At the top of my bucket list has been learning to ride a horse.  And last week, I joined my friend, Jean, for lessons at the Woodland Horse Center.

I've been on horses before, but I'd never learned how to get the horse to go where I want to go at the speed I'd like him to go, and to stop when I'd like him to stop.

It's about communication.

So my new buddy, a gorgeous roan named Applejack, is teaching me about communication, and not just with a horse.  A lot of it applies to clients as well.  For example:

• It's subtle.  It's easy to say "canter" when you want him to trot.
• If you don't say "go" just right, he'll stop altogether.
• You really need to show the horse who's in charge, but sometimes the horse is in charge - unless you're really good.
• Sometimes the horse will give you this look like he must think you are a total idiot.
• Sometimes you are a total idiot - at least when it comes to horses.

So while I'm trying not to get too concerned about Applejack's judgments of me as the human who rides him every week, I'm learing to sit on an English saddle and post and trot and basically sit on this guy's back without falling off.

And the other fun thing is the shopping opportunity at the tack shop.  I got my cute new helmet - although I'm striving to get one with a fuzzy surface - they are really cool. 

And Jean got these chaps - I have to have some!  They are beautiful brown supple suede.

There are also boots and outfits and saddles and before long I'll be leasing a horse!  Then I'll need to buy one and move to Potomac where thre are lots of places with stables that go with the house!

My broker will love all this.  I'll have to sell a lot of real estate to support my new horse habit!

© 2009 Patricia Kennedy. Unless otherwise noted, the content, both written and in pictures, is the property of Patricia Kennedy . If you would like to use this image, please  email me (housepat@mac.com) with your request. I'll almost certainly say yes, and ask only that you provide a link back to my original content as well as an acknowledgment.  The same thing applies to any other material you see posted here on Active Rain or on any of my other blogs.

A lot of us have started to go nuts as lenders are getting more and more nitsy, driving our beloved clients crazy with last second requests for documentation and other paperwork issues that seem to come to a head about two days before settlement. 

This morning, I had a talk with a lender who has been making loans as long as I've been selling houses, and we were laughing about how it's getting to be just like the good old days!  So now, I'm coaching all of my buyers on what to expect during the process.  By preparing them for all of the stuff that is totally annoying people right now, I'm hoping that if they expect the nitsy, it won't annoy them as much.  Here are some of the things I'll have them be on the lookout for:

• For a while, the lenders were all pretty casual about pest inspections.  Well, now it there is a single carcass of a single once alive termite on the property, there will have to be some evidence that the little guy did not die of natural causes like old age.  This means evidence of prior treatment, either in the form of paperwork documenting when the treatment was done or a new treatment.  Same with repairs of termite damage.  You'll probably need someone to certify that it was done by a licensed termite repair contractor, or you will have to bring in a licensed termite repair contractor to say it was done properly.
• They are looking at condominium documents more carefully, with an eye to saying no to people buying in buildings that look like the owners' association might be in trouble.  In projects with a lot of short sales and foreclosures, this could further compound the problems they are having with owners who cannot pay either their mortgages or monthly association fees.
• If you put any money into your checking account that was not your regular pay check, you will have to account for it.  So if you are self-employed, keep good records of your clients' payments.  Same if you are on commission.  I just had some buyers need to get a letter from grandma saying the $1000 check they deposited was, in fact, a wedding present. 
  
• If you are getting a large gift from your parents, you may have to document that they did not borrow the money to give to you.  You'll also probably have other lender's guidelines about the amount as a percentage of your down payment.
  
• It is taking a lot more time to get the papers through the lender's system - getting the loans through underwriting and then getting documentation to the title companies.  It's like they are trying to do the work with fewer people, which means the fewer people are going to put your papers in higher and higher piles that take longer to get to.
• And they keep thinking up new things faster than we can add them to our What to Expect list! 
  

We used to have to deal with these situations all the time before about the mid-1990's.  All lenders were a pain, but it didn't seem like a pain at the time because we were totally used to it. 

And yeah, they expect to get picky, picky, picky!  And trust me, it will still be easier than when I was a new agent and had to walk through the snow for miles to hand deliver the extra documentation!

