Blogging - The Places You'll Go - 06/30/09 11:38 PM
I've discovered that one of the unexpected benefits of blogging is that it gets me out and about - out of my car and out of my house.  Truth be told, I tend to be a bit of a workaholic and at the end of a long day I'm usually happiest at home - working on my blog of course!
But blogging means you've got to get involved - visit that neighborhood to take photos, check out that local attraction you want to write about, or eat at that new restaurant so you can write a review.
I've been getting coaching … (15 comments)

Your Blog - In Every Language - 06/27/09 11:15 PM
I was looking through the visits to my blog this morning and discovered something really cool.  Sitemeter shows you the visits to your website and you can click to see the page that brought them there - the google, yahoo, bing search or whatever.
Well I clicked on one of the links to see the referring site and what did I see but my blog - in Spanish!!  
It's yet another nifty Google application - Google Translate.  Someone in Spain was reading my blog in Spanish via Google Translate. How cool is that?
Enter a url - or text - and … (15 comments)

My Favorite Real Estate Video - 06/25/09 11:26 PM
And no - it's not a real estate listing! 
I stumbled on this video when I was researching real estate websites months ago.  It was actually Ty and Kelly Tompkins website that I discovered - and this video was featured.  Tonight I discovered to my delight that the video was posted on youtube so I thought I would share it here. It's genius!
Ty and Kelly's Enid Oklahoma website remains one of my favorite real estate websites of all times - in fact it's probably my #1 favorite.  The website is like no other agent site I've seen. Scroll over the desktop … (12 comments)

Need an Online Day Planner? - Check Out Google Calendar - 06/24/09 12:09 AM
My Palm is in its death throes and no longer syncs with my computer.  I've never been one for a paper day planner and have used Palm for my calendar on my desktop and my phone for years.  I've been struggling ever since I couldn't sync - I could look at my desktop calendar while at my desk but otherwise I was operating from memory - and my memory's not the best.
Many of you probably already know about google calendar but it was new to me when somebody recommended it last week.  Now I'm hooked - I love it!
The calendar is super … (7 comments)

Going Green In Your Real Estate Office - 06/20/09 08:32 PM
A busy real estate office is a big user of resources.  Here are some easy ways to cut down on your consumption at work and go green at your real estate office:
Turn off your computers and monitors at night.  Give everyone a labeled mug and/or cup and stop using - and throwing away - plastic or paper cups Reuse blank paper or paper with little on it. Use it as scrap paper or print on the other side Establish a drop-off location to collect batteries to recycle - real estate agents produce lots of these - from smoke alarms, cameras, … (16 comments)

Portico - Super Handy Research Site - 06/19/09 10:31 PM
I just stumbled upon a super site - PORTICO.  It bills itself as "web resources for advancement professionals" and I have no idea what that means.  Maybe it has something to do with fundraising or development.
I found the site from a reference to Portico's list of town and city's assessor databases and for that alone it's a site that every real estate agent should bookmark.  How handy!! It's got links for assessor databases from all over the country.  I love having all of these links in one place. And I've often for one reason or another wished that I knew where to find … (10 comments)

Real Estate Agents with Multiple Jobs - History Is On Your Side - 06/15/09 12:02 PM

Yesterday I went on a history tour of Somerville Massachusetts. It was a fantastic tour - even though I've been selling real estate in the neighborhood for years and lived in the area for many more - I learned so much about the architecture and history of the streets around me.
During the tour I couldn't help but think of the recent discussions on Active Rain about real estate agents taking second jobs.
The tour focused on Somerville in the late 1800s and early 1900s.  It was a period of rapid growth - between about 1890 and 1910 Somerville almost doubled in population and housing … (14 comments)

Today Was A Red Letter Day! - 06/11/09 10:29 PM
Hope you can indulge me just a bit ~ but I'm really excited and who better to share my excitement with than a bunch of real estate bloggers - especially since nobody else understands this endeavor that has consumed me.
Today was a Red Letter Day.  I hope you can bear with me as I toot my own horn.
This morning I discovered that Larry Easto had featured my blog on his real estate marketing website.  And it really was a discovery of sorts - Larry had sent me an email but I got to email late and first discovered the review … (12 comments)

