Clogged drain? Get Thrift!
Posted by Todd Long in Real Estate Investing, todd long on 09 27th, 2009If you ever have drain stoppage don’t bother getting Drano or any of those other over the counter light weights. Get Thrift! This stuff really works. I have only been able to find it at a plumbing supply store. It isn’t at your weekend hardware store, Lowe’s, or Home Depot.
This stuff creates some sort of chemical reaction when followed by hot water that will unclog any drain. Well, it has unclogged many, many drains for me. I will caution you. Once you pour about a 1/2 a cup of this stuff in the drain and start to follow it with hot water, STEP BACK! If you don’t your eyes will start to burn and you won’t be able to breath. Really. Also don’t use it on a toilet! The chemical reaction could make the toilet explode. Really. Other than that, this stuff really works. Really. 
read comments (0)Foreclosure Prevention and Free money to buy a home!
Posted by Todd Long in Real Estate News, todd long, Training on 09 25th, 2009I attended a great presentation a few weeks ago by Louise from Prosperity Unlimited. Here is her presentation. She runs a non profit group that helps people in the surrounding counties around Charlotte such as Cabarrus and Iredell counties. If you or someone you know may be facing foreclosure I encourage you to reach out to her group. She also gave us some great sources of free money to help buy real estate!
Contact them at (704) 933-7405
Extend and Expand the Homebuyer Tax Credit
Posted by Todd Long in Real Estate News, todd long, Coldwell Banker United Realtors, Video on 09 25th, 2009I have created this video for you. Check it out.
You may have noticed I didn’t say extend the First Time Homebuyer tax credit. I really feel this needs to be expanded to anyone who wants to buy a primary residence. We have seen good, steady gains in selling the inventory in the first time home buyer sector through the $8000 credit this year. It hasn’t been a run on funds like the cash for clunkers which is probably good. The benefit has been there but people still have to have good credit and want to make a move to take advantage.
I have heard that extending this credit for 1 year and expanding it to all homebuyers who want to buy a primary residence would cost us about 1% of the 700 billion that has been set aside to help get out of this recession. This would be an appropriate move to solidify the housing market in a time of tough economics. I’ve been telling my agent for months if not a year now that it all goes back to jobs but when a house is sold that creates jobs as well. Bank personnel, plumbers, contractors, electricians, home inspectors, Realtors, movers, and on and on have a job because a house is sold.
If you are a Realtor please help NAR push for an extension of the tax credit by going to http://bit.ly/extendcredit. You will login with your NAR number and send a note to your local government representative.
Great Closing Gift Idea
Posted by Todd Long in todd long, Coldwell Banker United Realtors, Lake Norman Area Events, Fun Stuff on 09 19th, 2009
I have order several Attractions Guides for years. When I was an active Real Estate agent I gave them out as closing gifts. Now that I am a non competing BIC I now give them out to friends, family and new agents that I hire. In placing my order for the 2010 edition I found I have a few extra. So, the first two people that respond with a comment below get one, for free of course! Thanks for reading my blog.
You will find coupons for higher end dining to fast food. Most of these are buy one get one free coupons. This is a great way to try new restaurants you may not otherwise patron. You will also find discounts for local and chain establishments such as Home Depot (coupons can be used at Lowes), Dicks, Shoe Carnival, and Lazy 5 Ranch just to name a few. There are lots of coupons to use around the Lake Norman Area and Charlotte Metro.
If you would like to order a few of the new 2009 guides yourself call Torrie Zink at (704) 682-2164 or email her at lkncouponbook @ aol.com. You can get them from her for $15 a piece and she will customize the front as you see in the example here for you. Tell her Todd Long at Century 21 Hecht Realty had you call.
Agents Beware, Cary Woman abducted by sex offender
Posted by Todd Long in todd long, Coldwell Banker United Realtors on 09 11th, 2009Agents beware of seemingly harmless individuals. This Cary agent probably thought everything was normal. Often if you meet someone and the hairs stand up on the back of your neck or you get a chill those natural insticts could be correct. Our office has safety policies in place to protect our agents in the field. Here are some suggestions for you. Make it a rule to never meet a client for the first time at a home for sale, especially a vacant home. Same goes for a vacant listing appointment. Meet them at the office to start the first appointment. If you feel uncomfortable with the appointment for any reason, take someone with you. They can stay in the car or at the front door. Never park in the driveway where you can be blocked in. Let your client(s) lead through the house, you follow. Let them explore the basement themselves. These are just a few basic rules but the big one is always error on the side of caution.
Closing Gift Idea-Lake Norman Reflections Book
Posted by Todd Long in todd long, Fun Stuff on 09 9th, 2009
Coldwell Banker United is a primary sponsor of the American Cancer Society. Support ACS and enjoy a BBQ lunch Sept 9th!
