Tammy Lankford- lake sinclair

Staff Sgt. Alex French IV, 31, of Milledgeville, was a member of the National Guard's 48th Brigade, which deployed to Afghanistan earlier this year.

He was killed on September 30th. His body was due to arrive at the local Milledgeville airport at 8:00 a.m. but the weather has prevented the plane from landing here. He will now be taken to the Macon Georgia airport around 12:30 p.m. today and the procession will make its way to Millegeville around 2:30 p.m. today.

My husband will be there to show his support to the family and respect to Staff Sgt. French. Although younger than my husband they have walked the same path.

Staff Sgt. French entered the Navy after high school and served until 2000. That's the same year my husband was honorable discarged from the army. And although their paths did not intersect Staff Sgt. French went to work where my husband did in Milledgeville GA with the GA dept. of Corrections in 2001. He later took a job with the Bibb County Sheriff's department where he was employed when his guard unit was called up.

My heart goes out to his family and my husband and I will be there to honor him when he comes home for the final time today.

First of all, our buyer was very savy. She really did her homework and picked out homes in neighborhoods she liked that she wanted to see prior to showing up to see properties.

She quickly narrowed down to just 3 and we got lots more details on those 3. Disclosures, taxes, plats, reasons why sellers were selling. She chose the one she wanted to make an offer on and we quickly worked out the details.

We suggested the loan officer and attorney that we knew would make the deal go smothly and the purchaser took our advice is NO hesitation. *Quite the refreshing change.

Yesterday when we did the pre closing walk through was the only little glitch we came across. But I was prepared for it and cleaned out the refrigerator myself. After all I was driving by a trash dump on my way home.

Why the seller thought the purchaser might actually want his half full ketchup and open pack of hotdogs and the like is beyond me. After all he drove past those same dumpsters the day before.

My loan officer, Debra Boice, had the package to the attorney for todays closing last Wednesday and she was there at the closing today. Debra always comes to the closing. She is also hands on from start to finish. Although Synovus is a huge corporation it doesn't feel like one. And though Debra does have a wonderful processor that takes care of many of the details along the way Debra stays involved and hands on. This is much the same way I run my real estate office and maybe that's one reason I like her so much.

Oh and did I mention she brought me a key lime pie to thank me for the business. She's an absolute delight to get to know and work with.

If you are anywhere in the state of Georgia and looking for a wonderful loan officer... Debra is your girl. And you just might get a key lime pie too.

Thanks Debra for making this one easy. As we've discussed many times lately it's rare these days, but you seem to know how to make it happen.

Immediately after the sign went up on this new listing we got a call. The agent hadn't even taken inside photos yet to put on the web site because the owners were packing up and moving out and boxes were everywhere.

It's over 4000 sq. ft. and a wonderful Lake Sinclair home on two lots.

A showing was scheduled.

An offer followed.

It was very low.

Now of course we'd done a CMA using recent sales. BUT, the owners knowing what the market is like had also hired a local appraisal firm to give them a current appraisal. So we went with a very close to appraised value listing price. $425,000.

And taking into consideration that the home is also being sold nearly completely furnished we feel it's listed near what it should bring.

The owners did counter the offer we received on the property.

The potential purchaser then sent us an email that said:

I bought my home in Somewhere Else, GA two years ago for $400,000 and now it's only worth $200,000. So I want to buy this home at the "current discounted proeprty price"

Our reply included a couple of things:

1.* Our sales price decrease on lake property was 4.4 % in 2007, 6.3% in 2008 and in 2009 mean sales prices are now higher than the same period last year or January of this year. So the time for falling prices on Lake Sinclair is NOT NOW!

2. Real estate price increases and declines are not the same in different locations. Our market has faired much better than national averages. I lost a lot more of my 401K than I did my home equity.

So if any other potential buyers would be interested in seeing this lovely home... here's a link to lots more information.

*Statisics from data in the Millegeville MLS.

I'm 44 (and I am happy to tell you that), I won't mention the ages of my parents... Don't know how much my mom would like that?!, but you can do the math.

I honestly think they might have been the very last people on the planet to get an answering machine. Growing up we had one phone in the house and it was on the kitchen wall. I'm pretty sure I was away at college when my brother finally put a phone line in a bedroom and he put it in my bedroom and ran a second wire to his room via a splitter. For about a decade there was the generic voice that came on the machine telling people to 'PLEASE LEAVE A MESSAGE'. Then finally I put a personal message on it for them.

Mom called me once and one of her friends had said, "Tammy is that you, what are you doing at your parents house today?" We giggled over that for weeks.

It was in the 90's when they got an answering machine. And it's been since then that they have moved light years ahead. They now have a cell phone and a home computer with high speed access and satellite television (I also grew up with 4 tv channels).

Where is all this going and how does it relate to real estate?

This week the REO agent in my office got new instructions from one of her lenders who list their foreclosures with her. They are now utilizing a new web site and if you get an offer on one of their listings you must enter the information via the website as opposed to actually emailing them the contract. Well she had the signed offer, the EM check, the address of purchaser, phone number, knew that he was an investor buyer, but when she got to the blank that said "Enter purchasers email address" we hit a brick wall. MR. BUYER does not have an email address, he does not have a computer.

The system would not allow you to move on to the next screen without entering an email address. We emailed the asset manager and he told my agent to "Just use your email address". As it turns out, that is not the best advice.

So my agent put in her email address and blammo that the WRONG thing to do. It deleted all previous information when clicked save and put her as the buyer having her info associated with the buyer. So we had to have MR. BUYER use our computer to set up a free gmail account. Likely he still will never own a computer and the account will be closed at some point in the future due to inactivity.

So there's at least one company that won't sell you a house unless you have an email address!

Do you know people with no email address? I wonder what the numbers are?? This is the only information I could find on the subject.

I'm currently burried under the red blob where it says Eatonton and it could be days before I get to take photos. In fact, it could be days before I get to walk my dogs again. I'm needing some sunshine please. I really want to showcase my new Lake Sinclair listing. It's a 1 year old manufactured home on water for just $245,000. Good lots sell for that price on my lake. Hope I can show it to you very soon.