Do Not Call List for Cell Phones

Heads up, in 8 days, all cell phone numbers will be released to telemarketers!! You will start to receive these annoying calls, and YOU have to pay for them as they rack up minutes on your phone plan!

To be put on the DNC list, call 888-382-1222. You must call from the cell phone in which you wish to register. You'll be on the list for 5 years. I just called in myself and they also warned that it takes a while to be removed from the list, but if would definitely be updated by 31 days. Why 31 and not 30, I have no idea, but maybe because next week is a Holiday!

Realty Times Article

A friend forwarded me an article this morning that I was featured in. It's so weird to see my name in print so many times in one place! I am honored to be the spot light for Realty Times as they watched me from last year through this year. I've already received a handful of emails and voicemails from real estate companies wanting to recruit me, to mortgage lenders wanting to work with me... you can't ask for more publicity than that!

Click here for the full article, including last year's.

Dallas Real Estate - Refi verse HELOC

I learned something new yesterday which was confirmed today. In Texas, once you do a Home Equity Line of Credit (HELOC) on your house, you cannot refinance the house until the Heloc is paid in full.

I had a listing appt yesterday where I feel so bad for their situation. They originally bought the house with putting down 20% and waiving escrows. After a couple of years, they got behind on taxes and decided they needed to refinance the house and roll the taxes into the mortgage and get everything caught up. It's now a couple of years later, his ARM has gone up to over 11.5% and when he inquired about a refi, he found out he didn't refi a couple of years earlier, it was in fact a Heloc.

At that point in the appt, I just got to look down at my hands on the table and say ohhh and awww. I was speechless. I had never heard of such a thing, and it was confirmed today that the Heloc rule is true. It's so sad when mortgage people don't explain things fully to people. What where they doing giving 8% on a refi two years ago anyway? I asked ifhe had questioned the rate, and his reply was that he trusted them and didn't know to ask.

So sad... hopefully I can help him out of this situation.

Dell Computer Batteries

Head up; Dell is recalling over 4 million Sony batteries in their laptop computers that were delivered between April '04 and July 18 of this year. I know I need a new battery. I've always wondered why the bottom of the computer is so hot. I've got it sitting on a laptop table right now, and the heat is strong enough to even go through the wood.

My husband uses to sit with the computer on his lap until he burned himself without realizing it. It was a slow burn over a couple of hours, but the actual burn didn't go away for about a week.

Anyone with a Dell from these dates need to get a new battery as soon as possible.

Here is the full story on www.dallasnews.com.

Dallas Real Estate - Got Heat?

If you're planning on moving to Dallas, you need to know some interesting facts about the summer heat. Today is going to be day 30 of over 100+ degree weather! It's supposed to be over 100 all week. As of today, we are having the 9th hottest summer on record. By the end of this heat wave, they are predicting that we will be the fifth hottest.

Here are some numbers:
1980= HOTTEST summer on record with 69 days over 100
1998- 56 days over 100+ This was the year I graduated college and imagine interviewing in a full suit and walking in the door with sweat dripping off your upper lip... boy was it miserable!

1954- 52 days
1956- 48 days

2000- 46 days
2006- 29 days and counting... today will be day 30!

Drink plenty of fluids and keep water in your car at all times!

Dallas Real Estate - ReKey After Closing

After you close on a house, you need to change your locks. You don't actually have to change the hardware as rekeying a lock is much cheaper, but you never know who has copies of the keys. If the previous owners didn't change their locks, you could have people from years earlier that still have keys. There are housekeepers, service technicians, babysitters, dog sitters, etc... That's so dangerous!

There have been many times when I've gone to pick up keys for the buyers and the sellers are like, there are only 3 keys there, but I know I had 4 so I'll get that to you when I find it. I'm like, don't worry, the buyers will be changing the locks. They always look at me with a blank stare, almost like, why in the world would they change the locks?

Hello people!! Crime rates are up, not down!! You don't want that college kid coming home on a break and just checking to see if his key stll works. You don't want an ex-wife or ex-husband of the previous owners trying the key at 2 in the morning because they're drunk...

Common sense says to change the locks!

Dallas Real Estate- Blogging Awards

Did you know there was a contest for Women in real estate to blog? I had no idea! I would have started blogging much sooner if I knew I could have won some type of award.

Someone I've known for about 2 years is actually on the top 10 list, Claudia Wicks! I'm hoping the additional traffic to her blog will bring people to my blog since I have a link over there. If you're reading this and you came from Claudia's blog, send me an email or a comment! I love to know where my blog readers come from.

Here's the full List.

Dallas Real Estate- 10% Drop for July

My seller's are constantly wondering why the showings have slowed down or why there aren't any showings period. In July, there was a 10% drop in home sales which followed a 5% drop in June.

We currently have 47,391 listings on the market which is about 8% higher than last year!! WOW! My view of that is that our market is basically still holding steady. At the beginning of the year, there were about 46,000 which is not that large of a change. I recently heard that the Phoenix market went from about 3400 listings in Jan '05 to about 46,000 in June of '06. Now THAT is a big change in market conditions. I don't know what I would do if our market flipped like that.

All I can say is that my business is still fairly stable, and the only difference is that the listings are taking a little longer to sell.

Click here for the full report.

Dallas Real Estate- Staging

I had my first attempt at really helping a seller stage their home this week. Below are some of the before and after pictures. I was unable to utilize the garage for storage, so there is still more furniture in the rooms that I would like, but at least the spaces are shown much better now. What do you think?

Dallas Real Estate- Dallas Schools Unacceptable

This is ridiculous!! Last year, there were 264 schools that were ranked as unacceptable and this year, that number jumped up to 321! How does this happen? What's funny (not really) is all the schools that cheated on their TAKS Tests (standardized tests) didn't help much as most of those are still unacceptable.

Granted, we had a huge jump in enrollment due to Hurricane Katrina and those students were probably on different levels which made it hard for many of them to catch up.

On the good side is that the number of exemplary schools were on the rise too... but just like the local news broadcast, it's easier to look at the negative than the positive. The increase of exemplary schools went from 304 up to 555 which was a 7% increase. WAY TO GO!!

Dallas Real Estate- Accredited Staging Professional ASP

I got my ASP certification today! I am now a certified ASP REALTOR®. The ASP is an Accredited Staging Professional.

Staging is NOT decorating! Staging is de-personalizing. Staging is getting a house ready to sell faster and for higher dollar. A staged home makes all the difference in the world.

For our final exam, we hit a house in Plano and we tore it apart and then put it back together. It was a lot of work, but a lot of fun! We had strict rules about not putting any furniture in the garage, so we were basically forced to use everything in the house, which is what you don't want to do, but it all turned out ok.

The seller's listing agent came over at the end and he didn't even recognize anything in the house as it was all moved around and the colors we focused.

Anyway, if you're in the Dallas area and need a home staged, give me a call/email!