Green Home Conversion July 22, 2008

with energy prices soring, everybody is looking for ways to conserve. if you live in my house, its taking a cold shower in the dark and reading by candle light, however, not everybody has that kind of dedication to lowering the electric bill.

so what happens when youre trying to move your investment property or your primary home that was built in 1998 (in a great “the bigger the better” market) in a down market?

you get the buyer asking you questions about windows and if your house is green? the obvious answer is “i have plants, but its not a green house…”

Green housing conversions are not as scary or costly as they sound. Additionally, green conversions will move your property 30% faster than if you dont convert.

so how’s it done and whats this going to cost?

• buy energy star appliances. they will cost you or your perspective buyer 50% less on your energy bill.
• throw in a tank less water heater
• put a water barrel out back to collect rain water to water your water wise grass
• put some overhangs in to add shade to your windows so you dont have to crank the AC to 69 degrees on a hot day

theres plenty that you can do to convert your home to a green home without spending a ton of cash and whatever you spend, you will make up on the sale.

Almost too late to make that investment… July 21, 2008

As the second half of the 4th quarter begins, and the tourism season comes to a close, i think we are starting to see some change, but unfortunately, it may be a little off target, at least for those who rely on the tourism industry.

So what does this mean?  Does this mean that the real estate market may being to stabilize toward the the end of the 1st quarter?  when exactly is the bottom going to drop out?  By the bottom dropping out, i am not talking about an absolute recession, but i am talking about the transition back to a  bull market, a period of time that has not been forgotten by most Americans. 

When is the right time to buy?  As many know, the time to buy stock is three weeks into any quarter when prices settle out, but real estate is something that cannot be moved as easily as stocks and funds can thus making it a tricker, but more lucrative move.

in this down economy, there shouldnt even be an issue of unsold properties because smart investors should be snatching up all foreclosed properties as tourism has not seen the effects of the Bush catastrophes.  the fact that tourism has not been touched by the lack of enthusiasm in the economy ties back to the importance of localized search for vacation rental owners, but this, is for another time.

in my personal (and green) opinion, there will be a busy sport season for most tourism sects such as Myrtle Beach due to the anticipated drop in gas prices.

Also, thanks to the biggest bail out in history on the horizon, we will begin to see those interest rates go up on that investment property.  So cash in those bonds and clean out the couch cushions and find a Realtor and invest in something solid and sound today.

2008 Real Estate Appreciation Stats and Predictions July 18, 2008

With real estate in the disarray that it is, somebody in my position will spend a significant amount of time in market research trying to find the “hot pockets” where real estate is still a hot commodity. in this research i have found interesting statistics that almost contradict themselves.

for instance, i have seen, through google trends that real estate in North and South Carolina are commonly searched, however, in “expert” predictions and through their research they are stating that these pockets are not in

New Hampshire, North Carolina or South Carolina, and are in fact located along the Gulf Coast and this is attributed to the destruction of Katrina.

In addition, it is notable that with the apparent threat of natural disaster, the Florida market is suffering considerably while we see an influx in the midwest, especially Colorado according to Google Trends. however, Forbes named Denver as one of the riskiest real estate markets in 2008…

July 3, 2008

on Wednesdays, i like to go to starbucks and sit outside and read a book between leaving work at 5 and going to the gym at 6:30 (they added my spin class back and got rid of that wretched step class.  small victories.).  today, being that it is wednesday, was no different.

as i find my table (in the middle, not too close to the door that i will get bumped into and not too close to the street because i cant deal with the car noise) and settle in.  when these two young ladies get out of a white Volvo SUV with west virginia plates.  they looked like they were whoring at starbucks at 5:30pm.

the one had an embarrassingly short green chiffon dress with 4″ metallic heels.  the other in a tight black dress with pantie lines.

as they come back out of starbucks, they sit themselves at the table closest to the door and begin their conversation.  chiffon starts talking about what she learned that day, seeing as how shes probably old enough to still be in grade school, i eavesdrop.

