most of all it allows me to control the time I have with my family. How about you?

In The Eye Of a Hurricane

Wed, 21 May 2008 23:40:10 -0700

Looking at the market right now, I see a strong analogy between a hurricane and the market we reside in right now. Some of us are in the eye, stable communities that are being affected more by the price of gas and food than that of a huge down surge in the market. The good news here in Evans Georgia is that the house prices have been affected very little to the negative. The bad news is buyers are more cautious than ever before and there are less of them. A lot of my peers are complaining about the lack of business. I say to them, feel blessed they are not in other parts of the country where sellers are giving away new cars to sell their house. One way or the other, as with the hurricane, some will get blown away and others will rebuild stronger. I say to you, dig deep and weather the storm.

Are Gas Prices Going To Affect The Way We Approach Customer Service?

Wed, 21 May 2008 23:18:35 -0700

Well the stocks today went crazy today with a larger part being affected by the price of a barrel of oil. Obviously that relates directly to the price of gas tomorrow. From last year to this year, the gas prices have increased by a third and there is no clear view of slowing. With all of us showing our buyers from house to house and putting a considerable amount of miles, will you step back and re-evaluate where and how you show properties. Will you still include unscheduled trips? Will you still show houses to client unable to prove their ability to buy a home? I would love to hear opinions on you see the future of real estate as it relates gas consumption, planning and procedure.

Is the market so bad,

Fri, 16 May 2008 10:26:47 -0700

I know that there are pockets around the country that the real estate market is struggling. Where house prices are taking a beating because of huge increases in value due to HOT sales in previous years, but I truly believe that the rest of the country is not in as bad a shape as the newspapers claim to be. We as a whole should remind ourselves of the amazing times of sales not too long ago and be appreciative and stay focused on what it takes to be a professional Realtor or those who are in the family of the real estate market. In every economy there will always be major ups and downs. The key is how we make of those fluctuations in the market. Twenty years ago, houses were a bear to sell. Your customer had to have great credit and a sizable down payment and be willing to pay 15-19% interest rates. What a difference compared to now! We still can get 100% financing in rural areas and with VA, and FHA with 3% down and interest rates below 6%. It could be a better real estate environment, but it has been a lot worse. I say to all that read this blog, it is time to look at the glass half full and really appreciate all the potential out there.

I would appreciate to hear from as many others as possible to share your opinions and possibly directed thoughts on what can be done to make our world move back towards the positive.

Mark Chesnick
Blanchard and Calhoun Real Estate Co
706-495-1533

For Sale By Owners

Fri, 16 May 2008 00:01:32 -0700

There is an amazing amount of knowledge here at ActiveRain. What do you think about starting a running blog on what works and what does not when it come to FSBO's? There has got to be a million stories on the crazy things that unexpectedly happen right in the middle of a presentation. If that sound like a good idea, follow with a story or an example of something that we as a group can grow from.

Developing Referral Relationships

Mon, 05 May 2008 08:29:21 -0700

Greetins all you Active Rainers. I am looking to establish direct, professional referral links to other parts of the country. I live in Augusta Georgia, home of the Masters golf tournament, Georgia Medical College, two VA hospitals, an amazing bass fishing lake, great home prices and Ft Gordon. If you are inclined to believe that the best buyers and sellers come from a strong referral source, shoot me an email or call me at 706-495-1533.

Virgin Territory

Sun, 04 May 2008 20:36:41 -0700

A warm greeting from Augusta Georgia, the home of the Masters Golf tournament. I just joined AR this week. What a great site! I look forward to developing some great relationships here. Active Rain seems to be agreat place to connect. Mark