About Bristow's Braemar

When I say improve curb appeal I do not mean

• Altering featutres of the home or
• Adding and deleting plants, trees, high tension lines or anything else that would be deceptive.

However, I take photos on cloudy or rainy days - my schedule does not give me the luxury to only take photos of homes on sunny days with a beautiful blue sky filled with clouds. The photo below is a prime example - the row of town homes appears as bleak as the day the photo was taken. They certainly will not enhance the appearance of an MLS entry or a blog about the subdivision

Take a look at the photo below. I did not make any enhancements to the photo above except to add blue sky and clouds that we have on file Everything other than the sky is exactly the same as it was in the photo above. I didn't even edit out the newspaper on the right hand side of the photo

Is it unethical? Absolutely not

• Mother Nature would have come by in a day or two to add the blue sky and clouds.
  
• I just made it look as though she had already been there before I took the photo.
• There is no place in the US that only has gray skies

I believe more people would be attracted to the lower photo as opposed to the original photo above. The simple addition of blue sky even had a positive effect on the other colors in the photo.

We have the option to submit our own photos to our MLS. Some of them look like the one above. I prefer to take my own photos and have "blue skies smiling at me".

The good news is that it took less than 10 minutes with four simple steps to make the change.

Although there any number of photo editing software programs available we find Adobe Photoshop Ekemernts 7 the most user friendly for us. The four steps we use can be found in "The Photoshop Elements 7 Book" by Scott Kelby and Matt Kloskowski. All of the photo editing ideas in the book are far simpler than the instructions that accompany the sotware.

Step One:

Open a photo that needs the addition of a blue sky.

Step Two:

Type W to

• select the Magic Wand Tool
• Click in the area that needs blue sky and release - the tool will do the rest selecting the entire gray area.
• Do nothing further with the photo

Step Three:

• Open a stored blue sky photo
• Under Select choose All
• Under Edit choose Copy
• Close out of the blue sky photo

Step4:

• Since you closed out the blue sky photo the original photo will reappear
• On the Layer palette choose New
• Go to Edit and choose Paste into Selection
• Press Ctrl-D to Deselect

Voila!!!! Just go to File and Save As

NORTHERN VIRGINIA HOME FINDER

and then contact Karen and Art by Email or call us at 703-690-6569. Put our record of customer service, real estate experience and state-of-the-art technology to work for you in Alexandria, Arlington County, Fairfax County, Prince William County, Stafford County or the entire Northern Virginia Area.

Braemar's Halloween Spooktacular will be held Saturday, October 31st (2009) from 2pm-4pm at the Braemar Clubhouse (12300 Iona Sound Drive, Bristow).

As is the annual Braemar Halloween Spooktacular tradition, there will be a parade, prizes for costumes, and refreshments. The parade begins at 2:15pm. Prizes will be awarded for costumes in the following categories:

CUTEST

SCARIEST

MOST ORIGINAL

The Braemar Halloween Spooktacular is for all children up to age 12.

The Kruschka Team has joined forces with a very experienced and respected short sale administative firm to provide high quality management of the relationship and negotiating process with a seller's lender.

What does this mean for the seller who is unable to meet their loan commitment and wants to avoid foreclosure?

• The Kruschka team has 33 years full time experience marketing homes in Prince William County VA.
• Our partner firm specializes in the coordinating and monitoring of the entire process with the lender.

The advantage to the seller is that you receive services designed to ensure a successful conclusion.

When you are ready to talk to a Realtor contact Karen or Art by email or by phone at 703-690-6569

This Braemar home sold for $385,000, just under its list price of $387,000. It was only on the market 26 days before it was under contract.

This Braemar home was not a short sale or foreclosure, but a regular sale. It was a lovely Yardley model off of a private pipe stem with a fully finished basement and fully fenced yard. Seller gave no closing cost assistance.

The sale closed on September 4, 2009.

If you know someone who would like to buy or sell in Braemar, give me a call. No one knows Braemar better.

Chris Ann Cleland, Long & Foster, Realtor, Licensed in VA

703-402-0037, chrisann@LNF.com