“did you know that iran isnt actually part of Africa?  its actually part of Asia, like Asians live there.  I never knew that, thats what i learned today”.

this is how the conversation went.

i wept for a moment at how the public school system has let us all down yet again.  but then i said a little prayer thanking god for granting this young lady the ability to wear shoes like that because that is the only skill that will get her anywhere in life in her bright exotic dancing future.

seo and real estate June 19, 2008

so, lets talk a little bit about the real estate market. it seems to be a hot topic these days, with the economy in the shitter and the stock market loosing our hard earned dollars.

here in lovely Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, we can’t give houses away, which is a pretty sad turn since 3 years ago, our real estate agents had people calling them begging to pay top dollar for a 1 bedroom slum.

so with this information, one would image that real estate agents would insist on changing their marketing plan, unfortunately, that is not the case. many are pulling their budgets back, which means that is their marketing budget, they wouldnt dare trade in that land rover.

often times, when i talk with a Realtor about their marketing budget or their website which is a template provided by remax that has no chance in hell of being ranked even in the most non-judgmental search engines, the answer is “we are broke”.

so, how can we turn this around? how can we make real estate agents, who are notorious for not knowing how to operate their email let alone design and market a website, believe in the internet?

i have a friend who is in real estate, she has decided to kick ass on the internet will a full on ppc and seo program and she has closed 9 deals in the last 3 months, all internet leads.

of course, my friend is in her 20’s and is more literate than most.

in addition, there are plenty of specialized web design companies out there that all they do is push out templated designs with the promise of seo. their idea of seo is putting the same 5 keywords in the meta data on all pages and throwing a few alt tags in.

i feel that it is important to educate our realtor’s so they can stop being ripped off and start selling some f-ing houses!

Step Aerobics June 11, 2008

The moment anybody says aerobics the first thing that comes to mind is anything with a step.

i am uncoordinated to the max, so i stick with weight lifting (not big weights just i-want-madonna-arms weights) and spinning (which isnt as scary as it sounds).  so when i was talked in to kickboxing i thought whats the worst that can happen? and i was right, it wasnt so bad until i twisted my knee and was limping for the next month.

so my usual wednesday night spinning class as been canceled on account of low attendance (i was the class) and was replaced with Group Step.  this isnt normal step, this is i-did-an-entire-8-ball before class step.  there is hopping and running in place and arm waving and skipping, like what the fuck?  so since i have no cardio on wednesdays anymore, i figure what the hell lets do some step.  all is ok for the first 20 minutes.  then we have “figure 8’s” which is some sort of knee movement with a tapping then you hop from one side of the step to the other then you squat and have a jumping jack then it starts all over again.  well after about the 3rd modified version of this i went down.  hard.  not sure what happened all i know is i got up FROM THE FLOOR with a swollen ankle and started to cry.  like a bitch.  not from the radiating pain, but the sheer embarrassment.

i placed my step back with the others and creeped into the locker room where i wept.  oh it was so bad.

but soon after i got home and washed down a vicodin left over from a root canal with a bottle of wine, i got to writing.  i sent a strongly worded email to the gym stating that because of their scheduling i not have a fucked up ankle and i will not be able to maintain my cardio/weightlifting ratio throughout the week.  i am furious. and in pain.  and drunk. out.

pre-packaged processed partnerships June 11, 2008

so im watching tv and there is commercial after commercial for online dating, eharmony, match.com chemistry.com and they are talking about filling out profiles to better match you with somebody.

in the realm of what i do for a living which in part is pay per click campaign management, this is the same sales tactic that i use to get people to sign up for a program, which is “pre-qualify the buyer” or “by the time that they reach your ad, they are so far down the buying cycle that there is a higher conversion rate”.

same concept for online dating, when a lonely soul reaches your profile that outlines your lust for puppies, sunsets, having fun and meeting new people, theyre so damn desperate that they will take anything they can find.

additionally, why would you want to know all this stuff up front? honestly, my boyfriend, i didnt want him to know on our first date what my favorite color was or my salary range or any of the other 39 points profile that dr. phil has created just for me. isnt that the whole point of the exercise in dating? getting to know each other and trying new things with that person instead of pre-qualifying them and deciding that since you dont like spicy food and they do then that person is not for you.

this goes past natural selection. there is no hunting or courting, no exchange of body language or or contact? and typically youre going off of a picture that is god knows how old and only shows this person from the shoulders up with the background lit by candle light. get that 35 year old never married fun loving administrative assistant under some florescent bulbs and see how stunning she is there.

Aside from the online dating sites, you can always meet somebody via social networking as well, this is what the younger and hipper kids do, not only is it free but there is not as much of a stigma attached.  this however produces the issue of who are you really talking to?

