Nelya Calev

Recently I received a call from another agent asking about one of my properties. He wanted to write an offer and told me the amount that he was thinking of writing it for. He wanted to know whether he would be wasting his time if he wrote the offer. I already had couple offers on the table.

I'm sorry, but when is earning several thousand dollars a waste of your time? If your buyers want the property, write up the offer! That's what you are getting paid for! Besides, who knows? Sometimes it is surprising which offer gets accepted. I have also seen occasions where better terms beats better price.

In my opinion, writing an offer is never a waste of time. When I was just starting out I showed two condos to an investor. The investor wanted to put a very low price on them. I didn't want to write it thinking it was going to be a waste of my time, but I had nothing else going on then, so I wrote it up. I didn't think we had a chance, but hoped we could work something out in the counter. When I sent the offer, the agent called me to ask what I was smoking! The next day, he called to say the seller had accepted the offer. She was sick of owning the properties and just wanted to get rid of them. It is NEVER out decission to make is what I learned that day.

So please do not consider any offer a waste of time as long as your buyers can actually afford it. It certainly will not waste my time to present it.

Recently I made the jump and decided to purchase an IPhone. I had been using Verizon and was pleased with their coverage, but I was thoroughly unimpressed by the latest Blackberry Storm. Also, its lack of WiFi was a big issue as we travel abroad often and I need an economical way to check my e-mail.

After looking at the alternatives, the IPhone stood above the others and so we purchased one. The very next day I was in a rather boring meeting and decided to check my e-mail. I noticed that I had an important e-mail from Texas and I responded immediately. If I had waited after the meeting as I had before and responded then, it would have been too late due to the time difference and he would not have received my e-mail the next day. The e-mail was extremely important and a deal may have fallen through without it.

Now that I am handling multiple properties at a time, I simply have to be able to check my e-mail on the road. I can also check the weather report and numerous other things. My husband has brought up the idea of writing an expense tracking application for my phone and I might take him up on it.

The only downside is the voice quality, which is not as good as when I had Verizon. However, so far the coverage seems to be about the same. Overall I believe this investment has already paid for itself.

Some time ago, my husband approached me with an idea. The idea was to add floor plans to my listings. The presumption is that buyers would appreciate this information and it would give them valuable details about the house.

I approached my broker with the idea and she was more skeptical. The issue, she said, is that a burgler or other criminal could use the floor plan to commit a crime. Then, the owner of the property could sue the agent and the broker. I didn't pursue the issue much further.

Recently my husband has noticed some more discussions on other web sites about this and asked me to look into this again. While I definitely can see the use of a floor plan for a condo or a home under construction, I'm still a bit skeptical about using them for existing suburban homes.

When I researched this, I found some reports of criminals looking at floor plans to see if the bedroom faces the backyard combined with aerial maps that show which homes back to green belts.

What do you think? Is it a good idea to include floor plans for suburban resale homes or do you believe there could be liability issues?

After participating in ActiveRain for some time, I thought I would write a list of things to watch out for when writing comments. Too often I see people miss these and I hope this list helps.

Always read the post before commenting, not just the other comments. Very often comments take tangents and if you fail to read the actual post, your comment will look very out of place.

Offensive comments are never called for. I delete them, so if you are outright offensive you'll just waste your time writing the comment.

Think before critiquing. For instance, if the blogger says "I did this, what do you think?", the blogger is asking for constructive criticism and it may be appropriate to say "you did the wrong thing". However, if the blog says "I'm so proud of how I handled this!", it's probably a good idea in most cases to tone down the criticism.

Read your comments before posting them. Very often you'll find mistakes or you'll decide to reword things. Do this especially when you are concerned that the comment may be a bit harsh. When you read it, you'll probably think of a way to soften it a bit.

Remember real estate is different depending on where you are. It is great when other members comment on how things are different in other states. Real estate markets vary widely and laws are different. However, if the blogger says "This is what I do in Seattle", responding "you're wrong. It doesn't work in Miami" is not an appropriate response. Instead, a response such as "In Miami things are a bit different because of x, and therefore I do y", is a more appropriate response.

Make sure you understand the subject matter. For instance, if the blogger says that x is better than y, and you have used y often but have never seen x, you probably want to avoid disagreeing until you have at least checked both.

As a parent of two kids, recently I was incensed at a commentary on CNN entitled Parents, Your Kids aren't that Special which lashed out at parents who bring misbehaving kids to a restaurant, annoying the other patrons.

This and another episode bring me back to one of my favorite lines from the movie "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" where Gus states that his daughter's fiance's parents are like "dried toast" in explaining how they were completely unexciting and boring people. I still laugh at this statement, but find it sad that it rings a number of bells at truth.

We attempt to do this at a very early age with kids here by insisting that they act like miniature adults. They are not adults! They are kids. Kids learn through play and should be constantly encouraged to view their world through excitement. My goals as a parent on the other hand are the following.

1. Kids have two volumes - loud and louder. Our goal is to keep them towards the "loud" range.
2. Prevent them from killing each other.
3. Keep them from "overexcitement" and specifically from deliberately annoying others. Throwing food across the table will be met with a strict punishment, but if their own plates are a mess that can be tolerated.

Recently my son was sent home with an incident slip where all of the kids in the class (over 20) were each given a scooter and my son and one of his friends tried to crash them together. The report from the teacher sounded ominous indeed and she checked off almost every element of bad behavior.

As parents, we punished him for this behavior - taking away his video games for two weeks (a lifetime for him) and restricting play friends, but we were also quite upset at the school. What do you expect when you hand twenty 5 year olds scooters! Why did they give them scooters in the first place without helmets!?

When we travel abroad, we can't help but notice that kids have much more of a free range there. Behavior that would certainly get someone kicked out of a store here is well within tolerance levels there - unless that place caters towards Americans, Canadians, or British.

Is the end result that we expect a population of perfectly behaved miniature people, that would end up being the next generation of "dried toast"?

And yes, Mr. Cafferty, my kids are that special. Unlike you, I do not believe having them sit at home is the best way for them to learn things. I prefer to spend time with my children so that they grow up to be affectionate and caring men.