About Wood County, OH

How to Have a Neighborhood Christmas Light Contest;

If your annual outdoor Christmas displays rival those in the movie "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation," then organizing a Christmas decorating contest in your neighborhood might be just the thing to get you in the holiday spirit. Follow these steps to channel your inner Clark Griswold and create some Christmas memories to remember.

"This is also a great way to sell your home. Showing potential buyers the neighborhood family christmas spirit. Stage Your Christmas Lights to sell your home - deplaying your home with class and spirit will bring buyers."

1. Step 1 :Determine different categories for participation and judgment. For example, you might divide the contest into Most Creative Use of Lights, Best Yard Display and Overall Grand Prize Winner categories.
2. Step 2 :Circulate a flyer announcing the contest throughout your neighborhood in early November. Ensure you include details such as your contact information, the date when the decorations need to be up and the different categories for judgment.
3. Step 3 :Select an impartial judge or judges to determine the winner of the decorating contest, and then supply them with the categories for judging. To ensure fairness and impartiality to all families who are participating, you might consider asking your town supervisor or village mayor to select the winners.
4. Step 4 :Collect a small donation from each of the participating homeowners to purchase the judge or judges of the contest a token gift for giving your neighborhood their time during the busy holiday season.
5. Step 5 :Ask local businesses to supply prizes for the winning homes. Consider asking garden stores or tree farms to donate a free Christmas tree for the grand prize winner, and local bakeries to donate Christmas cookies for the other category winners.
6. Step 6 : Decorate your own house with as much pizzazz and color as possible. Incorporate music, if your electrical lines will allow it, and as many twinkling lights as your house can hold. The adage "go big or stay home" clearly applies here.
7. Step 7 : Instruct the homeowners to hang a clearly visible sign on their doors on the night of judging, to designate their home as a contest participant. This way, the judge(s) will know to complete an assessment of their decorations.
8. Step 8 : Consider hosting an informal hot chocolate and cookies open house in your home for all participating families following the judging activity. The winners can be announced and prizes awarded.
   
   by: EHow contributing writer

If you click (or cut and paste) the link below and type in the address of the property you are looking up, it will tell you if that property is eligible for the USDA Rural Housing Program. Rumor has it that they (Rural Housing) are currently out of money, but will be funded for 2010 shortly. Perhaps only weeks.

http://eligibility.sc.egov.usda.gov/el,igibility/welcomeAction.do

Here is the link that will allow you to put an address in to see if the property is eligible for Rural Housing Financing...it is a great marketing tool!!

This site is used to determine eligibility for certain USDA home loan programs. In order to be eligible for many USDA loans, household income must meet certain guidelines. Also, the home to be purchased must be located in an eligible rural area as defined by USDA.

(For those unfamiliar with this program, it has the capability to give down-payment grants to buyers.)

Get a Market Plan for your Home. By knowing the Perrysburg Listing prices, what homes sold for in Perrysburg and statistics about the housing market in that area, your better prepared to Sell your Home or Buy a home. See the large view of this chart on my websites blog.

Get Inspirational Good Video - Learn how 1 Degree makes a difference.
Same thing can work in Staging Your Home and everything else you do in life.
Your Home must be the Best to sell the fastest and Little things Count.
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See this Inspirational Good Video explaining why a little better can make you the Best.


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Inspirational Good Quote - When you Dance

"When you dance, your purpose is not to get to a certain place on the floor. It's to enjoy each step along the way." By Wayne Dyer

Some steps are more difficult but the rewards are greater.

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