Think about it. You just had a huge dinner, with loved ones surrounding the table and the talk of buying a piece of real estate comes up.

Relocation to a friendlier, safe place. Lower cost real estate. Or maybe buying other Maine real estate, something on a lake or maybe something with lots of land like this sporting camp set up sitting on 386 acres. $249,900.

Or this 225 acres with a home that looks like a scud missle hit it..but you are not paying anything for the home so you decide reroof/reside or call a bulldoze operator, light a match as a firemen's practice exercise. $129,900.

Or maybe a Maine lake home is what the family thinks would be a good investment for a vacation, second home. A place on the water for next year's Thanksgiving, Christmas and all those vacations, three day weekends. $199,500. 

Thanksgiving is a time to give thanks, count our blessings. To link up with family and eat plenty. But the lap top, the home computer gets fired up along with the hours in an airport killing time on line. Videos to see the property..to just sit there and everything spills out in to their lap. Like meat already cut, a plate fixed and served up for them. Even has a splash of cranberry, some killer green bean casserole and sweet potatoes.Real estate video..still hemming and hawing about it? Big mistake...folks and their five senses want video..on the property, the area, and to get to know you.

Not everyone is watching just parades and footballs this Thanksgiving.

Make sure you have plenty of real estate videos on hand to meet the crowd's needs on line.

Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers

    

Read a ActiveRain blog indicating winter real estate is slower, blah blah blah.

I don't think real estate markets stop during any season anywhere in the country. And like the water hose kink, when the flow is obstructed a little seasonally, the pressure builds up so the real estate conveyor belt keeps turning, straining to roll faster. As a Maine real estate broker you should not buy in to the logic a seller may spout about waiting until spring to put a pulled property back on the market. I would say, keep the property broadcasting..transmitting for the world to see.

You the real estate broker with fire, desire, and push that aggressively, skillfully puts one by one the marketing components on line for every property you list should not suddenly see the real estate plug pulled. Not without friendly objections made known loud and clear. Your blogs, video, real estate marketing machine working year round. That is the mission...no dead air, dark screens, or waiting. Don't see it removed if you can convince the owner of the mistake made by doing so. Modify the possession date, but don't stop the marketing due to a little white stuff on the ground, the roof of that property. Wait until spring to relist means you pull down an iron curtain around that listing that was live, active, radiating on line until withdrawn, deleted from consideration. Hopefully you had the place lots of spots on line. All that careful work undone..dismantled, tucked away in a dark real estate closet.

You have folks you are emailing on this particular place. Or were. Now theses folks wonder if it is sold, under contract. They watch real estate sites seriously..like real estate hawks. They see the missing hole on your site, realtor.com and other venues. And like a missing front tooth, it is obvious it is gone from consideration. Hidden so the buyer forgets all that you used for real estate bait on that one to make the phone ring, to generate specific incoming emails or visits to happen to your office.  To generate business.

Lead lining it so no one sees it on real estate radar makes no sense. Don't stop marketing. Delay possession but never stop the real estate fireworks..keep sending up real estate ordinance, artillery, splash to attract attention of real estate buyers on line year round.

The well done video without snowbanks could be chugging along..the views tell you folks are watching it, planning, asking questions. Some of those viewers have to sell real estate first but are doing their "homework" so to speak. They need to see what is out there. And if traditionally owners and brokers opt to pull the listings until green grass reappears, they are missing marketing time, opportunities.

     If the fear is if my home is on the market, I have to move in thirty, sixty or whatever time frame, remember the possession is part of the terms and conditions. The buyer may not want to move right now either but he is motivated to own before the end of the year for tax reasons. He has a 1031 real estate tax exchange sale clock ticking...or a myriad of other carrot and stick situations pushing him in to gear.

     If your seller's property is suddenly gone, disappeared on line...just when this buyer was warming up to the neat imagery, copy, video you splashed....the prettiest girl at the junior high dance has suddenly left the building. No longer by the punch bowl. Darn...but like the expression that "the girls get prettier toward closing", the fewer homes that are remaining on the market may get a second, third look...and the flirting with what is there to work with comes in to play.

     If winter means traditionally in your market that there are fewer homes, farms, land or whatever for sale...then I want my seller's listings front and center. Beaming those image jewels, blogging about the real estate, videos showing on portable screens everywhere from airport travelers killing time. And eyeballing what you post to families crowding around the computer after way too much turkey around Christmas who get the bright idea to see what is on the market in Maine. Maine snow...any snow or times of the year when the red in the thermometer lowers on the glass tube are still important real estate marketing opportunities to not waste. Does not mean you have to be holding an open house when the family is drinking egg nog by the fireplace and eating divinity fudge. You can black out showing times...just don't stop the internet marketing on line.

Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers

Thanks to the success of home buyer tax credit to date, the outlook for housing and the economy appears to be headed toward recovery.

Executives from some of the largest brokerages in the country expect to see their sales grow 6-8 percent in 2010 and home prices to start heading up about 3 percent. Existing-home sales are expected to total 5.01 million in 2009, a gain of 2.0% over last year, and then are forecast to rise 13.6% to 5.69 million in 2010.

It is expected that the expansion of the tax credit to include repeat buyers will help boost middle-market sales for next year. The improvement in the middle market will help tighten inventories, helping to shore up prices.

It looks as though we have seen the worst of it!

    

You answer a Maine real estate buyer call. The lights dim as energy is transfered over the phone line.

And one by one, in rapid fire succession, questions are posed, disected, answered with many more, a steady stream coming bang bang bang right after it in marathon fashion. Some easy but many in a sequence so you can feel suddenly drained of information as your brain starts to deflate, shrink from the one way flow out. You get easy questions, and other hard ones like "what will it cost, for sure, to make this $20,000 Maine home liveable..up to speed." Define up to speed. And quality of workmanship, materials used, time frame to get it done, etc.

     It can be like the question "what is a diamond worth?" If you ask the Maine real estate buyer this question, it can slow the pace of interrogation..I mean questioning so that a one sentence answer is not coming with out a few of my own questions to really say, it depends on you. And we need to know more about you, the caller. How talented you are with a hammer?

What does liveable mean to you beyond heat, good roof, clean and safe.

Detailed videos on the area, the property, lots of images and detailed thorough copy can help the degree of questions from callers. If they tap in to those media options. That is why well written real estate blog posts on area subjects, rehabbing a home, local weather, etc are part of the answer follow up after you get off the phone. A good collection of these gems, well written with helpful images, links, video embeds can add information without you the broker needing to tell the same thing over and over. Let your blog posts help you take some of the real estate work load. Kick your blog in to gear. How hard working is your blog and do you let it do much of the "heavy lifting" ?

Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers

    

A downstate Maine real estate broker shared this with me.

     "A friend of mine told me a story about how when he was a kid he was in the hospital and near dying.  His Italian/African grandmother came to the hospital and told a family member to go buy her a large onion and a new pair of white cotton socks.  She sliced the onion open then put a slice on the bottom of each of his feet & put the white cotton socks on him.  In the morning when he awoke they removed the socks.  The slices of onion were black and his fever was gone.  The following story that someone sent to me might have some truth in it. We are going to try this winter.        

     "In 1919 when the flu killed 40 million people there was this Doctor that visited the many  farmers to see if he could help them combat the flu. Many of the farmers and their family had contracted it and  many died.  The doctor came upon this one farmer and to his surprise,  everyone was very healthy. When the doctor asked what  the farmer was doing that was different the wife replied  that she had placed an unpeeled onion in a dish in the rooms  of the home, (probably only two rooms back then). The doctor couldn't believe it and asked if he could have one of  the onions and place it under the microscope.  She gave  him one and when he did this, he did find the flu virus in  the onion.  It obviously absorbed the bacteria, therefore, keeping the family healthy."

 
     "Now, I heard this story from my hairdresser in AZ.    She said that several years ago many of her employees were  coming down with the flu and so were many of her  customers.  The next year she placed several bowls with onions around in her shop.  To her surprise, none of  her staff got sick.  It must work..  (And no, she is not in the onion business.)  

The moral of the story is, buy some onions and place them  in bowls around your home.  If you work at a desk, place one or two in your office or under your desk or even  on top somewhere.

  Try it and see what happens. We did it last year and we never got the flu. If this helps you and your loved ones from getting sick,  all the better.  If you do get the flu, it just might  be a mild case.  Whatever, what have you to lose?  Just a few bucks on  onions!!!!!! !!!!!!!!  

     "Now there is a P. S... to this for I sent it to a friend in Oregon who regularly contributes material to me on health issues.  She replied with this most interesting experience about onions: 
Weldon, thanks for the reminder.  I don't know about the farmers story...but, I do know that I contacted pneumonia and needless to say I was very ill...I came across an article that said to cut both ends off an onion put one end on a fork and then place the forked end into an empty jar....placing the jar next to the sick patient at night. It said the onion would be black in the morning from the germs...sure enough it happened just like that...the onion was a mess and I began to feel better.  Another thing I read in the article was that onions and garlic placed around the room saved many from the black plague years ago. They have powerful antibacterial, antiseptic properties." So, have any onions or stories to share about them?