OR

chick lit that doesn’t blow June 11, 2008

i will go ahead and admit that i am sexist. i am a young female who hates most other females. we can’t drive, we whine, we hold up play on golf courses, we are generally a pain in the ass to deal with, and god knows if we dont get our way we will make your live a living hell until we do.

this in mind, i read non-fiction only and mainly gravitate to the memoir section of Barnes & Noble. i have read some god awful books by women who embody those aforementioned characteristics but thru their under-sexed, over worked, painfully quirky heroins dancing through 324 pages of a paper back that nobody would proudly display on a bookshelf. i just want to shake them all and scream “you’re not jane austin honey, not now, not ever, get a j-o-b”. but i digress..

I thought i was doomed to reading mindless chick lit or the Che Guevara biography again until i discovered Jen Lancaster and Laurie Notaro (ok i didn’t DISCOVER them, but i stumbled upon them at the bookstore, just shut up). These two women are insightful, funny, intelligent and do not fall into any of the aforementioned characteristics.

I just finished Lancasters new book “Such A Pretty Fat“. This is a great book that you find nodding your head as you agree with her throughout the book. her other two prior books, “Bitter is the New Black” and “Bright Lights, Big Ass” are equally as entertaining. It takes a little getting used to when it comes to the footnotes, but by the 3rd book, you would start to miss them if they weren’t there. The only problem is that life takes too long, and since it’s a memoir she can’t write more than one at a time, so it takes awhile for her to come out with a new one.

Notaro’s books are hilarious books that you cant help but read in one sitting. her 5 fiction books (I love Everybody, We Thought You’d Be Prettier, The Idiot Girl’s Action-Adventure Club, An Idiot Girl’s Christmas, Autobiography Of A Fat Bride) are short stories about the weird shit that happens to her. her one non-fiction piece “there’s a slight chance i might be going to hell” was a weird diversion but not entirely disappointing but not exactly a page turner. her new book comes out 6/26/08 “The Idiot Girl and the Flaming Tantrum of Death“

Spam from another Land June 10, 2008

it all started with a universal remote…

a Philips remote to be exact, purchased from Walmart for $9.99.

i programmed my tv without an issue, unfortunately, i did not program the DVD player at the same time, for whatever reason, thinking that i had apprently done enough for the day and the DVD player would just have to wait its turn.

So i come home the next day to notice cleaning lady (for all intents and purposes, i do refer to her as cleaning lady and not her given name, whatever that is) had paid me a visit, not only can i no longer find my toothbrush, car keys or my universal remote instructions.

Naturally, being the keen internet user that i am, i go online to hunt for instructions. seeing as how i purchased this remote from a low-end retailer at bargin basement prices, it is nearly impossible to find these instructions online, that is until i stumble upon www.2instructions.com where they clearly state that for the low low price of $19.99 i can have my instruction manual for my $10.00 remote.

Being the asshole i am, i send a lengthy email telling them that their site is a scam and they should be ashamed of themselves. i promptly get an email back from support001@2instructions.com(not unlike support 007, but my friend isnt cool enough for that, he someday strives to be a 006 however) detailing that he does not want a customer such as myself and that i should go to hell. which is fantastic. so i do a reverse IP look up on this site and notice a private registration (rats) and that there is one other site that shares their IP address, which incedentally has the exact same information, so i report the two sites to Google (which really doesnt do anything but make me feel gratified) and proptly email my new friend that i did so.

Then i start getting emails from porn sites stating that i have signed up for their newsletters. my only thought is that my 001 pal has tried to sabatoge my email by trying to make me blush.

this being said, 001 has declared war, so its on.

i quickly open my favorite search engine and input a string of keywords “free erectile dysfunction newsletter” “daily bible reading newsletters” and “how to meet women newsletters” all of which i sign my 001 friend up for thinking that these things might do him some good. all 500+ of them. i then check my email and get the following newsletter opt in email…

a hit in sweden June 10, 2008

So this is it, the first post.  picking out a blog title and design is like adopting a new puppy, you do the research on the names and the colors and temperments and finally, you choose your one and only.  i chose a theme that isnt pretentious like the scroll type ones that make people feel that their poetry that they post on the internet will be discovered and published all around the world because their wordpress template looked like aged paper.  or the plain white and blue templates, those say to me “my words are too important to care what theyre housed in”.  or the template i have so carefully chosen, this says to me “im trying to hard”.  which, i wont lie, i am.

so now what?  what do i say?  i have this grand stand and a (what i like to pretend is) captive audience who is just running out the time clock at yet another miserable, probably dead end job in this economy dying to read something that will make their lives just a little less  what they really are.