VoIP Blog54676

So, your selling your home. Prepare yourself both physically and mentally for the agony of the endless phone calls and interruptions to your daily schedule. But more importantly, prepare your home for the ever critical eye of each person walking through the door. For it is not their goal to see the good in your home, but to see each and every flaw that has ever been. What can you do as a seller to minimize these flaws and highlight your homes best features? Let's take a look at several reasons why your home may not be selling and some easy-to-do remedies.

Reason #1 - Curb Appeal. Stand across the street and critically evaluate your front yard. Is it weed free? What about the "For Sale" sign? Is it easily visible from the street with current information? Do you have flyers available? Seems small, but this is actually a "biggie".

Reason #2 - Clutter. From the front yard to the back gate, get rid of everything that takes up space (everything that you can live without). You're moving into your new home (soon), so why not start packing now? Home buyers are looking for cabinets, closets and kitchen space. Home sellers need to reduce, reduce, reduce!

Reason #3 - Clean. How long has it been since you had a professional cleaning service do the job right? Having the property cleaned by someone who is not emotionally attached to the property is the only way to go. Not only do they see things that you don't, they're especially detailed oriented in cleaning the home.

Reason #4 - Color. "Real Estate Beige" comes in many different shades these days, but whatever shade of neutral you decide to go with, make sure it is properly applied. If painting over dark colors, be sure to use a primer. Hiring quality contracts to paint for you is worth the money. Walls in good condition are important, but so are walls that buyers can see.

Reason #5 - Compromise. Pick challenges with your children based on what is truly important. The kids room need to be organized, but it's more important that the dirty clothes are out of sight.

Reason #6 - Creativity. Setting matching accessories together and displaying nice towels are not labor intensive or expensive. It's using what you alreayd own to highlight the home.

Reason #7 - Consistency. Make sure the home is prepared daily for buyers. Put wet towels in the dryer during the day (running the dryer before heading off to work). Dirty clothes need to be picked up and put in the laundry basket. Used dishes should also be put in the dishwasher each morning. Remember, people will recall what they saw, more than what they didn't see.

Reason #8 - Check Your Senses. How do the house smell? (Cinnamon? Vanilla? Wet dog?) What do you hear? (Leaky faucets? Soft music?) What's the first thing you see when you open the door? (Nice entry, clean floors? Walls with cracks? Stained carpet?)

Remember, buyers will make their decision within the first few seconds of driving up to your house. It is your responsibility to give them an invitation to come in!

# posted by voip71722 @ 7:34 PM 0 comments

The summer is a perfect time to host a Luau. Regardless of your state of residence, you can have a Luau in your backyard. Hawaiian decorations will add to the ambience and make everyone think they are in a tropical place. A Luau is a perfect theme for a retirement, anniversary or birthday party because all ages enjoy them.

A Luau needs some palm trees. Inflatable trees or supplies to make some are found at any party supply store. They can be placed around the backyard or inside the house in strategic locations. If the party will head into the evening and night hours, hang strand of mini white lights. The twinkling lights provide enough light to see and appear as more stars in the sky.

Other decorations can include colorful flowers, streamers, balloons and pineapples. If you have a pool, place floating candles or live flowers inside to float. It provides a touch of elegance to the dcor. A party supply store will have all of the paper products needed to serve food.

Luaus are known for having great food. If cooking for a large group appears to be a daunting task, ask everyone to bring a dish to pass. Make sure they know the theme and see what they can create to contribute to it. Hire someone to professionally roast a pig and use that as your main course. Take a picture of the pig with an apple in its mouth to use in your scrapbook.

Games to play during a Luau include doing the limbo. The traditional game involves two people holding a pole while others dance under while the pole keeps getting closer to the ground. Other outdoor games can include horseshoes and volleyball. If you have an outgoing crowd, a hula contest may also be a fun idea.

# posted by voip71722 @ 7:14 PM 0 comments

Many documents in your possession may either be impossible to replace, or extremely difficult to replace, should the need arise. A safe-deposit box or a fireproof box is the perfect solution to storing these types of documents. You will need to determine whether or not you want the document stored on-site at your home, or off-site at your bank.

Items that Should Not be Placed in a Safe Deposit Box
Anything you would need in an emergency
Will
Living Will / Medical Directives
Funeral or burial instructions in case you need them over the weekend
Power of Attorney Originals
Passports in case you need to take a sudden trip outside the country

Insuring Contents of a Safe Deposit Box

Be sure to read the contract for your safe deposit box carefully. Banks do not insure the contents of what you put in the box. Fire, floods and theft are very rare at banks, but it does happen. Most banks will only be liable if you can prove that they were negligent and failed to use reasonable care to prevent a loss. If you are concerned about this, you should check with your insurance agent to find out if you need additional coverage for items placed off-site that may not be fully covered under your homeowners or renters insurance policy. Items typically placed in a safe deposit box that you would want insured may be; jewelry, coins and stamps. If you are storing checks or cash in your safe deposit box, you also will not be covered under the FDIC since you have not deposited them directly into your account.