Vintage Graham Cracker House - 06/09/09 09:57 PM

I've been a collector all my life.  A lot of my collections are house related. Put a house on something and I'm in.  I collect house banks, vintage real photo postcards of houses, miniature metal buildings, and lots of other things.
When I spied this advertising piece in an antiques shop case yesterday I had to have it. Graham crackers are one of my weaknesses and this house is just adorable.  The house even has cutout shutters - one of my favorite features - when I spot cutout shutters on a house I'm automatically drawn to it. Children are skipping rope in front of the … (13 comments)

Blogging Heroes - 06/08/09 11:39 PM
I confess - I'm obsessed with my blog.  I can't stop checking the traffic, I want to talk about it at any opportunity (but don't have enough people to talk to about blogging), I monitor my search results positions compulsively, it's the first thing I think about in the morning and the last thing at night - I am obsessed. 
One of the things I do when I'm consumed by something is buy books.  You can trace my obsessions over the years on my bookshelves.  So of course I've been hitting the bookstore for books about blogging.  I buy most of the ones … (16 comments)

What Are Your Favorite Real Estate Shows on TV? - 06/07/09 09:52 PM
In your off hours are you hooked on real estate shows on TV? Try to catch one or two of your favorites each week? I've logged many an hour on HGTV, Bravo, A & E and TLC watching real estate "reality shows" and how-tos.
If Flip This House your guilty pleasure? Or maybe it's Flip That House. Truth be told I've never been able to keep them straight but I've watched plenty of both.
Or how about Million Dollar Listing? Yikes! That show is in a class of its own.  Sort of like a car wreck - you have to look no matter how horrifying.  And I've watched plenty of Buy … (20 comments)

Ellen Swallow Richards - Founder of Home Economics - 06/04/09 10:36 PM
After stumbling across info about a woman I had never heard of - Ellen Swallow Richards - twice in two days I decided it was a sign of a blog post in the making.  And since Ellen Swallow Richards spent quite a bit of time in Cambridge Mass I was particularly taken with her story.
I never had given much thought about the history of home ec though I did enjoy my classes the couple of years it was offered when I was in junior high. Not that it took - I'm no Martha Stewart and the pastry we made in 7th grade remains one of … (6 comments)

Compulsive Hoarding - Trash Filled Houses - 06/03/09 10:23 PM
I was watching Niecy Nash and Clean House's Search for the Messiest House tonight and it got me thinking about hoarding.
I was introduced to hoarding about twenty years ago when two different friends bought trash filled houses.  Neither house was on the market - each was in horrific condition - and both were bought for bargain prices. These houses were for the faint of heart - the clean out and repairs took months, gas masks were necessary equipment, cabinets that had absorbed the odors had to be pulled out, and the houses were aired out for months, not days.
It was … (24 comments)

URL Convention for City and Town Websites - 06/03/09 06:10 PM
As a real estate agent I often find myself going to city and town websites in my area.  Whether it's for the assessor's database, the building department, utility information, whatever - I'm often looking up municipal websites. 
Years ago - before real estate - I did a brief stint in municipal government.  I don't think I would have figured out this trick otherwise.
There is a convention for URL names for municipal websites.  Not all cities and towns follow it - which is annoying - and others have picked up a new web address but will still have a redirect from … (4 comments)

The Pantry - The Room - The Book - 06/02/09 10:19 PM
The pantry is one of my favorite rooms in a house and The Pantry by Catherine Seiberling Pond is one of my favorite books about houses.
I'm meant to have a pantry.  I collect antique dishes and accessories and my collection can easily fill a pantry. My first house had a pantry that was essentially unchanged since it was built in the 1860s and still decorated with the remnants of vintage shelf edging from the 1930s or so. That's a corner of it in the photo at the right (looking rather disorganized - it was a work of art when I … (13 comments)