Tony Brewer

Being in the real estate business, I’d like to encourage homeowners who are trying to sell their homes to take a close look at using some window boxes on their houses.  I think that having some nicely done, well-maintained garden window boxes add a real visual touch of homey charm that will make just about any house more appealing to the prospective buyer.  Having some pretty trailing ivies and colorful cascading petunias flowing out of a couple of window flower boxes on the street side of the house will make the house look more inviting. 

But if you are going to do that, you really need to make sure that you keep them looking nice.  Make sure to water the plants often enough so that they don’t droop, and keep dead-heading the petunias so that they will keep flowering for a longer period.  And make sure that the boxes themselves are in good repair – seeing boxes with peeling paint will definately be unappealing!  It might be wise to invest a few dollars into some new ones, just to spruce up the place!  After all, street appeal is important – it is what gets the prospective buyers into the house in the first place!

Not too long ago I was talking to a businessman who seemed to have a unique approach to the current economy and how every-one’s bad credit is going to change the business world.   The conversation started out with a discussion on different credit repair services and how so many people are interested in learning how to fix credit ratings.  Everyone is afraid that if they don’t have good credit that they will be unable to buy a car or rent an apartment down the line.

His take on the situation is that no one should have to pay for credit repair services.  He feels that it won’t be too long before everyone is in the same boat and that the businesses are just going to have to bite the bullet and take a chance.  If they don’t take a chance they are going to end up with a lot of unsold product and empty apartments!  And that won’t be good for business at all!  He may have a point there, but just the same I’m going to try to protect my credit as best I can!

I like listening to my aunt tell me stories about her life.  She’s only in her mid-fifties, but she has some good stories to tell nonetheless.  Like the time that she and a group of friends decided to “TP” a neighbor’s house and unbeknownst to them all her parents watched the whole thing!

One of her stories has to do with moving 800 miles on her own.  She used to work for a company that allowed transfers from state to state.  She was single and had a pet dog.  She had determined that she wanted to move from Virginia to Maine because she had gone on a skiing vacation with her boy friend and decided she liked Maine enough to move there in search of being able to ski more often.  Her boyfriend had relatives in Maine and thought he would be fun to move there with her.  So she put in a transfer request.

A week before the transfer request was granted her boyfriend broke up with her!  But she went to Maine without him, not knowing a single soul.  Fortunately she had been given the name of the Maine Senator’s field representative to call and ask for help with the move.  That woman was so nice; she invited my aunt to stay with her while she found a place to live! So my aunt recruited her brother (my uncle) to help with a a U-Haul and they drove from Virginia to Maine. They met up with the field representative and spent the night. The next morning the field representative took them to her office and then sent one of her assistants to take her looking for apartments for rent. It was a real challenge; especially since no one wanted to rent to a single girl with a dog!

But believe it or not, by the end of the day they had found the perfect place! The next day she moved in and paid for an airplane ticket for her brother to fly back home. My aunt stayed in Maine for 29 years after that, but that is a another story!

Even though people are not buying houses as much as they were a couple of years ago, they are still moving around the country.  They are just opting for rentals instead of buying houses.  And some of them are moving frequently because of landlord issues or because they find out that they can get a better rate somewhere else.  So there is still quite a demand for Local Moving companies.

Whenever my clients ask me for recommendations on Local Movers I suggest to them that they use the Internet to get Local Moving Quotes.  It is rather quick and easy to fill out a form on a web page to ask for Moving Estimates, and you can do it at your own convenience.  You would be surprised to see the great disparity of rates that there can be between the different companies!  One word of advice that I have for you, though, is to make sure that the company you hire will cover the cost of repairing or replacing broken items.  And if they are moving antiques, you should get a written appraisal of their value before you move!

I must be getting at least six calls everyday from some solicitor trying to get me to refinance my mortgage through their company. These pests are very insistent, and continue to badger me even after I ask them to put me on their “do not call” list. One of the more aggravating things about this is that the caller is invariably someone from India who claims to have the first name of an “American” like “Sam” or “Amy.” I know darn well that they are not “Sam” or “Amy.” I’ve gotten to the point now where I look at the caller ID before I answer the phone, and if I don’t recognize the caller I don’t answer the phone. I’m getting really tired of this. Are you getting this kind of treatment too?