How a Picture Can Make or Break the Sale of Your Home

The internet is a wonderful marketing tool to showcase homes for sale. I read a statistic recently that 94% of home buyers begin their search on the internet. This provides a tremendous opportunity for us, as real estate professionals, to draw a much wider pool of prospective buyers to our listings. It follows that we would use this opportunity to showcase the homes we list in their best light.

Great Room of 516 Lincoln, Huron, OH

So why do certain real estate agents, including some who have a large listing portfolio and many years of selling under their belts, do such a poor job of marketing their clients’ homes on the internet?

Chef Will and Bar North Bistro Do It The United Way

Last evening Bar North Bistro managed to light up a gloomy, early fall evening.  They hosted a wine tasting event with all proceeds going to the United Way.  It turned out to be a great way to spend a couple of hours mingling with old and new friends while sampling delicious food and wine.

What Makes A House a Home

Recently, a client was agonizing over whether or not to sell her home. She’d lived there many years and spent a lot of time and money fixing the house and yard up to be just the way she wanted. She envisioned staying there the rest of her life with all her friends and her adult children living close by. Then her husband got a job in another state. After much discussion, she finally made the difficult decision to sell her home in order to be with her husband.

Her dilemma got me thinking about what makes a house a home. Why do some of us choose to stay in the same house and neighborhood for most of our lives feeling contented with that choice while others feel the need to move to a new house and locale every five to seven years?

Red, White and Blueberry Picking

If you want to try something different on Fourth of July before heading out to that parade, barbecue or fireworks display, consider an early morning drive to Amherst township. Tucked away down a short lane you’ll find Chance Creek Blues, a small, family farm devoted to growing organic blueberries. Just past another pick-your-own blueberry patch next door, there is a gravel drive. Park along the drive and head to the small shelter on the left where you will be handed a bucket with rope attached and directed to where to find the bushes with the ripest berries.

Blueberry Picking at Chance Creek Blues

This is my third summer picking blueberries at Chance Creek Blues Farm. It’s a zen-like experience to bury your head in a blueberry bush on an early, summer morning, gently cup a ripe cluster of sun-kissed blues with one hand, feel them let go easily from their bush and settle softly into your palm. On a hot day the berries seem to ripen before your eyes. I’ve learned that some of the juiciest berries can be found by looking high or stooping low. People tend to grab the berries right in front of their nose that are most easily accessible and leave the rest for those of us with height and long arms or for those who don’t mind squatting low to the ground.

Firelands Rails to Trails

If you’re like me, when you get a day off after many days of working, you spend it doing household chores that piled up during the days you worked. Your day off then ends up being just another day spent working-except you’re at home working on the house and yard instead of in the office. Spring and summer bring additional chores around the house that aren’t there in fall and winter-like mowing, weeding, cleaning the garage, staining the wood deck, sealing the concrete patio, planting a vegetable garden, mulching. The list is endless. The weather is great so you long to be outside playing somewhere instead of tethered to the house doing chores.

Monroeville entrance to Firelands Rails to Trails

Spring and summer are the busiest time in the real estate business so days off for me are few and far between. I’m much more willing to settle down to household chores if I’ve done something fun outside first. Since we have this new, high-energy dog, Yogi, my choices have to include him. It reminds me of when my daughter was a toddler. Every morning we would take her on a long walk to a neighborhood park where she could romp on the playground equipment. The object was to wear her out so she’d take a nap and I could get some chores done.

The same is true for Yogi. If he gets plenty of exercise outdoors, he will be mellow the rest of the day. If he doesn’t, he will spend the day trying to “herd” us as we make trips up and down the stairs or going in and out of doors.

Is Your Realtor a Deadbeat or a Dynamo?

Is Your Realtor a Fat Cat?

There are six d-words that provide a great “litmus test”, for not only choosing the best real estate agent but also for choosing any person you’d like to work, play, pay, consult or couple with based on how many of these six traits they display.

For purposes of this article, my focus is on d-words to seriously consider when choosing to work with a REALTOR. The more of the following 6 words used to describe your Real Estate Agent, the more likely you are to have a satisfying experience when selling or buying your next home.

Fall for Mill Hollow

One of my favorite things to do on a Sunday morning in the fall is to grab my pooch and my partner and take a 20 minute drive along Route 2 to Brownhelm township, south of Vermilion-on-the-Lake. If you take the Vermilion/Sunnyside exit and head south on Vermilion Road, you’ll eventually end up on a winding descent into Mill Hollow and Bacon Woods, one of Lorain County’s metroparks.   

Take the first right at the bottom of the hill and you will find plenty of parking. Head back to the furthest lot and there you’ll see a large map with trails, history of the area and wildlife to look for along your hike.

This is a dog-friendly park that even provides biodegradable poop disposal bags at the trailhead for your convenience.  It’s rare to meet someone walking the wooded trails who doesn’t have a canine companion trotting along beside them.