Kids, bedtime stories, rocking them to sleep.

Nothing like that situation and sometimes the kids are not your own. And you are the only one handy to reach out, fill the need. This soldier does that. Take a look.

     He is a Chief Master Sergeant in the USAF.  As high as you can go in enlisted ranks (E-9).

John Gebhardt's wife, Mindy, said that this little girl's entire family was executed.

     The insurgents intended to execute the little girl also, and shot her in the head...but they failed to kill her.

      She was cared for in John's hospital and is healing up, but continues to cry and moan. The nurses said John is the only one who seems to calm her down, so John has spent the last four nights holding her while they both slept in that chair. The girl is coming along with her healing.

He is a real Star of the war, and represents what America is trying to do.

This, my friends, is worth sharing.  

Go for it!! You'll never see things like this in the news.

 Please keep this going.  Nothing will happen if you don't, but the American public needs to see pictures like this and needs to realize that what we're doing over there is making a difference.  Even if it is just one little girl at a time. Wouldn't it be fitting if this went completely around the world!..... James Gates U. S. Navy  (This is the kind of news to spend during family time over the holidays that not everyone enjoys. God Bless Veterans, Soldiers Away From Home This Holiday. They are the heros.

Maine REALTOR ANDREW MOOERS

    

Fatal attraction...it was a movie that made you squirm in the theatre seat.

I don't even own a family pet rabbit but the idea of Buggs simmering on a cook stove got my attention. Like a full throttle chain saw in your kitchen's deafening roar and blue oily 2 cycle smoke stinking your eyes, hitting your lungs. The wrong Real estate purchase can be like that. You find a property that you know is way beyond your time to fix, your expertise to correct the over flowing job jar on a place. Many of the undo, redo, make do renovations you had not counted on due to major major design flaws or deferred maintenance. The kind of jobs and updates put off from lack of money, know how or apathy where one job you expected after purchase of the gem turns in to three more as you tear away and see how extensive the damage really is.

     You had hoped for the best scenario thru out the house rehab but maybe the real estate is under a bad spell..one your do not have the time, resources, "power" to over come. Now you sit slurping a coffee on a Sunday morning in a home's living room that is torn apart, needing a major cash infusion and your undivided attention. If the lot was worth what you paid for it and the cost to demo is not excessive because there is no hazardous waste to add to the fun and games removal exercise, there is one plus. If the foundation, roof, lay of the land for drainage is healthy...wheezing but breathing on it's own, that's another bonus. The place is level, the heating and plumbing are better than the early pilgrims had so add another small check mark.

You should have asked other people you know in your community and contractors mistakes they made in early home renovations on places that had ten foot pole marks all over them but they bought ignoring those pole marks anyway.

It is not how low cost the place was and how you feel like a warrior, a gladiator for legally "stealing the place". It's what you have to do after the purchase that makes the total picture rosy or smell like dead fish or company that has stayed too many weeks.

     The properties, homes or whatever structures in eye sight of your "castle" are way way better condition than the purchase you are eyeing, considering so that eases some of the real estate tension. But before you reach for your wallet to slap down that deposit to make it yours, examine your motivation and drive to buy right now. Are you buying with your heart or your head? Are you thinking you will be way over your head in real estate quick sand and are there any doubts, fears you are pushing to the back of your mind? Listen to that voice in your head. Are you in a hurry for this project to keep your college kids busy next summer or over semester break?

     Or is work slow and as a business owner, are you buying to just keep your employees busy on a side project..one to keep you from having to lay anyone off? Noble but fool hardy? You'll know eventually and we'll get back to you on that one. The jury is still out as you nervously figgit with your check book pondering what do you do. Have you watched too many "flip this home" shows expecting only to donate a few hours of your time and under a $100 of materials to hit one major league real estate home run? You did not order the real estate TV guru's tapes and books too did you?

     Okay, if you are seriously going to do this, get your estimates on materials, your home inspection done. Round up the contractors you will need on the areas way over your real estate expertise..the dark murky areas on the other end of the home renovation pool. You need this information to know the full list of what's ahead for projects. To avoid wasted steps, unnecessary duplication of effort. Plan your work, work that plan kind of emergency room real estate logic. Consider all the worse case scenarios..not because you are a negative Joe or Jane but because you are preparing yourself for disaster and to protect from hearing your own voice in your head kicking, screaming "I told you so". Your friends, neighbors, relatives will want to add their two cents too so with the information and racing ahead to look back, how does this purchase help you with sleep at night, your desire to eat and think about something else going on in your daily life routine. Is it a hobby, passion, going to be fun or do you see cracks in the logic of putting your name on the real estate deed?

Watch a quick video on the process of rehabbing a home, the fun and games in the process.

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!