Most of our leaves are now on the ground.  So, on this gorgeous top-down Sunday, I saw this gorgeous red tree out in Potomac, Maryland.  And I had my I-Phone handy, which didn't quite catch the way the sun reflected off of the bright red leaves.

© 2009 Patricia Kennedy. Unless otherwise noted, the content, both written and in pictures, is the property of Patricia Kennedy . If you would like to use this image, please  email me (housepat@mac.com) with your request. I'll almost certainly say yes, and ask only that you provide a link back to my original content as well as an acknowledgment.  The same thing applies to any other material you see posted here on Active Rain or on any of my other blogs.

Recently, a family member had a stroke.  His stomach was upset.  He thought he had food poisoning and looked like crap, and friends insisted on a visit to the emergency room.  He was very, very lucky.  Not everyone is, because the symptoms often don't look like a stroke, unless you know exactly what to look for.

There might be a fall, the person might be a little disoriented and loopy.  There might be a numbness is the face and really bad headache. And the person having the stroke might insist he is fine - just a little trip and fall.

If you are with someone and suspect he or she might be having a stroke, here are some hints:

• Ask him to smile
• Ask him to repeat a simple sentence coherently
  
• Ask him to raise both arms

If he has problems with any of these tasks, call 911.

Then there is another sign.  If you ask the person to stick out his tongue and it comes out crooked - off to one side - that is another sign of a stroke.  Again, call 911.

A suspected stroke is nothing to mess around with!  Getting to the hospital as quickly as possible is key to surviving and making a full recovery from a stroke. 

The five highest sales prices paid for Washington, DC properties in October is in stark contrast to the top five listed homes.  The five highest priced listings range in price from a low of $10,000,000 to a high of $39,500,000.  And here is what actually sold last month:

2716 36th Place NW for $1,850,000:  the asking price was $2,150,000, reduced from $2,275,000.  The house was on the market for 262 days.  Located in Observatory Circle, this center hall brick colonial is pretty much the Washington standard.  It has 6 bedrooms, 4.5 baths, and over 3700 square feet of living space.  The kitchen and baths had recent high end renovations, and the entire house appeared to be in excellent condition.

 P Street NW for $2,200,000: the asking price was $2,275,000.  This is a Georgetown classic townhome dating back to about 1900.  It has over 4000 square feet of space and has been beautifully renovated and decorated.  It's interesting to note that the house does not have parking, which is unusual in this price range - and in Georgetown, parking is a very good thing to have.

4940 Indian Lane NW for $2,400,000: the asking price was $2,750,000, reduced from $2,950,000.  This Spring Valley home was what we sometimes call a "granny house", looking well-cared for but with kitchen and baths that were state of the art when it was built in 1956.  The interior space was over 5000 square feet, and the house is situated on a beautiful and well-landscaped lot.  This one has a lot of potential, and it will be interesting to see what the new owners do with the place.

2400 Tilden Street NW for $3,330,000:  listed at $3,595,000.  On the edge of Rock Creek Park, this home dates back to 1796, known as the Pierce Still House.  The renovation may have been one of the best I've seen, with a kitchen fireplace big enough to roast a cow!  It has 6 bedrooms, 5.5 baths, and over 6000 square feet of space.  It ranks as just about the favorite place I've seen here in Washington - at any price.

2446 Belmont Road NW for $4,350,000:  listed for $4,995,000, and previously listed for $5,750,000 and was on the market for a total of 279 days.  This stone Tudor has approximately 5000 square feet of space sits on a huge, beautifully landscaped lot overlooking Rock Creek Park.  The kitchen hadn't been renovated recently, but it looked like a high quality classic from the mid-century. The house has 8 bedrooms, 6.5 baths, and the dining room is large enough to host a state dinner!

I have some clients who are looking for a great condo or coop downtown.  I've found some good possibilities and my clients are adding things that they come across on the Internet.

Most of their finds are already under contract or settled.  But there was one that, while not on the MRIS was on a FSBO site. 

There was a description and contact information.

But wait!

