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The 5 Most Common Reasons for Accidents, Injuries, and Deaths at Home

Keep our family safe is probably our number one priority: an accident, robbery, natural disaster or any other harm that threatens you or a family member, will make everything else look unimportant. Yet the reality is that accidents and hazards around the home can do damage every day, so be proactive to prevent and to […]

Does staging sell? A home staging fact sheet for Realtors and Homeowners.

When it comes time to put a For Sale in your front yard and sell your home, every homeowner wants the same thing: the highest possible price in the shortest amount of time. That much is universal. But from there, home sellers may diverge in their opinions of how to best reach that goal, as […]

Turkey and travel; family and football: celebrating Thanksgiving with these 25 facts

These days, we celebrate Thanksgiving every late November, but the origins of the American holiday actually go back before the U.S. was even a country. In fact, there are claims of 12 different Thanksgivings in the Americas, including one in 1541, when explorer Francisco Vasquez de Coronado and his followers held a Thanksgiving celebration in […]

Property Taxes: the good, the bad, and the expensive

Ask any homeowner, and “property taxes” are two of the most hated words in the English language. But taxing citizens based on their home values is also essential since states and even municipalities use the money to pave roads, build schools, hire teachers, police, and firefighters, and fund just about every other project. In fact, […]

10 Reasons why real estate is always as solid as a rock

Why do 94% of millionaires attribute real estate ownership as a significant part of how they obtained and held their wealth? It’s probably because real estate ownership is always solid as a rock. In fact, the average homeowner’s net worth is 34 times that of a renter, and 77% of homeowners say owning real estate […]

Don’t fear the Fed – Here are 10 ways a rate increase is actually positive news

This week, the Federal Reserve is in the news with a shakeup that may usurp current Chairwoman Janet Yellen as agency head. But that’s not the only headline about the Federal Reserve, the central bank in the U.S. that dictates so much about the ebb and flow about our economy, as rate increases are once […]

Answering your top-10 Googled questions about mortgages (part 1)

These days, most consumers go online to the search engines as they start the process of purchasing a good or service, and applying for a home loan is no different. In fact, each month, about 4 million U.S. homeowners and loan shoppers go to Google for answers to their top mortgage questions. While Google isn’t […]

25 Things you should know about wildfires in the United States

Northern California is ablaze, and October’s wildfires have brought a dangerous reality too close to home. So far, dozens of people have lost their lives, with hundreds missing. Several hundred more have been treated for burns, smoke inhalation, and other medical injuries. More than 170,000 acres have been destroyed across eight counties, with 3,500 structures […]

20 Best practices for Realtor email signatures (Part 1)

We send a whole lot of emails these days. In fact, the average person sends 35 emails a day and active businesses – including real estate agents – may send twice that. (Okay, maybe ten times that number for Realtors!) Of course, Realtors focus on branding and marketing in so many other places, including their […]

The 5 building blocks of any mortgage loan approval

Why do some mortgage applications get approved while others are denied? Loan rejections are more common than you may think. In fact, the Mortgage Bankers Association reports that lenders reject about 50% of all applications they receive for mortgage refinances and 30% of all purchase loan apps are denied. So why are one-half and nearly […]