Items to store in a Safe Deposit Box or Fire Proof SafeThe following list is intended to be a reference for you. It may not be a complete list of the documents or articles in your possession that you need to protect in a secure environment. You may wish to store all of your items at home in a fire proof box, or you may desire to store them off-site in a safe deposit box. You might determine that the best solution for your needs is to have a combination of both storing some of the most important and most difficult documents to replace in a safe deposit box and the rest in a fire proof box in your home. The solution you choose to store these important items is for you to decide, but which ever solution you select, be sure to follow through and take the steps needed to store these important documents. You will thank yourself later when you are looking for these documents, or heaven forbid should there be a fire or flood in your home.

Adoption Papers (Originals only)

Automobile title(s)

Bank account numbers and contact information

Baptismal and other Religious Certificates

Birth certificates (Originals only)

Cemetery Deed (Originals only)

Child Custody Agreements or Parenting Plans (Originals only)

Citizenship papers (Originals only)

Collectibles that are valuable

Credit card account numbers (copy the front and back of each card so you have both the account number and the customer service numbers)

Death certificates (Originals only)

Diplomas

Divorce decree(s) (Originals only)

Employee Benefit Records

Family historical information

Household inventory and appraisals of antiques, artwork, collectibles and furs you may also want to include photos or videos to help document these items

Important contracts

Immunization Records

Insurance policy names and numbers (home, auto, medical, life, renters)

Investment certificates

Jewelry and jewelry appraisals

Leases

Marriage certificate (Originals only)

Medals

Military records

Mortgage

Naturalization Certificates

Negatives of important photos such as those from your wedding

Patents and copyrights

Photos of Possessions

Rare Stamps and Coins

Real Estate Deeds

Retirement plan information

Stock and bond certificates

Veterans Papers

Accessing your Safe Deposit Box in case of an Emergency

In case of an emergency, you will want to know in advance who will be able to have access to your safe deposit box. Different states have different laws on who can access the box when you die. Some states make it easy for a family member or the executor of the estate to access the box, while other states require a court order to remove the will, which will take time and money. You can rent the safe deposit box jointly with a spouse, child, or someone else that would have unrestricted access to the box. They will however need to sign the rent agreement as well. If you die however, in some states there still may be delays for the co-renter of the box to be able to access the contents. Giving someone a key to your safe deposit box, does not give them permission to access the box, rather their name needs to be on the contract with the bank.

Create an Itemized List of Contents

The final steps to organizing your important papers and valuable items is to be sure to create an itemized list of those items that you are storing in either the safe deposit box, fireproof box or both. Be sure that you list the location of each item and the date that it was stored. Periodically, review the contents to see if you need to update any of the items that are being stored, such as new banking or credit card information. If you have a safe deposit box, take the itemized list with you and update it with you while you are there.

# posted by voip71722 @ 5:51 PM 0 comments

Student Motivation List

At this time of year many of our students have begun to loose focus, and interest begins to wane. As a result off-task behaviors begin to rise and classroom disruptions increase and we miss out on quite a bit of instructional time as we deal with these issues.

It may be helpful (especially with the males in your classroom) to take this opportunity to build into our instruction some items of high interest.

To that end, I am attaching to this message one of the surveys I provide students who have behavior challenges in an effort to find out some of their motivating factors. Feel free to add to, remove or modify the list as you see fit. Uses can be as simple as counting soccer balls instead of oranges during math class, or building the topics into your writing prompts.

Here is the list:
Airport tour
Animals
Architecture
Art
Auto mechanics
Auto dealerships
Backpacking
Barbecue party
Baseball
Basketball
Beaches
Bike/Hike Trail
Birds
Board games
Boating
Bowling
Buy a car, how to
Camping trip
Canoeing
Car wash
Career clinic
Cars
Cartoons
Castles
Cats
Cave exploring
Child care
Civil defense
College or University visit
Collections
Communications
Community service
Conservation project
Cooking
Court Session
Cruises
Cycling
Dance
Diet and nutrition
Disabled citizen assistance
Dogs
Dolls
Drug abuse/alcoholism
Emergency preparedness
Exercise
Fashion/design
Fire safety
First aid training
Fish
Fishing
Football
Gardening
Golf
Gothic
Government officials
Ham radio
Hiking
History, town
History, family trace
Horseback riding
Horseshoes
Hunter safety
Indians
Industry, local
Insects
Job interview skills
Jogging/running
Jumping rope
Jungles
Leadership skills
Lifesaving, swimming
Martial arts
Military
Model building
Morality, ethics
Motorcycles
Mountaineering
Movies
Music listening
Nature
Nature walks
Newsletter writing
Orienteering
Outdoor living
Part-time jobs
Photography
Physical fitness
Planetarium
Plants and wildlife
Plays produce
Playgrounds
Power station
Public speaking
Puzzles
Racing
Recycling
Rafting
Road rally
Rock climbing
Sailing
Saving money
Scholarships
Scuba
Senior citizen assistance
Skateboarding
Skating
Skiing
Slide show, plan a
Snorkeling
Soccer
Softball
Sports
Sports medicine
Sports safety
State capitol
Summer jobs
Television station
Tennis
Trains
Video games
Volleyball
Walking
Watercraft
Waterskiing
Weather bureau
Wilderness survival
Winter sports
Wolves
Woodcrafts
Other___________________________________

Let me know if you have any questions.

Reggie

# posted by voip71722 @ 1:48 PM 0 comments