It said to call Camille.  I dialed the number then I noticed the little warning that Camille is on the national "Do Not Call" register, and any agent who calls her is subject to a gigantic fine. 

Hang up!  Fast!

OK.  There's also an email option.  But when I tried that, I got a warning from the Realtor® police that my email set off a red flag.

Now, the price is $550,000 and the remarks said it is firm.  But wait!  That's $75,000 more than anything has sold for in the building.  And it's a third floor walk up, and the fees are so high that they should include dry cleaning and groceries - which ought to include delivery up the three flights of stairs!

And before I could talk my clients out of wanting to see the place, a "friend" of the owner called my number, captured from the caller ID that showed up before I hung up.  And we do have an appointment to see the place tomorrow, and I'm secretly hoping that they hate the place.

If you're thinking about going it alone, selling By Owner, you can do it.  While most people who try give up and eventually list with an agent, you can avoid the major pitfalls -

• Don't overprice your place. 
  
• At a minimum, use a limited service company that will put your listing on the local Multiple Listing Service, and agree to pay any agent who brings in a buyer.
• Be careful about the information you have on your promotional leaflets.  Camille had a couple of serious mistakes on the piece that her "friend" emailed me.  One of them could cost her buyer an extra $8,000 or so.
  
• Don't have an unlicensed "friend" help you sell the place.  They won't know any more than you do!

You might think it's easy.  It's not. 

Now, I don't want your listing.  But you might want to buy a copy of The Irreverent Guide to Real Estate.  There is a whole section on how to do it yourself.

Today on our brokers' tour I saw a pretty house in Woodley Park, one of my favorite neighborhoods.

The MRIS information had a very well-done virtual tour, with professionally done photos taken of very well-staged rooms. If I were a buyer doing an on-line search, these photos would certainly get my attention and make me want to put this place on the top of my list.

When I got to the Open House today, I had to admit the place was adorable.  It was charming.  And it wasn't really what you'd call tiny, but it also was nowhere near as large as the beautiful photos made it look.

The house way way too small for the buyers I was checking it out for, and at the same time, I am glad that I saw it.  It might work for someone else.  But it definitely fell short of the expectations.

The photos made the rooms look a whole lot larger than they actually are.  And the agent and I started talking about this.

So the question here (and neither one of us had the answer), is it better to use wide angle lenses, PhotoShop and other modern wonders to get people into a house that might disappoint them?  Or is the idea to just them in the door?

Not having the most flattering photos possible is sort of counter-intuitive, is it not?

I have a settlement scheduled for Thursday afternoon.  The termite inspector found a few dead guys and a little bit of chewed wood, but it was evidence of a prior infestation.  Since there is no record of a prior treatment, we've got to get a bunch of nasty chemicals pumped into the ground  around the house before Thursday.  And I found out this afternoon.

So I called my friends at Dixon's Pest Control for help.  And sure enough, they saved the day.  Tomorrow they are treating the place - and it's a federal holiday!.  I'll be able to get the last piece of paper to the lender in time to settle at four o'clock.

Like many agents, I sometimes find myself needing last minute termite treatments, sometimes because I just forgot about it.  And Dixon always makes it happen.  Oh, and they do a great job when it's not a last minute request as well.

So if you need a pest inspection or treatment, they can be reached at 202-882-6565 or email them at DixonsPest@hotmail.com.

In Washington, there are certain views that can make a condo unit worth more, a lot more, than if they didn't have one.

So when I saw a condo with an optimistic price, there was a photo of the view from the unit, and it showed the National Cathedral.  Now as veiws go, The National Cathedral is right up there.  Maybe not as great as the Capitol, the Potomac or the Washington Momument.  But it does command a few extra dollars.

Well, I'm glad that I previewed the place first. 

Looking out one of the bedroom windows, you could see the Cathedral.

But from the giant windows in the living room, this is what you got:

Some day, they might turn this roof into one of the new "green" ones, with sod and flowers.  Then you won't be distracted by the ugly thing, and you might even look to the west and appreciate the far off view of the Cathedral!

But in the meantime, if I were the agent, I'd maybe change the focus to make the expectations he creates meet the reality that buyers see.