Liz Householder - TheSalemBlog

Recently, at a meeting at Town Hall attended by a couple of committees and the First Selectman, we talked about how over-committed people were, and how nice it would be to find some new faces that could start getting involved in the town and its various boards and committees.

I have called the small group of residents who always show up at town meetings to vote, and spend a lot of their time volunteering in town, the "Salem 45" for a few years now. In a town of only 4000 residents, a high percentage of whom are college-educated and employed full-time, having only .01 % of them involved really hurts. Expectations are high - our schools have to have high scores on CAPTs and CMTs, we have to be careful about preserving open space, maintaining and improving our "green" quotient, and being on top of providing the Best of Everything in our library, our services (the few we have) and our community as a whole.

The problem is, finding people to help out is hard, and we depend on volunteers to do a lot. If anyone has even an inkling of interest in helping out in some small way, email me, comment here, call me, or just go to Town Hall and ask what you can do. The doors are open to everyone, and believe me - if you're looking for a little grateful appreciation, this is one place you'll find it. And you'll feel a lot better about yourself in the process!

Too many times in recent memory, I've run into potential sellers who decide to choose an agent based on whether or not they think the agent "believes" in their house. The first time I heard this, I was taken aback, because while I suggested a price below what other agents had offered, I felt that there were good reasons for the price range I suggested, and had documentation to back it up. And throughout the entire conversation I had been very careful to say repeatedly that I thought their home had some great qualities.

But, in their mind, the higher the asking price the agent suggested, the more the seller thought the agent "believed" in their house. This is an odd concept to me, when looked at from the point of view of someone who knows how selling a home actually works.

Let's think about this for a minute: an overpriced home, especially in this market, means a home that sits on the market and doesn't sell. Statistics prove over and over again that the longer it sits out there for sale, the lower the sale price is when it does eventually sell. There are more than a few of those homes in Salem, CT and surrounding areas right now, and if I actually believe in your house, I'll put it on at a price that will attract buyers who will be impressed with your house and want to buy it. Overprice it, and put it in with newer, larger, more expensive homes and buyers who see it won't like it, and their agents will remember their clients' negative reactions and may not show it to anyone else.

So - who believes in the house more? The agent who prices it where it fits in with the rest of the market, and gets it sold relatively soon because it looks good compared to the other houses qualified buyers have seen, or the agent who overprices it, and lets it sit there while buyers who are used to seeing better houses come through and won't even consider an offer? Hmmm.....

Tonight's Salem Town Meeting will be a first: we are t4esting andf demonstrating the use of the internet at a town meeting, and registered voters will be able to participate from home. It will be broadcast on COMCAST channel 12, and if you knew enough (ahem.....I didn't) to register your email address and fill out a questionnaire with the Registrar of Voters, you get to be on the "special" list of trusted participants.

Eventually, the hope is that we will be able to get more participation at town meetings (honestly - it's been abysmal for a while, and not a credit to the residents of a town who come in on the demographics chart as having more people with a college education than any of the surrounding towns).

There's three issues coming up tonite, and folks - YOUR tax money is going to be spent with or without your permission unless you show up, either in person or online.

1. Amending the ordinance for tax relief to the elderly and disabled residents so they will get a little lower tax bill (greatly needed and justified, in my opinion).

2. Appropriating funds for a reimbursable grant of $50,000 so the town can build a new walkway between the school and the recreation fields.

3. Appropriating funds for a $250,000 reimbursable grant to upgrade the Transfer Station. (This is so cute, in my opinion: in Salem, we don't call it a "dump", we call it a Transfer Station. LOL)

The in-person version of this meeting is at Town Hall (not Gardner Lake Fire Hall) at 7:30 tonite, or watch the virtual reality version on channel 12. Cool stuff, I think, and I'm glad we're going to try this.

Mike DiMauro's sports column in The Day is a Sunday favorite in our house, and when sports slow up, he writes one of his great "Mr. Idle" columns with random thoughts that just crack me up sometimes.

After the spring market (yes, we had one here) and summer tying-up-loose-ends market (yep - we had one of those too) ended, I find myself sitting here with my own idle thoughts.

The photo at left was from last year's Pumpkin Chucking contest in Bristol, CT - we went as a result of having one of those idle weekend afternoons when I didn't have to show a house or hold an open house, and it was a hoot. Wanted to do this in Salem this year, but of course I never got a round tuit...

Anyway, idle thoughts for me are now focusing on what's to become of Salem Town Center, as we present information to Planning and Zoning regarding new village district regs; what's to become of real estate next spring, and how much preparation should I be suggesting people do to "get ready" for a selling season? Are interest rates going to ease up more? Are banks even going to be able to lend money to homebuyers? Yikes...some scary issues out there, if you let it scare you.

And finally sports: because it wouldn't be an "idle thoughts" blog without mentioning something about sports, though my biggest question was answered this afternoon when my baseball team, The Mets, went down to defeat in the last game, while Milwaukee pulled one out. Grrrrr.....Of course, Mike being a Yankees fan would have told me to expect that, but sometimes I don't listen...

After talking with an agent in our office who's just moved over here from another agency, and is as excited as I was (and still am) about all that this company has to offer, it seemed like a good time to have an honest discussion with myself about getting back to blogging.

I've ignored it for awhile now, finding it hard to focus during the last 8 months due to the loss of our youngest son at age 19. It's something that affects people in different ways, and I never expected it to be this hard to find joy in just sitting down and writing. After all, writing is what I used to do professionally, and when I can't say it in words, I usually am able to sit down and craft it (after many edits) into a written "conversation". But friends have kept giving me a "free pass" to take things one at a time as I'm ready, so I've sloughed off the idea that I should be blogging.

Now it's time to stop taking all those free passes, and get down to serious work. So, I'm going to try to be back here on a regular basis. And I figure if I say it, I'll have to do it, and it will seem more real to me. So - now that my real estate business is actually the best it's ever been (really! isn't that odd in this market?! But it's true :-) I am going to strive to get my blogging skills in the best shape, too.

Love the new look on the Active Rain page, by the way, and the groups on here just get better and better (see, I am reading, even if I'm not saying anything...)

Okay, as you were....