Dr. Chantal Saucier

There will be a special event Sunday, September 19th (tomorrow) at the Blue Moon Saloon & Guesthouse in Lafayette, LA. It will be the kick off event for Grand Reveil Acadien (Great Acadian Awakening) starting at 5pm (music starts at 6pm).

Michot Brokedown (Louie & Andre Michot) and Feufollet & Sullyville Rambler (Ryan Brunet & friends) will provide the music for the evening.

The Grand Reveil Acadien is presented by the organization Louisiane-Acadie and sponsored by the State of Louisiana and the Lafayette Consolidated Government.

Louisiane-Acadie was created to promote the Cajun heritage and culture and to educate the people of Louisiana about its rich history.

The Grand Reveil Acadien's "mission is to awaken the population of Louisiana, primarily those of Acadian descent and the youth, to the realization that our language, culture and coastal lands are being threatened."

And while the kick off event is this week, the Grand Reveil Acadien itself will take place in October of next year (2011) in several cities of south Louisiana, beginning in New Orleans with the unveiling of an Acadian monument and end in Lafayette in conjunction with Festivals Acadiens & Creoles. There will be family reunions, seminars, lectures, and concerts.

I will be at the event Sunday to celebrate my Acadian heritage and I hope you will, too!!

For more information, visit Grand Reveil Acadien online.

If you need assistance buying, selling, or investing in real estate in the Lafayette area, do not hesitate to contact me or visit my website LaRealEstateDoctor.com

Home sales to date for River Ranch in Lafayette, LA. There were no sales in January and only one in May while other months saw 3 to 5 sales.

Most sales were for single family detached residences; only one condominium sold this year in River Ranch.

Inventory has remained stable with 40 available homes and 38 condos. If you are thinking about buying a home in River Ranch, there are plenty to choose from.

Click here to view available homes in Lafayette's River Ranch community.

Want to know what your home is worth? Fill up the Market Snap Shot box on the right and get an instant real estate snap shot for where you live (works anywhere in Acadiana) or click the link: Lafayette Home Values.

These are home sales in Lafayette parish and Acadiana as recorded on August 4th in our Multiple Listing Service. Home sales were slightly up in August compared to last month.

If we compare home sales in Lafayette parish for 2010 with the numbers of 2009, there were less sales this year but the gap for sales in August is not as wide as it was in July.

There are currently 2500 Active residential listings in all of Acadiana and 1373 in Lafayette Parish.

There are 454 home sales Pending in Acadiana and 293 in Lafayette.

To search for your next home, visit my web site, LaRealEstateDoctor.com.

If you wonder what your home might be worth in today's market or you want to know what your neighbor's home sold for, sign up for my Market Snapshot in the column on the right.

In today's market, with inventory on the up side, buyers have plenty of homes to choose from. One of the ways sellers can make their home stand out above the crowd is by staging and pricing it right.

The pictures below are of a listing I just sold. It took a couple of weeks to get the home staged. Michelle Molinari and her team got the job done! All it took was paint (for a couple of rooms), moving furniture around (including putting some in storage), and strategically placing art work throughout the house. The total cost to the seller was less than $3,000 (for labor and supplies). The result was a home like the ones we see on HGTV!

On Friday, July 30th, we began marketing the property in the MLS (Multiple Listing Service), and we found a buyer that Sunday, 3 days later, when we held our very first open house!

The asking price for the property was $178,000. The accepted offer was $175,000 (cash buyer) with no concession, or over 98% of asking price.

If you are thinking about selling your home or if your home is on the market already and you are not getting the attention you need from buyers, consider hiring a professional stager. Or better yet, if you live in the Lafayette, LA area, hire me and I will bring Michelle with me and provide a staging consultation free of charge.

As a real estate professional, I walk through many homes every week with my buyers. The homes that make the short list are always the ones that are clean, look good, and are move-in ready. Yes, getting your home ready for sale requires a little bit of work, and yes, it might cost some money as well (usually not a lot). On the other hand, your home will likely sell faster (saving you from making extra mortgage payments) and for more money. Isn't that what all sellers want?

Today is my husband's birthday and this is how I never forget the day Katrina hit and ravaged Louisiana 5 years ago today.

At it strongest, Katrina was a category 5 hurricane with sustained winds up to 175 MPH. At the time, Katrina was the strongest hurricane ever recorded in the Gulf of Mexico. She was surpassed by Rita, which also hit Louisiana's coast less than a month later.

When Katrina hit Louisiana and the city of New Orleans, it was a category 3 hurricane with sustained winds of 125 MPH.

I'm sure most of us remember the devastation that captured our media for days afterward.

New Orleans being below sea level and built somewhat like a bowl, retained the flood waters for days leaving thousands of people trapped in its path.

What I remember vividly about Katrina is the government's incompetence before, during, and after the ordeal. Here is Lew Rockwell on the one event I was never able to forget:

"Perhaps the most astounding case of incompetence has received the least attention. It relates to a 500-boat flotilla stretching over 5 miles that left for New Orleans from Acadiana Mall in Lafayette. It involved 1,000 people who had hoped to rescue hospital patients and take them to safety. It consisted of private boaters, fishermen, hunters, and others who had spent their entire lives navigating Louisiana waterways.

"Once this caravan arrived, they were turned away by the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, which was now being run by FEMA. All five hundred boats were turned away and ordered out.

"Now keep in mind that this was three days after the hurricane hit. There were hundreds of people inside the Charity Hospital in New Orleans alone. They had no supplies and only three had been rescued. At this very time, the head of the FEMA-ized Wildlife and Fisheries Department announced to the world on television that it needed no help from anyone and that it had all matters under control." For the rest Rockwell's article, click here.

I knew some of these boaters and all they wanted to do was help their fellow citizens. Another friend of mine, who was a student at LSU's medical school at the time, managed to rescue about a hundred people the day before with his boat and the help of a friend. He, too, was ordered out of the waters because he wasn't a "government official." Imagine what 500 boats could have accomplished!

What is your Katrina story? What do you remember most about the infamous storm and the days that followed?