Posted by Todd Long in todd long, Fun Stuff on 08 14th, 2009
The lunch plates will be delivered to our Cornelius Office September 9th 12pm-2pm. You can eat there, or I can bring yours to our Mooresville office for you to take them home for dinner. Just fill out this form and we will work out the details. Donations for this event must be in by August 25th.
Sale at a loss or walk away?
Posted by Todd Long in Real Estate News, todd long on 07 29th, 2009A friend of mine sent me this article. Some times as Realtors we forget the emotion and mental stress sellers deal with when facing a foreclosure or a short sell. We are often wrapped up in the mechanics of getting the listing priced correctly to attract a buyer, dealing with the bank and its seemingly endless bureaucracy, and getting the deal to the closing table.
This article reminds me that sellers don’t often treat this as a business decision because they are so emotionally tied to the home they live in. I look forward to your comments on this piece.
For more REO information you may be interested in a post I wrote a year or so ago called What is an REO?
ReBar Camp Charlotte gets a plug
Posted by Todd Long in Real Estate News, tech stuff, social networking, todd long on 07 16th, 2009Attention Realtors: In your July/August issue of Insight Magazine by the NC Association of Realtors Barbara West writes a piece following up on REBar Camp Charlotte from the spring. The article is on page 17. Chad Huck, one of the co-organizers, brought this to my attention today. Lori Bee and Debe Maxwell were quoted in the article. I think Barbara West did a very good job covering this event!
For those that may not know, a ReBar Camp is a conference that follows a very loose organizational structure and leaves the day’s events and learning up to the participants that attend the event. For the first event of this kind in the area I think it went pretty well. There will be improvements next year and I hope you will be in attendance next spring.
Twitter Demistified
Posted by Todd Long in tech stuff, social networking, todd long, Video on 07 14th, 2009I had a lot of questions in my office after my last FaceBook/Twitter post. Today I taught a fun Twitter class and below are a few notes I thought of relating to the subject on my way to the office today.
Enjoy the video.
[flv:/video/twitter1.flv 480 360]
I use http://tweetgrid.com and Tweet Deck to monitor Twitter. One is totally web based and the other is a software download that is more expandable.
What’s up with all the @, # and RT in FaceBook status updates?
Posted by Todd Long in tech stuff, social networking, todd long, Coldwell Banker United Realtors on 07 9th, 2009If you have friends like mine on facebook.com then every once in a while you will see a status update start off something like “RT This link bit.ly/uHOJb rocks @toddlongre #ReBCClt“.
So what does all of that mean and why are they talking in some weird code language? Well you have just dipped your toe into twitter. If you are reading this from my blog you will see a widget titled “What am I doing”. That is my latest twitter post, which is most likely also my last facebook status update. I have my Twitter post (or tweet) automatically posted to facebook for me.
The cliff note version of twitter is it is a micro blogging/social networking site that allows for 140 character post. The RT at the beginnings of the post means the person posting the message got it from one of their friends and they are now Re Tweeting (posting) it for all of their own friends. The @ symbol before a twitter id, such as toddlongre, is a shout out of sorts to that individual. In this case it would be giving credit to the friend that sent them the post originally. In a post such as “hanging out with @TheChadHuck and @kaotichic66 at the lake” would just be id-ing the people the poster is hanging out with by referencing their twitter id instead of saying their name. The reason for doing this goes a little past twitter 101 but basically TheChadHuck may want be monitoring all of this twitter stream that specifically is directed to him. A filter of sorts. The #ReBCClt at the end gives this tweet an anchor to a certain event or tag. (more on this later)
Oh and that bit.ly/uHOJb. that is a shortened longer url so it would fit inside the 140 character limit. Check out www.bit.ly. You can shorten any url and personalize the shortened url as well with a free account.
Time Magazine wrote a terrific article on Twitter and how it is finding a unique niche. One thing that I found especially interesting is that Twitter didn’t create these RT and @ symbol mechanizius. They have been created and extended by the users. the # symbol has no meaning at all until everyone at a conference who is tweeting about that conference uses #rebcclt in every post they write that day. Then you have twitter users who can’t attend but want to know what is happening at the conference so they search by #rebcclt and like magic everything is sorted by time stamp related to the conference.
Setup you free twitter account at www.twitter.com then follow me at toddlongre. you can then send me a direct message by putting a “d” in front of your message and only I will see it. You can write: d toddlongre I have setup my twitter account, now what do I do?
I’ll help you from there. I’ll warn you. Twitter took me a little time to understand and for a while it was like looking at a garbage can expecting something miraculous to happen. If you are easily discourage then twitter probably isn’t for you but at least now you know what all those # @ RT are doing in your geeky friends facebook post.
