Bob Foster

I get warnings about Internet threats on a regular basis and I'm sure you do as well. Some are genuine, but many of them are sent by well-intentioned family and freinds who are trying to protect me who have been drawn into forwarding and promoting a hoax.

So how do you sort out which threat messages are real and which ones are hoaxes before you hit that "Forward" button?

First, go to this website -

http://www.symantec.com/business/security_response/threatexplorer/risks/hoaxes.jsp

The folks at Symantec are usually on top of both the new virus/ phishing threats and those messages that contain hoaxes. If you enter part of the title from the message you have received into the search function there and the message you received comes up, with a full description of a hoax, please DO NOT FORWARD THE MESSAGE. That only makes it easier for hoaxes to propogate, and it may even be an embarrassment when you get a message back from someone you forwarded it to, telling you that you too were drawn into a hoax.

Still not sure?

Try this .. go to Google search and enter the title of the email you are wondering about, then add "+ hoax". There are a number of other great sites out on the Internet that also keep tabs on hoaxes, and it might be that you will find a description of one that you are dealing with there. Hoaxes tend to be long-lived, and I have sometimes had to tell people that something they thought was a genuine threat started as a hoax more than 5 years ago.

If you try both of the techniques above and see no evidence of a hoax - start forwarding!

I have lived through a very interesting period of time. When I was youngster I used to save a carrot for the milkman's horse, and rush out to give him a treat as the milkman delivered to our house. Now, my Blackberry alerts me anytime one of my email accounts receives a new message.

My personal life carries parts of the old and new everywhere I look. I spend a fair bit of my time doing webwork on the sites I have created for my listings, but then I head our into our livingroom and throw more wood on the fire to banish the cold of a Canadian winter from our home.

As I do this, and identify myself with humans who have burned wood for 10000 years or more, but I find myself doing a quick check for environmental concerns. Environmental is a word that only came into usage part way through my lifetime, and only came to the forefront of our concerns in the past few years.

Old wood heat ... new concerns.

So, is the flame hot enough to reduce particulate emissions? Check.

Are we only using recycled products (slabwood) so that no trees are being cut to heat our home? Check.

Are we only releasing carbon into the atmosphere that would be released anyway if this wood was left to rot on the forest floor? Check.

I am grateful for being born when I was, for seeing so many changes in our transition to our new society. I am grateful for my connection with a past of 61 years ago, and I am also grateful for the chance to help create a better future for my grandkids born in the last couple of years.

This is an amazing time to be alive.

I think we are at a crossroads with respect to how we deal with environmental issues. The focus of our conversations now seems to be less about whether or not we need to do something, and more on how quickly we can make things happen and whether or not our actions can have an adequate effect before predictions such as those made in Gwynne Dyer's book, "Climate Wars" become unavoidable realities.

I imagine that my recommendation to become involved in NAGAB - the National Asssociation of Green Agents and Brokers -

http://www.nagab.org

has been often repeated in the blogs here, but one more time won't hurt.

Free kits for both realtors and homeowners; they make it easy to do our part.

I just came to real estate last April after trying a period of retirement. Frankly, spending that much time in jogging suits wasn't my idea of how to live, so, despite all the warnings about how difficult it is to get started, and how awful the market is supposed to be right now, I took the plung and the result is ...

... I'm lovin' it!

At the very top of my list of reasons why I love real estate, I would have to put "the stories".

Real estate is not retail. We are not selling houses (only the owner of a property can sell it... we just help them do it) - we are selling a service, and that service is one that helps people as they make some of the most important decisions in their lives.

I am constantly amazed at the diversity of situations in which our services are required and the richness of the experience of helping people make their life changes. Long before I started this career, a friend of mine who was a real estate agent told me, "Bob, you need to understand that many real estate sales are for sad reasons - loss of employment, marriage breakdowns, old age and disability ..."

She was right. But the truth is that all of life is about the stories we live, and, just as a photograph would be meaningless if it was all light, there is both light and darkness in everyone's life story. When could there be a better time to help clients than when our services are most needed?

So, I value the opportunity to get to know my clients, and to listen to any part of their stories that they might want to share with me. It helps me to understand my role, and how I can serve them better.

It's a quandry. We want governments to help first time buyers get a good start, but we don't want to see the abuses that were involved in the sub-prime mortgage problems in the US.

Here is what legislators in Ontario, Canada, have come up with, and I would appreciate your comments on whether or not this sounds like a good idea:

- The provincial government (think State goverment in the US) provides funds to the local municipalities (counties).

- The local municipalities use the funds to set up programs that generally look like this:

- first time buyers are given a loan that amounts to the equivalent of a down payment on a moderately priced home (up to $7500);

- the purchasers need to qualify for a mortage for the remaining 95%;

- no interest or principal is payable on the loan for 20 years;

- if the purchasers stay in the home and meets all other conditions of the loan for the 20 years, the loan is written off and never needs to be repaid;

- if the purchasers decide to sell the home or rent it out before the 20 year period is over, the purchasers need to repay the original loan plus 5% of the increase in the value of the home.

From my perspective, this sound like a good idea, because there are many credit-worthy families who are capable of making a mortgage payment who are held back because they can't manage to save up the money for a downpayment. This gives them a start, but, if the conditions hold, it is likely to cost the goverment little or nothing in the end because most of these folks will decide to sell and upgrade long before the end of the 20 year period.

Does this make sense, or is it flirting with the same problems that led to the recent financial mess?

Bob