Melinda Peterson Grants Pass Southern Oregon Real Estate Cafe

For the seventh year, the City of Grants Pass will celebrate Art Along the Rogue 2009 in Grants Pass, Oregon this weekend (October 3 & 4). The annual music and street chalk art festival is making the move to Riverside Park this year. Big broad strokes of pure brilliant color will transform Riverside Park into a super-sized art gallery at Oregon's largest street painting festival. This event features nationally known street painters creating huge pastel chalk drawings on the street, alongside 40-50 regional artists & students.

In addition to the art festival, The Art Along the Rogue musical showcase will feature some of the region's top musical groups from Beatles to bluegrass, funk to folk, and accordion to salsa music and more. It's sure to be a Grants Pass crowd pleaser. The event is free to the public.

For more community and real estate information about Grants Pass, Oregon, contact Melinda Peterson Real Estate Cafe 541.659.1620

Giant pumpkin on display at Real Estate Cafe in Grants Pass, Oregon! Enter Jim Coons, a former Realtor turned gardener in Grants Pass, Oregon.

A friend gave Jim a starter plant of the Atlantic Giant pumpkin variety. Coons has grown pumpkins in the past and he said some other varieties won him two pumpkin contests sponsored by Chet's Garden Center in Grants Pass, Oregon, but none were this big. This whopper pumpkin weighs in at 270 pounds!

The giant pumpkin will be decorated as a scare crow and displayed in front of Real Estate Cafe in Grants Pass, Oregon.

As the Forrest Gump saying goes... Life is like a box of chocolates! You never know what you're gonna get. Perhaps, some real estate agents can be lumped in the same box.

Chronology of an Agent:

You graduate from real estate school 101. You take the exam and pass. You get your license and you go to work for franchise ABC. You order those nice glossy business cards and then sit in your office and wait for the phone to ring. And bingo, it does. You write your first offer and it gets accepted. You are on top of the world! You decide to take some floor time and you get a walk-in. Somebody wants to sell their house. You lucky dog!

Up to this point, all is well in your real estate world. But then, your luck begins to run out. You realize no-one has really showed you the ropes on how to create a successful real estate practice. You struggle with writing a good offer with compelling verbiage that protects your client. You have never negotiated a thing in your life, so you know very little about how to get your client the best possible deal. You ask, what's a Preliminary Title Report and what does it mean? You quickly realize that there is so much they didn't teach you in real estate school, and you really know very little about selling real estate.

So, you fudge a bit, and you tell people you are a neighborhood expert (but you have never sold anything in that neighborhood). You figured out that many buyers want rural properties in your area, so you advertise that you are a rural properties expert (when you have never sold a rural property). You are a step ahead of the rest when you take a one-day education course and earn an xyz certificate, so now you can all yourself an expert/specialist in xyz. Who knew?!

Okay Active Rain Professionals, what's wrong with this picture? Besides the obvious deceptive practice of saying you are something that you are not. How about the Public's perception that all Agents are alike? Do they really know what they are gonna get, when they call us?

How about a chocolate dipped strawberry in exchange for your AR thoughts!

Today is a day that I look forward to with great anticipation each week... because today is the Grants Pass, Oregon Saturday Growers Market. I look forward to seeing my friends gathering at the Growers Market (practically the whole town comes out for it each week). And, of course the most important part, is finding an assortment of fresh fruits and vegetables to put in my wicker basket. But before I make the journey downtown (just behind the Grants Pass Post Office), I will stop by the local Dutch Bros coffee house in Grants Pass and enjoy a cup of my favorite Oregon coffee. They say it's the little things in life that matter, and I would have to agree.

Melinda Peterson ~ Real Estate Cafe ~ Grants Pass, Oregon - Where Something Good is Always Brewing!

The following pictures were posted on a Facebook group called "Really Bad MLS Photos." It is hard to believe that there are Agents who think photos like this are acceptable to use in marketing a property for sale, let alone, placing the photo on the MLS.

Active Rain Professionals, what is wrong with this 1st picture? I hope you have a sense of humor when you look in the window! Perhaps some staging advice is in order from the Dog Whisperer :)

On a more serious note, why are we seeing more really bad photos like this posted on MLS? I don't get it. Perhaps picture-taking and staging should be required courses for all Agents to obtain their real estate license. Am I being too hard here, or do you see really bad photos like this in your MLS?

Take a look at these pictures:

Check out the sign in front of the house below. Yes folks, this picture was really posted on MLS!

This one looks like a giant green mud-pie!

Holy Cow! This brings new meaning to Knick-Knacks!

A bonus ironing room, perhaps?

Look honey, more storage!

Dining at dusk - How romantic!

Not sure if they are marketing the lovely pink carpeting, leaning closet doors, or hamster cage?!

Is that a rat or a hamster behind the cage?

You might want to think about getting out of the picture... or out the business!

Put the lid down! Better yet, leave this one out!

There are more Really Bad MLS Photos posted on Facebook, but I think you get the picture!

Melinda Peterson ~ Real Estate Cafe - Grants Pass Southern Oregon Real Estate